Back in August, Michelle Malkin blew the story open by pulling together a series of events in which Barack Obama took deliberate actions to silence dissent:
Where are all the free speech absolutists when you need them? Over the past month, left-wing partisans and Democratic lawyers have waged a brass-knuckled intimidation campaign against GOP donors, TV and radio stations, and even an investigative journalist because they have all dared to question the radical cult of Barack Obama. A chill wind blows, but where the valiant protectors of political dissent are, nobody knows.
On August 11, I called the American Civil Liberties Union national headquarters in New York for comment about the Chicago gangland tactics of one of these groups — a nonprofit called "Accountable America" that is spearheaded by a former operative of the Obama-endorsing MoveOn outfit.
"Accountable America" is trolling campaign finance databases and targeting conservative donors with "warning" letters in a thuggish attempt to depress Republican fundraising. (You'll be interested to know that the official registered agent of Accountable America is Laurence Gold, a high-powered attorney for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) who has testified before the Senate complaining about the use of campaign finance laws to stifle the speech of union workers — a pet cause of the ACLU.)
...
On Monday, Obama demanded that the Justice Department stop TV stations from airing a documented, accurate independent ad spotlighting Obama's longtime working relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Obama summoned his followers to bombard stations, many of them owned by conservative-leaning Sinclair Communications, with 93,000 e-mails to squelch the commercial.
On Tuesday, the Obama campaign sent another letter to the Justice Department demanding investigation and prosecution of American Issues Project, the group that produced the Ayers ad, as well as Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who funded it.
And on Wednesday, Obama exhorted his followers to sabotage the WGN radio show of veteran Chicago host and University of Chicago Professor Milt Rosenberg. Why? Because he invited National Review writer Stanley Kurtz to discuss his investigative findings about Obama's ties to Ayers and the underwhelming results of their collaboration on a left-wing educational project sponsored by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The "Obama Action Wire" supplied Rosenberg's call-in line and talking points like this:
"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse. … It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves."
...
Welcome to the future: the politics of Hope and Change enforced by the missionaries of Search and Destroy.
Having set the stage, the Obamessiah continued his thuggery:
The local newspaper, the Fredericksburg Free Lance Star is up in arms:
Hmmm...one candidate encourages signs at rallies, the other one bans them. Guess which one comes from the party of tolerance...?NOT ALL COUNTRIES guarantee their citizens the right to virtually unbridled freedom of speech. The United States does. Would someone please tell the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama? And the dozing guardians of liberty at the University of Mary Washington?
Mr. Obama, the Democratic nominee for president, is scheduled to speak at a rally at the university today. The public is invited to this forum, on property it, the public, owns. However, signs and banners will not be allowed, according to the organizers and compliant campus officials. Suddenly, UMW is a First Amendment-Free, or at least a First Amendment-Crippled, Zone, subject to the self-serving preferences of politicos. Why does an Obama rally–or a McCain rally or a Nader rally–justify taking a little off the top of Americans' most fundamental rights?
A UMW spokeswoman says that the Obama campaign required the sign-and-banner ban. That campaign tells us that the ban is for "security" reasons. But a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, responsible for protecting presidential candidates, says that the service has no objection to signs at rallies, provided that no "part of the sign could be used as a weapon"–e.g., a heavy metal pole or a sharpened stick. Finally, the McCain campaign tells us, "We encourage people to make signs at our events."
Now the silencing is getting even more direct. In Pennsylvania, the Obamessiah has again threatened TV and radio stations against their exertion of free speech:
The Obama camp has been threatening television and radio stations to keep them from airing anti-Obama ads.
The latest target is the NRA and stations in Pennsylvania.
Earlier this week, the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund released a series of radio and television spots to educate gun owners and sportsmen about Barack Obama's longstanding anti-gun record. In response to the NRA-PVF ads, a clearly panicked Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are doing everything they can to hide Obama's real record by mounting a coordinated assault on the First Amendment.
They have gone to desperate and outrageous lengths to try to silence your NRA by bullying media outlets with threats of lawsuits if they run NRA-PVF's ads.
