Monday, May 24, 2010

A bit more on the SEIU assault on a private home

Nina Easton's account of the SEIU demonstration that terrorized the son of her next-door neighbor -- the deputy general counsel of Bank of America -- has drawn remarkably little attention. That's the way that SEIU wanted it; the union only alerted one of its handmaidens at the Huffington Post of the event. Easton notes that only "a friendly Huffington Post blogger showed up, narrowcasting coverage to the union's leftist base. The rest of the message these protesters brought was personal-aimed at frightening Baer and his family, not influencing a broader public."

Easton provided a straightforward eyewitness account of the demonstration, protesting mortgage foreclosures. Based on her reporting, Easton concludes that the protest was something of a pretext. She offered an explanation of SEIU's demonstration based on its current organizing goals and noted in passing that "SEIU, suffering financially, owes the bank nearly $4 million in interest and fees. Bank of America declined comment on the loans."

Easton is almost certainly on to something. We should pause to consider the event she witnessed long and hard. It provides another window onto the phenomenon that Michael Barone has dubbed "gangster government."


And the union thugs aren't happy that Easton had the nerve to pass on word of what happened.
Amazingly, the SEIU has actually taken aim at Easton for reporting on this incident. Their defense? Easton’s husband is a Republican strategist and has a lobbyist as a client – oh, the horror! (Especially considering that the SEIU itself is also a lobbyist). In their post “Nina Easton & the Bank Lobbyists: Too Close for Comfort,” SEIU’s crack Googlers researchers break the case wide open:
“The really interesting question here is: why is Ms. Easton so angry? And why has she decided to use her position as a member of the media to air her own personal rant at the people who showed up to share their foreclosure stories?

Nina Easton’s husband’s firm has Business Roundtable as a client, a special interest group that counts giant banks like Bank of America as members.

One Google search clears it up pretty quickly. Her husband is Russell Schriefer, Republican strategist and consultant to several big corporate interest groups. In fact, her husband’s client list includes the Business Roundtable, a special interest group that counts Bank of America and other Wall Street banks among its members.

Ms. Easton’s husband used to be a corporate lobbyist himself, before he started his own consulting firm for Republican politicians and corporate interest groups like the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce. Now, according to his website, he helps garner positive media for “a wide range of corporate clients including Fortune 500 companies and national associations.”
Wow. Amazing. That kind of muckraking puts my time working at LexisNexis to shame. Perhaps I should take SEIU’s employment recruiters up on one of their recent job offers sitting in my email inbox. (really, they are hiring, and they did email…can you imagine that job interview?)

Thugs. The kind who prefer to work in as much darkness as possible. Which means they need a halogen lamp turned on them.

And I'll repeat: the DC cops who escorted these clowns need to be punished. And whoever authorized the action should be fired.

5 comments:

Phelps said...

Of course, they don't mention that the SEIU thug in charge of all of this is Chris Matthew's wife.

Phelps said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Phelps said...

No, wait, she's with Marriott. I'm getting my liberal web confused.

BobG said...

"Thugs. The kind who prefer to work in as much darkness as possible."

Yep, just like cockroaches and rats.

Keith said...

Bob,

Please, The rats which I know, all have good jobs in science and education.

Don't go confusing the poor little fellas with alinskyites.

I was going to write scum, but I'm sure even it would be offended at the comparison.