2004 Republican Convention in NYC

[krulltime]

Hotels Gear Up To Provide Security As Well As Service During GOP Convention


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AUGUST 10TH, 2004

The hospitality industry is gearing up to combine security with service during the Republican National Convention. Ramirez has the story.

The Hilton will host delegates from Michigan.

The Warwick will be the spot for those from North Carolina.

About two dozen hotels in Manhattan will serve as stomping grounds for Republicans when they come into the City this month for their national convention.

"Keep in mind when that when the Republicans decided to have their convention in New York City we couldn't have been luckier for them to have it the last week of August," said Christyne Nicholas of NYC & Company. "This is traditionally a very slow period for New York City. As far as convention business, if we didn't have the Republican Convention chances are we would not have any other convention in New York City."

But there are plenty of other events happening around town like the U.S. Open and Yankees and Mets games that draw tourists. With so much going on and the threat of terrorism looming, some area hotels say their increasing their security presence. Like the Roosevelt Hotel which is hosting New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon and Arizona.

"We more or less have increased our staffing levels, created more awareness around the property through the security team and through all the associates and managers," said Chris Costabile of the Roosevelt Hotel.

Many hotel-goers we spoke with say they feel secure.

"I think there's enough people around maintaining and checking things over that we've experienced," said one visitor to the city.

"I felt just perfectly, perfectly safe," said another visitor.

"They checked our IDs and everything in the evenings when we walked into the hotel and that kind of thing, so I think people feel pretty confident," said another tourist.

But not everyone shares that confidence.

"There's no security that I can see," said one visitor. "There doesn't appear to be any security."

But most agree that security must be heightened come the convention.

"Probably when they come to town, but while we were here it was wonderful," said one visitor. "The security was great in our hotel."

The hotels may have to extend their stepped up security efforts to cover more than just the four-day convention.

NYC & Company says it has put together a program called Come Early, Stay Late. It's designed to lure convention delegates to turn their visit into a vacation by offering reduced room rates, along with other discounts, from August 22nd through September 8th.

– Jeanine Ramirez


Copyright © 2004 NY1 News.

[krulltime]

Cop, fire strikes looming for RNC


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Mayoral spokesman Ed Skyler
blasts union 'thugs' as Finest,
Bravest rally at City Hall yesterday.

BY FRANK LOMBARDI
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

The city could be crippled by wildcat strikes by cops and firefighters during the Republican convention - and union leaders said yesterday they may not be able to stop it.

"The level of frustration among firefighters and police officers is so high, I can't account for what might happen," fumed Stephen Cassidy, president of the 8,500-member Uniformed Firefighters Association.

"We will rule nothing off the table," added Patrick Lynch, president of the 23,000-member Patrolmen's Benevolent Association.

At a press conference on the steps of City Hall, the two union bosses also vowed to continue hounding Mayor Bloomberg at public events because of his refusal to pay them more than other city workers.

Ed Skyler, the mayor's press secretary, blasted the unions for "acting like thugs." The union leaders have a right to protest, Skyler said, but not to "try to send a message to their members about 'We don't know if we can control what they do.'"

Cassidy argued that Bloomberg is treating cops and firefighters "no different than people that push paper."

Noting that 343 firefighters died on 9/11, Cassidy added, "He can't show up at the funerals and tell their widows their husbands are heroes and not pay us a fair wage when we're alive."

Bloomberg has been dogged by union protesters for weeks. Scores shouted insults at him outside a Greenwich Village meeting Monday night.

Dozens of demonstrators also showed up yesterday morning outside four network TV studios that broadcast national shows.

Cassidy announced he has formally filed an impasse declaration with the state Public Employment Relation Board. He urged the mayor to make a fair offer or agree to binding arbitration. He said the city has offered firefighters raises of 4% over three years.

City officials insist the city lacks the money to pay fire and police union members more than what's in the pact accepted by District Council 37, the largest municipal union. It calls for a $1,000 signing bonus, plus raises of 3% the first year and 2% the second.

Originally published on August 11, 2004


All contents © 2004 Daily News, L.P.

[Kris]

August 12, 2004

Mayor Stands By His Decision to Block Protest in Central Park

By WINNIE HU

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg yesterday stood by his decision to block huge protests in Central Park during the Republican National Convention, and questioned why organizers had backed out of an agreement to rally instead along the West Side Highway.

After weeks of negotiations with the city, organizers for the largest protest group, United for Peace and Justice, reversed course this week and pledged to continue pushing for a permit to stage a rally for as many as 250,000 people in Central Park. City officials have repeatedly turned down the request, saying that the park cannot handle a rally of that size.

Mr. Bloomberg, speaking at a news conference in Brooklyn, seemed mystified by the group's reversal. Indeed, he noted that the Police Department had met with the group not long ago about the alternative location.

"To say that it was a good meeting is an understatement," the mayor said. "We thought we worked out all the details and they were very happy. Why all of a sudden overnight they want to renege on an agreement, I don't know."

William K. Dobbs, a spokesman for United for Peace and Justice, said that his group initially agreed to the West Side Highway site for the protest because the city gave them no other choice. Since then, he said, city and police officials have failed to resolve outstanding concerns, like whether barricades would be used and how the protesters would get drinking water.On Tuesday, the group reapplied for a permit to use the Great Lawn in Central Park, this time requesting the North and East Meadows as well, to accommodate the crowds, Mr. Dobbs said. The application was again turned down, and Mr. Dobbs said his group was considering several options, including suing the city.

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday emphasized that Central Park cannot accommodate a protest by a quarter-million people, saying the decision to reject the permit was not based on politics, or concern that the grass would get trampled. "The issue is, you just can't put that kind of crowd together where you can't make sure that ambulances can get in," he said.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Jasonik]

The city is supposed to supply water?!!
Sounds like an excellent entrepreneurial opportunity if you ask me.
Obviously the organizers are not capitalists. :P

[Kris]

August 12, 2004

The Protesters' About-Face

An agreement on where to hold the largest protest planned for the week of the Republican convention came apart this week. The organizers, who had reluctantly agreed to take their rally to the western edge of town, are now demanding sites in Central Park. Their frustration is understandable, but they gave their word, and the convention is now less than three weeks away. While the demonstrators' original arguments for access to the park were good ones, they have no justification for backing out on the deal they made with the city.

The Bloomberg administration is permitting a handful of protests in Central Park, but it adamantly refused the requests of United for Peace and Justice, the organizers of the coalition planning the largest rally during the convention. Instead, officials came up with a plan that would let the demonstrators march past Madison Square Garden on Aug. 29, the day before the convention opens, and hold their mass rally - which could involve hundreds of thousands of people - on the West Side Highway. The city has been relying on the deal in making its plans to keep the city secure. Given that some 50,000 delegates and other visitors attached to the convention are expected in addition to all the demonstrators, that planning is no small task. If the protesters back out now, there is a real risk of disorder, and perhaps violence.

United for Peace and Justice, for its part, is right to worry about the well-being of protesters who would be confined to the West Side Highway - a narrow stretch of concrete - on what is likely to be a hot August afternoon. Since the city chose the spot, it should be prepared to help with drinking water and medical supplies.

Making matters worse, there are reports that some demonstrators not affiliated with United Peace and Justice may "spontaneously" show up in Central Park on Aug. 29. All the protest organizers should denounce this idea. Bypassing the permit process in this way could lead to clashes between protesters and police. Civil disobedience should be used rarely, and a disagreement with the city over a protest venue does not warrant it.

Once the convention leaves town, New Yorkers should have a discussion about how to make Central Park accessible again to sizeable political protests. City Council members and other elected officials may need to take the lead because on this issue, the Bloomberg administration seems to be out of touch.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

G.O.P. Cops—One Protector Per 2.4 Guests

by Sheelah Kolhatkar and Marcus Baram

Mayor Bloomberg, alongside a phalanx of top cops, stepped up to the podium at a security briefing at police headquarters on the afternoon of Aug. 9 and took a deep breath.

In the middle of giving a speech meant to reassure the public that the city will be secure during those heady days in late August, Mr. Bloomberg paused to add a dramatic footnote to the proceedings.

"We should never forget that the war we’re fighting overseas started here on the streets of New York," intoned Mr. Bloomberg, before handing the podium over to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

The military analogy may have been appropriate considering the army of security personnel who will descend on Madison Square Garden the week of Aug. 30.

At least 20,000 law-enforcement officers from agencies as diverse as the Secret Service and Connecticut-based civilian units of the Army National Guard will help secure the convention. Considering that the convention will attract 48,000 visitors, from delegates and lobbyists to the media horde, that amounts to one security officer for every 2.4 civilians at the convention.

This platoon of protectors will prowl the avenues and train stations, many sporting bulletproof vests and hoisting weaponry that is the stuff of video-game fantasies, casting a watchful eye over a city that is primed to be emptied of many of its inhabitants and workers through the steamy final days of August.

"This is an NSSE—a national security special event," said Rich Staropoli, the Secret Service’s assistant special agent in charge. "We’re gonna utilize a good portion of the entire Secret Service, anyone who’s available besides those [who protect current and former prominent politicians]. We don’t have 10,000 guys like the NYPD, but probably 3,000 agents as well as uniformed division officers."

With such shock and awe on display in and around Madison Square Garden and other high-profile spots such as the Citigroup Center and the Statue of Liberty, many of Manhattan’s less newsworthy corporate residents consequently are left somewhat exposed.

"I know that the police force is being extraordinarily deployed … placing incredible strain on the New York Police Department in terms of diverting resources," said Eli Silverman, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the author of NYPD Battles Crime: Innovative Strategies in Policing. "People are working overtime; they’re pulling people from all areas of the department who would normally be doing other things to be deployed for convention."

Compounding the problem is the fact that the U.S. Open is taking place, and both the Mets and Yankees are playing at home that week. "Many sources tell me that they are stretching their resources well past their limit," says City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., the chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee. "Other areas of the city will be covered by bare-bones shifts. I monitor some of the local precincts’ radios, and the other day, when they had to pull out officers for the security threat at the Citicorp building, we had one patrol car in my district."

These concerns have led to speculation that those vast swathes of the city that aren’t in lock-down might be vulnerable to anything from terrorist attacks to break-ins, as was seen recently in Davenport, Iowa, where three bank robberies occurred while George W. Bush and John Kerry were campaigning there simultaneously. (And everybody knows that the potential for misdeeds is significantly greater in New York than in aw-shucks Iowa.)

Those simultaneous risks of homegrown criminality and international terrorism have left companies based in the city with three choices: Conduct business as usual and hope for the best; slim down and operate on skeleton crews by letting people telecommute from the suburbs; or beef up security privately, mostly by hiring independent security firms.

And therein lies the shadow side of the government’s array of security forces—the private consultants at security firms such as Giuliani Partners, Kroll, SafirRosetti and Criterion Partners, some of which are advising clients during the convention. Although discreet about their client lists, most of them will attest to increased sales in recent months.

"The convention has generated a significant amount of business," says Howard Safir, the former police commissioner who founded SafirRosetti, the exclusive security consultant to real-estate firm CB Richard Ellis. "We are ending up with business from the periphery, a lot of venues that are not in the frozen zone, helping them with security planning and technology."

