Free speech? Conservative meeting crashed by cops
Exclusive: Barbara Simpson sounds off on Breitbart meetup forced to disperse
Published: 16 hours ago
You heard, didn’t you, about the kid who devised what he called a clock but which looked, for all intents and purposes, like a bomb?
He took the contraption to school and scared the wits out of a teacher who reported it and the you-know-what hit the fan.
He insisted it was just something he invented and wanted his teachers to see it.
Of course you heard about it. The story went viral, worldwide!
Traditional media and the Internet gave it no rest. Tech leaders offered him the world. In the name of multiculturalism, even Barack Obama jumped on the bandwagon and invited the kid to the White House, where he was treated to a presidential hug. But then, the kid was a Muslim, and we all know they can do no wrong.
It was media madness.
Then there was the incident in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, where a group of conservatives was meeting quietly in a restaurant when, suddenly, the place was surrounded by cops and squad cars and choppers and spotlights and a loudspeaker demanding that people disperse.
Needless to say, that broke up the meeting, which, by the way, had broken no laws and had disturbed no peace. No one was cited, but the meeting was effectively ended.
You heard about that, didn’t you?
No doubt print and broadcast media in Arizona covered it and then nationally, and of course, the Internet also jumped on it like the Internet does.
Oh, you didn’t hear about it? My goodness.
Well, that’s not surprising because, although it did happen, the incident was ignored by media including local talk radio, except for an article on the local Sonoran Alliance blog and a short story on KPNX-TV, local channel 12.
Oh, and a short article on the incident was posted on the Breitbart news site on Oct. 23.
That’s all. Not a word anywhere else. Gee, I wonder why.
It’s not surprising that Breitbart would have posted something about the incident because the conservative meeting was, in fact, a get-together of conservatives called a Breitbart Meetup. This was the first one being held in Phoenix.
I wasn’t familiar with them, but they’re informal get-togethers of like-minded conservatives wanting to meet and network.
Hey, it’s a free country, isn’t it?
This one was held at K O’Donnell’s, a popular area restaurant. The room was reserved, and the group of some 150-60 attendees was on the patio, with food and drink available for sale, and with a microphone provided by management for their speakers to use.
Shortly after the initial meet and greet, the speaking program began. Bretibart Community Liaison Dustin Stockton kicked things off, followed by Second Amendment journalist AWR Hawkins and then, Breitbart Texas Managing Director Brandon Darby. They touched on issues like gun rights, border issues and courageous Mexican journalists being targeted.
Then, as the program was to be opened to questions from the group, the microphone was suddenly cut off and the room blasted with baseball game audio.
As people tried to figure out what was going on, the place was then invaded by police from various jurisdictions – squad cars and helicopters equipped with spotlights on the group and a loudspeaker telling people to leave.
The consensus of those in attendance is that there never was a specific order from management or the owner to break up the event, although supposedly someone from management told the Breitbart people they were “authorizing our First Amendment right and shutting this down.”
They did that, but there were also claims that the speakers were “swearing up a storm,” and the conservative crowd was doing the same.
The problem is that a 12-minute tape from the event was posted, which had audio and video of the last speaker Brandon Darby when the mic quit and the audio became a baseball game.
Not one single swear word was heard from either the speaker or the crowd.
So much for that lie.
A long-time reporter/journalist, Dexter Duggan, was in the crowd, his first attendance at such an event, and he was quite clear as to what happened. Duggan is a contributing writer to “The Wanderer,” the nation’s oldest weekly Catholic newspaper. He thought this event might make a good story. He got more than he anticipated.
At first, he said he saw some police, but thought they were restaurant security. But then there were more, and “word was spreading among people now that we should leave.”
Duggan continued that there was no general announcement that people should leave, “despite the restaurant claim that police were called only after we REFUSED to leave!”
Uh-oh. Another restaurant lie.
People milled around, paid their food and drink tabs and went into the parking lot toward the neighboring Scottsdale Gun Club.
Duggan lamented the quiet departure of the attendees – wondering “if conservatives have it in them ever to truly rise up against unjust treatment. No wonder Barack Obama thinks he can get away with about anything, and the national GOP establishment is more than willing to accommodate his outrages …”
Clearly, if this had been a gay get-together being shut down abruptly, it would have been – and probably still would be – national news.
Shutting down conservatives – hey, no problem.
Read more at
http://www.wnd.com/2015/11/free-speech-conservative-meeting-crashed-by-cops/#8AA8k6VkLgjgxCDx.99
