FDA employees claim they’re forced to watch Fox News
According to the UK’s Independent, Federal Drug Administration employees have been instructed by the Trump Administration to watch Fox News instead of their usual CNN. There’s no evidence of the order, but that doesn’t stop folks from speculating;
Screen shot of #FDA email announcing all FoxNews all the time, on FDA TVs. pic.twitter.com/RleGhrO6Ws
— Paul Thacker (@thackerpd) May 5, 2017
“The reason for the change is that a decision from the current administration administrative officials has requested that all monitors, under our control, on the White Oak Campus, display Fox News.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, but I am unable to change any of the monitors to any other news source at this time.”
The email was sent to workers at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), the branch that regulates medical products.
An FDA spokesperson denied people had been ordered to watch Fox News, telling ThinkProgress: “There was no directive or memorandum from the Administration that went out to employees about broadcast news channels displaying on monitors in common areas throughout the FDA’s White Oak campus.”
The article continues about how President Trump doesn’t like CNN but loves Fox News and somehow that lends credibility to a single email.
I remember when President Obama took over and waiting rooms in Walter Reed and at the VA switched over to CNN from Fox. I guess I’m a higher life form because I was able to look away from the CNN broadcasts.
Category: Media
And we give a $#!+ about the cretins in FDA why? Til they back off the BS about regulating my good cigars out of affordability, I say that’s a good intro to the torture they need
Are the FDA peeps the people who said we shouldn’t eat baloney, when they are mostly baloney?
They’re supposed to be inspecting dairy cows, not watching TV. I want my tax money back.
Good point, why the hell to so many government organizations have flat screen TVs, cable, etc?
One of the Army Reserve Regional Support Commands, in about 2012-13 had 22 flat screen TVs in their main entrance. I asked why they’d need that many in their main lobby? Someone dimed them out and they had to take them down so I hear. They were supposed to get like 2 and the other 20 were supposed to go to subordinate units.
At the same time, my last unit tried to get one TV with cable installed in our HQ so we had a news source along with a capacity to watch video GTAs. We got the TV, but no cable. (Even though the Air Force across the hall had Cable TV, we weren’t allowed to take from their feed.)
False flag football from butt hurt Obama holdovers
Glad I didn’t have coffee in my mouth when I read that.
WTF are they doing watching TV in the first place? Get rid of the television at the FDA all together. Problem solved. They can do what little work they actually get done without it.
We pay to the television, its installation and maintenance, the cable bill, and we pay them to watch it. I keep telling people I would make Trump look very liberal. Tired of paying for all this shit.
Personally, I listen to videos and news while I’m performing tasks that allow for such things. As far as I know the D0D pays a flat fee anyway, so whether I watch/listen or not they get the same bill.
I’d survive without it, so it makes no difference to me.
We have a big flat screen in my office. During the day it displays the graphics fire desk that displays all the SDZs for all our active ranges. If there is nothing going on at night the night shift can switch it to cable.
Work at a construction contractor, so our TVs show traffic and weather. It really does help.
“A Person” I know works for a rather prestigious branch of the Federal Government. After the election someone or some people were upset at what channel the TV in the “break room” was on.
Evidently, they would change the channel to the one of their preference and then hide the remote. The TV being positioned in a manner that made it problematic to manually change it, a great disturbance in the force ensued.
“Management” had to step in. First of all, the break room is provided to people who work in an office environment to start with. WTF are they taking a break from? Sit on their ass all day and have a piss fit if they can’t go sit on their ass and watch the channel of their choice in a break room.
I could care less what a private company does or does not provide in regards to break rooms. Its their money…they are free to piss it away in any manner they choose.
I have an idea, let all these soft ass people spend on week beside me every day. Do what I do, eat when I eat, sleep when I sleep. Wait, better yet have them go to work with people in the private sector. You know, the average guy that gets up every day.