Sometimes these firms are called upon to supplement the government’s array of security forces. According to two people familiar with security planning for the convention, Giuliani Partners, the firm founded by former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, was tapped by the Republican National Committee over a year ago to provide advice on security issues. "They picked him before he was chosen as a speaker at the convention," says one high-level security expert. "Rudy’s got such a good reputation, and they’ve got Bernie Kerik, who was NYPD commissioner, and he’s got the respect of the NYPD, so there’s a comfort factor there …. The R.N.C. wanted some advice on developing an evacuation plan."

If Mr. Giuliani did provide security advice to the R.N.C., that would just be another indication of the former Mayor’s octopus-like hold on the gala. Not only is Mr. Giuliani the chair of the Host Committee, instrumental in luring the Republicans to New York, but he also has a prominent speaking role at the convention.

Spokesmen for the Committee on Arrangements say that they’ve never paid private firms for security work. A spokeswoman for Giuliani Partners denied that the firm had done work for the R.N.C.

Another firm that was in discussions with the R.N.C. was SafirRosetti. "I met with some R.N.C. people a year ago, but when the convention was declared a NSSE, that changed the whole perspective," said Mr. Safir. "They were exploring their options at the time."

For the most part, these hired guns keep their plans close to the vest. Asked about his plans for the convention, Mr. Kerik said, "I’m going to be enjoying myself, just as every New Yorker should be. I’ll be going to a number of different events, I’ll be meeting with a number of different people, talking to them about the President and why he should be re-elected."

You may reach Sheelah Kolhatkar and Marcus Baram via email at: skolhatkar@observer.com and mbaram@observer.com.

This column ran on page 1 in the 8/16/2004 edition of The New York Observer.

[Ron Newman]

There aren't any supermarkets or bodegas or Duane Reades on the West Side Highway where you can buy water, so if it's a hot day, you could have a real public health problem.

[Jasonik]

There aren't any supermarkets or bodegas or Duane Reades on the West Side Highway where you can buy water, so if it's a hot day, you could have a real public health problem.

Well for that matter the city should also supply food. These people could go hungry if it weren't for the government taking care of them. Give them portapotties as well as foot massages and suntan lotion. This organization and its protestors can't take care of themselves or anything. :roll:

They should be happy they don't have a cage. :wink:

I know I'm a little over the top, but really....what'll they want next, gas masks?!

[Ron Newman]

Or just put them in Central Park where they want to be, and there will be plenty of vendors around to sell them whatever they need.

What's so hard about that?

[krulltime]

Area Hospitals Prepare For Possible Terror Attacks During Convention


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AUGUST 12TH, 2004

While the city is spending millions of dollars to make sure a terrorist attack doesn't happen during the Republican National Convention at the end of the month, local hospitals are getting ready in case one does.

Hospitals say they'll have additional staff and ambulances standing by during convention week. The GOP convention runs from August 30 to September 2 at Madison Square Garden.

St. Vincent's Hospital on Seventh Avenue will play a special role, setting up two health care stations inside Madison Square Garden.

“We have prepared our staff very carefully with a lot of training,” said Mark Ackermann of St. Vincent’s Medical Centers. “Our physicians are working with biological/chemical agents, understanding anything that can be thrown at us, and we are prepared for any other mass casualty event that may happen."

Hospitals are also adding security during the convention, in case they become a terrorist target.

Local hospitals are stepping up drills, checking supplies, and making sure contact lists are in place. But, these procedures have been in the making for the past three years, ever since the September 11th attacks.

"Each employee at St. Vincent Catholic Medical Centers has personal protective equipment," said Ackermann. "Our ambulance drivers all have hazard suits that they can use. We have Mark One kits in each of our ambulances in case there's an event."

"There is a list of what we call rapid responders and we have a list together, a quite lengthy listing of people who live in the vicinity, within 10 minutes, that can respond in the event of an emergency," said Sandra Iberger of NYU Hospitals.

But as local hospitals prepare for the potential onslaught of mass casualties, they also need to prepare for the possibility of being targeted in an attack.

Susan Waltman is the senior vice president of the Greater New York Hospital Association. Waltman says she doesn't think hospitals will come under attack during the convention, but she says it is a concern.

"We've seen that happen in other parts of the world," said Waltman. "We've seen people try to commandeer ambulances and use them perhaps to gain entry to areas where they might not otherwise because it appears to be an official vehicle."

Waltman says terrorism isn't the only issue hospital officials are focusing on. With tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands heading to Madison Square Garden, many people can get hurt.

"We're all anticipating the possibility people will come in with heat related problems," said Waltman. "We're hoping that it is an orderly time, that everyone has orderly protestors, orderly convention. But, you have to anticipate there might be something that occurs related to the congregation of a quarter million people in one place."

In the meantime, St. Vincent's says it will have two health care stations at the Garden for minor injuries. And if the worst does happen, area hospitals say they've had the last three years to prepare.


Copyright © 2004 NY1 News.

[Kris]

August 13, 2004

PUBLIC LIVES

Protecting the Right Not to Remain Silent

By LYNDA RICHARDSON

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"For police to radicalize attorneys, it's quite a feat." Simone Levine

SIMONE LEVINE looks so serious in the shabby, low-ceilinged offices of the National Lawyers Guild in Midtown Manhattan. And why wouldn't she? Ms. Levine is a lead organizer of the guild's campaign to protect the rights of protesters during the Republican National Convention later this month.

She has plenty on her mind. Officials warn there could be as many as 1,000 convention-related arrests a day. And protesters are pushing to hold a large demonstration in Central Park, despite opposition from the city, which wants them to rally along the West Side Highway. Just imagine Aug. 29, the day before the convention, and the specter of 250,000 people marching past Madison Square Garden, the convention site, with no set destination.

"It's a lot of stress," says Ms. Levine, who is 29 and has a day job as a criminal defense lawyer for the financially challenged Legal Aid Society in Manhattan. She juggles 115 cases of indigent defendants. At the guild, she volunteers her time as an organizer of its Mass Defense Committee in New York. The other afternoon, just in from court, she looked tired as she sat at a conference table. She took out a legal pad to jot notes, still in cautious lawyer mode.

"Whenever you talk about 1,000 arrests going through the system, you can only imagine trying to get that number of attorneys to represent these people," she said. "It takes a huge amount of energy to plan effectively, so demonstrators won't have their rights trampled."

Ms. Levine, a slender woman with long, wavy hair and an intense, wary gaze, has increasingly become a public face of the guild, a left-leaning group that was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association's political conservatism and its policy at the time of excluding blacks. It has 6,000 members nationwide.

For the last year, Ms. Levine has been immersed in planning the logistics of sending out troops of lawyers and legal observers during the convention. She has testified three times at public forums in City Hall, denouncing police tactics at large demonstrations like the one in February 2003 against the war in Iraq. She also represented protesters during the World Economic Forum in Manhattan in 2002.

So what about the persistent buzz among protesters that, for the first time in recent years, some demonstrators may have to pay a nominal fee to be represented after arrests? Ms. Levine confirms that this may happen, but says fewer than 10 percent of lawyers are likely to charge clients, and only because they, too, have bills to pay. So far, 120 lawyers have volunteered their services.

Is the guild concerned about taking heat for the plan of some lawyers to charge? "The majority of attorneys are still going to be not charging at all," she says firmly. "We're not worried about being criticized. We're attorneys. We're used to being criticized."

During the convention, Ms. Levine says, the guild will represent demonstrators wherever sporadic protests and arrests happen.

The guild has monitored the interaction between the police and protesters since the 1968 antiwar protests at Columbia University.

Ms. Levine picks up a bright-green baseball cap. It is the one guild lawyers will wear as they patrol demonstrations during the convention. She says the guild will also deploy 250 trained legal observers in the hats, some with video and still cameras to document arrests and police activity.

She will not be wearing the hat. "That green is not my color," she jokes, lightening up at last. She says she instead will be dispatching lawyers to various sites from the guild office.

She does not foresee a shortage of lawyers to represent demonstrators. She says lawyers have been galvanized by law enforcement authorities' saying there might be as many as 1,000 arrests a day. "For police to radicalize attorneys, it's quite a feat," she says.

Ms. Levine's upbringing was anything but radical. The daughter of a social worker and a consultant who helps failing businesses, she grew up in the upper-middle-class community of Ridgefield, Conn. But as a teenager, she says, she was so moved by the sharp racial and economic inequities in cities like New Haven and Bridgeport, Conn., that she became a community organizer against racism and police brutality.

SHE studied political science at McGill University in Montreal, then headed to East Asia, where she witnessed crackdowns on student dissidents in South Korea and invasions of Burmese military troops into refugee camps along the border of Thailand and Myanmar, formerly Burma. She worked with nonprofit groups to lobby governments to change their human rights policies. Then she began to wonder why she was overseas.

"There was a point I felt my energy would be better directed if I started working on human rights issues in my own country," she says.

Ms. Levine enrolled in the University of Connecticut School of Law, and started the guild's mass defense chapter there.

These days, she says, she is working from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. to prepare for the convention. But she does have a life outside work. She lives in a loft in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with eight other roommates, writers and artists, and she has a boyfriend, another Legal Aid lawyer, whom she declines to discuss.

It also turns out that she has a secret weapon to deal with stress. She is an amateur boxer, practicing four times a week with trainers at a gym. "It's so that I can wake up every morning and keep fighting for my clients."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

August 13, 2004

One Way to Get to Penn Station Aug. 29: Underground

By MICHAEL LUO

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Officials plan to open turnstiles at some subway stations, like this one near 33rd Street and Seventh Avenue.

Transit officials are concerned that the largest demonstration planned for the Republican National Convention, paired with security measures, will essentially seal off Pennsylvania Station for several hours on Aug. 29, the Sunday before the convention opens.

Although the city says it has a solution - opening some subway turnstiles to allow underground access to Penn Station - transit officials remain worried about crowding and confusion.

The exact route of the march, planned by an umbrella protest group, United for Peace and Justice, was thrown into doubt this week after the group backed out of a deal to gather along the West Side Highway and renewed its bid to rally in Central Park. But city officials remained firm that the group would not succeed in changing the demonstration's path.

That means, for now, that beginning at 10 a.m. that Sunday, the 250,000 people that protest organizers are expecting will march up Seventh Avenue from a staging area south of 23rd Street, then turn left on 34th Street after passing Madison Square Garden, eventually winding up at the West Side Highway.

The problem, according to transit officials, is that six of Penn Station's eight entrances are to be closed for security reasons starting the day before, leaving open only the entrance along Seventh Avenue under the Madison Square Garden marquee and the Long Island Rail Road entrance on 34th Street near Seventh Avenue. Police officials have told transit agencies that they will not be able to disrupt the flow of protesters for the duration of the demonstration, which could be four to five hours, said Clifford Black, a spokesman for Amtrak, the owner of Penn Station. That would leave people trying to leave Penn Station, the nation's busiest railroad station, hemmed in and would block the people trying to get into the station.

"That's a real concern for us," Mr. Black said yesterday. "Presumably, there will be delegates arriving, as well as regular travelers, and it will be difficult for people to find their way out of the station because of the march and because of the restricted egress. The other question is informing the public who wish to enter Penn Station how they might do that. It's going to be very, very challenging."

The solution that has been settled upon is to open up the subway turnstiles reached from entrances on the east side of Seventh Avenue at 33rd Street, and the north side of 34th Street at Eighth Avenue, said Paul J. Browne, the deputy police commissioner for public information.

