This is very curious. Stories about first daughter Malia Obama’s spring break trip to Mexico with 25 Secret Service detailed to protect her and her friends keep returning 404 errors or redirects.
Here’s Huffington Post’s link to its story about the spring break. Click on it and see where it goes: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/19/malia-obama-mexico-spring-break_n_1364063.html
Yahoo! ran a story about it. But it has since been run off. http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-daughter-spends-springbreak-mexico-145031176.html.
That Yahoo! link is redirecting to a story about something entirely unrelated.
Essence had the story. Emphasis on the past tense. http://www.essence.com/2012/03/19/malia-obama-travels-to-mexico-for-spring-break/
Even the UK Telegraph story is now off the grid. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9152796/Malia-Obama-guarded-by-25-Secret-Service-agents-on-spring-break-in-Mexico.html. That’s the version that Drudge was linking to.
Drudge linked to a different version, at the International Business Times, and now that story is down the 404 hole: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/316249/20120319/malia-obama-mexico-spring-break-travel-warning.htm
The spring break trip really happened. This blog post about it hasn’t gone 404 (yet), and has several pics of Malia with her friends.
What is going on here? Is the White House trying to scrub the Internet of all stories about the first daughter’s spring break trip to Mexico?
Update: The Daily Caller now has its own post up about the disappearing story.
Update: The White House has admitted that it was behind the scrubbing.
The Blaze has screen caps of some of the articles, before they vanished into the Obama Triangle.
At least, it’s online at the moment…
Most transparent Presidency ever. HA!! You wonder if this is the work of the Obama Truth Squads.
She’s 13. What’s she doing in Mexico without one of her parents? I’m glad the entire group of kids have the secret service agents, though. Americans make good kidnap victims in Mexico these days, don’t they?
That’s exactly what I thought. Not only is she too young to be travelling without a parent, spring break is a non-stop party, including activities inappropriate for a 13-year-old.
As an ex-pat, living in Mexico for the past three years, I find the hypocrisy of the Feds, beyond belief. It seems weekly, I get ‘warnings’ from the U.S. consulate about travel in Mexico, but apparently, not serious enough to stop one of America’s Royal Family from visiting.
More BS from FIOTUS,……..first illegal of the U.S.
I have to laugh at the absudity of the the “first family” lecturing us on how to parent our children while letting their 13 year old daughter trot off to a country that the presidents own administration is warning us about!
I’ll echo another sentiment too…child or no child, the media ought to be even handed about coverage of kids whether it’s the Bush twins or Palin’s kids.
Besides, my only concern is that, in the event that Obama’s daughters might be engaging in some sort of public discourse (in Mexico), we need to know so we can make sure they are not attacked for voicing their own opinion…That’s what the president said when he was jumping on the “Bash Rush” bandwagon, right?
Here we go again!
By going along with the garbage about “protecting the children’s privacy”, we are stupidly letting the left define the terms of the discussion.
The story is NOT about Obozo’s offspring.
The story IS about TAXPAYERS’ MONEY – in other words, OUR money – and how it is being spent on Obama’s offspring.
Every story about taxpayers’ money – how it is being extracted from us, and where it is going – is a valid news story.
WE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!
If Hussein and Mooch considered their offspring’s privacy and safety to be such a priority, then they should have insisted she spend spring break with them, in the White House – not in an obviously unsafe part of the world.
I wonder if she’s going there to pick up “Occupy” tips from any of the Oaxaca rioters from a few years ago who might still be walking free…
The kid’s 13, so I don’t think so.
Whose incredibly bad idea was this, anyway, with the violence in Mexico? I’m not surprised they’re sitting on the story, really, but I’m aghast at the thought of children heading down to Mexico (with or without Secret Service agents!) at this time.
There are times you get the impression that if the Obamas were so plebeian as to travel by car without a screaming police escort and entourage, they would strap the kids in a travel crate on top of their car the way Romney is alleged to have done with his dog.
