WASHINGTON, D.C. â Far-left activists from the network funded by communist tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham can dish it out, but they can’t take it.
For years, CodePink activists, easily recognizable in hot pink T-shirts, have heckled lawmakers and officials in public settings with a tactic called “bird dogging,” cornering targets, peppering them with hostile questions, like “Why do you support baby killers?” and shaming them on social media with tactics that amount to humiliation rituals.
On Veterans Day, the agitators found themselves on the other side of the lens, and they didn’t like it.
For six hours on Wednesday, Fox News Digital followed members of CodePink, BreakThrough News, the People’s Forum, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and allied groups in the Singham network through the halls of Congress during a lobbying event organizers called the “Taxpayer Uprising.”
But when the cameras turned on them, they angrily refused to answer questions and covered the camera lens, one time with a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf and another time with a backpack designed with the pattern of a watermelon, a symbol adopted by the Palestinian movement. Then, they responded with smears and ad hominem attacks.
Finally, they published their footage of the confrontations, turning their objections to being filmed into content for their followers. One follower congratulated them on their success deploying “psychic militancy.”
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The day began just before 10 a.m. inside the Rayburn House Office Building, where activists in pink CodePink T-shirts and keffiyehs walked into a breakfast gathering of the U.S. House Bagel Caucus.
At 9:59 a.m., they surrounded Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., and pointed their cameras at him. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, wore a shirt emblazoned with the message “NO WAR ON IRAN” and pressed him on Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which she called a “merging” of the U.S. and Israeli militaries.
“It is not a merging of the militaries,” Goldman said. “It is a collaboration on technology that we depend on Israel for, and they depend on us for, and it is for our own national security.”
He asked the activists whether they supported Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hamas and Hezbollah.
“We’re not funding them. We’re funding Israel,” Benjamin replied.
When the liberal congressman called the situation in Gaza “absolutely horrific” and said he wished Hamas would allow in the aid Israel was trying to send, the group members groaned in unison. CodePink activist Tighe Barry, Benjamin’s husband, in a pink shirt and pink hat, yelled at him: “You’re a real congressman and you just made that statement?”
“That was a horrific lie that you just said,” Barry shouted at him. “As a sitting congressman, I take deep offense at that.”
“Alright, here we are. We’re enjoying the Bagel Caucus here,” Goldman said before walking away. “Thank you for talking. Take care of yourself.”
CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin moved through the building wearing a backpack designed with the pattern of a keffiyeh, the checkered scarf that has become a symbol of the pro-Palestinian movement.
At 10:06 a.m., the group shuffled to the Rayburn cafeteria, where organizers had set up tables numbered by lobbying group. Pink signs reading “TAXPAYER UPRISING” and “WAR IS NOT GREEN” sat on the tables.</p