Barricades would be set up so people would be able to get into Penn Station but would not be able to ride the subway free, said Paul Fleuranges, a spokesman for New York City Transit, which operates the city's buses and subways.

An entrance to the station through a building on the east side of Seventh Avenue that was originally going to be closed may also be used to take some of the burden off the narrow subway entrances, transit officials said.

Mr. Browne played down the worries of transit officials, saying that law enforcement officials believe that most of the difficulties will be limited to the first hour of the demonstration, when protesters usually march in tight formation. After that, Mr. Browne said, the crowds should become less dense and police officers will be able to escort people across Seventh Avenue and 34th Street, as they do during parades.

Transit officials, however, said they were considering asking riders to avoid Penn Station that day.

"We're concerned that this puts additional pressure on the station and restricts access and egress," said Lynn Bowersox, assistant executive director of New Jersey Transit, which shares the station with the Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak. "This compresses all of the passenger flow through the subway entrances."

Besides logjams underground, Mr. Black cited the issue of access for people in wheelchairs and elderly passengers with luggage as a major concern. The only elevator that will be available for those entering and exiting the station during the convention is near the Long Island Rail Road entrance on 34th Street. The subway entrances are not accessible to the handicapped.

But Mr. Browne said police officers would try to escort those in wheelchairs across the streets, so they can still enter and leave the station.

"We'll be escorting them across at any time," he said. "We don't think it's going to be a problem."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

August 14, 2004

Sometimes a Cigar Is Just Illegal, G.O.P. Is Told

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

In the 1920's, New York was dotted with speakeasies, where revelers could sip illegal cocktails in clandestine sites. During the Republican National Convention of 2004, there may be a number of smoke-easies, places where cigarettes and cigars will be puffed below the radar screen of the law.

Under state and city laws, smoking is banned in bars and restaurants. The rare exceptions include cigar or cigarette bars that receive at least 10 percent of annual gross income from the sale of tobacco products.

But sometimes, when an exemption is not granted, bars allow their revelers to light up anyway, hoping that no one will notice.

The McPherson Group, a lobbying firm in Washington, has cordially invited guests to "imbibe and enjoy the pleasures of a good cigar" during its party at the Carnegie Club in Midtown on Aug. 31, in the middle of the convention.

The return address on the envelope has a design featuring a large apple figure chomping on a stogie, with the tagline, "Smokin' in the big apple."

But unlike many cigar clubs that will be holding parties that week, the Carnegie Club has not won the exemption needed to permit such a party.

According to city Health Department records, the club applied for an exemption in June but was denied one because of incomplete documentation. It then resubmitted its application on Aug. 5, and the answer is pending.

The application takes one to two months to be processed. Further, the club has been inspected by City Health Department workers and has been cited for smoking violations many times, said Sandra Mullin, a spokeswoman for the department.

At the Carnegie Club's parent company, Hospitality Holdings, a woman who identified herself as Dawn seemed perplexed by a reporter's inquiry, saying at first that no smoking was allowed at the club, then saying that it was allowed, before finally adding that the McPherson Group party was "a private affair."

She then hung up the phone. Calls to three principals at the McPherson Group went unreturned; a receptionist said many people there were out of town or on vacation.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is under pressure to ensure that well-heeled cigar lovers are held to the same standards as those who prefer skinnier forms of tobacco. The mayor drew fire in January for attending a black-tie dinner at the St. Regis Hotel where Wall Street tycoons smoked cigars openly.

"We are not granting any special favors to any establishments," Ms. Mullin said.


Secret Galas, Shrouded in Smoke

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Political conventions bring to mind smoke-filled rooms where deals of great import are made. But no longer in New York, where smoking is banned - except in a few exclusive places.

A handful of cigar bars around the city will hold private parties during the Republican National Convention. They include the Grand Havana Room, a private club that rests luxuriously on the 39th floor of 666 Fifth Avenue, where former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani will be the guest of honor at a party that week.

Under state and city laws, smoking is banned in bars and restaurants, with few exceptions. Among them are bars that get at least 10 percent of annual gross income from the sale of tobacco products. That includes the Grand Havana Room, where smokers can puff away among the "mahogany paneling, blue velvet curtains and thick leather armchairs."

The description comes from the bar's Web site; as the woman who answered the phone at the bar pointed out, it is a private club. Membership is by invitation only.

Before hanging up, the receptionist at the bar said that she could not confirm what she had just confirmed, that Mr. Giuliani's party will be one of several during the convention. She cited "security concerns" in refusing to divulge details.

As it turns out, people who run cigar bars are not terribly interested in bragging about their guest lists.

Bob Moylan, the vice president of Club Macanudo on the Upper East Side, said his place would be closed the week of the convention in order to accommodate private parties. For whom he would not say. "That's all the information available at this time," he said. If I were invited would I see interesting people there? "I'm sure you would," said Mr. Moylan, who then added that it was time to end the conversation.

At Circa Tabac, on Watts Street in SoHo, there are two private parties booked, said the owner, Lee Ringelheim, who added, "I have a feeling we'll be booked every night."

The secrecy over guest lists may be about creating an aura of exclusivity. However, convention officials have asked establishments to avoid providing the news media with details, in an effort to avoid both terrorist attacks and protesters.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who is vehemently anti-smoking, would not automatically disdain an invitation to Mr. Giuliani's party, said his press secretary, Edward Skyler. "He wouldn't not go on account of where it is being held."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

August 14, 2004

Central Park: Field of Protest, or of Grass? (5 Letters)

To the Editor:

It was very disappointing to read your "about-face" on the right of the people to use Central Park to demonstrate their opposition to government policy ("The Protesters' About-Face," editorial, Aug. 12). The times cry out for a mobilization of at least a million people, as have marched in New York before at other critical moments in our history.

Central Park is the only area that can accommodate a crowd of that size, as past demonstrations have shown.

Yet whenever masses of people wish to assemble in more than token numbers, the government seems overcome with solicitude for grass. Such was the case in April 1965, when the Parks Department declared that demonstrators could not march down the Mall in Washington because it would damage the grass. In the end, the rights of the people prevailed, and that march, and many others, held forth on the Mall.

Central Park is New York's Mall. Let's keep it that way.

C. Clark Kissinger
Brooklyn, Aug. 12, 2004
The writer, the principal organizer of the first march on Washington against the Vietnam War, is an organizer for Refuse and Resist!

•

To the Editor:

As a liberal Democrat who cherishes Central Park, I find the cries from the protest group United for Peace and Justice extremely frustrating ("Convention Protesters Drop Deal for Rally, Pushing Anew for Park," news article, Aug. 11).

The designers, engineers and commissioner who renovated the Great Lawn and the North Meadow have explained in print why these open spaces are unfit for a large and lengthy demonstration. While they look natural, these are carefully maintained creations. If you abuse them, you ruin them.

And wouldn't it be perfect publicity for the Republicans if the news were to show the muddy remains of an expensive and formerly gracious public amenity, trampled and trashed by protesters?

Yes, we need to protect freedom of speech, but not at the cost of our communal backyard.

Rob Ackerman
New York, Aug. 12, 2004

•

To the Editor:

I just returned to Seattle from visiting Boston as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Because of where I'm from and where I've been, I know a bit about protests. Boston went overboard in cloistering protesters; you couldn't hear them, and could barely see them while entering the FleetCenter.

While New York may want to keep protesters just as "out of sight, out of mind" as Boston did, I'd encourage New York to value free speech, even "spontaneous" forms of it, over muzzling for the sake of paranoia. Take necessary measures to ensure everyone's safety and the continuation of the Republican convention, but don't follow Boston's lead.

In Boston, I visited the misnamed "free speech zone" and spoke with protesters personally. Some were a little crazy, but most had legitimate concerns. I love New York because it is so resilient; if any city can handle the complications arising from protests at the Republican convention, it's you.

Sarah Schacht
Seattle, Aug. 12, 2004

•

To the Editor:

To United for Peace and Justice, I say: Stay off my lawn!

As a resident, I value the handful of places in this city to which residents and visitors can retreat to relax in a natural setting. I strongly believe that the role of the Great Lawn should be to serve this function, not as a location for national political protests.

Damage caused by such a large protest would not only cost the city money but could also result in further closings, preventing residents from enjoying their park.

United for Peace and Justice should respect the fact that this is a city of neighborhoods, and its handful of special places exist first and foremost for its residents. I respect the group's right to assemble (and even agree with most of its message), but refuse to surrender my lawn.

Daniel Prevost
New York, Aug. 12, 2004

•

To the Editor:

You agree that the demonstrators' "original arguments for access to the park were good ones" (editorial, Aug. 12). Isn't that the crux of it? For you to turn your back on the demonstrators is curious, since those arguments have not changed.

Maybe the concern for possible violence and disorder will be a catalyst to resolve the issue fairly. Your suggestion that New Yorkers should have a "discussion" about Central Park as a protest site after the convention leaves town does nothing for all the people who believe this is the most important election of their lifetime and want to participate in a meaningful way.

Leigh Higgins
Hoboken, N.J., Aug. 12, 2004

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[krulltime]

SKY-HIGH N.Y. TERROR DRILL TODAY


By MURRAY WEISS

August 14, 2004 -- The skies above Manhattan will be filled with military and police air power today as authorities stage a secret sky-high anti-terror training drill in preparation for the GOP convention.

The practice run, dubbed the "Republican National Convention Airspace Exercise," will begin at 6 p.m. and involve the combined forces of the military, the Coast Guard and the NYPD, according to a memo obtained by The Post.

The drill will test how fast air defenses can scramble and coordinate a response to a 9/11-type terrorist air attack.

The aircraft participating in the drill will include F-15 Eagle fighter jets from NORAD, Coast Guard Dolphin helicopters and Bell helicopters from the NYPD. The choppers will zoom as low as 3,500 feet in synchronized operations over the city.

The aircraft will respond to a mock report of an unknown airborne attack at Madison Square Garden.

The high-flying jets will be first on the scene, then NYPD and Coast Guard helicopters will arrive to survey the venue at a lower altitude.

By yesterday afternoon, the agencies involved had not officially told New Yorkers they may spot fighter planes while the drill is going on overhead.


Copyright 2004 NYP Holdings, Inc.

[krulltime]

By yesterday afternoon, the agencies involved had not officially told New Yorkers they may spot fighter planes while the drill is going on overhead.

I hope this doesn't cause chaos among New Yorkers and visitors. You know how people are shaky right now.

[krulltime]

Manhattan Hotels Tighten Security For GOP Convention


http://www.ny1.com/Content/images/live/67/132072.JPG (http://real.ny1.com:8080/ramgen/real3/000C75CF_040816_95830hi.rm)
CLICK ON PIC FOR VIDEO

AUGUST 16TH, 2004

Republican delegates and tourists will be greeted with tight security when they check into their hotels during the GOP Convention, just two weeks away.

The New Yorker, which is located directly across the street from Madison Square Garden, where the convention will be held, will require guests and staffs to have two forms of identification to enter the hotel. Guests will also receive special key cards during the week of the convention.

The New Yorker is also creating new ways to relay emergency information to its guests.

“We've focused on safety, so the guests don't have to worry about safety,” said Kevin Smith of the hotel. “What we've done in particular for this event – for the RNC, and we’ll carry on with it later – is we've set up a channel that is our information and safety channel in the hotel. If an emergency alarm were to go off for any reason, first there would be announcements, but we'd also put it on the TV so they could see what was happening.”

