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Obama call to change ‘how the media reports’ raises concerns

President Obama is taking heat for calling for changes in "how the media reports," during an anti-poverty event where he also took a swipe at Fox News.
At the Georgetown University discussion on Tuesday, Obama lamented how, sometimes, the poor are cast as "sponges" who don't want to work.
"I have to say that if you watch Fox News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu -- they will find folks who make me mad," Obama said. "I don't know where they find them. They're like, I don't want to work, I just want a free Obama phone or whatever. ... And very rarely do you hear an interview of a waitress -- which is much more typical -- who's raising a couple of kids and is doing everything right but still can't pay the bills."
Obama went on to call for a change in not only how GOP leaders in Congress "think" -- but how the news media cover these issues:
"We're going to have to change how our body politic thinks, which means we're going to have to change how the media reports on these issues and how people's impressions of what it's like to struggle in this economy looks like, and how budgets connect to that. And that's a hard process because that requires a much broader conversation than typically we have on the nightly news."
The remark, while perhaps an off-the-cuff moment, only revived concerns about the federal government taking an uncomfortable interest in how the media reports.
"No matter what bias you feel exists in any news outlet, the president, nor any other elected official should feel they have the right or ability to censor the media," said Joseph Desilets, Republican strategist and managing partner at the D.C.-based political consulting firm 21st & Main.
"Had George W. Bush made the same assertion, it would have been considered tyranny. The president doesn't get to tell the media how to do its job. That's outrageous," said Tim Graham, director of the conservative Media Research Center and executive editor at NewsBusters.
Only a year ago, the Federal Communications Commission scrapped plans to pursue a controversial study of American newsrooms.
The study as originally proposed would have sent researchers into American newsrooms across the country to ask what critics called intrusive questions about editorial judgment and practices. The FCC eventually acknowledged some of those questions "overstepped the bounds of what is required," and shelved a pilot study. The initial proposal for the study called for looking into issues like "perceived station bias" and "perceived responsiveness to underserved populations."
"Unless Obama really thinks the media isn't giving the people what he wants ... good luck to him with trying to change the business model." said Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
She also said the larger issue is that government programs to help the poor are not working and suggested Obama has tried to put some the blame on a news outlet rather than confronting the issue.
"That's completely absurd," de Rugy said. "The federal government doesn't talk enough about disability insurance and the food stamps program exploding under the Bush and Obama administration."
Graham, referring to Obama's comments Tuesday, also said, "Obama can go after Fox because other news outlets don't see it as an attack on them."
Other conservative media voices also flagged Obama's comments.
Conservative blogger Rick Moran wrote on American Thinker:
"When the president of the United States suggests that the way the media reports stories has to be changed, he is issuing a threat to manage the news. Few presidents have ever liked the media, but none except Obama has suggested, even elliptically, that 'we' -- the government -- have to manage how the news is reported."
A post on the Legal Insurrection blog said the president showed "thin skin."
And Liz Wheeler, co-author of "Young, Conservative, and Why it's Smart to be like Us," tweeted as the speech began: "Been listening to #povertysummit for five mins & already heard Obama divide us by race, class, harangue @FoxNews, and hate on GOP Congress."

