Home / governmentintimidation
Showing posts with label governmentintimidation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label governmentintimidation. Show all posts
Obama administration threatens Fast and Furious whistleblowers

Obama administration threatens Fast and Furious whistleblowers

From Fox News:
The head of ATF recently warned employees that they will face "consequences" if they don't "respect the chain of command," in what Republican lawmakers are decrying as an "ominous message" meant to frighten would-be whistle-blowers in the wake of the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa., and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., fired off a letter Wednesday to Acting Director B. Todd Jones saying the message "could be interpreted as a threat" and urging him to clarify. "It was scary," Issa told Fox News on Thursday, in reference to Jones' video message to employees. In the July 9 video message, Jones touched on a topic he described as "choices and consequences." By that, Jones said, he was talking about "organizational discipline" and the need for workers to "play by the rules" -- embedded in the warning was the line about properly raising internal concerns. "Choices and consequences means simply that if you make poor choices, that if you don't abide by the rules, that if you don't respect the chain of command, if you don't find the appropriate way to raise your concerns to your leadership, there will be consequences, because we cannot tolerate -- we cannot tolerate -- an undisciplined organization," he said. Issa told Fox News it's obvious what Jones was talking about. . . .
Justice Department threatens reporter with retaliation?

Justice Department threatens reporter with retaliation?

CBS reports:
Two Louisiana congressmen are calling on the Justice Department to respond to a complaint that one of its attorneys tried to bar a newspaper reporter from quoting or recording the lawyer's comments at a public hearing in New Iberia. The Daily Iberian contends Justice Department attorney Rachel Hranitzky became "belligerent and threatening" after the reporter, Matthew Beaton, questioned why he couldn't quote her comments during a June 12 public hearing about the New Iberia Fire Department's hiring and promotion practices. The newspaper reported that Hranitzky told Beaton he would be asked to leave the City Hall hearing if he didn't comply with her directive. "Then (the Justice Department) can call your editors and publisher at the paper, and trust you don't want to get on the Department of Justice's bad side," the paper quoted Hranitzky as saying. . . .
Will DOJ punish this lawyer for these threats?
The New Russian Police State Putin Style

The New Russian Police State Putin Style

So this is some of what happens to those who speak out in Russia today.  From the New York Times:

. . . For six hours the men — a squad from the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation — tore apart the apartment, neither removing their masks nor dropping their weapons. “You know what’s going on,” one of them chided her. “If you had married a good K.G.B. man, it would be another story.” They teased her by reading love letters from an ex-beau aloud in front of Yashin. And they humiliated her by sending a man to shadow her to the bathroom. Millions of Russians had seen Sobchak in various stages of undress before, but for the first time this was not a performance of her own making. In Sobchak’s safe, the officers reportedly discovered nearly one million euros and half a million dollars in dozens of envelopes. The state, Sobchak said when she described the episode to me in late June, had found its jackpot — and made, Sobchak believes, its intentions clear. “Whether it’s prison or exile,” she said, “they’re out to silence me.”
On that same June morning, several leaders of the opposition in Russia also had their homes raided by investigators. But Sobchak stands apart: in this new time of troubles, as Putin settles back into the Kremlin for his third term as president, few Russians more closely embody the state of the country today — in both its prospects and its hazards — than Sobchak. She has money and, with more than 470,000 followers on Twitter (making hers one of the most popular private Russian accounts), a following. And she is staking both resources in the fight for, as she puts it, “a better way to live.” . . .
Why the government shouldn't own the broadcasting airwaves

Why the government shouldn't own the broadcasting airwaves

Remember Lyndon Johnson:

That federal agency soon limited licenses to restrict competition and guarantee profits for selected license holders in key markets. It made complicated regulations that required expensive lawyers and consultants. It also seemed to grant and revoke (or threaten to revoke) broadcast licenses in ways that advanced the careers of certain politicians with ties to the FCC.
One of them was Lyndon Johnson. He was broke when he was first elected to Congress in 1937. But within 12 years, he was one of the richest and most powerful members of the U.S. Senate. He got his wealth when his wife bought a cheap radio station – that quickly became the most powerful and profitable station in Texas – after getting FCC permits nobody else could get. . . .
Now under the Obama administration we have this:
 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski testified Wednesday that his agency takes calls to cancel Fox's broadcast licenses "very seriously."  Groups, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), have urged the FCC to pull Fox's licenses because of evidence that its parent company News Corp. hacked people's phones in the United Kingdom to get stories.  During a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) pressed Genachowski on whether he plans to do anything about the allegations. Genachowski said it wouldn't be appropriate to comment on a specific case, but that the commission is "certainly aware of the serious issues that have been raised in the U.K."  He noted that the law requires that the FCC only grant broadcast licenses to people of "good character." . . .
Does anyone think that the Obama administration can keep politics out of this?  Even if the licenses aren't revoked, does the threat produce a chilling effect? If people don't trust Fox, they can obviously stop watching the network.
The School lunch police force small children to eat different foods than what their parents gave them

The School lunch police force small children to eat different foods than what their parents gave them

This is a pretty scary story from North Carolina. The Pope Institute has this information:

A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.