Guests staying near Madison Square Garden during the convention should expect police checks before they enter their hotels.


Copyright © 2004 NY1 News.

[Schadenfrau]

From the NY Times:

Just Keep It Peaceful, Protesters; New York Is Offering Discounts
By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Published: August 18, 2004

Thinking about smashing windows or overturning cars during the Republican National Convention? Think again: that will cost you a discounted buffalo chicken salad from Applebee's or a cheaper ticket to see "Tony n' Tina's Wedding."

In a transparently mercantile bid to keep protesters from disrupting the Republican National Convention later this month, the Bloomberg administration will offer "peaceful political activists" discounts at select hotels, museums, stores and restaurants around town during convention week, which begins Aug. 29.

Law-abiding protesters will be given buttons that bear a fetching rendition of the Statue of Liberty holding a sign that reads, "peaceful political activists." Protesters can present the buttons at places like the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Sex, the Pokémon Center store and such restaurants as Miss Mamie's Spoonbread Too and Applebee's to save some cash during their stay.

If only the Romanovs had thought of this.

"It's no fun to protest on an empty stomach," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday, when he announced the program at NYC & Company, the city's tourism office, which will distribute the buttons to all comers to its Midtown office.

Protesters can also get the buttons from groups that have a legal permit to rally. But Mr. Bloomberg conceded yesterday that not everyone who wore a button would be strictly vetted for his or her peacefulness. "Unfortunately, we can't stop an anarchist from getting a button," he said, though he doubted any of them would want to wear one.

The discount program comes at a time when Mr. Bloomberg is under increasing pressure from the largest protest group, United for Peace and Justice, which is demanding the right to protest in Central Park, a request the city has repeatedly rejected. As a result, the city faces the prospect that the largest rally, planned the Sunday before the convention, will be an illegal gathering.

A spokesman for the group, Bill Dobbs, dismissed the discount program yesterday as a publicity stunt.

The city contends that it wants to give as warm a welcome to protesters as to delegates. "Most times, people try to keep protesters from coming," the mayor said, "and they certainly don't go out of their way to accommodate them."

In offering the discounts, the city also has its economy in mind. Officials want to make sure that hotels and restaurants are as fully booked as possible during the convention week; many have reported that reservations are slow for that week.

The discount program for protesters is modeled on one for delegates to the convention, and there are some notable differences. Protesters are offered $5 off admission to the Museum of Sex, while delegates are not. But delegates get $3 off the space show at the American Museum of Natural History, a discount not offered to protesters. The Republicans get "Rent," the people who oppose them get "Tony n' Tina's Wedding."

Bloomberg administration officials say the list of offerings for protesters may grow. An up-to-date list appears on nycvisit.com; visitors to the site can click on "Welcome peaceful political activists." There, the discontented but hungry can also find information about the city's history and tour guides for the "politically minded visitor."

Mr. Bloomberg also said that the police officers and firemen who had been holding loud demonstrations at his public appearances in the past few weeks would qualify.

Yesterday, outside the mayor's news conference, Joe Miccio, a firefighter who came to hector the mayor, fingered the button presented to him by a reporter with some confusion. "We are peaceful political activists," he said, puzzling over the notion of discounted hamburgers and office supplies (at Kroll's Office Products, free magic marker included). "We'll take a look at it."

The city says it expects at least 200,000 people - both out-of-towners and aggrieved New Yorkers - to protest around the city between now and the end of the convention on Sept. 2. And, as Mr. Bloomberg pointed out, they will need to eat.

With the convention a week and a half away, there are already some who may not qualify for the discounts. Yesterday, four members of Code Pink, a women's protest group, were arrested for trying to dangle a 40-foot-long banner from their ninth-floor window at the Sheraton Hotel across from Mr. Bloomberg's news conference, the police said.

Jodie Evans, a co-founder of the group, identified the women as Andrea Buffa and Colleen Galbraith of San Francisco, Claire Varoney of Los Angeles and Danielle Feris of New York City. The charges against the women are pending, the police said yesterday afternoon.

Gary Ferdman, the executive director of Sensible Priorities, a business consortium, said yesterday that he came up with the idea for the discount program when the city decided it needed to reach out to protesters. "I'm afraid this Central Park thing is really going to blow up," he said after the news conference, perhaps speaking more bluntly than city officials about the motivations for the program.

In announcing the program, Mr. Bloomberg was joined yesterday by former Mayors Edward I. Koch and David N. Dinkins. While Mr. Dinkins said that he might have handled the request to protest in Central Park "differently," Mr. Koch said he agreed with the Bloomberg administration's plan to keep the largest protest off the Great Lawn. That decision has angered many New Yorkers, particularly those who have ambivalent feelings about the convention, which Mr. Bloomberg has repeatedly said will be an economic boon for the city.

Among more veteran protesters, the city's offer had a certain appeal. "Since we're both guests, New York City should treat us equally," said Aron Kay, who is also known locally as the Mad Yippie Pie Thrower. Mr. Kay is the organizer of a protest planned for outside Mayor Bloomberg's townhouse on the Upper East Side on Aug 22.

"Maybe we would like to eat in a restaurant or catch a play," he mused. Before or after haranguing the mayor? "I would say after," he said.

[BrooklynRider]

From the Common Dreams News Center, the best editorial on the convention yet.

Published on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 by Ted Rall
NYC to GOP: Drop Dead
by Ted Rall

Tourists are pleasantly surprised when New Yorkers act as friendly and polite as the people back home in Maybury. However, delegates to this month's Republican National Convention shouldn't expect to be treated to our standard out-of-towner treatment. The Republican delegates here to coronate George W. Bush are unwelcome members of a hostile invading army. Like the hapless saps whose blood they sent to be spilled into Middle Eastern sands, they will be given intentionally incorrect directions to nonexistent places. Objects will be thrown in their direction. Children will call them obscene names. They will not be greeted as liberators.

Well aware that it is barren soil for their party's anti-urban, anti-immigrant, anti-feminist, overtly racist ideology, Republican leaders have wisely avoided New York City as a convention site for the past 150 years. Even as the rest of America turns red, we New Yorkers remain as liberal as the people's republic of San Francisco: fewer than 18 percent of the citizens of New York's five boroughs (which include relatively conservative places like Staten Island) cast ballots for Bush/Cheney in 2000. But White House strategist Karl Rove sees the continued exploitation of 9/11 for partisan political gain as Bush's key to victory in November. That means bringing the big bash three miles north of the hole where the Twin Towers used to stand, where most of the victims of 9/11 were burned, suffocated, impaled and pulverized.

Making hay of the dead is also the point of this confab's timing. The 2004 Necropublican National Convention is being held a full month later than normal, from August 30 to September 2. The original plan was to have Bush shuttle between Madison Square Garden and Ground Zero for photo ops to coincide with the third anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Bush's visits to the Trade Center site were quietly canceled a few months back after 9/11 survivors expressed revulsion at the idea. But it was too late to change the date.

Anti-Republican sentiment is rising to a fever pitch here as the dog days tick down to the dreaded affair. A poll cited by the local ABC affiliate shows 83 percent of New Yorkers don't want their city to host the RNC. And many of them are planning to do something about it.

Rejecting ex-mayor Ed Koch's call to "make nice" with the party that used the deaths of 2,801 New Yorkers--most of them Democrats--for everything from tax cuts for the rich to building concentration camps at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib to invading Iraq to enrich Dick Cheney and his fellow Halliburton execs, some groups are encouraging liberal-minded New Yorkers to volunteer for the city's squad of official greeters. Creatively altered maps of streets and subways will be handed out to button-clad stupid white men. Other saboteurs wearing fake RNC T-shirts will direct them to parts of town where Bush's policies have hit hardest. Rumor has it that prostitutes suffering from sexually transmitted diseases will discourage the use of condoms with Republican customers.

Anywhere between 250,000 and 1,000,000 anti-Bush demonstrators are expected to hit the streets of Manhattan, but the city and protest organizers can't agree on where to put them. Activists say they'll direct marchers to Central Park, their preferred site; city officials are threatening mass arrests if they do. Adding to the already combustible Chicago '68 vibe is a possible wildcat strike by city cops and firefighters. And now, as if everyone concerned wasn't already tweaky, FBI agents are traveling around the United States, to harass members of leftist groups planning to protest the New York RNC.

Strikebreaking policemen and private security personnel may be able to keep the protesters away from the convention hall. But Republicans who venture outside the Garden deserve the abuse ordinary New Yorkers will likely inflict upon them.

True, the Administration eventually coughed up the $20 billion aid package Bush promised the city after 9/11. But that sum--equal to the cost of occupying Iraq for four months--barely made up for such disaster-related expenses as police overtime, debris removal and rebuilding damaged subway stations and tunnels. New York's economy hasn't even begun to recover. As the nation's official unemployment rate hovers at six percent, the city's runs around eight. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, opposes virtually every Bush Administration decision concerning New York City.

Even viler than Bush's urban neglect is his failure to avenge the World Trade Center victims as he pledged to do on 9/14, dusty firefighter helpfully posing under his arm on The Pile. After 9/11, Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were in Pakistan. They and the Taliban received funding from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The 19 hijackers, organized by Egyptian Islamic Jihad, were Egyptian and Saudi. But Bush didn't attack Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Egypt. He went after Afghanistan and Iraq instead, nations that had nothing to do with 9/11 but offered business opportunities for GOP-connected oil concerns. Incredibly, he siphoned more money and arms to the Egyptians, Saudis and Pakistanis.

Not only did Bush let the terrorists get away, he raised their allowance.

If today's GOP retained a shred of the dignity and patriotism that it once possessed as the Party of Lincoln, it would have dumped Bush in favor of a candidate more interested in defending America than his wealthy contributors. Republicans are neofascists now, and that's why New Yorkers good and true will be yelling at them to go back home.

COPYRIGHT 2004 TED RALL

###

[Jasonik]

Ted Rall (http://www.rall.com/) is a notable political cartoonist as well as plainspoken editorialist.

[Schadenfrau]

Compare this with Kerry trotting out through the audience:


W's super & secret platform

BY MAGGIE HABERMAN
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

When President Bush accepts the Republican nomination in two weeks, he will enter Madison Square Garden on a specially made blast- and bullet-proof stage, the Daily News has learned.

The platform is being constructed off-site from the Garden, sources said.

"It's a whole different" stage from the one that will be used during the other hours of the Republican National Convention, which runs from Aug. 30 through Sept. 2, the night Bush arrives, said one source.

The ultra-secure Bush stage is expected to arrive at the Garden the day before Bush speaks, sources told The News.

Leonardo Alcivar, a spokesman for the convention, declined comment.

The type of onstage entrance that Bush will make has been a well-guarded secret throughout the convention planning. Officials have refused to say if it will be a conventional platform or something else, but some organizers have said a "theater-in-the-round" approach is likely.

Since the GOP took control of MSG in mid-July, workers have been constructing a new floor for the arena, raised above the actual floor by about 9 feet, with a hole in it that could allow for a dramatic entrance.

[ZippyTheChimp]

August 22, 2004

Bush Promises to Offer Detailed Plans at Convention

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, Aug. 21 - President Bush will present what aides say will be a detailed second-term agenda when he is nominated in New York in 10 days, part of an ambitious convention program built on invocations of Sept. 11 and efforts to paint Senator John Kerry as untrustworthy and out of the mainstream.

