Education Secretary Betsy DeVos wants to prosecute whistle blowers, while EPA chief Scott Pruitt is punishing high ranking officials who question his decision making.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos asked her department’s Office of Inspector General whether grounds existed to prosecute employees who leaked budget data to The Washington Post and unclassified information to Politico, according to an internal department report. 

The response: It would be challenging, because the department has “little” written policy or guidance on how employees are supposed to handle information. 

“While evaluating the . . . incidents of alleged unauthorized releases of non-public information, we identified challenges to criminal prosecution or taking significant administrative actions against individuals responsible for the release of this type of information,” the report said.

Actually whistle blowers are supposed to be protected, and have provided a valuable service throughout the history of this country. (Remember Watergate?)

You would think that a person in charge of education might have known that.

However as it turns out this punish the dissidents idea is rampant throughout the Trump Administration.

Courtesy of TPM: 

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reassigned or demoted at least five high-ranking officials who questioned his spending and other leadership decisions — including the purchase of pricey office furniture and Pruitt’s desire to use sirens to cut through D.C. traffic — according to a New York Times report Thursday afternoon. Four of the officials were career staff and one was a political appointee. 

The Times reports that the political appointee, Kevin Chmielewski, was put on administrative leave without pay after Chmielewski raised concerns about Pruitt’s behavior with the White House’s presidential personnel office. 

Additionally, Chmielewski and three of the career staffers are reported to have confronted Pruitt directly about his use of taxpayer dollars — particularly, a proposal to buy a $100,000-a-month charter aircraft membership that was eventually scuttled, and an effort to shell out $70,000 to replace two desks in Pruitt’s office. 

The sidelined officials also incurred Pruitt’s ire by pushing back on his desire to use sirens in his motorcade in non-emergency situations, including en route to dinner at the chic restaurant Le Diplomate, and were hesitant to approve his frequent first-class and charter flights, his unprecedented 20-member security team, and his request for a bulletproof sport utility vehicle.

So the real sin in the Trump Administration is not the wasting of taxpayer money, but reporting the wasting of taxpayer money.

Drain the swamp my ass!

Trump's Interior Department retaliates against whistle blower who revealed how climate change was affecting Alaska villages.

Courtesy of ADN:

An Interior Department executive-turned-whistleblower who claimed the Trump administration retaliated against him for publicly disclosing how climate change impacts Alaska Native communities resigned Wednesday. 

Joel Clement, a scientist and policy expert, was removed from his job by Secretary Ryan Zinke shortly after the disclosure and reassigned to an accounting position for which he has no experience. Clement was among dozens of senior executive service personnel who were quickly, and perhaps unlawfully, reassigned in June, but he was the only person who spoke out. 

Interior's inspector general is probing the reassignments to determine whether the process was legal. By law, executives are to be given ample notice of a job switch. Many of those reassigned say they were given no notice, according to attorneys who are representing some of the employees. The inspector general said Clement is on the list of employees being contacted, though Clement and his lawyer say that hasn't happened in the more than two months since the evaluation launched.

Zinke is looking to cut about 4,000 jobs at the Interior Department, and has publicly stated that about 30% of the employees there are "not loyal to the flag." Which we can assume means they are not buckling under to pressure to lie about scientific findings, or to push push the Trump agenda.

As for the affect of climate change in Alaska....

...trust me that those living in rural communities are all too aware of what it is doing to the state.

President Obama had an actual plan to help, and to rescue native communities in danger.

Donald Trump apparently just has people fired who point out the obvious.

To date there is only one CIA agent who has been jailed over the agency's torture program. And that is the man who blew the whistle on it in the first place.

Courtesy of the Washingtonian:  

In 2007, 15-year CIA veteran John Kiriakou told an ABC News reporter that his agency had waterboarded an Al Qaeda detainee, Abu Zubaydah, whom Kiriakou was involved in capturing in 2002. His revelation confirmed to the American public the CIA’s torture program and helped spur a years-long Senate investigation and a damning, 6,000-page report, the abstract of which was released this week. 

Kiriakou pleaded guilty in 2012 to disclosing classified information, including the name of a fellow CIA operative, to a New York Times reporter. In early 2013, he reported to the a federal prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania, to begin serving a 30-month sentence. Kiriakou, along with supporters that include his congressman, Virginia Democrat Jim Moran, says the real point of his prosecution was to silence him and others from talking about torture. 

