The only thing that separates us from tyranny: (more…)

The slings and arrows of outrageous legislation, proposed and enacted, fly at you in fusillades from every direction. The enemy lurches towards you, massive, determined, unstoppable. The cavalry you expected to throw him back in confusion has decided to sit this one out. Betrayed, you’re on your own.

In this case, it is the National Rifle Association that has literally decided to sit this one out. After swearing that the freedom and right to bear arms is also dependent on the freedom of speech, it has decided to recuse itself from the First Amendment objections in exchange for a protected status. It will not oppose H.R. 1575, the Disclose Act, sponsored by Maryland Democrat Christopher Van Hollen. The purpose of this legislation is to counter the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case, which freed corporations and non-profits from many of the restrictive speech provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act. It was a qualified victory for the First Amendment.

The NRA’s first obligation must be to its members and to its most ardent defense of firearms freedom for America’s lawful gun owners….The NRA will continue to fight for its right to speak out in defense of the Second Amendment. Any efforts to silence the political speech of NRA members will, as has been the case in the past, be met with strong opposition.

The rest of you can pound sand. (more…)

You’ve read the stories about how the D.C. cops escorted a bunch of SEIU protesters to a private home across the District line in Maryland.  You’ve heard the silence of the media lambs at the absolute outrage of hordes of purple-shirted thugs charging onto private property and berating a Bank of American lawyer from his very doorstep.

ASMAN: Imagine a Sunday afternoon in your home suddenly interrupted by the chants of 500 protestors, some with megaphones, marching onto the lawn of your neighbor’s house.

That’s exactly what happened to Fox News contributor Nina Easton. The mob was organized by SEIU directed at her neighbor bank executive Greg Baer. She joins us now from Washington. Nina, how would you describe the scene.

NINA EASTON, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, “FORTUNE” MAGAZINE: It’s a lovely Sunday afternoon, I had just put my toddler down for a nap, and suddenly 14 buses pull up, 14. Hundreds and hundreds of people pour out. I did a rough calculation there were at least 500 protesters who crossed my property and went on to Greg Baer’s property, the deputy general counsel of B of A.

ASMAN: He, by the way, ironically is a former Clinton administration official, right?

EASTON: He is, and his wife is a former Hillary Clinton official and is a very prominent person on national service issues.

These are not big bad Bush people, which is what the readers of the “Huffington Post” blog, the only press who covered it, they assumed it was a Bush administration official.

(more…)

“To Fisk,” means to refute, point by point, a published story; the verb comes from the left-wing British journalist Robert Fisk, whose slanted dispatches are often ruthlessly “fisked” in the blogosphere. Big Journalism’s comments on the text of the Washington Post’s “Cops Say There Was No ‘Escort’ For Bank Protesters” are in green:

A tempest developed in the conservative blogosphere over the weekend, with the D.C. police at the center of the storm.  the language art of belittling: “a tempest (as in a teapot) developed in the conservative blogosphere.” A bit condescending.

The controversy surrounds a May 16 protest organized by liberal group National People’s Action a group that merits some investigating and the Service Employees International Union. Hundreds of protesters targeted two homes in Chevy Chase, Md. — one belonging to a Bank of America attorney, the other to a J.P. Morgan Chase lobbyist — for raucous rallies decrying Wall Street’s efforts to influence bank-reform legislation.  That’s not what the video clips feature. They feature a wider, anti-capitalist agenda in play.

The protests had already garnered much attention from conservative activists upset that liberal activists would target bank employees at their homes. Then Big Journalism, a Web site started by digital media mogul Andrew Breitbart, published an item on Friday claiming that D.C. police officers had “escorted” the protesters to the residences. The word “escorted” came as Cpl. Dan Friz of the Montgomery County PD and I discussed the right word to describe the MPD’s role. I suggested a couple of options, like “accompanied” and then “how about escorted?” to which he readily agreed and repeated the word.  If they had a vehicle at the front of the caravan, it’s an escort. The item was picked up by influential bloggers, and yesterday, the Washington Examiner published an editorial titled “No more police escorts for union thugs.”  “Thugs” was the Examiner’s characterization. (more…)

Why is the Washington Post ignoring the SEIU protest at the homes of two bank executives, one being an employee of the Bank of America? Aside from a brief mention in a larger story on May 17 about SEIU protests, the paper of record in the nation’s capital has been strangely silent.

Even after the story broke here that the buses that carried an estimated 500 protesters to the Greenville Rd, Chevy Chase residence of a B of A executive were escorted by at least two units of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, the incuriosity of the WaPo continues.

This afternoon, all the details of this story were reconfirmed through the Montgomery County Police Department spokesperson, Corporal Daniel Friz.  Meanwhile, two high-level D.C. police officials have disputed their department’s police presence at the B of A executive’s home.

Operating in full CYA mode, the first statement cames from D.C. Chief of Police Cathy Lanier: (more…)

The family of Greg Baer, Bank of America executive, is located in a jurisdiction protected by the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD), which responded promptly to a disturbance call from his neighborhood last weekend.

According to Corporal Dan Friz, an MCPD spokesperson in Rockville, Maryland, the department received a disturbance call from one of Baer’s neighbors at 4:10 pm last Sunday. Four MCPD units arrived at Baer’s Greenville Rd. address at 4:15 pm.  At least two Metropolitan Police Department units from the nearby District of Columbia were already at the scene when they arrived.

Why? Because police cars attached to the Washington MPD’s Civil Disturbance Unit had escorted the SEIU protesters’ buses to Baer’s home. Such cross-jurisdictional escort activity is not uncommon for both departments according to Friz and Metro Police Department spokesperson Officer Eric Frost.  Still, the District police did not inform their colleagues of what was about to happen in one of their Maryland neighborhoods.

The Maryland officers reported there were approximately 500 protesters on and near the front lawn of Baer’s house.  Montgomery County was not given a “heads-up” concerning the planned protest.  Although a protest permit is technically required in Montgomery County, in practice no citation is issued if the protestors disperse when requested to do so by the owner of the private property they occupy. (more…)