…you do realize you’ve just argued passionately that ethics rules are no big deal, right? Then you finished with a strawman.
This isn’t about “freedom of speech.” Its about not using the Federal government as a bully pulpit.
No, I’m not “literally saying” that, or anything like that. When somebody complains that we’re in “grave peril” of “descending into an authoritarian dictatorship”, I have no problem throwing a chicken little reference at them. I can do this, and simultaneously believe that the President is not “unsullied by any whiff of intolerance”. Those two are not mutually exclusive. The President could be an imperfect leader (they all are, in fact) and we could still not be in “grave peril” (or any reasonable peril at all) of “descending into an authoritarian dictatorship.”
FWIW, I wouldn’t claim that any president in my lifetime was “unsullied by any whiff of intolerance”.
The White House Press Secretary, when using official government channels, speaks for the president, and the president is supposed to speak for the nation. Does that carry more weight than someone tweeting as a private citizen? Yes.
This stuff matters. Ethics rules aren’t written to just be some esoteric minutia that gets brushed aside and ignored. There are standards in place and the current administration should be held to them.
As noted above, this doesn’t violate any ethics rules. She did not receive a benefit by posting it from her government account that she would not have received by posting it from her private account.
…ROFL!!!
Are you fucking kidding me?
I’ll take the word of the former White House ethics chief over some random person on the internet thanks.
Am I correct that you claim to be a lawyer in real life?
Did she announce this somewhere, or is this just a failed mind-reading exercise?
A sorry number of people see it as no fucking problem. MAGA.
Considering the threats received by not only the restaurant in question but others around the country with the same name(Trump supporters, so smart), I’d say she got the result she wanted.
So you’re just engaging in the nitpicky game of: Various posters list fifteen things wrong with Trump. You pick out one and, regardless of the truth of other fourteen, call them chicken littles for saying one arguable thing.
I think that’s a chickenshit argument.
ETA: not to mention, I think you were very concerned about the constitutional implications of various Democratic proposals on gun purchases. Yet Trump proposes to eliminate judicial review of immigration cases, and it’s “going too far” to say that eliminating judicial review of certain controversies is a step towards authoritarianism? I think that’s only because your ox isn’t being gored.
Looks like the Red Hen in Napa’s Yelp page is being sabotaged.
All on the same day.
One of the reviewers lives in Texas.
Cross-posted from the Pit thread:
Similarly, I assume that you agree there’s no difference between someone using a personal email account versus their government account.
Glad that’s finally settled.
Oh snap!
This is the summary in Wikipedia(spoilered to reduce visual clutter):
[spoiler]
On October 4, 1986, while walking along Park Avenue to his apartment in Manhattan, Rather was attacked and punched from behind by a man who demanded to know “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” while a second assailant chased and beat him. As the assailant pummeled and kicked Rather, he kept repeating the question. In describing the incident, Rather said, “I got mugged. Who understands these things? I didn’t and I don’t now. I didn’t make a lot of it at the time and I don’t now. I wish I knew who did it and why, but I have no idea.”[97] Until the crime was resolved years later, Rather’s description of the bizarre crime led some to doubt the veracity of his account,[98] although the doorman and building supervisor who rescued Rather fully confirmed his version of events.[97]
The assault remained unsolved for some time, and was referenced multiple times in popular culture. The phrase “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” became a popular-culture reference over the years, such as in a scene in the graphic novel Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron by cartoonist Daniel Clowes. In 1994, the band R.E.M. released the song “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” on their album Monster. Rather later sang with R.E.M. during a sound check prior to a gig at New York’s Madison Square Garden, which was shown the following night on the Late Show with David Letterman before their performance of “Crush with Eyeliner”.
