Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn’t you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy.

We reported yesterday that Politico’s Mike Allen was spotted milling about as a guest at the White House’s “backyard bash” by the pool reporter, who was allowed into the event for 40 minutes and kept in a pen before being ushered out. When Allen quoted from the pool report in his Playbook column the next day, he deleted a reference to his own name and didn’t bother to tell his readers that he was actually at the party.

Well, he wasn’t alone. Gawker has learned that the White House gave tickets to virtually every major news organization that covers the president—the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, CBS News, and so on, about 30 in all. The reporters were invited to attend on the following condition:

“You are being invited to attend this event as a guest. Blogging, Twittering or otherwise reporting on this event is not permitted. If you feel that you cannot agree to abide by these ground rules, please don’t claim a ticket.”

That’s right: Much of the White House press corps spent the Fourth schmoozing with White House staffers, catching performances by the Foo Fighters and Jimmy Fallon, and watching the fireworks from the most exclusive vantage point in the D.C. metro area, all off the record—not to mention off-the-Facebook and off-the-Twitter.

So, what good reason is there for keeping secret a party hosted by Obama and attended by the people who are supposed to be the ones bringing us objective reporting about that same President?  Obama getting friendly with the reporters gives enough of an appearance of impropriety, even if it isn’t specifically objectionable, but a secret shindig that reporters aren’t even allowed to disclose?

Shame on Obama for organizing an event like this.  And double shame on the supposedly objective and independent reporters lapdogs who attended.

So far, things have been mellow, but with hearings, there is always potential for things to get very interesting.  Today, for example, it was reported that Frank Ricci, one of the New Haven firefighters who was passed over for promotion due to a decision Sotomayor ruled on, while testify at the hearings.  One can imagine Ricci’s involvement would ratchet the emotions up a notch or two.

I’m also hearing that property rights may become a big topic of discussion.

Sotomayor’s story has been overshadowed by stories like Michael Jackson, Mark Sanford, Sarah Palin, Healthcare, and Cap and Trade, but it would be a mistake to assume next week could be a snoozer.  North Dakotans should watch closely to see whether or not they believe this judge has the judicial philosophy and temperament to be on the high court.  And they should let Senators Dorgan and Conrad know how they feel.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she expects Democrats who have accused senior CIA officials of repeatedly misleading Congress to further pursue the allegations.

“I’ve seen the letters from the members and obviously they have concern,” Pelosi said about the letters written by Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee and revealed Wednesday.

In the letters, Democrats said that CIA Director Leon Panetta told Congress last month that senior CIA officials have concealed significant actions and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001.

“The Intelligence Committee has the oversight responsibility for intelligence in the House and its equivalent committee in the Senate,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference. “I’m sure they will be pursuing this in their regular committee process and that’s the way it will go.”

But Republicans say the allegations are just political maneuvering to protect Pelosi, who has been under constant fire since alleging that the CIA lied to her about enhanced interrogation techniques.

I wonder how many taxpayer dollars it’s going to cost us for Pelosi’s attempts at covering up her lies by muddying the waters with attacks on the CIA.  Plenty, I’m sure.

But why should she care?  It’s just other people’s money.

NORTHWOOD, N.D. — I must say I am extremely disappointed about the Herald’s lack of coverage of the tea party that took place July 2 in Bismarck. There were more than 1,000 people gathered from North Dakota, Minnesota, South Dakota and beyond. You took the time to cover Sen. Byron Dorgan visiting with a few people, yet when 1,000 people gather to promote the U.S. Constitution, which, as James Madison put it, “is the greatest single effort of national deliberation the world has ever seen,” and as our first president remarked, “approaches nearer to perfection than any government hitherto instituted among men,” you are silent.

It is shocking to me that a 1,000-plus person demonstration was ignored. As one sign said, “Norwegians protesting? Uffda, it must be bad.” This is not about Republicans or Democrats. We did not approve of TARP one offered under George W. Bush.

But the spending in the past six months, that is more than every administration in the past 30 years, is outrageous. It was the last straw that finally got this Norwegian off the couch. The speed at which Obama and Congress is moving our country further from freedom and closer to tyranny is unbelievable and unconstitutional. I would hope the voices of 1,000-plus nonviolent, concerned people is worth a few drops of ink.

At some point, reporters in this state are going to have to learn that “news” is more than just whatever is on the press releases they get.

Senior Democrat senators said on Wednesday they would change a provision that imposes carbon taxes on imports following warnings that the clause in the House’s cap-and-trade bill could spark a global trade war.

The House’s bill contained tough provisions to impose carbon tariffs, aimed at protecting American companies’ competitiveness against imports from countries without equivalent carbon emission controls to those in the US.

Senator John Kerry, who is helping to write the senate’s version of the bill, said in a hearing on the issue on Wednesday: “We have already come to the conclusion in working on the Senate bill that we’re going to try and change that provision . . . we haven’t landed yet completely on where we come out”.

Here’s the problem they face.  On one hand, if they slap tariffs on imports from countries without a cap and trade tax of their own (like China and Mexico) not only is the purchasing power Americans now enjoy going to go down (in the middle of a recession) as the price of goods goes up, but American companies that export are going to be hit as other nations retaliate with trade restrictions of their own.

On the other hand, if they don’t slap a tariff on imported goods all the manufacturers and other businesses that would be forced to pay a carbon tax here in America are just going to move their operations to other countries where they don’t have to pay one.  Meaning we lose all those jobs and all the prosperity those businesses create.  Plus, if you buy into the idea that we do need to cap carbon what good is it to shift carbon production from here to China?  Or Mexico?  Isn’t climate change a global “crisis” according to the alarmists?

There are no good solutions.  This is a lose-lose situation which illustrates exactly why a cap and trade carbon tax is bad policy.

Eugene Graner is the President of Heartland Investor Services, Inc.

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and . . . Barack Obama?

Patriotic tourists visiting the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota on Wednesday found a fifth face displayed—and not as a compliment—next to the giant stone carvings of four legendary presidents.

A group of environmental activists connected with Greenpeace unfurled an enormous banner showing President Obama’s face and calling for an end to global warming.

The 65-foot by 35-foot banner — which read “America Honors Leaders, Not Politicians: Stop Global Warming” — was hung to the immediate right of Lincoln at about 10 a.m. local time, said Patty Rooney, a spokeswoman for the National Park Service’s Midwest Regional Office.

I wonder what the carbon footprint of the gigantic banner they’re never going to use again was.