Tag Archives: Totalitarianism

News

State Attorney Angela Corey fires whistleblower in Trayvon Martin case

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Story from the Florida Times-Union. (H/T Bad Blue)

State Attorney Angela Corey fired her office’s information technology director Friday after he testified last month about being concerned prosecutors did not turn over information to George Zimmerman’s defense team in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

On the same day attorneys finished their closing arguments in that nationally watched trial, a state attorney investigator went to Ben Kruidbos’ home about 7:30 a.m. to hand-deliver a letter stating Kruidbos “can never again be trusted to step foot in this office.”

The letter contended Kruibos did a poor job overseeing the information technology department, violated public records law for retaining documents, and noted he was questioned in March when the office was trying to determine who had leaked personnel information obtained through a computer breach.

In an interview Friday, Kruidbos denied the allegations in the letter, which was written by Cheryl Peek, the managing director of the State Attorney’s Office.

He said he had acted in good faith about “genuine concerns.” He said he had been proud to work at the State Attorney’s Office and feared the letter would cripple his chances at finding another job to support his family, including a 4-month-old son.

“I don’t have any regrets,” he said, “but I am terrified about the future and what that will end up being.”

His attorney Wesley White — who resigned from the State Attorney’s Office in December and is a critic of Corey — said the firing was aimed at sending a message to office employees “that if they feel like there is wrongdoing,” they should not disclose it or seek legal guidance from a private attorney.

“If they do speak to an attorney, then they are dead,” he said. “The State Attorney’s Office will do whatever is necessary to not only terminate them, but destroy their reputations in the process.”

Jackelyn Barnard, spokeswoman for Corey and the State Attorney’s Office, did not return phone calls or emails for comment.

This is why I have to move to a very red state. I don’t want to deal with a bunch of leftists who don’t know right from wrong. I don’t want to be prosecuted by people who have no respect for the law, and are just looking to push a political agenda.

News

FOIA documents reveal that Holder DOJ facilitated anti-Zimmerman protests

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From the Washington Times. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

The legal watchdog Judicial Watch announced today that it has obtained documents revealing the Community Relations Service (CRS), a unit of the Department of Justice, was deployed to Sanford, Fla., following the death of Trayvon Martin to help organize rallies against George Zimmerman.

[…]According to the report, employees of the DOJ’s CRS are required by law to “conduct their activities in confidence. Though the agency claims to use “impartial mediation practices and conflict resolution procedures,” press reports suggest that the unit deployed to Sanford took an active role in mobilizing against Mr. Zimmerman.

“These documents detail the extraordinary intervention by the Justice Department in the pressure campaign leading to the prosecution of George Zimmerman,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “My guess is that most Americans would rightly object to taxpayers paying government employees to help organize racially-charged demonstrations.”

Fox News had some more on the story.

Excerpt:

Judicial Watch, in claiming the agency crossed a line by aiding the anti-Zimmerman events, points to an April 2012 article in the Orlando Sentinel.

That article detailed the role the CRS unit played during the protests. In one case, the Sentinel said they helped “set up a meeting between the local NAACP and elected officials that led to the temporary resignation of police Chief Bill Lee.”

In another, the article said they arranged an escort for college students for a 40-mile march to “demand justice.”

Is that the proper role of government? They are going after a private individual with taxpayer money. That is nothing but tyranny.

News

Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter met with IRS chief at the White House

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Jake Tapper of the left-leaning CNN reports.

Excerpt: (links removed)

Comments made by former White House adviser and Obama deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter on CNN’s “The Lead” last week about meetings at the White House attended by both her and the then-director of the Internal Revenue Service, Doug Shulman, have prompted some conservatives to question her role in those meetings.

The White House has acknowledged that IRS officials seem to have inappropriately focused on conservative groups when vetting whether the groups qualified for special tax exempt status. White House visitor logs suggest that Shulman was cleared to attend meetings in the White House or Eisenhower Executive Office Building 157 times, which has prompted questions from Republican officials as to whether the targeting of conservative groups was ever discussed. More than 50 of Douglas Shulman’s scheduled visits are described as “health care meetings” or “health care reform meetings,” according to the visitor logs.

On “The Lead’s” political roundtable discussion about Shulman’s visits on Friday, Cutter – now a CNN contributor – said that “many of those meetings were for health care implementation. I was in them with him. So there is nothing nefarious going on.”

[…]Many conservative outlets have seized upon Cutter’s presence in the meetings as reason for suspicion. “The president’s deputy campaign manager attended the ‘nonpolitical’ ObamaCare implementation meetings with the former IRS commissioner at the White House,” wrote an Investor’s Business Daily editorial. “She wasn’t there to discuss the Easter Egg Roll.”

Wrote Carol Platt Liebau at Townhall.com, “as everyone knows, Stephanie Cutter’s expertise is not primarily in the policy area; it is in the realm of politics: Political strategy and communications.  She has been described by the Daily Beast as a partisan ‘pit bull.’  Her job isn’t the nuts and bolts of governing.  She is a political fixer.  That’s why she was a Deputy Campaign manager for the President’s re-election.”

Here’s what Carol Platt Liebau said in that Townhall article.

Excerpt: (links removed)

An interesting fact emerges from a look at a transcript of last Friday’s edition of “The Lead With Jake Tapper” — Stephanie Cutter was in on the White House meetings that IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman attended.

Cutter insists that Shulman was simply meeting about implementation of ObamaCare — and in fairness, one of her responsibilities was managing communications strategy for the unpopular law.  But as everyone knows, Stephanie Cutter’s expertise is not primarily in the policy area; it is in the realm of politics: Political strategy and communications.  She has been described by theDaily Beast as a partisan “pit bull.”  Her job isn’t the nuts and bolts of governing.  She is a political fixer.  That’s why she was a Deputy Campaign manager for the President’s re-election.

Given that’s the case, it’s far from clear why she would have been in meetings with Doug Shulman at all.  The whole point of the IRS’ supposed “independence” is to insulate the agency from the influence and machinations of people exactly like Stephanie Cutter.

So whether or not the stated purpose of the meetings was about ObamaCare — unless Shulman’s politics are very different from the lefty leanings of his wife — it isn’t hard to imagine Shulman and Cutter exchanging some congruent views.  That’s particularly true given that foremost in political discussion at the time was the Citizens United case (holding it unconstitutional for the government to restrict speech by corporations, associations and unions), which had recently been handed down by the Supreme Court — and which scared President Obama to death.  Is it really a stretch to think that Cutter and Shulman might have commiserated, bemoaned the supposed threat to democracy, and wished that something could be done, oh so subtly? . . . Consider the following timeline:

  • May 2009 – Cutter moves to White House from Treasury Department
  • January 2010 – Citizens United is handed down; Democrats are hysterical
  • March 2010 – IRS begins targeting Tea Party and other conservative groups
  • April 2010 – Cutter assigned to sell health care reform; if meetings with Shulman didn’t occur before, presumably they did so afterwards.

Indeed, this time line and Cutter’s presence in the IRS meetings makes it more likely than ever that subtle political influence was wielded.  Did anyone explicitly order Shulman to target conservatives?  Probably not . . . because given the extent and type of contact he had with White House politicos, no explicit directive was needed.

It seems likely that everyone understood each other just fine, and the IRS operated accordingly.

Do you think it’s possible that the Obama campaign worked with the IRS to delay and deny applications from conservative groups in order to influence the 2012 election? Why would the deputy campaign manager need to be in meetings with the head of the IRS at the White House?