The Obama camp is particularly angry with an NRA ad entitled "Hunter" which lays out Obama's record on gun control.
You can see the "Hunter" ad — Go Here Now.
Other NRA ads include "Way of Life" and another focusing on Joe Biden's record, "Defend Freedom, Defeat Obama."
Fortunately, the NRA is more than happy (and able) to fight back:The NRA says Obama's camp are sending out these "intimidating cease and desist letters" to cable operators and television stations, threatening their FCC licenses if they run the ads.
The NRA charged that "Obama and the DNC have been using strong-arm tactics reminiscent of Chicago machine politics to try and cover up the truth and silence NRA by forcing the stations to assist them in hiding Obama's radical anti-gun record."
And now, Obama and the DNC have opened a new front in their assault on your First Amendment rights by calling on their followers to contact these station managers to demand that the stations not run NRA-PVF's ads.
NRA stands behind the accuracy of these ads, and NRA attorneys have responded to the Obama campaign's despicable and abusive attempt to trample on the First Amendment by sending a thorough rebuttal to station managers. This rebuttal clearly and conclusively refutes the Obama campaign's fallacious claims that the ads are inaccurate.
The NRA has set up a Web site detailing its position on Obama at www.gunbanobama.com.
The Obamessiah takes it one step further in Missouri, positioning his brainwashed underling Obots in positions of power to prosecute any station that runs an ad against him:Last Tuesday without any fanfare, the Barack Obama campaign announced Jennifer Joyce and Bob McCulloch, the top prosecutors in St. Louis city and St. Louis County, were joining something called an Obama truth squad.
They plan to respond immediately to any misleading advertisements and statements that might violate Missouri ethics laws.
"We want to keep this campaign focused on issues," Joyce told me. "Missourians don't want to be distracted by these divisive character attacks."
The truth squad's plan is to indentify false attacks and respond immediately with truthful information, Joyce and McCulloch say.
That sounds benign enough, but anyone with an understanding of Barack the Silencer Obamessiah's previous tactics and history of Chicago gang-style politics can read betwen the lines well enough. This is evidenced by Missouri Governor Matt Blunt's statement
condemning the idea:
"What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.
"This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson's thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.
"Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society."
To hear the words 'the stench of police state tactics' coming from a Governor should be a clear sign of problems. Instapundit has a more comprehensive roundup of the dissent-squashing tactics being employed. Now it looks like Jennifer Joyce is playing the victim card while being dishonest about the mission of the 'truth squad'.
Even more indicative of just how serious this 'truth squad' idea is would be this e-mail conversation with one of the above-mentioned Truth Squad-ers:
I spoke with Bob McCulloch, Missouri prosecutor, about the truth squad story. I asked for an example of a lie that he would have to set straight. He used the example of the sex education for kindergartners. He believes that Barack Obama supported legislation that would protect kindergartners from inappropriate touching and not a wide spectrum of sex education in that age group. I asked if he read the legislation. He said "no."
I told him that if I hear him calling the sex education story a lie, then I would know that he had either not read the bill or was just going to lie for Obama no matter what the legislation actually says. He went into the idea that anybody can analyze legislation any way they want and that my analysis may not be correct. I told him that a monkey could analyze this legislation and know that the law is not specific to only inappropriate touching of kindergartners, but adds that age group to a wide array of sex education. He does not believe me. And so it goes.
Now, be honest with yourself. Is this a legitimate 'truth squad' that is interested in actually finding and communicating the TRUTH, or is it an intimidation racket with the full power of legal prosecution behind it?For all of you Obama followers: I challenge you to defend this. Seriously. How do you defend a candidate who calls on his supporters to swamp stations who run ads that -- though truthful -- don't flatter Obama? How do you defend a candidate who repeatedly calls on the executive branch to take legal action against people who don't agree with him? How do you defend a candidate who openly stands for the clear abridgment of the 1st Amendment? How do you defend a candidate who employs Stalinist tactics against his opponents?
I really want to hear from you, because I don't believe it's possible.
There's my two cents.
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