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Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Whistleblow the govt, get fired

  That's the way it works, right? It's SUPPOSED to work that way.
  The pre-president Obama said this about whistleblowers: Such acts of courage and patriotism . . . should be encouraged rather than stifled."
  But now even those on the left are noticing that the POTUS like to pay back and ultimately fire those who expose the underbelly of HIS governance.
  The latest to be fired is the ATF agent who revealed much of the gunrunner operation, which has since been verified by numerous agents. His name is Vince Cefalu and he's been fired by the government for his testimony: his infractions? swearing and "personal hygiene." 
  Fox:
Cefalu first told FoxNews.com about the ATF’s embattled anti-gun smuggling operation in December, before the first reports on the story appeared in February. “Simply put, we knowingly let hundreds of guns and dozens of identified bad guys go across the border,” Cefalu said at the time.
Since then, Cefalu’s claims have been vindicated, as a number of agents with first-hand knowledge of the case came forward. The scandal over Project Gunrunner led to congressional hearings, a presidential reprimand – Obama called the operation “a serious mistake” – and speculation that ATF chief Ken Melson will resign.
  But Cefalu isn't the only or first to be retaliated against by this "transparent" administration.
  Remember Gerald Shelton? He's the special investigator Obama fired a couple years ago. From the Washington Examiner:

Walpin learned his fate Wednesday night.  He was driving to an event in upstate New York when he received a call from Norman Eisen, the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform.  "He said, 'Mr. Walpin, the president wants me to tell you that he really appreciates your service, but it's time to move on,'" Walpin recalls.  "Eisen said, 'You can either resign, or I'll tell you that we'll have to terminate you.'"
At that moment, Walpin says, he had finished not only a report on the Sacramento probe but also an investigation into extensive misuse of AmeriCorps money by the City University of New York, which is AmeriCorps' biggest program.  Walpin says he told Eisen that, given those two investigations, neither of which was well-received by top Corporation management, the timing of his firing seemed "very interesting."  According to Walpin, Eisen said it was "pure coincidence."  When Walpin asked for some time to consider what to do, Eisen gave him one hour. "Then he called back in 45 minutes and asked for my response," Walpin recalls.
  Then there's Thomas Drake, who was prosecuted for his part in an NSA expose, quoted here at Salon:

Thomas Drake is a hero who deserves a Medal of Freedom Honor.  Instead, the Obama administration seeks to imprison him for decades while steadfastly protecting from prosecution -- or judicial review of any kind -- the high-level government officials who systematically broke the law.  Put another way -- from the last paragraph of Mayer's article:
  Read more at the New York Times article to which Salon refers here.
  Indeed, leftists are so angry about Obama's lack of transparency that they have banded together to protest the behavior and publicly denounced the $10 billion Obama has spent on secrecy. While still blaming Bush for initiating the policies, the leftists are outraged that Obama has not only continued those policies but rather exceeded them. From Yahoo:
The group claims that petitioners have filed more Freedom of Information Act requests made during Obama's first term--with fewer responses--than have been logged in previous years; that the administration has squashed "legal inquiries into secret illegalities more often than any predecessor" and "amassed the worst record in U.S. history for persecuting, prosecuting and jailing government whistleblowers and truth-tellers," including WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning. The letter also notes that the White House has refused to make its visitor logs public, while overseeing a 15 percent spike last year in budgetary outlays for classifying secrets 
  The anger extends, of course, across the leftist board to Bradley Manning.
  In fact, leftists are demanding that the transparency award Obama received in secret in March be rescinded.
  HuffPo says Obama's lack of transparency is even worse than *gasp* Bush's. 

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