Why couldn’t she go on spring break somewhere in the USA? There are beautiful tropical places with the USA where our money could be spent – the US Virgin Islands, for example, or the Gulf coast of Texas – which could use the money after Obama banned deep water drilling!
Or even go out to the Grand Canyon – one of the most beautiful places on Earth!
Spring Break? Right now? In the middle of the great battle over access to women’s Birth Control? We must man the barricades!
Doesn’t the Presidents Children understand how serious this battle is?
What the articles didn’t tell you is that Malia is on a school trip to Mexico, not a spring break trip to Mexico. There are adult sharperones with them. No school is going to send 13 year olds to another country without adult shaperones. If people would calm down and think about it they would realize how absurd their assumptions is that anyone would send a bunch of 13 year olds on a trip without shaperones. My guess is that the articles are all being pulled because they are misleading. There is nothing for the President or his wife to cover up.
Especially interesting given that Sidwell Friends won’t be on Spring Break until next week….
Let us hope that one of the Mexican drug cartels, enraged at the sudden cutting off of the spigot of Holder-approved firearms, does not beseige the children in their hotel.
A chavista webpage has it:( includind racist comments, unusually http://www.noticias24.com/gente/noticia/79525/la-hija-mayor-de-obama-paso-el-fin-de-semana-con-unas-amigas-en-la-ciudad-mexicana-de-oaxaca-fotos/few)
Sorry , the link is working , i mispelled it:
http://www.noticias24.com/gente/noticia/79525/la-hija-mayor-de-obama-paso-el-fin-de-semana-con-unas-amigas-en-la-ciudad-mexicana-de-oaxaca-fotos/
And the Daily Mail in the UK got cleaned:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2117288/Malia-Obama-heads-Mexico-SCHOOL-TRIP–brings-25-Secret-Service-agents-her.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
She’s probably down there recruiting more Democrat voters.
Basically, liberals need to understand that for all their whining about Citizens United and the evils of corporatism, the blunt truth (as I se it) is that the overwhelming majority of shenanigans going on right now as far as overt and gross manipulation of the truth is done by liberals. And the other blunt truth is that the IT world needs to understand that one day a lot of the crap that goes on is going to be outed. Facebook in particular needs to be stung, and hard.
An opposition( pro Democrat pary)webpage:
http://www.lapatilla.com/site/2012/03/18/la-hija-de-barack-obama-de-vacaciona-en-mexico-fotos/
Reporting on the activities of female celebrities is just another front in the War on Women.
I don’t know how it relates but I’m going to keep repeating that War on Women line until my fingers get worn out.
Joe, how much is the Obama ReElect group paying you for typing ‘War on Women’ everywhere?
The entire Obama family reminds me of people who win millions in a lottery, and then 2 years later it’s all gone.
Well, when my son was a junior at UCLA, he went to mexico with two of his friends plus girlfriends for Spring break. The idea was to drink legally, which worked out for him. I counseled him not to do it, and called him to make sure he was OK, and it actually worked out. But he’s a second degree black belt, in karate. I guess if I were Michelle, I’d be going nuts about now, with hourly reports from the secret service. Thirteen seem a bit young for this, you know.
The Daily Mail (UK) is 404, too. Interesting.
Thirteen-year-old children of the President should be off-limits to the press. When the Obama daughters reach adulthood, then have at them. Until then, it should be hands-off. Otherwise you seem, correctly in my eyes, to be perverts.
The President uses his daughters for political purposes. They are fair game.
I’ll see you two Bristol Palins and raise you a Trig.
Just about the only thing I ever respected about the sleazy Clintons is that they sheltered their daughter and never used her as a prop while Bill was in office.
This is exactly correct. I remember feeling sorry for Bush’s daughters when the press was doing stories on their college years. Yeah, they did some stupid stuff. Didn’t you? But you weren’t going to read about your underage drinking on the front page of the Washington Post the next morning!
Having said that, Obama has been skirting the line. While presidential kids should be exempt from coverage, the other side of that is that you can’t use them for political purposes. Obama has been featuring his kids prominently in fundraising ads and, apart from whether I agree with him politically, he really shouldn’t.
