Free speech for TARP recipients?  Jane Hamsher thinks not.

Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake surely considers herself a champion of civil liberties (and an ally of Big Labor).  However, her view of legitimate dissent and free speech seems oddly cramped - apparently, equity analysts in the employ of Citigroup should not be allowed to express opinions contrary to the views held by Ms. Hamsher.  Her attitude is mostly amusing, but depending on how influential these lefty blogs become or how widely shared her views are on the left this could become be scary - sort of a McCain-Feingold for TARP recipients and their clients, i.e., everyone.  Here we go:

Today Citigroup lowered its rating on Wal-Mart from a buy to a hold because of the Employee Free Choice Act, "citing concern that legislation intended to make it easier for employees to unionize would raise the retail giant's labor costs and hurt its competitiveness."

This is startling for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that they're downgrading the stock based on an assumption that a piece of legislation will pass that hasn't even been introduced yet.

The Citigroup analyst, Debora Weinswig, said Employee Free Choice (EFCA) "could be a significant drag to earnings."

It's hard to view this as anything other than a reckless and overt political act on the part of a company, Citigroup, that has made stupendously bad business decisions with dire economic consequences necessitating billions in taxpayer bailouts, at a time when the market can ill-afford it.