Tweet of the Day form Matt Drudge

THE FASCISTS:  Obama meets in secret with tech executives to discuss more secret surveillance on unwashed public  http://t.co/cP9vKx5Qkm
— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) August 9, 2013

Terrified Democrats Cancel Most Town Hall Style Meetings

After last Fall's raucous round of Town Halls, most Democrats are canceling these face-to-face style meetings. Many Democrats were afraid of the campaign consequences of starring in a YouTube video where they were acting like arrogant jerks, yelling and being yelled at by their constituents, Astroturfing the crowd through the back door and even walking out.

The NYT reported:

If the time-honored tradition of the political meeting is not quite dead, it seems to be teetering closer to extinction. Of the 255 Democrats who make up the majority in the House, only a handful held town-hall-style forums as legislators spent last week at home in their districts.

It was no scheduling accident....

An examination of public schedules for dozens of members of Congress last week showed that more House Republicans held open meetings, including several in a series of forums called America Speaking Out, which is intended to help write the party’s agenda if it wins control of Congress in November.

Viral Town Hall Meeting video with U.S. Congressman Brian Baird getting blasted by a former Marine

Is Obama strong-arming the Congressional Budget Office?

President Obama had a private meeting with the CBO. This is extremely unusual. The CBO is supposed to be strictly nonpartisan. Recently, the CBO had bad news for Obamacare. They said it wouldn't decrease costs and would increase the deficit.

The CBO admission start at about the 3:10 mark.

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From the video:

VIERA: But — not to beat a dead horse here, but again, the Congressional Budget Office is looking at those bills that are out there, and they’re saying they do not contain costs. Any one of those bills, would you sign them, based on what you see?

OBAMA: Right now, they’re not where they need to be. But I promise you, I just met with the Congressional Budget Office today, so I know exactly what they’re saying. And what they’re saying is, is that the cost savings that are in those bills right now, some of them may actually work, but they’re not enough to offset the additional costs of bringing in 46 million new people to provide.

Why is this important?

From HotAir:

...the CBO exists for independence from the executive branch in fiscal matters. If Barack Obama needs clarification on CBO scoring, he should work through Congress to get it, rather than demand face time with the CBO director. Even more appropriately, the President should work through his own Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director for analysis of CBO scoring. In this case, Obama has Elmendorf’s immediate predecessor, Peter Orszag, as his OMB Director, who should be able to figure out a CBO analysis on his own and help Obama understand it and respond to it.

After this came to my attention, I contacted two sources in Washington and asked if presidents routinely conferred with the CBO on budget scoring. Both called this highly unusual and could not recall if or when it had been done in previous administrations. It treads on the entire process of legislative oversight and threatens the independence of the CBO from the administration, which is essential for Congress — if it’s interested in independent analysis. (accent is mine)

Members of the White House having secret off the record meetings with members of the news media

Based on the medias love affair with President Obama, this information is not surprising. Many news outlets are acting as Obama's biggest supporters. They propaganda the points he wants covered and ignore any negative news.
We already knew Rahm Emanuel has daily secret phone calls with the media. The Washington Post reports:

Last Tuesday evening, Rahm Emanuel quietly slipped into an eighth-floor office at the Watergate.

As white-jacketed waiters poured red and white wine and served a three-course salmon and risotto dinner, the White House chief of staff spent two hours chatting with some of Washington's top journalists -- excusing himself to take a call from President Obama and another from Hillary Clinton.

As the journalists hurled questions and argued among themselves, Emanuel said: "This feels a lot like a Jewish family dinner."