Do tell, Auster the Concern Troll. In fact, you should try telling that to the Palin children. Especially the disabled infant.
And what exactly has been reported about the Obama children that you consider ‘off limits’? The 13 year old is indeed on spring break in Mexico; yes? Nothing unsavory or creepy about reporting that fact, is it?
This is potentially the most egregious attempt ever by the US government to scrub the internet of legitimate political information.
Just google “down the memory hole” for an education on the potential ramifications.
It is entirely appropriate to question what sort of authority or arm twisting is being used to remove this information that was once in the public domain.
If you think such concerns are perverted, well, what does that make you?
Weasel Zippers has the Telegraph and Huff Po stories here:
Like Mother Like Daughter: Malia Obama and 25 Secret Service Agents Jet to Mexico for Spring Break
And that’s why the story has been scrubbed. It’s not to “protect” Malia’s privacy or whatever. The headline is the tip off. It’s the point of the story that counts. That the daughter is jet setting around the world on extravagant vacations just like her mother, Michelle Antoinette.
classic headlines!
Hmm… here is another article that is 404ed: http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/barack-obamas-elder-daughter-is-spending-her-springbreak-in-mexican-city-oaxaca/story-e6frfq80-1226304738456
Plenty of safer places in THIS country for spring break. What happened? Did Obama lose a bet to the President of Mexico?
My guess is that right now while she’s still there the secret service is, or should be doing it as a protective measure. When she’s back safe the political spinmeisters will continue the game, if they are not already doing it.
WE THE PEOPLE ARE BEING EXTORTED AND DENIGRATED!
I don’t understand how the socialist/Marxist Obama and his family continue to suck money from us, the public, and do not account for this anywhere – and the MSM demand nothing from this man!!
I’m 67 years old, am a news junkie, was raised in D.C., and Obama is utterly despicable!! ANYONE BUT OBAMA IN 2012!
Having a bout of memory loss, are we? Don’t you remember how it worked in the good ole USSR? One percent ruled everything and had everything. Is there any reason what so ever that you believe 0 is not a card carrying member of the ONE percent??!! SCUM [Socialist/Communist/Union Media] will never do a negative report on this. I would bet that the 0 regime has invoked the Patriot Act to force the scrubbing of this story on “national security” grounds and “protecting the safety of the President and family.” Takers, anyone?
Here’s the question to ask: How much is the taxpayer on the hook for the Secret Service detail?
a 13-year-old girl should not be the subject of this kind of press scrutiny. i can’t believe the reactions here.
This isn’t about Malia. It is about her parent’s utter lack of judgement. A 13 year old girl should not be vacationing in a dangerous foreign country! It isn’t even a question of whether the taxpayers or the Obamas are paying for the total cost of the security detail. Those men and women all have families. Precisely what national interest is being served by placing Malia and her security detail in a risky situation? Has anyone thought through the implications should their be an incident and in protecting Malia an innocent bystander is inured or killed? I’d hate to see a Secret Service Agent get charged with a crime by the notoriously corrupt Mexican legal system. I doubt the diplomatic immunity customarily extended to the security details of heads of state on official visits also apply to their children on foreign larks.
The President’s children are entitled to diplomatic passports as a matter of custom and State Department regulation. The Mexican Government clearly was notified because there is a special Mexican police detail involved. The Mexican Embassy in Washington almost certainly issued diplomatic visas to both the girls, their entourage, and the Secret Service agents.
Who lets their 13 year old daughter go to Mexico on spring break?
Aside from this, expect Obama to increasingly use his daughters as political props as the campaign goes on. Why? Because he hopes that the GoP candidates will speak out about it so that he can get the twofer of war on women and look what these angry old white men say about my little babies.
Found it by searching:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/spring-break-malia-obama
That’s gone too…
Who’s paying for this?
you are if you pay taxes in the USA
YAHOO, after removing the Malia does Mexico story, is now reporting on the disappearing Malia does Mexico story.
http://news.yahoo.com/why-story-malia-obama-vacationing-mexico-disappearing-225012346.html
Auster,
Do us a favor, and tell that to the creeps who harassed Sarah Palin’s children.