Mr. Bush's advisers said they were girding for the most extensive street demonstrations at any political convention since the Democrats nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in Chicago in 1968. But in contrast to that convention, which was severely undermined by televised displays of street rioting, Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

And after months in which Mr. Bush stressed issues of concern to conservative supporters - from restrictions on stem cell research to a constitutional amendment to bar gay marriage - the convention will offer its national television audience a decidedly more moderate face for the president and his party. If "strength" was the leitmotif of the Democratic convention in Boston, "compassion" will be the theme in New York, marking the return of a mainstay of Mr. Bush's 2000 campaign, party leaders said.

Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia who has become increasingly estranged from his party, will lead a prime-time televised lineup of speakers as notable for who is not there (conservative Republican leaders) as for who is (Mr. Miller and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the moderate Republican governor of California). And Republicans are pressing for a quick and quiet adoption of a platform to minimize dissent over issues that have divided the party, in particular immigration restrictions and a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Most of all, Mr. Bush's aides said that after five months in which they have focused almost exclusively on attacking Mr. Kerry, the president will use his speech to offer what they asserted would be expansive plans for a second term, in an effort to underline what they argued was Mr. Kerry's failure to talk about the future at his own convention.

"This speech has to lay out a forward-looking, positive prospective agenda," said Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's senior political adviser. "It has to show - and to defend in a way the American people want to hear - his policies on the war on terror."

Mr. Bush's advisers offered no details on what he might propose, and even some Republicans said the White House might be constrained both by the deficit and resistance among Republicans on spending.

Still, Ed Gillespie, the national Republican chairman and a senior Bush campaign adviser, argued that Mr. Kerry had missed an opportunity at his convention by spending too much time talking about his biography and Mr. Bush, reflecting Mr. Kerry's effort to use his convention to present himself as strong enough to carry the nation through a time of war.

"They left people feeling hungry for substance," Mr. Gillespie said. "We will not make that mistake in New York. We will come out of there with specific proposals for the future for a new term."

The emerging goals for the four days in New York signal that this White House has adopted an ambitious political agenda for a nominating convention that Republicans describe as a critical moment for Mr. Bush's campaign. It comes as many Republicans have grown increasingly worried about Mr. Bush's prospects for re-election, with some saying the campaign appears uncertain as it seeks to knock back a challenge from Mr. Kerry, a candidate many Republicans describe as less than overwhelming.

"If they were running against a Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas, nominee, they'd be down 10 points,'' said one Republican strategist, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid being accused by fellow Republicans of disloyalty. "But they're not. They have the advantage of running against a guy who is basically a liberal from Massachusetts."

To a large extent, Mr. Bush's aides said, they were orchestrating a convention that would be as much about celebrating the nation and what they portray as its success at weathering the attacks of Sept. 11 as it would be talking about Mr. Bush's tenure. In doing that, the aides said, they were seeking to turn around the damaging perception among many Americans that the country is heading in the wrong direction, in the calculation that renewed confidence about the future would translate into support for Mr. Bush.

A CBS News poll this week found that 53 percent of registered voters felt the nation was heading in the wrong direction, a dangerously high number for an incumbent.

For all the ambitions expressed by the White House for this convention, Democrats and even some Republicans expressed skepticism that Mr. Bush would in fact be able to lay out the kind of dramatic or ground-breaking second-term agenda that his aides are promising. In 1996, for example, President Bill Clinton used a succession of what his own aides described as small-bore ideas - such as requiring school uniforms - as a way of creating the perception that he was offering a grand plan for a second term, and some Democrats suggested that Mr. Bush might be about to do the same thing.

"They did work - they filled the policy void and allowed him to seem on the offense,'' said Scott Reed, who was the campaign manager for Mr. Clinton's opponent that year, Bob Dole. "It looked like he was doing something.''

Mr. Bush, like Mr. Clinton, has the constraint of having been in office for four years, and many of his ideas are well-known to Americans.

At his acceptance speech in 2000, Mr. Bush pledged to implement sweeping tax cuts, and reforms to the public school system, Social Security and Medicare. But that speech was delivered at a time of relative economic prosperity and government surplus. This time, Mr. Bush is hampered by budgetary restrictions caused by the deficit, the war in Iraq and revenue losses from the tax cuts. Some Republicans, while saying they wanted Mr. Bush to lay out new ideas for the second term, warned against significant new spending, saying that might scare off the very voters Mr. Bush needs to win over.

Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said independent voters in his state - one of the top five targets of Mr. Bush this year - were concerned about the deficit, and put off by what he described as pork barrel spending by Congress and Mr. Bush's proposal to finance a mission to Mars.

"The voter you could define as a Reagan Democrat votes both sides of the ticket - and that person is a pretty conservative person,'' Mr. Ryan said. "They see waste like that, they see spending like that, and it bothers them. Those are the people who he needs to win Wisconsin."

Mr. Kerry's communications director, Stephanie Cutter, disputed Republican claims that Mr. Kerry did not talk enough about the future at his convention, and scoffed at the idea that Mr. Bush would have much new to say at his convention.

"People have been hungry for substance over the past four years because of the president's failure to put forth a domestic agenda and pay attention to the home front,'' she said. "They can talk about substance all they want at the convention, but the American people won't be fooled."

Mr. Bush's aides declined to provide details of what the president would say, other than to say he was likely to lay out plans dealing with health care and probably tax reform. But they claim that his agenda would be more sweeping and ambitious than the modest scale initiatives that Mr. Clinton rolled out when he ran for re-election in 1996.

Mr. Bush's advisers said the perceptions of the success of the convention would be set as much by what happened on the stages of Madison Square Garden as what happens outside - be it the demonstrations on the streets of New York or the reminders of the World Trade Center attack that led the White House to decide to hold the first Republican convention in New York in history.

With thousands of demonstrators coming to New York, Mr. Bush's aides said they expected competition for attention but said that posed more of a risk for Democrats than for Republicans. Even though Democrats are not involved in organizing the protests, some of the participants are almost certain to be aligned with traditionally Democratic groups, like labor and environmentalists, and Republicans made clear they would seek to link Mr. Kerry and the Democratic Party to any disorder.

"I think the Democrats are going to have to be careful about not letting the protesters get out of hand," Mr. Gillespie said. "The line between the official Democratic Party and labor protesters, environmental protesters and antiwar protesters is fairly blurry, and I'm not sure they want to have Democrats engaging in violence in New York against our convention. It would seem disrespectful and antidemocratic."

Another senior convention organizer said: "You know the protesters are going to be here. You know you're going to have a full story. I look at that as a wave: not a wave to stand in front of, but a wave you have got to ride."

Ms. Cutter said the Democratic Party was not involved in any demonstrations, and blamed them on Mr. Bush.

"This president has spent the last four years dividing people and never taking responsibility for his failed record and its impact on average Americans," she said. "Any protests that might take place will likely reflect that."

Mr. Bush's aides said the president would not back away from recalling the attacks of Sept. 11 in drawing a contrast with Mr. Kerry. Mr. Bush is not planning to visit ground zero while he is in New York, but an aide said the events of Sept. 11 would provide an emotional fulcrum for his nomination speech. Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor, is welcoming the delegates to New York on Aug. 30 with a speech devoted almost entirely to the events of that day, an aide said.

Bush aides said any concern they had about being accused of exploiting the issue had disappeared when Democrats included a tribute to victims of the attack at their convention in Boston.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

August 22, 2004

TACTICS GALORE

If a Protest Is Planned to a T, Is It a Protest?

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN

THE mayor of New York is approaching the coming protests at the Republican National Convention like a professional. A professional manager, that is, borrowing from a business school textbook.

He has set parameters (metal gates along demonstration routes). He has offered performance incentives (discounts at New York hotels, restaurants and stores for demonstrators). He has made sure that everyone knows what to expect (crowd-controlling hardware from handcuffs to $35,000 acoustic devices that emit ear-piercing shrieks at the demonstrators). And he has a vision for the future (one day, demonstrators will be able to gather in comfort at a new stadium).

But for the protest groups, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg might as well be Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago in 1968. Billyclub or no billyclub, they claim, his aim is to block dissent, to sanitize and strip it of all meaning.

"Protests have to have a leitmotif of disturbing ordinary life," said William Dobbs, a spokesman for the group United for Peace and Justice, which has battled Mr. Bloomberg for a permit to rally in Central Park. "Otherwise, it becomes meaningless. Protesting is an outcry. That doesn't mean it has to cause chaos, but there has to be a way for a protest to breathe. It's got to have an impact."

Of course, the activist groups themselves have tried to script their events to Broadway standards, and are as concerned with how their actions will be covered by television as they are with the actions themselves. In that sense, what United for Peace and Justice organizers might regard as government regulation of free speech by the police could also be seen as counter-programming by the city - an attempt to deliver competing messages to a mass audience.

The city takes the view that it is simply trying to accommodate the protesters while at the same time safeguarding everyone else. The New York Police Department said it thought that it had achieved a reasonable compromise in allowing protesters to march past Madison Square Garden and still gather in large numbers in the street.

"We have a lot of communication, there is a lot of negotiation, everybody knows everybody else," said Raymond W. Kelly, the New York City police commissioner. "I think it's a good thing. We are not stifling protest. In my mind we are facilitating it by doing that."

But John Lewis, an early leader of the civil rights movement, said that his activities in the 1960's almost never had the sanction of a permit.

Mr. Lewis, a Democratic Congressman from Georgia, said in an interview that it was dangerous when the government tried to manage opposition speech, or intimidate people from speaking out. "I think we lose a great deal," he said. "We lose what the founding fathers had in mind when they suggested that under the First Amendment people could come together and dissent."

The authorities counter that in light of the chaos at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle in 1999, and the terror attacks of 2001, they must be more vigilant. United for Peace and Justice had sought a permit for 250,000 people for a rally in Central Park, but agreed to the city's demand that they gather on the isolated pavement of the West Side Highway. The group backed out when its coalition began to collapse.

Some protest leaders said that the city, through its refusal to grant the Central Park permit, in effect undermined the main group that was trying to work within the system.

"A deep concern," said Jason Flores-Williams, a law student at Rutgers and a protest organizer, "was that in some way the city was so dominating U.F.P.J. it was becoming a wing of the police. They were helping the city control protest."

As the convention nears, the city seems to be sending a signal. When Mr. Bloomberg announced his program for discounts to local businesses and attractions at a news conference, a group called Code Pink dropped a 40-foot banner from a hotel window nearby, reading, "They say, Welcome. We say, Where? Let us protest in Central Park." The city had the protesters arrested.

"We have hung banners out of other hotels and were kicked out," said Andrea Buffa, a national organizer with the group. "We were never arrested before. I think they were trying to make a point about political protests. I think it backfired. We got way more media coverage."

On the other hand, demonstrations that turn violent can backfire on the protesters. Jeff Jones, who works for an environmental advocacy group in New York, was a young protester in Chicago in 1968. He said that the debate then - whether confrontational tactics would undermine or assist their cause - is identical to the one now.

There is still no consensus on whether the events of 1968 helped the antiwar cause or backfired, helping to elect Richard Nixon. And there is still no agreement among the antiwar groups on whether to display as much anger as possible in New York, or to protest in a way that won't risk increasing voter sympathy for President Bush.

Then again, the events of this week could be driven as much by happenstance as by calculation. If tens of thousands of people do rush over to Central Park on Sunday, how will the police respond?