To be clear, torturing detainees, many of who had no intelligence to share, is not an offense requiring imprisonment,

Ordering that practice, even though America is morally and legally against such practices, is not an offense requiring imprisonment.

However blowing the whistle on these illegal and immoral activities IS an offense requiring imprisonment.

Just so we are clear.

Just what exactly have we become?

Former National Guard member says that he blew the whistle on the scandals seven years ago but nobody would listen.

Sarah Palin with Alaska National Guard troops during her time as Governor.

Courtesy of KTUU:

A former Alaska National Guard member said he blew the whistle to his chain of command more than seven years before the federal Department of Defense's Office of Complex Investigations issued a report in September detailing allegations of sexual assault, abuse of power and cover-ups. 

"What I found out is we were paying for products more than once," Blaylock said. "We only had one product for advertising, and yet we were paying for it more than twice. The money was going somewhere it didn't need to go to." 

Blaylock said in 2007, he alerted Catherine Jorgensen, who was then the Guard's deputy chief of staff and personnel, and Gen. Tom Katkus, before he was promoted to adjutant general, that he was suspicious of soldiers using money from the recruiting and retention account. 

After raising concerns to his chain of command, Blaylock said he was reassigned to another unit. 

He also began hearing from fellow Guardsmen and Guardswomen about other problems. 

"When the first sexual assault victims started talking to me, it wasn't like they were just coming forward, saying they had been raped," Blaylock said. "It wasn't like they said, 'Hey, sir, I've been raped.' They were just talking. They wanted to talk and tell someone about it. They would tell me bits and pieces, but never quite get to the point. When I finally went back and there were four of them one right after the other, I confronted them, just asked them: 'Were you raped?' They said yes. And I said, 'Was it by someone in the National Guard?' (They said) 'Yes.'" 

"Many of them told me they had tried to talk to law enforcement in the past and nothing had happened," said Blaylock.

It is incredible that not only were they ignored by the National Guard, but that even other law enforcement in Alaska failed to take them seriously or move to protect them.

Blaylock said that he tried to repeatedly to get somebody in his chain of command to take him seriously but that it failed him, and that he was not taken seriously until he stepped outside that chain of command and reported his concerns to Department of Defense National Guard Bureau.

This is how he claims he was treated by his superiors:

"I was labeled a crackpot by General Katkus," Blaylock said. "Essentially, anything I tried to bring forward after that was muddied because my name was attached to it. I had a lot of people who basically wouldn't talk to me, including in law enforcement."

Boy that certainly sounds familiar. 

Well now this is absolutely being noticed in the national media, and I have to say that this does not look good for a certain Alaska Governor.

NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents. 

Most of the infractions involve unauthorized surveillance of Americans or foreign intelligence targets in the United States, both of which are restricted by statute and executive order. They range from significant violations of law to typographical errors that resulted in unintended interception of U.S. e-mails and telephone calls. 

The documents, provided earlier this summer to The Washington Post by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, include a level of detail and analysis that is not routinely shared with Congress or the special court that oversees surveillance. 

In one of the documents, agency personnel are instructed to remove details and substitute more generic language in reports to the Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In one instance, the NSA decided that it need not report the unintended surveillance of Americans. A notable example in 2008 was the interception of a “large number” of calls placed from Washington when a programming error confused the U.S. area code 202 for 20, the international dialing code for Egypt, according to a “quality assurance” review that was not distributed to the NSA’s oversight staff.

These are more disturbing facts that we would not even know about unless Edward Snowden had stolen them, and then disseminated them to journalists. And it cannot be argued that knowing this is NOT important to the American people, or that without Snowden we ever WOULD have known about it.

However, as I have mentioned before, Snowden abdicated his right to be called a heroic whistle blower when he fled to, first China, and then Russia.

It also appears that the relationship between Wiki-leaks, Russia, and Snoweden is convoluted and suspicious at best. 

This from Business Insider: 

Ever since the 30-year-old ex-Booz Allen contractor got on a flight from Hong Kong to Moscow, Russia and WikiLeaks have been working parallel to each other. 