Until then, turnabout *is* fair play, doncha know.
Hale Adams
Pikesville, People’s Democratic Republic of Maryland
Surely she has an adult guardian with her. If any of us let our 13 year old kid go to Mexico without an adult guardian the DHS would be at our door tomorrow. Secret Service will keep you from getting kidnapped, they won’t give you the sort of guidance you would need at that age.
the myth that Barack and Michelle are responsible parents. Like everything else about them, it’s all bull.
14 years old and she gets a vacation like this??? on the taxpayers dime.. when that family is kicked to the curb in november i’ll like to see them doing the vacation in downtown chicago with the fire hydrants.. because believe me.. if they have to pay for the vacations.. they will not take them.. they are welfare queens..
Thank goodness she isnt a Downs Syndrome girl or Bill Maher would be all over this story.
And yet the US gov warns that teens and 20′s should not go to Mexico on Spring Break, due to the drug violence. Well, at least not the poor or unconnected ones who can’t afford 25 SS agents and assorted Mexican cops…
Michelle is supposed to be the Rock-Star American Mom. She’s sending her 13 year old to a country where the State Department has issued a warning to tourists without her? To a country where they need to send 25 Secret Security people to guard her (paid for by me and you)? Really?
Well, get used to it. That Secret Service coverage may well continue, if it is requested, after dad leaves office. Wonder what the odds are on that?
will need protection from their parents more than anything else.
Really is weird on why remove the reports down the memory hole. When in reality nothing that was reported on was any really security breach that one could read and do harm as the real time locations are not part of the reports. If it was not true why remove and not just update.
It is obvious what the White House is trying to hide – every single one of Malia’s friends is a white girl. Obama needs the African American community to turn out in record numbers once again, and he doesn’t want to take the chance that anyone will see pics like this and decide that he really isn’t “one of us.” Of course, he is not, but he needs to keep that fiction alive as much as possible.
Okay, I am no fan of President Obama, but I hope the Secret Service is on their A-game. Keep the kids safe guys and let’s hope the hard men are ready and waiting if things start to go pear shaped.
As to what parents let their kids go to Mexico at 13…Um..when they’ve got a 24-hour armed guard plus escorts and aren’t out of anyone’s sight or hearing ever? Why not? What’s going to happen?
Orion
Think of the international implications is something does happen. I’d purely hate to be part of that Secret Service detail. If accompanying a head of state on official business the security would be covered by diplomatic immunity. Would t that apply to protecting a family member abroad on a mere lark? It makes my head spin.
Because if something does happen it will become an international incident. Innocent bystander Slain by President’s Daughter’s Security Team isn’t a headline likely to improve relationships with the Mexican government.
Hey, Fast and Furious has a bodycount of 300 plus and rising. What’s one more dead Mexican?
What’s going to happen? Orion, do you have any teenagers? Because I have two and will have a third by the end of the year. What’s going to happen is that Malia is going to come to the conclusion that her parents don’t care what she does, as long as she isn’t an inconvenience. It’s the way teenagers think, and it leads to dangerous, attention seeking behavior. I know this because I watched my best friend engage in it, and I watch my kids’ friends engage in it now. It’s sad.
Do I think politicians should use their kids as props? No.
Do I think the media ought to follow them around? No, but they do – they follow the Pitt-Jolie kids too, which is ridiculous as well. It sells copy…
Do I think it’s bad parenting to send a 13 year old on vacation without you? Yes. This isn’t Scout Camp, Band Camp, or Summer Camp we’re talking about. It’s a foreign country where people get kidnapped. I’m not sure my friends who are taking their kids to Cancun next week are doing the smart thing…but at least they doing it TOGETHER.
Who has the power to scrub the internet worldwide?
How sure are you that there will be fair, free, honest elections in November if they are willing do this so openly?
Subotai Bahadur
Is Keith Olberman all over this? “But, but, but they’re all so WHITE!!!”
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this may be some sort of school cultural trip with teachers accompanying the kids. Thousands of kids her age go on trips like this every year. Mine did.
None of these children, however, is a resident of the White House. To send her on a trip like this, especially in light of the travel warnings, puts her security, that of her classmates, and in fact the security of the republic at stake. The President’s daughter (God forbid) being held hostage by a drug gang would totally disrupt the security of every American.
I really don’t thing 25 G-men and the Mexican cops are enough security for a party containing the President’s daughter. The gangs down there kill cops by the dozen. They leave baskets of human heads on street corners. I wouldn’t want my kid in that group.
No teachers menteioned in any article I could find….just a spring break trip with her friends. What kind of parents are these to let their daughters go to Mexico without a parent with them!
Disgusting. And we’re paying for this nonsense.
i believe obama’s kids would be safe in mexico without 25 secret service agents
why would the drug cartels endanger their status by kidnapping the children from the very hands that arm them?
A 13 year old going on spring break? In Mexico? With friends? Where our government stated that it is dangerous? On our dime? In an election year? During a depression? The media scrubs it?
Noooooo, nothing going on here in the US to worry about, it is your typical dystopian example.
By the way, for those Obama backers, tell me how smart this guy is.
Hello? Can we just forget for a moment a 13 y/o, Mexico, and Spring Break?
WHO THE HELL IS SCRUBBING THE INTERNETS?
Don, that’s an EXCELLENT question that needs to be answered, but no I can’t forget there’s a 13 year old in Mexico on vacation without her parents. Because my country needs this 13 year old’s male parent to have good judgement, and this is not good judgement. Granted, it’s just another example of not good judgement, but this one would have gotten the attention of the helicopter moms who vote democrat – and that brings us back to the question: Who IS scrubbing the internet?
I’ll bet money this is a “cultural trip” with at least a handful of teachers and chaperone parents attending. My daughter was about 13 when she went with her school to Mexico City. Of course, that was a decade ago.
And even then, I was nervous until her feet hit the pavement of the U.S.A..
No way I would allow that now.
Go to the Drudge front page and do a search for “Malia Obama”. You can still see the original report in the results but clicking on it takes you to an international news page.
This link works (you may have to copy & paste it, sorry):
http://www.montrealgazette.com/travel/Obama+daughter+spends+spring+break+Mexico/6323773/story.html
Another 404 for Michelle? I just tried to click on a Yahoo story “Michelle Obama to David Letterman: ‘This isn’t ‘Oprah!’” The link http://news.yahoo.com/blogues/cutline/michelle-obama-letterman-isn-t-oprah-where-laughs-231917424.html gives a OOPS the story is not available headline.
Another 404 this time for Michelle. I just tried to click on a Yahoo story “Michelle Obama to David Letterman: ‘This isn’t ‘Oprah!’” The link http://news.yahoo.com/blogues/cutline/michelle-obama-letterman-isn-t-oprah-where-laughs-231917424.html gives a OOPS the story is not available headline.
Had this been the Bush twins the media would have been in Mexico en mass complete with “stories” where they interviewed themselves and reported on rumors. Just another example of the Old Media desperately trying to bolster Obama.
If you ‘google’ “Malia Obama visits Oaxaca” a number of links come up. This one was still active as of 8:00am, EDT, 3/20/2012. http://www.oaxacatimes.com/otblogmenu/76-maliaobama
The big story here is not the Spring Break in Mexico, any more than Watergate was about a “second-rate burglary.” It’s the cover-up. A violation of the First Amendment would not necessarily involve Federal agents smashing printing presses, like in some Third World country. It could be a simple, very friendly, phone call about a routine review of White House press credentials. Not even a veiled threat, or an “oh and by the way.” Just enough for an editor’s blood to run cold hanging up the phone.
The question in Watergate was “What did he know and when did he know it?”
The questions in Oaxacagate will be “Who said what to whom when, and who ordered it?”
Why is everyone complaining…she’s “senior staff”, isn’t she?
No, she’s 8th grade stuff.