Fox News Poll: Clinton’s favorable slips, Christie underwater by double digits

Hillary Clinton’s personal ratings continue to slip. Yet the Democratic presidential hopeful still garners higher favorable ratings than many in the 2016 GOP field, according to a new Fox News poll released Wednesday.
The number of voters who have a positive opinion of Hillary Clinton is down nine percentage points since last year.  Currently, 45 percent have a favorable view of her.  That’s down from 47 percent in late March and 54 percent last summer (June 1-3, 2014).
Clinton’s negative rating stands at 49 percent, up from 43 percent last June.
CLICK TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
The downward shift in Clinton’s favorability over the last year comes from a decline in positive views among both independents (-11 points) and Republicans (-15 points).
At the same time, views among Democrats have barely budged:  82 percent have a favorable opinion of Clinton today.  It was 84 percent a year ago June.  No one in the GOP field comes anywhere close to that level of popularity within their party.
There are four on the GOP side who receive 50 percent or better among self-identified Republicans: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (58 percent), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (56 percent), Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (54 percent) and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (51 percent).
Clinton held a press conference March 10 about her use of private e-mail instead of the government system while she was secretary of state.  In addition, there have been reports about financial donations by foreign governments to the Clinton Foundation since February. In late April, the foundation admitted to errors in how the contributions were reported.
Clinton formally announced her candidacy April 12.
While Clinton is underwater by four percentage points, some potential Republican contenders are in worse shape.  More voters view Jeb Bush negatively than positively by seven points (37 vs. 44 percent).  Similarly, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is viewed more negatively by eight points (27 vs. 35 percent).  At the bottom of the pack is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has a net negative of minus 17 points (28 vs. 45 percent). 
About as many voters view Paul positively as negatively (34 vs. 35 percent) and Huckabee has exactly the same number rating him favorably as unfavorably (35 vs. 35 percent).
Neurosurgeon Ben Carson (+10 points), Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (+4 points) and Rubio (+4 points) each has a net positive rating.  They each also have large numbers of people who have never heard of them.  For example, 59 percent of voters are unable to rate Carson and 41 percent can’t rate Rubio -- both of whom have announced their presidential aspirations. 
Despite former President Bill Clinton’s ratings also taking a hit, he still grabs the top spot (among those tested):  54 percent of voters have a favorable view of him today, while 40 percent have an unfavorable view.  A year ago that was 61 percent favorable vs. 34 percent unfavorable (June 1-3, 2014).
That also puts him ahead of  President Obama, as 47 percent have a positive view of him, while 51 percent have a negative one.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,006 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from May 9-12, 2015. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Clinton jabbed by 2016 field for avoiding press, staying in 'bubble'

WASHINGTON –  One month after Hillary Clinton announced her bid for the White House, the former secretary of state is under fire for dodging questions from the media and keeping to tightly orchestrated campaign events. 
The Democratic presidential frontrunner has subjected herself to zero formal interviews since entering the race. And the growing field of Republican candidates, who themselves have met the press multiple times, are cranking up their criticism of Clinton's media habits. 
“I don’t have a protective bubble like Mrs. Clinton does … don’t have town hall meetings or little roundtable discussions where I pick who gets to come and I screen the questions and the press has to behave a certain way,” likely GOP presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said during an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. 
Bush, who has about the same name recognition as Clinton, estimates he has done 20 press gaggles with reporters since dipping his toes in the 2016 race. 
Carly Fiorina, a declared GOP candidate, also took a jab at Clinton.  
“Like Hillary Clinton, I’m also running for president, but unlike her, I’m not afraid to answer questions about my record,” Fiorina said at the South Carolina Freedom Summit.
Fiorina, a former CEO at Hewlett-Packard who was pushed out of the job by the company’s board of directors, has done 21 press interviews compared with Clinton’s zero. Fiorina also has fielded 322 questions from reporters compared with Clinton’s eight.
Though Fiorina has much less name recognition than Clinton and is trying to boost that via media interviews, the disparity between the two candidates' media encounters is substantial. 
To be sure, more interviews can mean more problems for any of the candidates. Bush has taken criticism since his interview with Fox News for saying, when asked if he would have authorized the Iraq war launched by his brother "knowing what we know now," that he would have. When asked to clarify on Sean Hannity's radio show, he said he misinterpreted the question from Megyn Kelly. Asked again whether he would have made a different decision on Iraq as president, Bush said Tuesday he didn't know -- which led to even more Democratic criticism. 
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., another GOP candidate, also has had some contentious interviews with reporters in recent weeks. 
But Paul likewise told The New York Times in an interview published Monday that although he says things that aren't "perfect" and “talks too much” sometimes, "You don’t get this from Hillary Clinton because she won’t talk to you.”
A Clinton campaign official told Fox News there is still “plenty of time” left in the campaign for Clinton to take questions from the media. For now, the Clinton campaign official said, she was focusing her time talking to voters. 
Those questions may not be as hard-hitting as those from reporters. One voter asked during a recent sit-down with Clinton in Iowa, “So I was just wondering, like, what were your, like, policies that you have for, like, children with disabilities.” 
The only other Democratic candidate in the race as of now – Sen. Bernie Sanders – has had 31 “encounters with reporters,” USA Today reporter Susan Page said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Page said the Clinton camp should “take questions from reporters, whatever you think of them.”

Amtrak engineer becomes focus after NTSB reveals train's high speed before crash

The investigation into why an Amtrak Northeast Regional train derailed outside Philadelphia late Tuesday, killing at least seven and injuring over 200 others, has focused on the actions of the train's engineer after it was revealed that the train was traveling at more than twice the legal speed limit seconds before the crash. 
WTXF reported that the engineer on Northeast Regional Train 188 has been identified as 32-year-old Brandon Bostian. Police sources told the station that Bostian was taken to a local hospital after the crash and blood samples were taken from him in accordance with standard procedure. The sources also said that Bostian asked for a lawyer and told city investigators he didn't remember what happened.
NTSB board member Robert Sumwalt told reporters earlier Wednesday that the train was traveling at 106 mph as it entered a sharp curve at Frankford Junction where the speed limit was 50 mph. The engineer he said, launched a "full emergency brake application"  a few seconds before the train derailed 11 minutes after leaving the Philadelphia station, crumpling cars and throwing around many of the 243 aboard.
Sumwalt said federal accident investigators want to talk to Bostian but will give him a day or two to recover from the shock of the accident.
"This person has gone through a very traumatic event, and we want to give him an opportunity to convalesce for a day or so before we interview him," Sumwalt said. "But that is certainly a high priority for us, to interview the train crew."
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams told WTXF Wednesday that it was too early to determine whether to pursue a criminal investigation, explaining that many details of Tuesday deadly crash have yet to come out.

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• Derailment victim: 'Amtrak has some real explaining to do'

• Expert: 'Maintenance' eyed in deadly Amtrak derailment

"We will use every means, every resource to find out what happened," Williams said. 
Also Wednesday, authorities recovered the black box from the train and are inspecting video footage recorded from the front of the train moments before the accident. 
Crews at the scene in the residential area of Port Richmond are still focused on search and rescue since there are a number of passengers still unaccounted for, but the NTSB is alongside conducting an investigation and collecting perishable evidence at the site.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said it was possible that some of the passengers listed on the train's manifest never boarded the train, while others may not have checked in with authorities. 
"We will not cease our efforts until we go through every vehicle," the mayor said, adding that rescuers had expanded the search area and were using dogs to look for victims in case someone was thrown from the wreckage.
Sumwalt said a multidisciplinary team is at the scene that will study the track, train signals, operation of the train and the condition of the train.
Despite pressure from Congress and safety regulators, Amtrak had not installed along that section of track Positive Train Control, a technology that uses GPS, wireless radio and computers to prevent trains from going over the speed limit. Most of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor is equipped with Positive Train Control.
"Based on what we know right now, we feel that had such a system been installed in this section of track, this accident would not have occurred," Sumwalt said.
Amtrak inspected the stretch of track on Tuesday, just hours before the accident, and found no defects, the Federal Railroad Administration said. Besides the data recorder, the train had a video camera in its front end that could yield clues to what happened, Sumwalt said.
It was the nation's deadliest train accident in nearly seven years. At least 10 people remained hospitalized in critical condition late Wednesday.
Among the dead were award-winning AP video software architect Jim Gaines, a father of two; Justin Zemser, a Naval Academy midshipman from New York City; Abid Gilani, a senior vice president in Wells Fargo's commercial real estate division in New York; and Rachel Jacobs, who was commuting home to New York from her new job as CEO of the Philadelphia educational software startup ApprenNet.
Late Wednesday, a fifth victim was identified as Derrick Griffith, 42, dean of students at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. A statement from the college described Griffith as "a pillar in the community" who had just been granted a Doctorate of Philosophy by the City University of New York.   
Amtrak suspended all service until further notice along the Philadelphia-to-New York stretch of the nation's busiest rail corridor as investigators examined the wreckage and the tracks and gathered evidence. The shutdown snarled commutes and forced thousands of people to find other ways to reach their destinations.

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The Baltimore I know: Can my hometown be saved?

When I walked into work the morning after the riots erupted in Baltimore, I couldn’t believe what I saw on the screens in the newsroom. The place where I learned to drive, met my first boyfriend, started a non-profit organization and made the memories that will last a lifetime was going up in flames. I heard protesters being called thugs, savages and even animals who had no self-respect or dignity.
It literally hit home, because I am a product of America’s concrete jungle, the city of Baltimore.
My mother grew up in the housing projects of Cherry Hill and went on to become a first generation college graduate. My dad – well, he was a country boy/sharecropping high school dropout who moved to Baltimore, got a GED and started his first unsuccessful business there after marrying his hazel-eyed dream girl, my mother. My parents tried to make it work, but their marriage ended when I was 8. Their divorce resulted in my older brother and me becoming instant statistics: young, black, confused children of a single parent growing up in a drug-infested inner city. Thankfully, through her tireless work at Baltimore City Recreation and Parks, my mother exposed us to experiences outside of “the hood.”
Now don’t get me wrong. We didn’t have it the worst. I have friends who don’t know their parents, or who had parents who were addicted to drugs, or – even worse – parents who made them sell drugs. I have friends whose only family income was public assistance. According to America’s rulebook, I was no different from any of them. But somehow my brother and I are two of the 4 percent who actually make it out of poverty in Baltimore. I’m one out of the FOUR out of one hundred whose children won’t die poor.
Every poor kid growing up in Baltimore knows the odds are stacked against her. Over the last 20 years I’ve watched politicians – with their own agendas and developers in their pockets – come into my hometown and suck the life out of communities that were once thriving, leaving 16,000 vacant properties and 14,000 empty lots.
I’ve sat on advisory boards and watched in amazement as members tried to rename the largest historically black school in the city – my alma mater – with the inadvertent result of erasing years of pride and integrity from an entire community.
I’ve watched a blue-collar city full of hope and innovation become de-industrialized, leaving people desperate and so addicted to heroin that Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan in February declared the drug “a statewide crisis that needs immediate attention.”  
I’ve returned, heartbroken, to the streets of Edmonson and Payson, Preston and Broadway, North and ‘Long’wood, wondering: Where’s the life? Where’s the hope? Where’s the history? Where’s the spirit of the Baltimore that taught me how to survive, by any means necessary?
Sadly, Baltimore was in flames well before the riots. Freddie Gray was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Needing to see it all for myself, I went to Baltimore last weekend with fear in my heart. But what I discovered was quite different from what I had been hearing and reading.
I saw community activists banding together with the Bloods, the Crips and the Black Guerilla Family – notorious gangs in the city – calling for a truce and an end to black-on-black crime. I attended a prayer rally where Methodists, Baptists, Buddhists, Jews and Catholics joined hands in prayer with whites, blacks … all ethnicities, singing hymns, seeking justice and encouraging residents to register to vote.
I saw strong, educated, cultured black men leading their sons and daughters and those lost in the world in peaceful marches, discussing the pain, hurt, fears and the hope that still resides in the hearts of Charm City residents.
I interviewed the Rev. Jamaal Bryant, the man who delivered Freddie Gray’s eulogy, and he said, “... something great is getting ready to happen, starting fresh and anew.” His sentiment of hope resonated deep within my spirit, so deep that I began to ask … how?
How do we fix the hopelessness, the despair, the fear, the anger, the distrust? How do we, as a community, rebuild and revitalize a city that has been in distress for decades?
 “There isn’t one thing that’s going to ‘fix’ Baltimore or inner city America,” said Quincey Gamble, a political consultant, former executive director of the Maryland Democratic Party and a Baltimore resident.
“People feel the disinvestment and neglect are intentional. Those in power are going to have to do more than throw money at the problems. They must create a plan that engages, educates, feeds, nurtures and protects the people.”
For me, creating that plan is simple.
We must restore economic opportunities by offering job readiness training programs.
We must bring industry back to Baltimore, where one third of the labor force was in manufacturing in 1970, but where those jobs are practically nonexistent today.
Our houses of worship and clergy must continue to be a united front, rallying for the proper treatment and equal opportunities of city residents.
We must push for the creation of affordable housing initiatives and restore hope by demolishing the enormous stock of dilapidated and abandoned homes that create aesthetic and psychological urban decay.
We must hold city and state officials accountable for their massive deficits, misappropriated funds and substandard curriculums that have left children yearning for the only weapon of social and economic empowerment they have access to – a quality education.
We must take this national spotlight and expose improper policing tactics across the nation that have left cities like Baltimore with more than 300 lawsuits over police misconduct, resulting in $5.7 million in settlements and legal fees for the city – in just under four years.
I challenge the poverty-stricken people across this nation, not just Baltimoreans, to hold your elected officials accountable. Don’t vote based on popularity or party affiliation; vote for people who have your best interests at heart.
Baltimore is more than just crab cakes, the Inner Harbor, the birthplace of Billie Holiday and the first black-owned shipyard in the U.S. It is my home. It’s where I learned to read; where I got my first job; where I dreamed of becoming a journalist. It’s the place that pushed me to want to be great, a place of inspiration and innovation that can and will set the standard for how to rebuild and revitalize urban America.
A t-shirt I saw at a rally on Saturday summed it up best. It read, “Baltimore, you have to be the change that you want to see."
What a powerful message. Your voice and/or your silence will determine if and how we can change “the 4 percent.”
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said, “If we are going to have real healing and real recovery in our city, we don’t have time to waste.”
To that, I must agree.

