Obama Aides Tell Executives to Skip Forum

The headline should read: Obama aides bully [allegedly] free citizens.

WASHINGTON — The White House has pressured the chief executives of some of America’s largest energy, financial and industrial corporations into canceling plans to attend an international economic forum in Russia to be hosted by President Vladimir V. Putin this month, the latest effort to isolate Moscow in retaliation for its intervention in Ukraine.

The top executives of such giants as Alcoa, Goldman Sachs, PepsiCo, Morgan Stanley, ConocoPhillips and other multinational companies with business in Russia have either pulled out of the conference or plan to do so after an intensive lobbying campaign by President Obama’s advisers. Corporate officials predicted that nearly every American C.E.O. will now skip the forum in St. Petersburg.

It is a pretty bad state of affairs when a country founded in part on the freedom of association without government interference is on record for telling it's allegedly free citizens where they can and cannot go (or should or should no go or else).

I said it before and I'll repeat it now: Time to tell Kerry and Obama to fuck off with their total nonsense about Ukraine and Russia. Really though. The blatant demonstrated lies that have been said by both parties and repeated by the press that at some point someone needs to just call these people out.

Too bad the business leaders (sic) do not have the spine to stand up to this blatant interference with their legitimate business and the blatant bullying being done by the US (and a lesser extent the EU). Ahh to only have a Hugo Chavez on the world stage again.