Spring break is notorious for high schoolers and college students drinking and other activities. At least we know that if she partakes in some of these other activities, she won’t have to be “stuck” with a baby.
Wow, what a bunch of whiners and racist sour-grapes. It’s a privilege of the Office and it’s a tiny drop in the bucket. Get some mathematical and fiduciary perspective, people! The DAILY cost of the Iraq War was $720 million.
Obama also approved Dick Cheney’s request for additional Secret Service protection after his six-month, post-VP allowance expired…taxpayers paid for that, too.
By law, former presidents are entitled to a pension, staff and office expenses, medical care or health insurance, and Secret Service protection. We pay about $200,000 a year for each presidential pension. All living presidents qualify for Secret Service, although Jimmy Carter is the only living former President that has declined his…
I refer you to my comment #51. The issue is not the vacation, or its venue, or the expense, but the orchestrated 404s and the cover-up, apparently from on high.
“racist sour-grapes”
“it’s a privilege of the office”
“by law, former presidents are entitled…”
three strikes and you’re out
We all need to revisit our assumptions about the internet. The average user has zero control over it, and all electronic communications media (phone, internet, radio, TV) are subject to snooping, as well as having the plug pulled, either via “kill-switch” or selectively, as our InfoMasters have apparently decided wrt Malia Obama’s vacation.
People with more suspicious minds than mine can come up with worse, but y’all get the idea…
Of course it is Bush`s fault
It’s about security issues you pinheads.
Scratching my pinhead…ouch, I’ve pricked my finger. So if security is the critically sensitive issue, why would one send one’s already high-profile child and a retinue of young friends to a place where the US gov’t is aggressively counseling extreme caution and prudence under any circumstance? Beyond that, do you not find it even the teeniest bit perplexing that someone has the power to ensure the global scrubbing of this story? And guess what, the taxpayers really are entitled to an accounting of how their funds are spent, more so in a time of economic austerity. If a relatively mundane story like this can be suppressed, do you really suppose the same tactics are not being employed toward more significant stories?
The little people need not apply nor question the obama regime.
It is essentially Waco rules.
While this spring break is ridiculous, I can see taking the web pages down to protect her friends. Her friends certainly didn’t agree to be photographed all the time, and for that matter, neither did she. Her dad is president, not her, so she can choose not to be a public figure if she wants to. Also, I agree with Tory on the security issues. This must have been a huge Pain in the A** for the Secret Service to take care of, especially because the kids’ details tend to only be 2-3 agents with a backup team offsite (another 2-3 agents).
This has been going on for a while with all manner of stories. Go to google or another engine, and many links that pertain to obama and are embarassing in any way – you get the 404.
Beck was right recently when he said people should consider saving web pages to ensure that history is preserved. They are scrubbing it in real time. So much for the free internet. It was always just a matter of time before tyrants corrupted it right here in America.
On a side note, remember where we got the East Anglia emails regarding global warming. They came from a Russian server after being hacked. We may have to go far and wide to preserve contemporary history.
>Update: The White House has admitted that it was behind the scrubbing.
Gosh DARN that fiendish 1st Amendment!
As Mexico is one of the leading kidnap capitals of the world, I’m not surprised they want to keep the itinerary quiet. I don’t really care where the First Daughters are minute by minute. I do care if the taxpayers are paying for it.
There are a few more important things going on in the country: the multi-trillion dollar debt, Obama’s Imperial Presidency, the job market that still isn’t going anywhere.
The kids’ trip is just another digression, hoping to keep the Oprah-watchers entertained.
Just think: replacing O’Bumble will reduce the federal deficit, because we won’t have to fund these elaborate vacations for the “first family”, or all the money-grubbing O’Bumble tries to do from his “friends”. That should save us $200-$300 MILLION a year by itself.
Now the stories are back because of the 7.9 earthquake that just hit Mexico (not near Oaxaca). Guess God got the final word on this one.
The Canadian news service Canada.com still has the story up. This might be a good place for Americans to get news that has been censored by the US government.
http://www.canada.com/news/Obama+daughter+spends+spring+break+Mexico/6323773/story.html
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