We Have Ways of Making You Change Your Mind
Forget about the reasons President Barack Obama (D), Vice President Joe Biden (D), Senator John Kerry (D-MA), Caroline Kennedy, and all the others gushers spouted for re-electing the Obama-Biden duo Thursday night. You'd better vote for them or else...
Or else what? For starters, they can sic the Justice Department on you. Don't believe me? Just look what happened to Gallup, the eminently fair polling organization, when it mentioned that gasp! Mitt Romney (R) was beating Obama. According to the Daily Caller
Internal emails between senior officials at The Gallup Organization, obtained by The Daily Caller, show senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod attempting to subtly intimidate the respected polling firm when its numbers were unfavorable to the president.
After Gallup declined to change its polling methodology, Obama's Department of Justice hit it with an unrelated lawsuit that appears damning on its face. (snip)
Since Gallup first roused Axelrod's ire, Obama's Justice Department revived old allegations against the firm that, according to now former Gallup employee Michael Lindley, the polling company violated the False Claims Act by over-charging the federal government for its services.
In August, Justice signed on to a suit Lindley filed in 2009. Lindley alleged, according to The Associated Press, that Gallup filed false claims with the federal government on contracts it had with the State Department, the U.S. Mint and other federal agencies.
Some of the Gallup people involved felt so intimidated that
In response to that email, a third senior Gallup official said he thought Axelrod's pressure "sounds a little like a Godfather situation."
"Imagine Axel[rod] with Brando's voice: '[Name redacted], I'd like you to come over and explain your methodology... You got a nice poll there... would be a shame if anything happened to it...'"
Axelrod would make them an offer they couldn't refuse. And if that pressure didn't work why the anonymous worker's head might end up on the pillow of his boss.
That's the vaunted Chicago Way the Obamas and Emanuel and Axelrod are so proudly trying to foist on the rest of the country.
And not so incidentally, Chicago has the highest murder rate in the nation while the state's bond ratings dropped again last week.
Whoops! Watch out ratings agencies--you're next.