Back in the day I was driving the entire family on a 10 hour trip. The kids were all fighting over the little Nintendo Gameboy. It went on for a while and I threw it out the window. Before the age of 10 they learned that if you make something a bigger pain in the ass than it is worth…it gets gone.
If people are paid from tax funds…all I expect is a thank you for providing the nice, neat, clean, air conditioned, environment they work in.
Problems with break rooms and TV’s can be solved with the window. Parenting skills have gone to hell.
Dave…I never woulda guessed you were a part time good idea fairy. 🙂
“I guess I’m a higher life form because I was able to look away from the CNN broadcasts.”
That is a given, Jonn.
Let ’em eat cake and watch Fox while they enjoy it over at the FDA. It makes as much sense to mandate one channel as the other. But it did annoy the crap out me to be in any federal building with a screen and see CNN all the time.
I hear that, I had to go to the other end of the waiting room to GTF away from The View last time I went to the VA Clinic.
Stayed in a hotel recently in the DC suburbs that had CNN on all the time in the lobby/breakfast area. My buddy found the remote and switched one to Fox. A big cheer went up from the crowd and many moved to be closer to that TV.
Pro Tip: Many smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy series have a built in infrared transmitter and there are many apps available to emulate an IR remote. All you need from there is the brand name of the TV 😉
OR universal pocket-sized remotes like this one which they say works on about 90% of the TVs out there. I had fun with the chow hall TVs in Kuwait using mine, FUCK MSDNC.
http://www.prankplace.com/covert-clicker-remote-control-p/bm-bm1103.htm
Recommendation on a specific app?
For android, search the play stroe for IR Remote. Try the “IR Universal TV Remote” (it has a red icon with “IR” in white).
Dunno, but the USASOC V-Brick on my computer has
Time Warner
The Weather Channel
Fox
CNN
CNN HLN
C-Span
ESPN
BBC World News
Additionally our internet doesn’t keep us from going to youtube, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, etc.
Doesn’t seem to be any censorship here on Bragg
oh…they did start blocking all email sites besides official outlook…I can’t even go to my college email anymore. There were security concerns behind that. That was in effect during the Obama administration though.
So I can send you any more kitty pron? You’d get such a kick out of watching cats on catnip highs.
My cats are sad.
Cats on a nip binge are hilarious.
Watching them chase laser pointers is even better.
My neighbors had three sets of blinds destroyed by their cats before they just said screw it and left them up.
Never did suspect it was my laser….
Even if I didn’t know you, Just that comment alone would tell me you’re a bubblehead. 😉
You can still get to facebook though right? I recall when I came back from Afghanistan and suddenly facebook was accessible from Army computers.
That was the day work efficiency suddenly went down about 20% for some reason. Must’ve been juts a coincidence…
It looks like you can get to FB…but I never log into my account at work anyway.
Dunno about efficiency…I’m thankfully not assigned to falsify or verify such statistics. 🙂
I’m still fuzzy on whether accessing TAH from a government computer will get me sent to the gulag, as per Disbarred Attorney Daniel Bernath.
when I worked for ICE doing investigations we could get to Facespace only on certain computers. They blocked all outside email accounts because idiots were clicking on links that infected our systems. We had a lot of very sensitive info. I can’t talk about it any further. I’m sure you understand. LOL!!!!
Works just fine from mine. Been checking it occasionally since 2012ish.
HLN with Robin Meade was a mandatory go in the 325th when she did morning news. With a rack like that on the big screen in the day room, what a way to start a morning.
Yeah? Did anyone pay attention to the news reports?
She did news reports?
The Trump admin is forcing them to watch Fox News.
What total horseshit. NO way that is happening.
Maybe it will irritate the FDA “workers” so much that they’ll quit (instead of going through the wasteful time consuming process of trying to fire them).
I know at the VA hospital I go to all the TVs were set to CNN 24/7. I guess I’ll have to go check and see if they’ve switched to fox or are still on CNN.
