A group of SEIU and NPA thugs staged a protest at the private home of Bank of America lobbyist Gregory Baer and at the home of Chase executive Peter Scher this weekend. The protest is one of a planned series of attacks against K Street organized through Showdown in America. A massive protest is set to descend on K Street today. It's shaping up to be full-scale Kabuki theater:
What:Sounds like a real grassroots group to me. I am sure they will get the same scrutiny the tea party protests endured from the media. Maybe that will happen right after Nancy Pelosi calls them "astroturf."
On May 17, everyday people from across the country will come to Washington DC to draw a direct line connecting unaccountable corporations, their lobbyists, and the Members of Congress who do their bidding. The big banks and other reckless corporations have hijacked our democracy and ruined our economy, and we are coming to Washington DC to take it back.
WHO:
Members and leaders of National People’s Action, SEIU, Jobs with Justice and the AFL-CIO.
WHEN:
12:00 pm - Showdown on K Street, McPherson Square
Rev. Eugene Barnes, Board President, National People’s Action
Richard Trumka, President, AFL-CIO
Mary Kay Henry, President, Service Employees International Union
Leader from Jobs with Justice
Everyday Americans impacted by financial crisis
12:30 pm - March to Bank of America Office Next to Treasury
1:00 pm - Americans from across the country head to Capitol Hill to Reclaim Our Democracy.
The video of the protest held at the home of Bank of America exec Gregory Baer has already captured the attention of the progressive blogs who are too busy promoting the protest to note the irony in their own descriptions of the "staged" protest:
But before Main Street arrives on K Street, a fleet of yellow school buses and motor coaches delivered the demonstrators, clad in red, blue, and purple t-shirts, to a park in Chevy Chase near the home of Bank of America’s Baer. After a quick briefing, the throngs of protesters, hailing from Chicago, San Francisco, Staten Island, and other locales, gathered on Baer’s front lawn and marched to his front door. Members of NPA delivered a letter to a family member who opened the door. Baer, this family member said, wasn’t home. The letter, addressed to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, asks Moynihan to meet with groups "to address the critical problems facing our neighborhoods and our country—problems that were caused in part by Bank of America and that continue to fester due to Bank of America’s inaction."Michelle Malkin wrote about NPA's role in demanding "homeowner security" in the form of government loans to minorities in 2004. It seems Bank of America along with the other targeted financial institutions were merely fulfilling the demands for guaranteed loans, now they are being demonized when those who received the loans can't repay them. How are those donations to Democratic candidates working out for you Mr. Baer?
As you will see in the video, one woman is featured speaking to the group assembled at the home of Gregory Baer. The woman claims she was called by a debt collector at Bank of America 30 minutes after she was informed her son died in a tragic car accident. I have the greatest sympathy for anyone who loses a child. That said, the woman's outrage that the collector did not offer her sympathies seems strangely unbelievable. Had I lost a child, I would have been in no position to take a phone call from anyone let alone recall exactly the wording a bill collector used in the call.
Were it not for the fact that every single demonstration organized on the left takes the same tone using a script borrowed from the Presidential pitch for health care, I would be inclined to give this woman the benefit of the doubt. Every speech has a villain. Every rally has a tragic story that is completely unrelated to the issue at hand. More often than not, we find the speakers to be either props, frauds or some combination of both.
Having run their course, for the time being anyway, with the insurance industry, it is time to turn to finish the hatchet job on the financial industry. I guess we can expect to see more rent-a-mob protests on the lawns of financial industry executives in the days to come:
