THE DAILY BLADE: Politicizing The Agriculture Department
Remember the hue and cry from the left about Bush attorney general Alberto Gonzales politicizing the Department of Justice? Well, Chris Mather, who just left her post as the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s communications director to serve as Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s spokeswoman, is accused of age and gender discrimination and promoting of employees supportive of the Democratic Party. The Washington Post reports:
Mather, Deputy Communications Director David Black, Deputy Director of Operations Justin DeJong and other top officials in the department’s communications office have faced at least nine formal equal employment opportunity complaints filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. The workers said they raised the allegations “because of a hostile work environment, retaliation and/or prohibited personnel practice,” according to a letter sent to lawmakers in January. …
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Thursday that two of the complaints have been dismissed, two were settled and five remain under investigation. …
Marci Hilt, who worked in the agency’s public affairs office for 43 years, said she signed the letter because Mather is “the most unprofessional political appointee I’d ever worked with.”
“She would go up and down people like a buzz saw,” and yell at them in staff meetings, Hilt, now retired, said Thursday. She also said Mather “wanted the political appointees talking to reporters” instead of career staff members who had known some reporters for years. Six current employees agreed with the criticisms detailed in the letter but declined to be identified for fear of reprisal.
According to the letter, employees promoted in the past two years “are all under 30 years old and/or come with backgrounds or beliefs that support the policies of the Democratic Party.” Mather, Black and others pressured staff members older than 55 to take buyouts, the letter said. Some employees, including Hilt, accepted the offer.
Coincidental Correlation?
A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that people in their “prime working ages” of 25 to 64 years old are the most likely to commit suicide during recessions, and a new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco report, “Recent College Graduates and the Labor Market” predicts that recent college graduates will be hit especially hard by unemployment tor a long time to come (“Given the current weak labor market, we expect the labor market outcomes of the recent college graduate cohort to remain depressed well into the future”). There’s already been a rash of lawyers committing suicide because of the economic downturn, so if there is an uptick in 21-year-olds killing themselves, would Obama’s job-killing policies be a factor or would it just be a coincidence?
Anderson Cooper’s New Shtick
Mediate’s Mark Joyella enthused over an Anderson Cooper segment in which he adds “people who pay Snooki for being Snooki” to his “RidicuList”:
This is the Anderson Cooper that we should get to see more often: doing accents, making facial expressions.
So Cooper should be more like … Glenn Beck? That would make The Stiletto’s RidicuList.
Comments