#NCMedia making you feel a little like a mushroom?

The Left and its comrades at McClatchy and WRAL break their necks to attach the adjective “Art Pope-funded” or “Koch  Brothers-funded” to the name of ANY conservative group daring to question their antics.  It’s important — they tell us — to know WHO is behind all of this right-wing political activity. 

But if conservatives DARE to shed some light on who is behind lefty activities — like Moral Mondays on Jones Street, for instance —  all hell breaks loose.  Senator Joseph McCarthy has risen from the grave.

The legacy media has been regurgitating leftist spin that these Moral Mondays protesters are just average, run-of-the-mill taxpayers frustrated with their government.  We — and others on the Internet — have been countering by pointing out just how many people involved in these protests are actually hardcore, experienced left-wing activists.

The folks at Civitas just released a pretty extensive database pointing out where the protesters come from, and any political affiliation information found in Google searches.   THAT has touched a nerve among Bill Barber’s rabble and its cheering section at McClatchy:

The NAACP’s Rev. William Barber said the Civitas Institute was “trying to play a trick,” diverting media attention away from the issues that matter, by publishing personal information about arrested protesters in an online database.

Civitas listed arrested protesters’ names, occupations, sex, race and other demographics on its website, drawing an outcry from those promoting the demonstrations. But one protester said he’s not deterred.

”It’s no skin off my back,” said Ed King, a high school Spanish teacher in Chatham County who was arrested Monday. “I expect that from them. I didn’t live 75 years to not develop convictions that are stronger than any attempt to try to prejudice people.”

The next demonstration Monday — the eighth this year — will focus on labor, economic and women’s issues. It’s unclear how many people are expected and how many will volunteer for arrest in an act of civil disobedience outside the legislative doors. Nearly 500 people have been arrested so far during protests at the legislature.

Democratic Congressman David Price of Chapel Hill announced Friday that he would join the demonstration Monday.

As this legislative session creeps toward its end, the Moral Monday fight is far from over, Barber said. “It will not be over for the people of North Carolina,” he said. “We will continue to mobilize, continue different ways to protest, continue to mount a legal challenge, continue to use social media to get the message out.”

Let’s see.  McClatchy, WRAL & co. STILL have not reported on SEANC leader Dana Cope’s criticisim of the protests. We’ve got examples HERE, HERE and HERE where the media has quoted protesters — presenting them as valiant amateurs, when in fact they are veteran leftist agitators.

Civitas has also raised an important point about the cushy treatment being given the protesters, which is likely helping the circus thrive and survive:

Let’s say you’re an ordinary citizen and you trespass on someone’s property. You come back the next day anyway. You get arrested again, and this time you’re charged with contempt. Wait – what’s that? You’re the Rev. William Barber? Never mind. Please, come inside.

The legal situation surrounding weekly protests at the Legislative Building in Raleigh is growing murkier. If you’ve been following the coverage of “Moral Mondays,” you may have heard the term “civil disobedience” being tossed around. It’s an evocative word: it hearkens to mind the courage of Henry David Thoreau, who willingly consigned himself to prison rather than support a war of aggression in Mexico. It summons images of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., braving the fire hoses and police dogs in Alabama. You might think that the protesters arrested these past weeks at “Moral Mondays” have been braving some of the same hardships.

Nope.

Protesters who are arrested do not spend any time in incarceration. Most of them are cuffed with plastic flexi-cuffs instead of metal handcuffs. They get supportive hugs from General Assembly police officers.  The NAACP provides free lawyers to anyone arrested, and the protesters are home by midnight. Oh, and they get souvenirs, too.

Apparently some people in the criminal justice system think that this is still too onerous a process. Colin Willoughby, the Wake County District Attorney, told Civitas that he suggested to police that it “might be appropriate to issue citations” to demonstrators instead of arresting them. In other words, protesters could get a ticket and a fine instead of being charged with a misdemeanor. And Sam Higdon, the assistant director of the Wake County detention center, told us that it was recently “agreed that the CCBI [City-County Bureau of Identification] would not process them.” This, despite the fact that the CCBI has processed all of the demonstrators previously arrested. According to General Assembly Police Chief Jeff Weaver: “The CCBI director, Sam Pennica, stated his budget would not allow him to have additional personnel on site for any more of these arrests.”

Now that the CCBI is out of the loop, arrest reports are no longer readily accessible to the public through the online Wake County Police to Citizen (P2C) portal. Farewell, transparency.

But hey, at least we can take comfort in the fact that the police and District Attorney’s Office are enforcing the law. Or are they?

According to Lauren Ernhardt, an Assistant Attorney General with the state: “In my past experience as a prosecutor, oftentimes when someone was charged with second-degree trespass they were told not to come back, ever.” A protester writing in the liberal Daily Kos confirmed: “Those of us who have been arrested are prohibited from stepping foot into the General Assembly building and the Legislative Office Building until our cases are fully adjudicated.”

So here’s a question. Barber, the president of the NC NAACP, was arrested on April 30. But he has been consistently in the General Assembly every Monday since his arrest (with the exception of this Monday). So have other leaders from the NAACP, the Council of Churches, and other liberal organizations. Why have these people been allowed back into the General Assembly, when they’ve been previously trespassed?

Jeff Weaver, chief of the General Assembly Police, explained that the first 17 protesters – including Barber and other top leaders in Moral Mondays – were inexplicably not prohibited from returning to the General Assembly.

So who in the criminal justice system is responsible for this special treatment? Why are the Rev. Barber and 16 others not subject to the same restrictions as every other protester? Who made that call – was it a magistrate or a district attorney?