On June 23, after the U.S. voided Snowden's passport while he was in Hong Kong, WikiLeaks tweeted that the organization "assisted Mr. Snowden's political asylum in a democratic country, travel papers ans [sic] safe exit from Hong Kong." 

That was followed by the update that "Mr. Snowden is currently over Russian airspace accompanied by WikiLeaks legal advisors." 

It turned out that Assange convinced Ecuador's consul in London to provide a travel document requesting that authorities allow Snowden to travel to Ecuador "for the purpose of political asylum." The country's president subsequently said the document was "completely invalid." 

When Snowden arrived in Moscow with void travel papers, all signs suggest that Russia's domestic intelligence service (i.e. FSB) took control of him. 

That day a radio host in Moscow "saw about 20 Russian officials, supposedly FSB agents, in suits, crowding around somebody in a restricted area of the airport," according to Anna Nemtsova of Foreign Policy. 

WikiLeaks, meanwhile, insisted that Snowden was "not being 'debriefed' by the FSB." 

Nevertheless, Snowden's FSB-linked Moscow lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, has been speaking for Snowden ever since Snowden accepted all offers for support and asylum on July 12.

You know Snowden COULD have been a real national symbol for privacy concerns in this country. He could have actually been the hero that so many want to believe that he is. 

He could have been those things, but no more.

This should give those who support Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald a moment of pause.

Greenwald: NSA Has Trillions of Telephone Calls in Databases http://t.co/XSxNudbbPu
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) July 29, 2013

Greenwald on James Clapper: It’s Amazing He Hasn’t Been Prosecuted and Still Has His Job http://t.co/Y8TyTcScKt
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) July 29, 2013

Look it does not NECESSARILY mean that just because Sarah Palin and Breitbart News are on your side that your side is wrong. But it certainly doesn't help.

Here is an Edward Snowden Timeline which might give you pause.

Edward Snowden in Moscow Airports, sitting next to Sarah Harrison of Wikileaks

Courtesy of Joshua Foust:  

July 18, 2012: Wikileaks is reported to be nearing bankruptcy due to a freeze-out by banks. 

December 2012: Freedom of the Press Foundation, which has Glenn Greenwald and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras on their board of directors, announces their launch with the explicit purpose of funneling money to Wikileaks. 

December 2012: According to Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden first emailed him, anonymously. In an interview with Harpers, Greenwald says he initially ignored the emails. 

January, 2013: Edward Snowden contacted documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, according to an interview in Salon. Poitras notes her familiarity with encryption methods thanks to her close contact with Wikileaks for a previous film, and her involvement with TOR developer and hacker Jacob Appelbaum (who was investigated for his ties to Wikileaks in 2011). 

February-May 2013: Snowden exchanges emails with Greenwald and Poitras, according to the Washington Post, but does not reveal his identity. 

March, 2013: Snowden takes “infrastructure analyst” job at Booz Allen Hamilton for the explicit purpose of stealing documents from the NSA, according to an interview he gave the South China Morning Post. 

April, 2013: Jacob Appelbaum goes on vacation in Hawaii, according to a June 25 talk he gave in Berlin (approximately 25:30 into the video). He does not report having any contact with Snowden. 

May 1, 2013: A real estate agent in Hawaii says Snowden and his girlfriend moved out of their house, but did not know where they went afterward. 

May, 2013: Poitras and Appelbaum conduct an interview via encrypted email with Snowden, asking detailed technical questions to ensure Snowden possessed the skills and knowledge he claimed. Appelbaum says in an interview in Der Spiegel that he did not know Snowden’s identity. Appelbaum does not release any further details about the content of the technical discussion. 

Early May, 2013: Snowden “indirectly” contacts Barton Gellman (the meaning of “indirectly” is unclear), who begins working on the PRISM story at the Washington Post. 

May 16, 2013: Snowden directly communicates with Gellman for the first time (the meanings of “direct” and “indirect” are unclear). 

May 20, 2013: Snowden flees Hawaii for Hong Kong, winding up in the Mira Hotel. 

May 24, 2013: Snowden tells Gellman of his desire to apply for asylum in Iceland, then asks Gellman to “publish — within 72 hours — the full text of a PowerPoint presentation describing PRISM.” When Gellman balks, Snowden apparently contacts Greenwald. 