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Schadenfrau]

The Plaza Hotel this morning:

http://images.ibsys.com/2004/0826/3682781_320X240.jpg

[ZippyTheChimp]

Har.

The photo is real. There's a story:

High Jinx Atop The Plaza

Protestors Unfurl Giant Banner On Hotel Façade

Aug 26, 2004 10:38 am US/Eastern

Pedestrians and drivers in midtown were in for a surprise Thursday morning, after two dangling protestors unfurled a large anti-Bush banner on the façade of the Plaza Hotel.

The black and white banner was about three stories high and read 'Truth Bush,' each word placed on opposing one-way arrows. It was suspended from the upper floors and faced the Fifth Avenue side of the hotel.

Some 30 minutes after the unfurling, police could be seen on a balcony of the hotel. The protestors, equipped with mountain gear, were dangling off the side of the hotel and were eventually taken in.

A group called 'Operation Civil' outside the hotel claimed responsibility for the banner, handing out fliers.

How did they get into the hotel? In style -- they rented a room in the luxury hotel.

A spokesperson for the group told WCBS 880's Paul Murnane members launched the operation around 5 a.m. and began unfurling the banner from the roof some three hours later. All of their supplies were smuggled in with the luggage.

Traffic in the area is not severely impacted by the protest action.

MMIV, CBS Broadcasting Inc., All Rights Reserved.

[Schadenfrau]

I saw that on the way to work. People on the streets were grinning and cheering.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Good one.

I'll be there to march on Sunday with a small contingent. Anyone else?

I'm curious how this will all play out.....where will it end? What's the route? I suppose just follow the crowd and see what happens.

[Schadenfrau]

I'll be there with bells on.

[BrooklynRider]

First Protest:

Philadelphia Act-Up Strips to Welcome RNC (and are promptly arrested). See link for photos.

http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/103375/index.php

[BrooklynRider]

Activists Hang Huge Banner on Plaza Hotel


http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/103384/index.php


These are events the corporate media will not show you. Get your convention coverage directly from the street at www.nyc.indymedia.org. It will provide the latest logistical information on protests and provide first person independent reporting from events andfrom the streets. Stay tuned in - know what's going on - get involved - don't get paralyzed by the fear campaign!

[Schadenfrau]

To be fair, the "corporate media" did cover that story, as evidenced by the article and photo above.

[ZippyTheChimp]

August 27, 2004

THE MARCH

It May Be Hard to Tell a Rally From a Lot of People in the Park

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

Organizers of two large protests against the Republican National Convention planned for this weekend said yesterday that they would not directly encourage supporters to go to demonstrations in Central Park. But the leader of one group said she would be in the park, and the other group began handing out fliers spelling out legal ways to gather there.

The groups toed a fine line between not defying court rulings upholding the city's refusal to grant permits for the use of the Great Lawn and acknowledging what appears to be a mounting effort among large numbers of people to gather there tomorrow and Sunday. City officials have refused to make the Great Lawn available for large demonstrations, saying they have to preserve the lawn's grass.

United for Peace and Justice - the group that is organizing what is expected to be the largest demonstration related to the convention, an antiwar march on Sunday - announced an agreement with the city yesterday about a march route. Starting at noon, the group will head up Seventh Avenue past Madison Square Garden, where the convention will begin on Monday, then head east on 34th Street and turn down Fifth Avenue and Broadway to Union Square. But organizers made clear that after the march, supporters would head to Central Park despite the lack of a permit, and seemed to at least tacitly encourage it.

Leslie Cagan, the national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, which expects more than 200,000 people at the march, said she would have a picnic on the Great Lawn after the march dispersed.

"I will be going to Central Park after the march is over," Ms. Cagan said, adding that she would invite other people to accompany her but not under the group's banner.

Another group that was denied permission for a large rally on the Great Lawn, the Answer Coalition, began passing out leaflets yesterday alerting New Yorkers to their right to peacefully assemble there. The group's application for a rally at 1 p.m. tomorrow, filed jointly with the National Council of Arab Americans, was rejected by the city, a decision that was upheld by a judge.

The flier does not explicitly urge people to gather, but it reminds people that "casual visits" to the park are allowed, and it includes reminders about the right to drum during daytime hours and the size of signs allowed without a permit (up to 2 feet high and 3 feet wide).

Organizers of the weekend marches said that the city was unintentionally encouraging protesters to gather in the park by declaring it off-limits.

"They are coming Saturday and they are coming Sunday, and Mayor Bloomberg may well be creating Central Park as the free-speech center of New York City," Brian Becker, national coordinator of the Answer Coalition, said at a news conference.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the police would enforce laws against using a sound system in the park without a permit and would send "adequate police protection" to keep the public safe. He sounded conciliatory at a news conference.

"We welcome people to the park, and hopefully the weather will be good," Mr. Bloomberg said. "There's a lot of people in the park - there's roughly a quarter of a million people in the park on a normal Sunday afternoon - and this will just add to that. So it will be crowded but it will be a lot of fun."

If the past is any guide, demonstrators may not find an unfettered path. Over the last decade, the Police Department has frequently diverted pedestrians headed for large public gatherings and sent them on lengthy detours to reach the main assembly areas. At an antiwar rally on Feb. 15, 2003, tens of thousands of people sent on detours were not able to reach the central meeting site on First Avenue near 51st Street.

New York City Transit said the following bus routes would be rerouted for the march on Sunday:

M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M9, M10, M14, M16, M20, M23, M34 and Q32.


Winnie Hu and Jim Dwyer contributed reporting for this article.


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

August 30, 2004

Vast Anti-Bush Rally Greets Republicans in New York

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

A roaring two-mile river of demonstrators surged through the canyons of Manhattan yesterday in the city's largest political protest in decades, a raucous but peaceful spectacle that pilloried George W. Bush and demanded regime change in Washington.

On a sweltering August Sunday, the huge throng of protesters marched past Madison Square Garden, the site of the Republican National Convention opening today, and denounced President Bush as a misfit who had plunged America into war and runaway debt, undermined civil and constitutional rights, lied to the people, despoiled the environment and used the presidency to benefit corporations and millionaires.

The protest organizer, United for Peace and Justice, estimated the crowd at 500,000, rivaling a 1982 antinuclear rally in Central Park, and double the number it had predicted. It was, at best, a rough estimate. The Police Department, as is customary, offered no official estimate, but one officer in touch with the police command center at Madison Square Garden agreed that the crowd appeared to be close to a half-million.

The march, which took nearly six hours to complete, was a tense, shrill, largely choreographed trek from Chelsea to Midtown and back to Union Square, where it ended, as planned, without a rally. And while there were a couple of hundred arrests, the event went off without major violence, despite fears of explosive clashes with the biggest security force ever assembled in New York.

After the march, hundreds of protesters in a more belligerent mood made their way to Times Square and blocked the entrances of two Midtown hotels, while another group harassed Republican guests at a party at the Boathouse restaurant in Central Park. But a post-march gathering on the Great Lawn of the park was peaceful.

At a news conference last night, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said there had been about 200 arrests, mostly for disorderly conduct, though nine people were charged with felony assaults on officers who were seizing a 10th suspect for setting a small fire outside the Garden, and 15 members of an anarchist group called Black Block were arrested after they knocked down police barriers and hurled bottles at police lines at 34th Street and Avenue of the Americas.

It was unclear how many protesters were injured. Mr. Kelly said three officers suffered minor injuries in the Black Block arrests, and a deputy inspector suffered a hyperextended elbow in another incident. Another officer sustained a wrenched shoulder as he went to the aid of a colleague outside the Marriott Marquis Hotel, and another suffered a knee injury chasing a disorderly protester at Union Square.

"Organizers for United for Peace and Justice should be commended for keeping their word," Mr. Kelly said. "They pledged that their demonstrators would follow the march route and that's exactly what happened. It proceeded as expected and by and large was peaceful and orderly." He also praised officers for "commendable restraint," adding that "they are consummate professionals and it showed today."

The relatively peaceful outcome of the enormous march seemed the result of various factors - a determined restraint by the marchers and the police, weeks of planning by organizers and city officials, and, perhaps not least, the subduing effects of an exhaustingly hot day, with 90-degree temperatures and humidity that soaked shirts and wilted all but the most aggressive spirits.

As the march unfolded, the 5,000 Republican convention delegates, their families and entourages began sampling the delights of New York, attending parties and Broadway matinees, dining in homes and elegant restaurants and taking in the Gotham sights. Vice President Dick Cheney, Gov. George E. Pataki and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani gave speeches on Ellis Island, but took no note of the march. President Bush campaigned in Ohio, working toward an arrival in New York on Thursday.

The Republicans, some of whom regard protesters as little more than wild-eyed liberal wastrels, largely ignored yesterday's demonstration, but there were occasional encounters between delegates and demonstrators, like one outside a theater on 44th Street.

"Four more years," the delegates chanted.

"Four more months," the protesters responded.

Several hours after the march stepped off at noon, chaos erupted outside the Garden at Seventh Avenue and 33rd Street when a papier mâché dragon float was set on fire, scattering demonstrators. But the police quickly extinguished the flames before firefighters arrived and seized 15 people said to be carrying smoke bombs, and the march resumed as order was restored.

More than 50 bicyclists who were not participants in the march were seized for obstructing traffic at several locations in Midtown. Bystanders said that officers on motor scooters had rammed some bikes, knocking riders to the ground before handcuffing them. But the police took photographs and insisted that the officers had acted properly.

More than 50 people were also arrested for blocking the entrances to the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square, where delegates from Ohio and California were staying, and the Milford Plaza Hotel on Eighth Avenue.

Most of those arrested were taken in buses to a detention center at Pier 57, at West 14th Street, an aging, dingy three-story warehouse of the Department of Marine and Aviation. Mateo Taussig, speaking for the National Lawyers Guild, said many had been denied access to lawyers, and he called the building an inappropriate detention facility.

After the march, thousands of protesters, apparently following suggestions by the demonstration's leaders, regrouped in Central Park, where organizers had been denied permission to rally in order to forestall damage to the Great Lawn - an affront to many who insisted it was free speech and not the grass being trampled. Trouble had been widely expected.

But the protesters gathered on the Great Lawn in what appeared to be a mellow mood, mostly young people scattered in small groups, Some held up peace signs or anti-Bush placards, others twirled sign poles like batons. Some practiced yoga, others smoked cigarettes and talked quietly. A few drums could be heard in the distance, but there were no bull horns or sound amplification equipment.

Police officers were also scattered around the Great Lawn, talking in small groups. Norman Siegel, a former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union who was acting as a legal observer, said the police told him they would not enforce a rule that gatherings of more than 20 required a permit. The police and the protesters appeared to be just hanging out, looking to avoid trouble.

"I see a very mellow scene," said Leslie Cagan, a leader of United for Peace and Justice, who had urged protesters to go to the park after the march. "The police are being very laid back and very mellow and that's great."

Underlying yesterday's events was wide concern over a possible terrorist attack - premonitions of a catastrophe aimed at disrupting the Republican convention, the national elections and the American psyche three years after Sept. 11. Such fears were expected to be the subtext of events throughout the convention, which runs through Thursday.

In response, the city and federal governments have mounted a $65 million security operation, with warplanes enforcing a no-fly zone over Manhattan, an armada of Coast Guard cutters and police launches patrolling waterways and tens of thousands of police officers and military personnel guarding landmarks, the convention site and other potential targets, as well as overseeing the week's almost nonstop protests.

