Tag: big government

Big Government in action: FDA busybodies target… ‘vegan mayonnaise.’.

Via Reason comes this charming look into the soul of a federal food bureaucrat:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed the labels and website labeling for your Just Mayo and Just Mayo Sriracha products in June, 2015. The label for these products directs the consumer to your website at the Internet address www.hamptoncreek.com. We examined your website in June, 2015. Based on our review, we have concluded that these products are in violation of section 403 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) [21 U.S.C. § 343] and its implementing regulations found in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 101 (21 CFR 101). You can find the Act and FDA regulations through links on FDA’s home page athttp://www.fda.gov.

[snip of violations]

The above violations are not meant to be an all-inclusive list of violations that may exist in connection with your products or their labeling. It is your responsibility to ensure that your products comply with the Act and its implementing regulations. You should take prompt action to correct the violations cited in this letter. Failure to promptly correct these violations may result in regulatory action without further notice, such as seizure and/or injunction.

Continue reading Big Government in action: FDA busybodies target… ‘vegan mayonnaise.’.

A reminder to big-government enthusiasts: this is in fact what you ordered.

:gesturing around, vaguely: All of this.  This is what people get when they operate under the assumption that the default answer to the question Should the government get involved in this situation? is Yes.  Remember, the government is not actually alive.  It has no self-awareness, no independent judgement, and certainly no common sense.  So there’s darn little in the way of negative feedback – and it shows. Hoo, boy, does it show.

As I put it a while back:

And I am sure that people are upset that what is on their big-government plate is not what they were shown on the menu. That’s a… real shame; but it shouldn’t really be a surprise.

Sorry.

Moe Lane

#rsrh Journolist: “SOMEONE LEAKED!”

This is probably not going to be a good week for people affiliated with the Journolist.

Not that I have confirmation of that, by the way.  Although if somebody would happen to have the archives, I wouldn’t mind seeing, oh, any random details about what those guys were saying about RedState (I sincerely doubt that I was ever personally subject to their ire, more’s the pity).

Patrick Gaspard = ACORN = SEIU = White House political affairs director.

Just to repeat some of the things alluded to in this article (with some additions):

Or whether this administration has ‘full confidence’ in Patrick Gaspard.  Which is Dizzy City-speak for ‘He’s cleaning out his desk right now.’

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Breaking: Yosi Sergant fired in NEA payola scandal.

ACORN/OFA crony Buffy Wicks unaffected.  Of course.

Another win for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government. Jake Tapper has the details:

Embattled former National Endowment for the Arts communications director Yosi Sergant is out of a job. Late this afternoon, the NEA released a short statement saying, “This afternoon Yosi Sergant submitted his resignation from the National Endowment for the Arts. His resignation has been accepted and is effective immediately.” The agency provided no further details.

Sergant had been under scrutiny after leading a controversial conference call on August 10, where he encouraged artists to create work to promote the Obama administration’s agenda. Sergant was initially removed from his post as communications director, but continued to work at the NEA.

See also here for more, including a link to new guidelines for the NEA.  The firing is not surprising, considering the way that Sergant was hung out to dry by his superiors. No word yet whether ACORN / Obama for America crony Buffy Wicks will suffer a similar sanction – or, indeed, any punishment at all for attempting to set up a shadow Ministry of Propaganda within the American governmental system.

It’s supposed to look ominous when written out like that. That’s because it is.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

A roundup of the NEA propaganda scandal.

here’s not much to say about the NEA propaganda scandal that hasn’t been said by others, but a link round-up will be hopefully useful for those getting up to speed.