June 6, 2013: The Guardian publishes the first in its ongoing cache of documents provided by Snowden. 

June 9, 2013: The Guardian reveals Edward Snowden as the source of the leaks and publishes the first of two video interviews with him. Snowden says of his leaking: “I have no intention of hiding who I am because I know I have done nothing wrong.” 

June 10, 2013: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange praises Snowden as a hero from the Ecuadorian embassy in London. 

June 10, 2013: Snowden checks out of the Mira Hotel in Hong Kong, whereabouts unknown. 

June 19, 2013: Assange says Wikileaks is giving Snowden legal counsel and helping him “broker” asylum. 

June 22, 2013: A New York Times story included “a person familiar with the case” saying Snowden was staying at an apartment under Hong Kong police protection. It is removed within 24 hours.

 June 23, 2013: Snowden leaves for Moscow. The Wall Street Journal reports that Wikileaks advised Snowden to leave Hong Kong; fearing a loss of internet access, he does. A source tells the WSJ no Chinese officials were involved in his departure; a New York Times report disagrees. Izvestia, a state-owned Russian newspaper, writes that the Kremlin and its intelligence services collaborated with Wikileaks to help Snowden escape from Hong Kong (Wikileaks did not mention any official involvement in Snowden’s departure from Hong Kong in their press statements). 

June 28, 2013: The AP reports that the transit hotel where Snowden is staying costs $300 per night. 

July 4, 2013: Israel Shamir, a Wikileaks spokesman (Wikileaks denies this, but former Wikileaks employees insist he worked closely with Julian Assange. Shamir had earlier helped Belarussian dictator Alexandr Lukashenka oppress dissidents with Wikileaks data, and was placed in charge of editing Russian-language cables), praises Snowden to Zavtra, an anti-Semitic Russian-nationalist magazine edited by Alexander Prokhanov (whose own background of communism and anti-Semitism is worth noting). Shamir favorably compares Snowden to renowned British defector Kim Philby. 

July 9, 2013: Bernd Fix, a fundraiser for Wikileaks, says the group has gone from raising €2,000 a month in 2012 to €1,000 a day, still below the group’s high of €20,000 a month in 2010.

There's  more, a lot more, and all of it backed up with links, but you get the idea.

So the question, besides Snowden's motives, is WHO has been helping Snowden, and what are THEIR motives?

It also should be noted that Russia has not officially given Snowden asylum, and that Eric Holder issued a letter to Russia saying that if returned Snowden would not be executed, nor face torture.

Which may mean that he is in no way out of the woods yet. In fact the Russian woods may be much worse for him in the long run than anything he might face in the United States.

Sarah Palin once again tears the scabs off of old wounds and blames the McCain campaign for not allowing her to rip President Obama's jugular out back in 2008.Update!

Here is a preview of the lunacy that will pour out of Palin's mouth tonight on Greta's show:

"You saw what happened back in 2008, I believe that's when it started, when the media decided to just go along, to get along with Obama. Ingratiating themselves with him and vice versa. What we saw was uh..uh..these attempts to destroy the whistle blowers, those who were telling the truth even in the campaign, those who were bringing up the name Jeremiah Wright, and the racist church he leads, that Obama was a member of for over twenty years. Though I was...during the campaign...running for VP, I was banned from talking about Jeremiah Wright and Obama's friend Bill Ayers, who is the character he befriended, and kicked off his political campaign in the guy's living room. Couldn't talk about that, couldn't talk about Obama's lack of knowledge and um...job experience, and the things that he said like uh..America had fifty seven states, things like that. In a campaign, Greta this is important for Americans to understand. I was not allowed to talk about things like that because those 'elitists,' those who are the 'brainiacs' in the GOP machine running John McCain's campaign said at the time that the media would eat us alive if we brought up these things. So what did that get us though? That got us this...um..kind of complacency and self censoring of a campaign, where we were not allowed to tell the truth about who this candidate was, Barack Obama. What it got us was (Holds up the back of manila envelope with a list showing Benghazi, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, GSA, Holder perjury, IRS, and so on.) a list of these scandals. This is kind of the redneck version of one of those "elitist" tactics of Karl Rove. How he uses his whiteboard, This is the redneck version of a whiteboard. And on this lists the scandals that are destroying America Greta."