See Arby’s post above. Then, if you don’t have a Samsung G series phone, find a friend. Problem solved, and an added bonus of driving the bureaucrats nuts.
my LG G4 does the same thing ^_^
Good to know, I’ll have to check that out the next time I’m there. I have that app on my phone since its an S7.
Must be nice, having a six-figure job that gives you time enough to watch fucking television during your workday.
LOL..You know there are many people at the FDA that make less than 50K a year right? I dunno where the idea comes from that all government jobs pay 6 figures. That is patently false, the majority of federal jobs pay much less than that.
Bingo. In the Federal civil service, an employee has to be a senior GS-12 – or serve at a higher grade – to make $100k annually. In most of the US, it requires being a GS-13 or above.
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2017/saltbl.pdf
You mean that they all didn’t get promoted to GS-12 or above for putting an Obama poster up in their office for the last 8 years?
I don’t know where we get that strange idea:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-eye/wp/2013/04/09/despite-salary-rate-freeze-average-federal-salary-rises/?utm_term=.b0df2e91d428
2013: Average salary $78K, median $74.5K. that is only 75-78% of six figures.
But wait that does not factor in benefits that most civilian workers don’t get, like defined benefit retirement, locality pay and being forced to watch Fox News all day. How does that change things?
http://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2015/10/feds-earn-78-more-private-sector-workers-study-finds/122586/
That study is kind of one sided. Note that farther down they compare the different studies. Not surprisingly if you read the Federal Government studies they say there is a “pay gap”. They say that they need to increase the pay to attract quality applicants.
Strange thing though. Every Federal Job opening gets hundreds (sometimes thousands) of applicants. All these great Americans (and others) wanting to sign up and earn less money. They just don’t realize they are foolish for wanting to make less money.
Did Feds get paid too much? I am not sure. The only thing I can say with any certainty is that the ones I used to work with were overpaid and underworked. They were all 12’s and up.
I would suggest balancing out those news reports by taking a trip to the federal jobs website and look at a few occupations that you may actually have knowledge about, compare the government pay to current private sector pays and draw your own conclusions.
although…”the ones I used to work with were overpaid and underworked.”
It kinda looks like your mind was already made up when you went mining for data.
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2017/GS.pdf
GS14 step 6 is the first place you see someone making over 100k
Locality pay of course matters.
With a NC locality pay added that increases the pay about 15%, so the first place you see $100K is at the GS13 step 6 level
Not the best example, IDC SARC. That’s the theoretical “base” GS pay scale – and as far as I know, it was only used for non-IC jobs overseas (if I recall correctly, Federal civilian employees in overseas locations got a non-taxable COLA that was on top of the “base” GS-pay instead). Its use may have been discontinued overseas – it has in AK and HI, where locality pay tables are now used. The base scale is now not used anywhere within the USA.
The link I provided in my first comment above gives that theoretical “base” pay table – PLUS the full set of tables actually in use in the USA, with locality pay included. There are close to 50 of them, including a catch-all “Rest of United States” (RUS) table for regions not covered by one of the other pay tables in the set. I’m pretty sure the RUS table is the one used at Fort Bragg.
sorry, I was running around and posting…grabbed what I thought was the current scale off the OPM website and looked at locality pay for NC.
Good thing I didn’t link the retired SOF link that shows I make a million working one hour a day one day a year…that woulda been disastrous.
checked my LES…locality pay here is 19.02%
Actually, OPM the pay tables I linked DO include locality pay. That’s why there are close to 50 of them, each for different geographical regions. One of those is a “Rest of the United States” table which includes all regions in CONUS that don’t fall into another defined region.
Fringe benefits are routinely not included in salary comparisons, as they vary widely from employer to employer and absent a labor contract requiring them are subject to change at the employer’s discretion. (They’re also by definition not “salary”; they cannot be forgone in exchange for additional financial compensation.) So comparing salary among employers by design excludes fringe benefits.
Salary =/= “total compensation” – which in turn is =/= “employer cost of an employee”.