  • We begin here with the Big Government articles themselves.  Summary: transcripts and audio reveal that the conference call of August 10th involving the federal agencies NEA, United We Serve, and the Office of Public Engagement; and various artist groups‘ involved the explicit recruitment of said artists’ groups to assist in pushing the administration’s legislative agenda.
  • This despite claims by the NEA that said call did not pursue any legislative agenda.
  • Note also that OPE Deputy Director (and Valerie Jarrett crony) Buffy Wicks has long-standing ties with ACORN.
  • Patterico points out the obvious: that both the NEA and the administration lied when they claimed that no legislative agenda was addressed.  Despite the fact that this call was ostensibly hosted by Michael Skolnik, Skolnik explicitly stated that he was working on the behest of the NEA and the White House – a claim that was not refuted either by Deputy Director Wicks or at-the-time NEA Director of Communications Yosi Sergant (both of whom were on the call).  For that matter, the primary interest of Nell Abernathy, director of outreach for United We Serve (also on the call) is to make clear that Skolnik is the cutout between the artists’ groups and the government.
  • I should point out at this point that Sergant is, of course, linked with Shepard Fairey, who had his own representative on the call.
  • Ace of Spades notes that Winner & Associates were on the conference call as well.  You may remember them; they were a Axelrod-affiliated PR group that got traced back as being behind some rather nasty anti-Palin fake grassroots astroturf during the election last year.  They were apparently on the call at the invitation of OPE Director Wicks.
  • You can refresh your memory of the Winner Incident here at The Jawa Report.  How interesting that they were there, and invited by an administration official, no less.
  • Ace of Spades, again, quotes Slublog on the Hatch Act.  As in, this is actually technically forbidden by federal statute (I personally note ‘technically’ because Hatch Act prosecutions are few and far between).
  • Ed Morrissey has what is probably the line of the day (“We do not fund the NEA for it to produce Leni Riefenstahl-type art”), and notes that the Washington Times would like help tracking down some of the call participants.
  • And finally, I would like to remind everybody reading this that groups involved in pushing the administration’s health care agenda had racked up roughly 2 million dollars in grants from the NEA prior to it.

So… the administration lied about their role in a conference call that was nakedly about using NEA client groups to pursue an explicitly pro-administration agenda – a call that, when revealed, resulted in an immediate reassignment of an NEA staffer and an attempt to scrub the record.  Of the groups involved, at least one was not an actual artist organization, and it was made clear throughout the call that the goal was to create partisan political materials, not nonpartisan art.  And, of course, the players involved were all of them affiliated with each other in various, sundry, and in some cases non-artistic ways.

But sure, other than all of that we have nothing to worry about.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Big Government going after NEA next?

Regarding Ace’s thoughtful sound about Patterico’s speculation on what Andrew Breitbart has scheduled for our enjoyment this week: PUNCH Politics reminds us that transferred NEA/Ministry of Information staffer Yosi Sergant was partnered with “HOPE” artist Shepard Fairey.  Which may explain why Big Government went to the trouble of pointing out the tagging done against Fairey last week.  It’s a nice transition: ACORN to Fairey to Sergant… and if you don’t think that mainstream journalists aren’t keeping track of what Big Government is running now, well.

Moe Lane

PS: It really is that incestuous, among the professional activists of the Left.

Crossposted to RedState.

Are you a Democratic legislator in a Republican-leaning seat?

Because if you are, here is an advisory: as of this moment, if the Right catches you or your staff within 100 yards of an ACORN office or worker we will cheerfully crucify you with that organization. And by ‘crucify’ I mean ‘take the metaphorical and rhetorical equivalent of long iron nails and permanently attach you to ACORN with them.” As the above link to Jon Stewart’s appalled reaction to all of this shows, public perceptions of the group shifted, and not to the benefit of the people that like to use ACORN. Now would be a good time for individual Democratic politicians to start publicly breaking with the group, in fact.

Seriously. The San Diego video is out, and this one involves a guy talking about why Tijuana is the best place to smuggle underage El Salvadoran hookers across the border (because he has contacts there). Continue reading Are you a Democratic legislator in a Republican-leaning seat?

*How* much trouble is ACORN in right now?

Let me put it this way: after seeing the first part of the San Bernardino ACORN video – the one where the ACORN stooge is bragging about her husband’s death, her running of her own brothel, and the way that she knows Senator Barbara Boxer – GayPatriot called up Boxer’s office*. He’s reporting that the Senator’s staff is pointing out in their responses that their boss voted to defund ACORN.  When Senator Barbara Boxer can see the writing on the wall…

DOOM.

Wonderful, wonderful DOOM.

*H/T Instapundit.

Moe Lane

PS: One of my colleagues has noted privately something to the effect that the problem with all of this is that Andrew Breitbart has raised the expectations of what constitutes a successful website launch to totally unsustainable levels.

Crossposted to RedState.