Holy shit!

Okay clearly somebody pissed in her cornflakes today!

So let's see, Palin was just like the whistle blowers of today back in 2008, the "elitists" would not let her win the campaign for McCain though of course she could have, and the so-called "scandals" being pimped by the Right Wing are "destroying America."

Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, BENGHAZI!!!! BENGHAZI!!!!BENGHAZI!!!!!

(P.S. If you think I am exaggerating, or need to hear it for yourself, just click the link at the top to watch the video.)

Update: Here is the entire interview. Might want to have a barf bag handy.

The tide of public opinion has turned on Edward Snowden.

Courtesy of Business Insider: 

The American public's views of National Security Agency leak source Edward Snowden have flipped in the past month, according to one poll — and now most support him being charged with a crime. 

According to the ABC-Washington Post poll, 53% say that Snowden should be charged with a crime after exposing a trove of NSA secrets, compared with 36% who disagree. That's a sharp turn from the point immediately after his revelations in June, when Americans opposed him being charged by a 48-43 margin. 

According to the ABC-WaPo poll, 57% of Americans believe that it is more important for the NSA to "investigate possible terrorist threats, even if that intrudes on personal privacy" — the Obama administration's justification for the programs. Only 39% think it's more important for the government not to intrude on personal privacy, "even if that limits its ability to investigate possible terrorist threats." 

You know I am one who was very upset to learn that the Bush era domestic surveillance had not only continued but that it had expanded. However Snowden was never a sympathetic figure in my mind, and I was always suspicious of his motivations.

Now that he is hiding from the authorities in Vladimir Putin's Russia I have nothing but disdain for him and believe that if he ever DID have a crack at heroism he pissed it away the day he landed in that Moscow airport. Or perhaps even earlier when he landed in the Hong Kong airport.

If Snowden had really wanted to become a martyr that people would rally around he needed to stay in America and make sure the details of the American NSA program were made public to Americans, and NOT make them vulnerable to America's enemies.

I am not a nationalist but this to me is treason, and may NOT have been considered so if he had made it a top priority to protect his country as well as the sensitive information of its citizens.

Believe me I have a completely different emotional response to learning that MY country is scooping up my data then I do if I find out that Russia is now capable of doing so as well.

It looks like Edward Snowden might finally have found somebody who wants him.

Courtesy of Yahoo News:

The rest of the world may not want him, but NSA leaker Edward Snowden has at least one potential taker: Anna Chapman. The ex-spy tweeted yesterday, “Snowden, will you marry me?!” 

The former Russian spy may have sympathy for the man who spilled top-secret documents. Chapman, after all, is no stranger to run-ins with government authorities. 

The 31-year-old had been posing as a real-estate agent in the United States in 2010 when she was accused of gathering intel for Russia. She and nine others were deported back to Russia in a prisoner swap.

Somehow I think this is just a publicity stunt on the part of Chapman, which illustrates the sideshow quality that his situation has taken on.

However if she is at all serious I think this might be the first time since this whole thing began that I was actually jealous of Snowden.

I mean damn!

Vladamir Putin tells Snowden to stop leaking secrets, while Snowden desperately looks for a country that will offer him asylum.

Comrade, do us all a favor and shut the hell up!

Courtesy of the BBC:  

Russian President Vladimir Putin has told fugitive former CIA-analyst Edward Snowden to stop leaking US secrets if he wants to remain in the country. 

He said Moscow had never extradited anyone before and "has no intention to do so", adding Mr Snowden was free to go if granted asylum elsewhere. 

Edward Snowden, 30, is believed to be holed up in a Moscow airport hotel.

That might be a moot point as it appears that Snowden has already handed journalists all of the secrets they would possibly want and they are releasing them as they see fit.

While all of that is going on Snowden is trying to find SOMEBODY who will take him and provide him with asylum.

This from the LA Times:  

Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked U.S. security secrets and is now a fugitive, met Monday morning with Russian diplomatic officials and handed them an appeal to 15 countries for political asylum, a Russian Foreign Ministry official told The Times. 