NC Pre-K (before this year known as More at Four) is a state-funded education program designed to “enhance school readiness” for four year-olds.

The mother, who doesn’t wish to be identified at this time, says she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch.

The mother says the girl was so intimidated by the inspection process that she was too scared to eat all of her homemade lunch. The girl ate only the chicken nuggets provided to her by the school, so she still didn’t eat a vegetable.

The mother says her daughter doesn’t like vegetables and – like most four year olds – will only eat them at home under close supervision.

In an interview with the Civitas Institute the mother said “I can’t put vegetables in her lunchbox. I’m not a millionaire and I’m not going to put something in there that my daughter doesn’t eat and I’ve done gone round and round with the teacher about that and I’ve told her that. I put fruit in there every day because she is a fruit eater. Vegetables, let me take care of my business at home and at night and that’s when I see she’s eating vegetables. I either have to smash it or tell her if you don’t eat your vegetables you’re going to go to bed.”

The mother added, “It’s just a headache to keep arguing and fighting. I’ve even wrote a note to her teachers and said do not give my daughter anything else unless it comes out of her lunchbox and they are still going against me and putting a milk in front of her every day. . . .
Did Ford Motor pull an ad because of pressure from the Obama Administration?

Did Ford Motor pull an ad because of pressure from the Obama Administration?

I thought that it was a good ad. The Detroit News has this discussion by Daniel Howes:

As part of a campaign featuring "real people" explaining their decision to buy the Blue Oval, a guy named "Chris" says he "wasn't going to buy another car that was bailed out by our government," according the text of the ad, launched in early September.
"I was going to buy from a manufacturer that's standing on their own: win, lose, or draw. That's what America is about is taking the chance to succeed and understanding when you fail that you gotta' pick yourself up and go back to work."
That's what some of America is about, evidently. Because Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House questioned whether the copy was publicly denigrating the controversial bailout policy CEO Alan Mulally repeatedly supported in the dark days of late 2008, in early '09 and again when the ad flap arose. And more.
With President Barack Obama tuning his re-election campaign amid dismal economic conditions and simmering antipathy toward his stimulus spending and associated bailouts, the Ford ad carried the makings of a political liability when Team Obama can least afford yet another one. Can't have that.
The ad, pulled in response to White House questions (and, presumably, carping from rival GM), threatened to rekindle the negative (if accurate) association just when the president wants credit for their positive results (GM and Chrysler are moving forward, making money and selling vehicles) and to distance himself from any public downside of his decision. . . .


The WP's Greg Sargent takes a denial by Ford and the Obama administration to be all that is needed to reject this story:

Apparently some right wing bloggers think they may have found their next big scandal: The White House may have pressured Ford Motor Company to yank a TV ad critical of Obama’s rescue of the auto companies! . . .

No, says the White House. “The Detroit News story is not true,” communications director Dan Pfeiffer emails.

Ford happens to agree. The company Tweeted:

we did not pull the ad due to pressure. the ad ran 4 weeks which is what the campaign called for . . .


Might a reporter with the Detroit News have a better inside line into what is happening at Ford Motor Company than a reporter who simply relies on statements from press secretaries?

UPDATE: The Detroit News doubles down on this story:

But the Obama administration didn't care for the free market message and, as my Detroit News colleague Daniel Howes reported this week, the White House contacted Ford to discuss the ad and the company has now pulled the popular spot. While Howes quoted an industry source insisting that there was no pressure to take the ad down, any such inquiries from the White House represent coercion. . . . The most obvious reason [for the White House concern] relates to the president's re-election bid. . . .
Does having private views that marriage should be between a man and a woman justify the government firing you?

Does having private views that marriage should be between a man and a woman justify the government firing you?

How is having a private view that marriage should be between a man and a woman be any of the government's business? Whether one thinks that it is a good idea to believe that isn't the issue. Obviously if someone advocated homosexual marriage, this wouldn't cause any problems. I am pretty sure that unlike private employees, government employees were supposed to be covered by the first amendment. From Fox News:



A former “Teacher of the Year” in Mount Dora, Fla. has been suspended and could lose his job after he voiced his objection to gay marriage on his personal Facebook page.

Jerry Buell, a veteran American history teacher at Mount Dora High School, was removed from his teaching duties this week as school officials in Lake County investigate allegations that what he posted was biased towards homosexuals.

“We took the allegations seriously,” said Chris Patton, a communication officer with Lake County Schools. “All teachers are bound by a code of special ethics (and) this is a code ethics violation investigation.”

Patton said the school system received a complaint on Tuesday about something Buell had written last July when New York legalized same sex unions. On Wednesday, he was temporarily suspended from the classroom and reassigned.

Patton said Buell has taught in the school system for 22 years and has a spotless record. Last year, he was selected as the high school’s “Teacher of the Year.”

But now his job is on the line because of what some have called anti-gay and homophobic comments.

Buell told Fox News Radio that he was stunned by the accusations. “It was my own personal comment on my own personal time on my own personal computer in my own personal house, exercising what I believed as a social studies teacher to be my First Amendment rights,” he said. . . . .
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)