But there was no sign that a terrorist attack was imminent, and the focus of the day was on the protest march as a tide of chanting, placard-waving, lustily shouting demonstrators from across the region and around the nation converged on New York's sun-drenched streets in a boisterous, almost carnival mood that belied the serious intent of the demonstration.

The multitudes were packed as dense as broccoli florets, and they filled the entire two-mile route - so the head of the march reached Union Square even before the last of the marchers stepped off at 14th Street and Seventh Avenue.

After months of mounting anger at the president and frustrations over plans for a rally that finally was scrapped after a court upheld city objections to the use of Central Park for fear of damage to the Great Lawn, the day was an emotional crescendo for the participants, for organizers and for city officials.

For Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and other city officials, who had spent days calling for a peaceful demonstration, the nonviolent outcome was gratifying, a testament to months of planning and training and an insistence on common-sense restraint by officers and marchers alike, and on carefully drawn rules to avoid needless confrontations.

For organizers who had also urged nonviolence, the outcome was gratifying and something of a relief. The leadership had voiced concern that any violence would play into the hands of Republicans, allowing them to caricature the protesters as anarchists, provocateurs and chronic malcontents.

The organizers said they were also pleased by the size and diversity of the turnout. The faces appeared to be a cross-section of the American experience. There were individuals, families and groups from many states and across the region and the city. There were young people and older citizens, families with small children, students and representatives of the middle and working classes and many organizations, including advocates of gay and women's rights, antiwar groups, immigrants, veterans, artists, professionals, religious organizations and proponents of education, health and other causes.

For many participants, there was also pride, and a kind of amazement, in being part of an event so large and diverse, and yet so pacific.

And there was a satisfying sense for many of having played a role in larger political processes, of doing something beyond voting to affect the outcome of an election widely seen as crucial to America's future on issues as varied as the war in Iraq, the huge national deficit, abortion, same-sex marriage, the environment and the nation's role in the world.

Gathering on the avenues and leafy residential side streets of Chelsea between 14th and 23rd Streets, the marchers stepped off shortly before noon, a cumbersome army led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the actor Danny Glover, the filmmaker Michael Moore and other celebrities.

Shorts and T-shirts, many branding Mr. Bush a liar, a criminal or a warmonger, were the uniforms of the day. Anti-Bush accessories went beyond banners, placards and buttons. There were fly swatters bearing Mr. Bush's face. Pallbearers carried a thousand mock coffins of cardboard draped in black or in American flags, representing the war dead in Iraq. And moving along the line of march was a papier-mâché tank with President Bush's head, wearing a cowboy hat, poking out the hatch.

On either side, the marchers were flanked by blue and camouflage-green lines of helmeted, flak-jacketed police officers and National Guardsmen, mostly watching quietly as the marchers moved north on Seventh Avenue toward the deckle-edged skyline of Midtown.

Overhead, police helicopters thwacked and a relentless sun beat down on the protesters and pavements.

Still, the protesters were exuberant. Shouting insults and obscenities at Mr. Bush, raising placards proclaiming "Drop Bush, Not Bombs" and "Eradicate Mad Cowboy Disease," they marched past the Garden hour after hour in masses that poured out barrages of abuse. But inside the Garden, no one was home to hear it. Aside from workers making final preparations, the arena was a decorous empty shell hung with patriots' bunting a day before the delegates' arrival. That hardly mattered to the protesters, whose outpourings were aimed mainly at news media, anyway.


Reporting for this article was contributed by Michael Wilson, Randal C. Archibold, Diane Cardwell, Ann Farmer, Colin Moynihan, John Holl and Judy Tong.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[ZippyTheChimp]

Two views


August 30, 2004

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Four Connected Elections

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

George W. Bush comes to the G.O.P. convention on the heels of victory in the Najaf primary.

As a young, anti-American cleric turned a revered house of worship into a fortress, thereby to seize leadership of Iraq's Shiites, the grand ayatollah slipped out of the country for medical treatment. This left the dirty work of reducing the firebrand's "Mahdi Army" to American firepower. Then, lest the final closing-in give rise to an Iraqi Alamo legend, the ayatollah neatly timed his return to lead thousands in a peaceful march into the shrine and the remnants of the occupying rebels vanished.

Not quite an electoral "primary" - the al-Sadr forces prefer bullets to ballots - but the result was political. Nobody now doubts who is the most powerful Shiite leader. And though he cannot publicly express his gratitude to the foreign soldiers who made possible his victory over the abusers of sanctuary in Najaf, the ayatollah is on the side of a general election soon.

Two other elections will affect that expression of nascent democracy in a land once known for Saddam's tyranny and sponsorship of terror.

One is in October in Afghanistan. On a recent visit to D.C., President Harmid Karzai told me he expected that seven million out of the nine million eligible Afghan voters would register to vote. That seemed a vain hope, since nobody had the habit and with opium growers and warlords roaming the precincts, voting would be risky.

What happened? So far, 9.9 million Afghans have registered, which is a little embarrassing, but the lust to get more than one registration card is only human to a populace that hid its oppressed womenfolk until the U.S. and its allies overthrew the Taliban. The Afghans don't take the right to vote for granted, as half of us do.

The other election that will influence the scheduled vote in Iraq is the one that seems to have caught the attention of the citizens of New York City. (As I write this, I can see a demonstration by a group of Chinese representing a sect oppressed by the Communist rulers in Beijing. Dressed in yellow and red costumes, they exercise gently, dance gracefully and politely hand out fliers. New Yorkers never saw such a peaceful demonstration. Other marchers bearing coffins are depressing, but for now - Go, Falun Gong!)

This is an election essentially about the political will to carry the war on terror to the sources of terror and to maintain that will despite the costs.

That is not the only issue to affect the voting decision we make. This week, President Bush is expected to rise above the dog-eat-dog days of August to present plans for medical and retirement incentives on the domestic front. (In proposed tax-free accounts, the word "private" is out; the word "personal" is in.) And the supporting stars of the G.O.P. firmament - McCain, Giuliani, Franks and Schwarzenegger - will try to get swing voters into the swing of not changing horses in mid-war.

But Bush's September song must deal with the paramount issue of the national will to carry the fight to the enemy. Though there have always been many to whom taking the offensive gives offense, a majority of Americans will be willing to "stay the course" if a persuasive leader can ennoble the cause.

In "World War IV," a brilliant, long, sweeping review of our foreign policy in the past century in the current Commentary magazine, the neoconservative Norman Podhoretz makes the historical case for optimistic assertiveness over "realistic" accommodation. He sees the roots of the Bush Doctrine in the successful Truman Doctrine, and reminds us that the sustained resolve that won the three global wars of the past century can prevail in the present generation's rendezvous with terror.

I'm more of a new libercon than an old neocon, but such a determined mindset on our time's paramount issue - of global safety in freedom - attracts me to the crowd in New York that points with pride at what we're doing rather than the bunch in Boston that viewed with alarm all we've done.

Look ahead, you guys. No culture-warring, no back-pedaling, no pouting at celebrity Bush-bashing, no poll-bounce fixation, no Kerrymandering. "In war, resolution"; in campaigning, uplift.


August 30, 2004

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Of Campaigns and Breakfast Cereals

By BOB HERBERT

Most national issues today are so complicated, so difficult to understand and have opinions on, that they either intimidate or, more often, bore the average voter."

So wrote Harry Treleaven, an advertising man who took a leave of absence in the mid-1960's to work on the Texas Congressional campaign of 42-year-old George Herbert Walker Bush. Mr. Treleaven was not upset by the fact that voters were turned off by the complexity of important political issues. After all, he was in advertising. The goal was to sell product, not explore issues.

Mr. Treleaven became a key figure in Richard Nixon's 1968 campaign. Joe McGinniss, in his best-selling book about that campaign, "The Selling of the President,'' said of Mr. Treleaven:

"There was no issue when it came to selling Ford automobiles; there were only the product, the competition and the advertising. He saw no reason why politics should be any different."

Mr. Treleaven died in 1998, but the path-breaking cynicism of his type of politics hangs like a shroud over this year's presidential campaign.

You want complicated issues? Start with Iraq - a war with no clearly defined goal, not even the remotest timetable for victory, and no exit strategy whatsoever. The ad men (and women) will reduce this monumental tragedy to crisp, poll-tested campaign sound bites.

Or consider the economy. We're in a new world of work in which good jobs at good pay with good benefits are ever more hard to find. Despite the administration's insistence that the economy is strong and getting stronger, there is no light at the end of this dismal tunnel. Job growth is anemic. The middle class is being relentlessly squeezed. And the Census Bureau tells us that in 2003, for the third year in a row, the number of Americans who are poor increased.

As David Leonhardt wrote in The Times on Friday, "The economy's troubles, which first affected high-income families even more than the middle class and poor, have recently hurt families at the bottom and in the middle significantly more than those at the top."

These are issues that should be ruthlessly explored, but the politicians, their handlers and much of the media have taken their cues from Harry Treleaven. You don't want to bore the readers or viewers or voters with anything too complicated. A well-rehearsed comment or two will suffice, followed by the jokes on Leno and Letterman, and then it's on to the "real world" of Paris and Kobe and whatever.

This week's Republican convention in New York is a rigidly scripted theatrical event that will garner a grand total of three hours of live coverage on network television - a reprise of the Democrats' rigidly scripted extravaganza in Boston last month. Anyone who drifts off message will be viewed as a nut.

So we won't get anything but pap about Iraq. We'll be told about the miraculous economic healing powers of the Bush tax cuts. We'll be told that the era of George Bush II has been a rousing success for America.

Serious voters who would like to hear a discussion (from the leaders of both parties) about why we are in Iraq and when and how we might get out of there will be disappointed. So will voters interested in exploring ideas about the leadership role of the United States in the post-9/11 world, which is at least as important as the role thrust upon the U.S. in the aftermath of World War II.

More scary stories are emerging about global warming, and our dependence on foreign oil is undermining our security like never before. But these topics, too, are complex, and therefore, according to the advertising folks and media gurus, too difficult and boring for general consumption.

In other words, we're a nation of nitwits, and a presidential campaign at a critical moment in world history will be spoon-fed to us like an ad for Wheaties.

Raymond Price, a speechwriter for Nixon in the 1968 campaign, was as contemptuous of substance in politics as Treleaven. "It's not what's there that counts," he wrote, "it's what's projected." In Price's view, "Voters are basically lazy, basically uninterested in making an effort to understand what we're talking about."

Voters could revolt against this kind of humiliating treatment. But that would happen only if the Treleavens and Prices of the world were wrong.


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Schadenfrau]

From the Daily News:

Takin' it to the street


Nearly 1,000 protesters nabbed in Manhattan havoc


This story was reported by MAKI BECKER, KERRY BURKE, LISA L. COLANGELO, NANCY DILLON, PETE DONOHUE, TAMER EL-GHOBASHY, DAVID EPSTEIN, GREG GITTRICH, JONATHAN LEMIRE, MICHELE McPHEE, ADAM NICHOLS, RALPH R. ORTEGA, & DEREK ROSE

It was written by
CORKY SIEMASZKO

Demonstrators and cops struggled over control of the streets of New York yesterday on a day of chaos and defiance that ended with nearly 1,000 arrests.