“It was a desperate measure on his part after Ecuador disavowed his political protection credentials,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. ”In the document Snowden reiterated once again that he is not a traitor and explained his actions only by a desire to open the world’s eyes on the flagrant violations by U.S. special services not only of American citizens but also citizens of European Union including their NATO allies.” 

The official didn’t disclose the countries that were on the list. The meeting took place at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport, where Snowden has apparently holed up in a transit lounge since fleeing from Hong Kong while seeking a route to Ecuador or somewhere else that might grant him asylum.

At this point Snowden is a hot potato for which nobody is wiling to risk a burn.

Anybody who takes him will attract the wrath of not only the United States, but also every other country whose secretes are now being disseminated around the world. 

At this point it seems it would just be better fro Snowden to return to America and face the consequences. There is a lot of support for him here, and with his day in court he will have the opportunity to make his case and get out even more information.

Edward Snowden on way to Ecuador. So what do we think of this?

Courtesy of RT News:  

The plane carrying whistleblower Edward Snowden has landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. The former CIA contractor, who left Hong Kong in a bid to elude US extradition on espionage charges, is on his way to a ‘third country’ via Russia. 

Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino announced via twitter that Snowden had applied for asylum. 

Interfax news agency is citing an unnamed source in Sheremetyevo airport management, saying that Snowden is still at the airport. 

"Snowden is a transit passenger, his next flight is to Cuba, he remains in the airport complex – where he’s supposed to be, waiting for the next flight," the source said. 

A source at Aeroflot Russian Airlines told the agency that the whistleblower, who is accompanied by WikiLeaks representative, Sarah Harrison, has rented a suit at the airport’s «V-Express» Capsule Hotel. 

“He arrived. But he can’t leave the terminal because he doesn’t have a Russian visa,” the source said. 

Two cars with diplomatic license plates of Ecuador – the country named among Snowden’s possible destinations – were spotted at Sheremetyevo airport. 

Ecuador’s ambassador to Russia, Patricio Chavez, arrived at Sheremetyevo Airport after Edward Snowden's plane touched down in Moscow. 

Okay I am not going to prejudice any discussion by telling all of you what I am thinking about this whole thing right now, though I ma thinking quite a lot actually, and instead open up the floor to discussion on whether you think Snowden a hero, a criminal, a dupe, or a facade for others to hide behind.

I will weigh in with one opinion however. I saw Glenn Greenwald on MTP today, and he came off as a complete asshole. Not that assholes can't be right, but he did not do himself too many favors with his attitude and arrogance.

I'm just saying.

Police officer fired for reporting that police assigned to protect President were making threats against his life.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

A Richmond police officer who reported fellow cops for allegedly threatening President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama has been fired from his job on the force. 

WTVR on Wednesday confirmed that the officer, who did not wish to be named, had been called to police headquarters where he was terminated on Tuesday. 

The officer blew the whistle on a 20-year department veteran and other members of the Richmond force after they made inappropriate comments while providing protection to the president and first lady. 

“There was an officer providing exterior security to the president on that day on the phone with the supervisor,” the whistleblower explained to WTVR last May. “The supervisor said to that particular officer, ‘you’re down there right? So, you can take a couple of shots, you might have to kill yourself, but you can take a couple of shots.’” 

He said that the supervisor made those comments to a sharpshooter on the day of the president’s visit to Richmond. 

And “another officer in the background started talking and he said, ‘yeah, somebody should plant a bomb underneath the stage while they’re on there and blow it up,’” the source said. 

Inappropriate remarks were also made about Michelle Obama. 

“Nobody wants to see her anyway — unless she gets undressed or get [sic] naked,” an officer allegedly said. 

On Wednesday, the whistleblower told WTVR that he had been fired for violating department policy by doing an interview with the station. 

Virginia employment attorney Thomas Robert pointed out that the officer should have been protected under the First Amendment because he was “speaking about a matter of public concern as a citizen.” 

WTF? How is this guy not considered a hero and given a commendation for exposing officers making terrorist threats against our President?

And I don't give a shit if they were saying those things in jest or not, when a person makes jokes about a bomb on a plane they find themselves detained, and getting grilled by Homeland Security. I would think that making even casual remarks about harming the President, especially a President who receives as many death threats as this one, would be considered extremely serious and the person that brought them to the attention of the authorities should expect to have his job protected.