Paying for Patriotism? Military takes heat for pricey soldier salutes at stadiums

WASHINGTON –  The Department of Defense and the National Guard are facing growing questions over why they spent millions of dollars on a promotional campaign to salute members of the military at professional football, baseball and basketball games around the country. 
“So far everybody’s just shocked to learn that this, that these feel-good moments are paid for by the U.S. taxpayer,” Sen. Jeff Flake told FoxNews.com on Tuesday.
Flake, R-Ariz., has sent a letter to Defense Secretary Ash Carter and National Guard Chief Gen. Frank Grass demanding to know the financial breakdown associated with the "Hometown Heroes" segments. 
Across several sports leagues, the segments typically are aired at home games, paying tribute to a member of the military on the Jumbotron. After reports first surfaced of taxpayer money going toward these salutes, a defense official initially claimed Monday that the military pays for recruitment advertising in sports stadiums, but not such "outreach." 
However, the New Jersey National Guard confirmed Tuesday that language in its contract with the New York Jets -- which play in New Jersey -- indeed includes the "Salute to Service" honor segment. Under the terms, during each of the Jets' eight home games in 2014, 40 soldiers would take the field in pregame ceremonies. 
Federal contracts show that the U.S. Department of Defense from 2011 to 2014 paid $5.4 million for sponsorship deals with 14 NFL teams. The size of the deals, which cover recruitment and other areas, differ, with more than $1 million going to the Atlanta Falcons and $115,000 going to the New York Jets. 

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• Paying the NFL to salute our troops?

But Flake said Tuesday "it goes deeper than the NFL. ... There are contracts with soccer teams, big contracts in the past with NASCAR, NASCAR sponsorship.”
Flake, who called the spending wasteful and the honors disingenuous, argued paying for patriotism “leaves a bad taste in your mouth.”
 “We’re hearing all kinds of numbers now with independent investigations and people who have viewed these contracts and so it’s a considerable amount of money, particularly at a time when the DOD is stretched considerably,” Flake said. “To find out money is being spent basically to honor people or salute doesn’t seem right.”
Flake, though, said he doesn’t blame the sports teams but instead blames the government for going about it the wrong way.
He said: “When everybody assumes when you have these feel-good moments, these salutes, that it’s because the NFL team just felt good about the military or about service and then to find out, no, it’s really the taxpayers paying for that. That just leaves you with an empty feeling.”
The New Jersey Army National Guard’s Recruiting and Retention Command defended the spending and said the agreements with sports teams helps educate and promote the military.
Aside from the Hometown Heroes segment, various agreements with teams include a kickoff video message from the National Guard, online advertising and digital marketing campaigns on stadium screens. 
Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.