You also might want to look up the definition of median. Since the median Federal salary is less than $75k, that means that far fewer than 1/2 of Federal civilian employees have an average salary of $100k+. My guess is in the 75% range.
If you’re basing your observations based on what you’ve seen in the DC area, well, in terms of Federal employment (like everything else) the DC area is atypical. Since it’s national HQ for the Federal govt, grades are skewed higher there – just like they are in a major command HQ. Get away from DC, ant the picture changes dramatically..
I know first-hand that Texas state employees get much less than that, and some FOBs have better facilities than we do.
Just sayin’.
Regardless of GS rating, if you’ve got time to watch TV, how vital is your job to running the country?
dunno…don’t care. But I’m proud to do my part regardless.
I work for the federal govt. We have the news on in the background for breaking events. Most of the time, I don’t even pay attention.
I’d venture that’s the way it is in most offices.
Give them a choice: Fox or BET.
BET has it’s merits…especially if you turn the sound down and just watch for the pookie.
IDC: If pookie means what I think it means, I wouldn’t have to wait long to see it on BET.
Not that I care one way or the other what they watch, but if you fear you might spontaneously combust watching FOX news, you might oughta stay home with your puppies, bubbles, and coloring books while watching Sesame Street.
don’t forget the play doh
But they can’t watch Sesame Street anymore, those damn evil republicans defunded it, remember?
Our son complained all of the TV’s at Barksdale Air Force Patch were only tuned to CNN during Obama. I checked out Little Rock AFB and they were all on CNN. I’ll check it out on the next trip.
Yeah, because nobody has ever gotten a fake email before.
I recommend they watch the Spice channel.
This is simply butthurt sparkle ponies b!tching because someone allowed Fox into the mix.
Someone I know pretty well recently worked at a DoD Agency in the DC area. There were 3 news channels available on internal cable in the break rooms (1 per floor) and hallway TVs: Fox, MSNBC, and CNN.
Official policy was that the internal agency channel rotated among the 3. Some of the employees actually complained about Fox coming up in the rotation.
The “greater” (to use the term loosely) DC area (DC/NoVA/surrounding counties in MD) is NOT AT ALL close to the same, culturally, as the rest of the nation – and people who live there forget that. And I’m pretty sure the FDA HQ is in the DC area.
While it would be nice to have a consensus on what to watch. I don’t know? Maybe have a vote on what to watch?
We all have a God given ignore button built into our brains. Easy fix. Just ignore it.
It depends. The Mrs was in an office to fill out some paperwork for a medical procedure. The office folks had The View blasting from the TV in the little waiting room she had to sit in; so loudly that she could not think to fill out the forms.
You can only ignore things to a point. Volume control sometimes needs to be employed.
Now THAT would suck.
It’s such a relief to know that even with all the budget sequesters and desperate shortage of money that there is adequate funding for televisions.
…and posting on TAH
America:Fukk Yeah!
Is this a great country of what?
Oh yeah. It beats the other countries I’ve been to, and from the reports my father brought back from his travels – any other country in the world.
If it’s the FDA, they should be watching cat TV, or Animal Planet, not newsy stuff,
Any time I’m in a position to do so, I turn the TV OFF. My kids, too. When they were taking weekly music lessons, we would eat lunch at a fast food joint of their choice. They quickly homed in on which ones had NO TV and started choosing those exclusively.
Once upon a time, somewhere in the woods of East Texas, we were “selected” to report on our viewing habits over a period of 6 months or so for some survey group or another.
At the end of that time, when it turns out that we did not watch any t.v. at all (or own one, but they didn’t ask) we were dropped from the survey.
Not sure why.
We were once “selected”, as well. We never returned the survey.
A few years back, my kids opted to give up satellite TV service (we couldn’t get a signal any other way where we lived) in favor of a membership to a local gym. We use our TV only for playing video games and the occasional DVD movie.
Smart kids you’ve got there, Ma’am.
Must favor their Ma.