Monica mad-dogged me

APS Executive Director of Communications Monica Armenta
joined APS Supt Winston Brooks today, on the list of APS senior
administrators who have mad-dogged me in public.

One really has to wonder, after all the blatant and egregious
retribution and retaliation the leadership of the APS has
visited on me in the last seventeen years in an effort to end my
efforts to hold them honestly accountable for their conduct
and competence, that there are still those among them who
suppose that "mad-dogging" me will scare me away at this point.

If you are going to threaten someone, even with a dirty look,
you have to be at least a little bit scary in the first place.
Winston Brooks has a way of throwing his weight around, link,
that might scare some people, but on Armenta it just looks pathetic.

It gets worse.

Armenta was at the Albuquerque Press Women's luncheon.
She was the guest speaker. She spoke as the APS Executive
Director of Communications; she was there in her capacity as
a public servant.

Public servants within their public service are different from
other citizens. They cannot for example claim some right to
privacy regarding their public service. If you want to snap a
photograph of them discharging their public service, you can.
If you want to record them, you can.

Armenta doesn't concern herself with the constitutional rights
of the press, or for that matter, of common citizens. She
actually stopped the meeting to tell blogger Mark Bralley that
she had "no interest" in allowing him to make a recording of
the meeting. He obliged in so far as he aborted his effort to
place his microphone on the podium where she stood. He did
of course, go ahead and make the recording according to his absolute right to do so.

After the meeting, Armenta
interrupted Bralley's private
conversation with other
journalists, to inform him/us
that we did not have
"her permission" to use any
of the photographs that
we had taken of her during
her presentation.

We informed that we didn't need
her "permission" to take and use
photographs of her within her public service, photographs
like this one.

That's just the plain stupid part. Now the "against the law" part.

Citizens, even the ones Armenta does not like, have a right to
equal treatment under the law. Public servants like Armenta
are prohibited from treating some citizens better than others
when it comes to discharging their public service.

Armenta answered questions from everyone in the room.
Every single person who raised their hand to be recognized
to ask a question was, and was allowed to ask their question;
except me.

After the Q&A closed, I asked the moderator if she had refused
to call on me at the behest of Armenta. She freely admitted that,
that was precisely the case.

She said Armenta refused to participate if I was going to be recognized and allowed to ask any questions.

That represents disparate treatment under the law.
It is a violation of my rights as a citizen and member of a
free press.

Armenta is arrogant. She thinks that because she is an APS
senior administrator, and enjoys the adoration and protection
of the establishment media, she can do whatever she wants.

She is of course, wrong.

She thinks she can slander and libel me by telling people I am
"in her office everyday" and "stalking" her. She thinks she can
get away with that too.

She is again, wrong.




photo Mark Bralley