Last month, the U.S. Secret Service met with right wing gun advocate and National Rifle Association board member Ted Nugent after he made what many interpreted to be threatening remarks toward President Obama. “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November again, I will be either be dead or in jail by this time next year,” he said at the NRA’s annual conference in St. Louis.

Nugent endorsed Mitt Romney for president. And while the Secret Service thought Nugent’s remarks warranted a chat, the Romney campaign didn’t directly condemn his remarks. Instead, a campaign spokesperson derided “divisive language” in a general sense, adding that “Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil.” In fact, in an interview with CBS News that aired this morning, Nugent said the Romney campaign “expressed support” and never advised that he tone down his rhetoric:

Q: Have you heard from the Romney campaign after these comments?

NUGENT: I have.

Q: And?

NUGENT: I have to say what I say the way I say it.

Q: Were they unhappy with you for saying that?

NUGENT: No. They expressed support.

Q: Did they say to you, “Listen we appreciate the support, tone it down.”

NUGENT: Nope.

Watch the interview (video of highlighted transcript begins at 4:04):

The Romney campaign may have offered support for Nugent and his remarks, but it seems the NRA wasn’t too comfortable with them. The powerful gun lobby on its YouTube page took down the video of the interview in which Nugent claimed he’d either be dead or in jail if Obama is reelected.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was quick to lash out at the Obama administration’s handling of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng. Yesterday, when reports circulated that U.S. embassy officials had communicated threats to Chen’s family, Romney blasted the administration, saying, “if the reports are true” then the episode was a “dark day for freedom.”

The situation on the ground in Beijing remains uncertain but new reports suggest that progress is being made by the State Department in reaching an agreement with Chinese authorities to permit Chen to take up a fellowship from an American University, “where he can be accompanied by his wife and two children,” reports State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. But while Romney was quick to attack the Obama administration while sensitive negotiations were underway yesterday between U.S. diplomats and Chinese authorities, the presumptive Republican nominee has never answered questions about whether his own family has profited from Chinese surveillance of its own citizenry.

In March, The New York Times revealed that a Bain-run fund, in which a Romney family blind trust had invested between $100,000 and $250,000, purchased Uniview Technologies in December. Uniview is a Chinese company that claims to be the biggest supplier of surveillance cameras to the Chinese government and produces “infrared antiriot” cameras and software that allow police to share images in real time and provide technology for an emergency command center in Tibet “that provides a solid foundation for the maintenance of social stability and the protection of people’s peaceful life,” according to Uniview’s web site.

Security cameras played a central role in the house-arrest imposed on Chen Guangcheng’s family. After his escape to Beijing and the U.S. embassy, Chen reported that Chinese authorities installed seven video cameras and an electric fence at his house. However, it is not known whether Uniview supplied these cameras.

Yesterday, in a surprise call to a Congressional hearing, Chen told lawmakers, “I’m really afraid for my other family members’ lives” and “[n]ow those security officers in my house basically have said, ‘We want to see what else Chen Guangcheng can do.’”

With the news that Chinese authorities may permit Chen to leave China with his family, a political crisis may be averted. But Mitt Romney and his family’s investment of between $100,000 and $250,000 in Uniview Technologies should raise questions about Romney’s ties to a company that openly advertises its close ties to the Chinese government’s state security apparatus and the use of its technologies in “both peacetime and wartime.”

Yesterday Mitt Romney attacked President Obama over the administration’s handling of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng. Citing “very troubling developments,” Romney said yesterday was “a dark day for freedom and it’s a day of shame for the Obama administration.”

Last night on Fox News, Bill Kristol advised Romney to stand down on the Chen case, calling his attacks on Obama “foolish”:

KRISTOL: I’m happy to be critical of the Obama administration as anyone is, but I think this is fast moving story. And if I were advising Governor Romney, I’d say you don’t need to get in the middle of this story. If this turns out badly, and it would be a terrible thing, it will turn out badly. People will know. … To inject yourself into the middle of this way with a fast moving target I think is foolish. [...]

There is no need to butt into a fast moving story when the secretary of state is in Beijing with delicate negotiations and say it’s a day of shame for the Obama administration. Hillary Clinton is waking up right now. Let’s see if she can pull this off in the next 12 hours or so.

Watch the clip:

The State Department announced this morning that the U.S. had reached a deal with China, with Beijing saying Chen could apply to study abroad and Washington saying an American university has offered him a fellowship.