Remember how when Republicans decided to declare war on bloggers by going after the Blue Hog Writers I promised to give them the war they wanted. Well here’s the first shot.
Following the FOI requests from the Republican Party targeting Matt Campbell and Jeff Woodmansee, Ryan Saylor of Midnight Politics alerted me to the fact that he’s been requesting records from the Secretary of State’s office too, and has set up a paypal account that donations can be made to in order to help facilitate the requests. Thing is, FOI requests apparently cost 11 cents a page and Ryan’s requested a hefty number of documents, coming out to around 350 dollars that he doesn’t have to spare. See, Ryan is a bit like me in that he’s just a guy working a day job, doing the blogger/radio show thing in his spare time, and living pay check to pay check. So I figure, why not help him out and find out what other skeletons are there to be found in the Secretary of State’s office?
So, here’s the page with Midnight Politic’s paypal account to make a donation at the bottom to help with FOI requests. (The link is the same as above, but I’m stressing a point here. The money is solely for FOI requests. It won’t be used for other purposes, Ryan has assured me, and he’s asked me to inform you all that it’s not tax deductible.) I’m throwing in some change to help him because A) I want to know what Martin’s office is so desperate to protect and B) I want to show the Arkansas GOP that bloggers aren’t going to back down, no matter what they do.
Filing an FOI request with Matt and Jeff’s employer was a personal and vengeful attack, all about intimidation and retribution and a grave threat to our fundamental first amendment rights and to a free society. And if Mark Martin had a hand in it, then it’s a case of a politician under fire trying to get a state employee fired for what he was doing in his spare time. And let me be clear, they have found nothing on Matt from the emails handed over by the Supreme Court. So now, last I heard, they were wanting stuff from Jeff, who, get this, works in the library of the University of Arkansas. That’s right, the Arkansas GOP is going through the emails of a librarian at a state college hoping to find some dirt. How pathetic is that?
So yeah, chip in some change to help Ryan do his FOI work. Let’s find out if Martin had his hand in this. Let’s find out if Matt and Jeff were on to something big that they’re trying to cover up. It’s our right to know after all. We are the public, and Martin and his ilk work for us. So yeah, make that contribution. You know you want to. Just scroll to the bottom and click on Ryan’s PayPal link.
Hogwash. The pack of you are a bunch of whimps. You can dish it out but can’t deal with return fire. I personally think its great someone stood up to the lot of you. The Republicans didn’t declar war on bloggers, they simply asked an obvious question about a major chop buster. Campbell admitted setting up his blogs to post throughout the work day giving the impression he was blogging while on the government clock. How about explaining why it is only Mark Martin that is being targeted? No one bugged Charlie Daniels. No one is bugging Mike Beebe, what about Dustin McDaniel AG (i.e., almost governor if you listen to him or almost gone if you listen to a Republican.) You obviously can’t deal with the heat so think about getting out of the kitchen.
Okay Razor, I’ll bite.
First, let’s assume that that’s all this was about, just finding out if Matt was doing this on state time. If that’s the case, why demand personal emails that they weren’t entitled to much less go after a college librarian after they found nothing on Matt? Hmmm?
Of course, this didn’t happen in a vacuum, and you yourself implied that this was done because Matt was digging up dirt on Martin. So pray tell, how does this not amount to political retribution? How does it not amount to trying to get a state employee fired and discredit him for political activity done on his own time and protected by the first amendment of the Constitution? The reason Martin is targeted? Because we know a GOP official met with him and his staff before this was done, which means if Martin was in on it he was trying to get a state employee fired, something that may well be an impeachable offense. And as far as Chuck Daniels and other Democrats go, well, read through our archives. That’s all I’ve got to say to that.
If they can do this to one blogger, they can do it to anyone. If they can get away with this, what’s to stop them from doing something worse? If they can do it, what’s to stop others? You may be giddy over the fact someone you didn’t like was at the receiving end of this treatment, you may not be when someone tries it on someone you do like, or yourself for that matter, and then I’m sure you’d wish that others were rallying to your defense the way so many of us are to Matt and Jeff.
Oh, and to everyone else reading this, again, click the link, go to the paypal link at the bottom of the article, and make a contribution.
Hey Razor. Are you OK with your first amendment rights being violated? No? I don’t care that you are an obvious tea bagger Conservative. That’s what is happening here. The American people have a right to know what their public officials are doing. The guys at Blue Hog obviously were digging a little too close to something they folks at Sec. Martin’s office didn’t want getting out and Mr. Dugger launched this witch hunt. And it isn’t right. These Bloggers are doing things that members of Arkansas’ mainstream media are too afraid to do because they don’t have the backing of their Republican publishers to dig deeper.
Mr. Martin campaigned to the Tea Party. He is now doing some very un-Tea Party, shady things. His actions need to be made public because he is a fraud. He appealed to a group of people solely for their votes and obviously did not in the least espouse their beliefs. THAT IS FRAUD. The Tea Party should be backing Blue Hog. You all should want to find out what they were about to find.