In 1997, a TV critic writing in the New York Daily News solved the mystery, publishing a photo of the alleged assailant, William Tager, who received a 12½-to-25-year prison sentence for killing NBC stagehand Campbell Montgomery outside The Today Show studio in 1994.[98] Rather confirmed the story: “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is the person.”[98] New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said, “William Tager’s identity as the man who attacked Mr. Rather was established in the course of an investigation by my office.”[99] Tager claimed he thought television networks were beaming signals into his brain.[100] When he murdered the stagehand, Tager was trying to force his way into an NBC studio with a weapon, in order to find out the frequency the networks were using to attack him, so that he could block it. Tager was paroled in October 2010 and is believed to be living in New York City. [/spoiler]
I say that completely undercuts your implication that the incidence shows that Rather was a kook.In contrast, one of the first acts of the current POTUS was to blatantly lie about the size of the crowd attending his inauguration. Which launched a brave new era in which facts just don’t matter.
This had nothing to do with freedom of speech.
Aye; that totally fucking rocked, kayaker! Good job!
:rolleyes: Because we never establish intent based on what people say, right?
Yeah, I’m a mind-reader, and unless you’re some sort of Lacanian deconstructivist who believes in the futility of communication, so are you. I read her words in order to understand her intent. And so do you.
This is an absurd attempt at an argument on your behalf, and I don’t intend to follow you any more into the weeds; I was impatient with this sort of “but we can’t ever know what anyone is thinking for real, MAAAAAAN” nonsense when I was a college freshman.
The poster was trying to allude to the incident in '04 where Rather drew on a questionable source in support of an attack on W.'s National Guard slackery. Why he felt it necessary to use “what’s the frequency kenneth” as a [del]taunt[/del] own-foot-shot is one of those “because, reasons” things, I guess.
I understand what you’re saying, but it’s not what the thread is about. The OP asserted that she took the high road, that’s the debate.
People were up in arms with Chick-Fil-A because the owner is extremely anti-gay, not because they refused service to people have employers (or politics) they disagree with.
It’s been noted that she came in late so they likely didn’t know. But even if they did know right away, isn’t it plausible that the news didn’t make it back to the manager right away or that the manager was trying to figure out how to handle the situation?
Granted, if she used her personal account it probably still would have made it’s way to the media, but it’s worth noting that her gov account has about 3 million more followers than her personal account. It’s the difference between her gather a crowd in a park and telling them vs her telling the media 'as press secretary…".
Legally, probably nothing, but again, this is about whether or not she took the high ground.
This argument always bugs me. It’s like getting pulled over and saying to the cop ‘don’t you have have something better to do like arresting murderers or solving crimes’.
I don’t know about you, but I can be angry about more than one thing at a time. It’s not like all the people that are mad at her are suddenly ignoring everything else they were upset about.
No, it isn’t. She was publically refused service and ordered to leave the premises for political reasons. An extremely brief mention of being polite in response isn’t making much of a point of it and it was prudent to get that point out in public up front, before anyone else got a different message out in public.
This is the sort of thing that PR people are supposed to be aware of and take into account.
And rightly so, both because it’s important and to defend herself.
That’s the only thing she did wrong, IMO. Although it could reasonably be argued that since the sole reason for the incident was her political position it was appropriate for her to respond as that position.
I agree with that, but I very much doubt that we agree on what it says about the two people.
I think she did.
Regarding the baker example that’s being used as if it was the same thing, I think there are some significant differences going both ways:
- The baker didn’t refuse (and still doesn’t refuse) to serve the couple and didn’t tell them to leave the shop. They refused to take an active part in a specific message, which is less bad than refusing to serve someone and telling them to leave the premises.
The correct parallel would be something like a restaurant owner refusing to host a political party’s event because they disapproved of that political party, but still serving members of that political party as ordinary customers rather than as a political event.
- This is based solely on politics (which is chosen) rather than partly on sexual orientation (which isn’t). So it’s less bad in that way.
I think the business owners should be allowed to do what they did in both cases and I think less of them for doing it in both cases, but I also think that the two cases are not really the same thing.