It was madness as bands of rowdy demonstrators roamed by foot and bike to more than a dozen spots around Manhattan, bent on disrupting the Republican National Convention.

"Go home! Go home!" protesters taunted GOP delegates, while other cursed the visitors.

There was a melee outside the New York Public Library when cops stopped two women from unfurling a banner over one of the lions. Scores of protesters were netted near Ground Zero and more were bottled up in Union Square.

But cops' biggest confrontation came when dozens opposed to President Bush and the Iraq war defiantly stepped off the curb in Herald Square around dusk and staged a "die-in," blocks from the GOP fest at Madison Square Garden.

Cops on mountain bikes swooped down on the demonstrators there and farther south, at Broadway and 28th St., where more protesters staged yet a second die-in.

Some of the rebels chained themselves together in Herald Square and chanted, "Whose streets? Our streets!"

Cops ordered the surging crowd back while thugs set garbage fires. "The NYPD needs to learn the First Amendment," Mike Johns, 26, of Brooklyn, yelled when a cop shoved him.

"Shut up!" the cop barked.

A Republican delegate wearing a Stars-and-Stripes top hat emerged from Macy's with horror etched on her face. "Omigod, how do I get to the Garden?" she asked an officer.

"Good luck, lady," he replied.

The hapless woman fled as demonstrators jeered, "Go back to Kansas!"

Nearby, a hooded protester tried to rush onto the outdoor stage used by MSNBC while Chris Matthews hosted "Hardball." But cops tackled him and the show went on.

Meanwhile, cops chased the fleeing hooligans and herded them into side streets along Fifth and Sixth Aves., where they were captured by other officers.

Police also liberated a busload of Louisiana delegates, whose path to the Garden was blocked by demonstrators.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the NYPD is bracing for more trouble tomorrow, when President Bush makes his acceptance speech.

"You break the law, you're going to find yourself arrested," warned Mayor Bloomberg, who closely monitored the mayhem.

For much of yesterday, a coalition of groups called A31 - for Aug. 31 - played cat and mouse with cops, using text messages to plot their next move.

They weren't aiming for a massive show of protest, like Sunday's peaceful march. They were aiming to cause havoc.

Downtown, 500 protesters set off from north of Ground Zero to stage a die-in by the Garden. But cops stopped them just as they got started.

"You're all under arrest!" a lieutenant yelled as cops used plastic orange netting to snare confused protesters.

"Let us disperse!" the protesters cried. When that didn't work, two women took off their tops and began chanting, "Cops deserve a raise!"

That did not sway police.

At the Fox News Channel studios in midtown, police penned 1,000 demonstrators staging a "shut-up-athon" against the network. "Fox lies, people die," they chanted.

It was all a little too much for Wisconsin delegate Karen Church, who was confronted by demonstrators demanding, "Who would Jesus bomb?"

Outside the Sotheby's auction house, 100 black-clad demonstrators picketed the Tennessee delegation, members of which were bidding on the Johnny Cash estate.

"It's totally wrong for the Republicans to use Johnny Cash for their little party," said Brandon Jourdan, 25, of Manhattan. "I grew up in North Carolina and listened to his songs for the poor and beaten-down. The Republicans are the ones doing the beating down."
Originally published on September 1, 2004

[Bob]

Somewhere in my college days, I recall reading a book titled something along the lines of "Rioting for Fun and Profit." In fact, it might have been penned by none other than NY's own Daniel P. Moynihan. This came to mind as I watched this week's "protests."

[ZippyTheChimp]

Your memory is foggy. The book Rioting Mainly for Fun and Profit was authored by Edward Banfield.

Why would you think Moynihan would be the author?

The "protests" (why the quotes?) have been largely peaceful so far. Get you head out of Chicago '68.

[Schadenfrau]

What came to mind when you saw the footage of the RNC delegate kicking the woman who protested Cheney's speech?

[Schadenfrau]

For the curious, you can see a young Republican attacking a woman here:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/

[TLOZ Link5]

What link do we click?

[Schadenfrau]

Sorry, WABC went and switched links on me. If you click here, it's the video story called, "Protesters Hit Garden Floor, One Kicked By Delegate."

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/gopcon/wabc_090204_protestshowdown2.html

[TonyO]

Its actually this link:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/gopcon/wabc_090204_protestshowdown2.html#

The guy who kicked the protester is like a deer in headlights when he finds out he was on camera.

[Schadenfrau]

Thanks, Tonyo. I'm really surprised this isn't getting more coverage. If people are getting arrested for walking down the street, a violent assault on a person lying on the floor should be worth something.

Instead, this jerk is going to be on the convention floor tonight.

[Bob]

Banfield. Yep. Thanks.

I could have looked it up before typing away, but alas, did not.

Plenty of foul behavior, nonetheless, with the "protests."

About that person who was escorted off the convention floor during the Vice-President's speech, anybody know what he/she/it was "protesting"?

[ZippyTheChimp]

It seems to me that the delegate was"rioting."

I wonder how many people, besides Bob, believe that as buildings were falling down around him, Guilliani actually said to Kerik, "Thank God we have George W Bush as president." He may get my vote in 2008 just for saying it with a straight face.

Well, tonight things go full circle. We get to see Bush come up out of a hole. The RNC are such great showpeople. I wonder if they'll have Dick Cheney shine a flashlight in Bush's mouth.

[Schadenfrau]

I imagine he/she/it was "protesting" the Bush administration's policies. Is that really so difficult for you to imagine, Bob?

Your attitude is pretty condescending, especially considering that many of the people on these boards are counted amongst the group you're mocking.




Judge Fines City for Ignoring Order to Release Protesters

By N.J. Burkett, and Jeff Pegues

(New York-WABC, September 2, 2004) — A New York State Court judge has ordered the city of New York held in contempt for refusing to release some 168 demonstrators who have been held more than 24 hours without being arraigned.

Some 250 cases have been processed today, but the city has been unable to process the other 168.

It is not clear what has become of them--whether they will be released imminently or not.

No immediate comment from prosecutors or the city.

Under the contempt order, New York City is being fined $1,000 a day per demonstrator. In other words, the city is being slapped immediately with a $168,000 fine. That, according to Donna Lieberman, of the NYCLU.

That fine will double if the city does not release the remaining demonstrators by this time tomorrow.

The fines, in case you are wondering, are payable to the detained demonstrators, themselves.

No word on when, or if, the city will release the "RNC 168."

[NewYorkYankee]

Bush's speech last night changed my whole political view. he will now get 1 more vote.

[ZippyTheChimp]

That's surprising. I would have guessed Bush already had your vote.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Yeah, I thought so too. Then I have a question for you, because I haven't been able to figure out those people who are undecided. Are you saying you haven't been able to discern enough of a difference between the candidates until you heard Bush's (extremely polarizing) speech, or were you not paying attention to the presidential race until yesterday?

[Bob]

I see. It's OK for leftists/socialists/anarchists/marxists to be condescending to those who disagree with their POV, but not the other way around. Isn't turnabout fair play?

I refer to the "protests" in quotation marks, as I find the tactics used not helpful to their causes, or for that matter, the concept of intelligent discourse. It was THESE people who thought it was 1968. And because they didn't realize it was 2004, they may have seriously hurt their favored candidate's chances in the pending election. Not that I'm complaining all that much.

[TonyO]

I think the main reason why the protests were not as potent is because they were not covered. Not covered was because of the cable-network wars. In an effort to appease a conservative audience, who complain more than progressives when they don't hear exactly what they want to, the protests were not seen to the degree they really were. Unless you were here you don't really understand the extent of how many people were in the streets.

The networks gave more play to the protests I found. CNN and FoxNews are the two competing for the top spot, with FoxNews winning on a regular basis. CNN does win with breaking news and with people who trust the news their getting, however. There was a large protest outside of FoxNews' newsroom on 6th Ave - which most people never heard of because of the desire of CNN and others to appease the conservative audience.

ILUVNYC, spare us your hokey salesman routine. If you had really had some revelation at Bush's rehashed speech last night I am sure we would never hear about it.

[NewYorkYankee]

NYatKnight, I was undecided, I agree and disagree with both candidates, I disagree with abortion and gay rights but also disagree with the war in Iraq, I wasnt sure who to vote for. But Bush's speech last night was tremendous, Tonyo all I was implying is that he done a wonderful job, and the emotion in his voice and face showed he cares about this country and will do anything for it. Thats the kind of president I want! Just my opinion.

[NewYorkYankee]

Zippy, and why would you assume I was casting my vote for Bush? Just curious.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Nothing particular, just the pattern of some of your posts. It is reinforced by your response to tonyo, and my opinion of what the convention was all about.

We just got home and I'm tired,so you get the short version. More in a few days.

I don't think the focus was to convince the undecided, but to energize the base. I read somewhere that in 2000, 4 million Republican conservatives didn't vote. The agenda was not to inform the undecided, but to enrage those who already dislike Kerry (or any Democrat) to get up off their asses and vote.

I disagree with abortion and gay rights but also disagree with the war in Iraq, I wasnt sure who to vote for. But Bush's speech last night was tremendous,

What do you mean tremendous? A little ambiguous, right?

the emotion in his voice and face showed he cares about this country and will do anything for it.
You could have gotten the same effect with Anthony Hopkins.

Abortion
Gay rights
Iraq War

These are weighty issues, and you were moved from your indecision by...what?

[NewYorkYankee]

Just the war, Just the way it seemed he cared, the way he stood behind himself and said "We will prevail and bring our troops home!" I dont know, its just me I guess. Im in fact very liberal about Gay rights and abortion. I believe what people think about Iraq will be the deciding factor.

[Schadenfrau]

I see. It's OK for leftists/socialists/anarchists/marxists to be condescending to those who disagree with their POV, but not the other way around. Isn't turnabout fair play?

I refer to the "protests" in quotation marks, as I find the tactics used not helpful to their causes, or for that matter, the concept of intelligent discourse.

I'm choosing to address you without being condescending.

No matter your opinion of the protests, they did exist. Putting quotation marks around the word suggests they didn't.

You seem to be under the impression that hundreds of thousands of people gathered together simply to annoy you, which is an idea that really perplexes me.

[Schadenfrau]

It has been revealed that the RNC kicker is none other than a Mr. Deryk Schlessinger, spawn of Dr. Laura.

[ZippyTheChimp]

Mommie Dearest?

[Schadenfrau]

The irony is almost enough to leave you speechless.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Yet not really surprising.

Lots of "issues" in that arena.

[ZippyTheChimp]

September 17, 2004

City Arrest Tactics, Used on Protesters, Face Test in Court

By JIM DWYER

New York City has one memento from the 2004 Republican National Convention that seems destined to last: an especially bitter dispute over the city's methods and motives in detaining hundreds of protesters, well beyond the ordinary legal time limit of 24 hours, without the usual access to lawyers.

At times, the Police Department kept people in custody for two days or more before issuing them tickets for offenses like disorderly conduct.

Led by a vigorous defense from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, city officials say they did their best under a sudden and extraordinary flood of arrests, acknowledging that bystanders may have been swept up. Lawyers for a number of protesters say what the city did amounted to illegal preventive detention, a calculated effort to limit the chances of confrontation and possible embarrassment.

The full dimensions of the dispute may emerge in a contempt-of-court hearing for the city on Sept. 27, and in civil lawsuits that have been filed or are threatened.

What is clear now - from interviews, a review of newly released city and state records, and a decision from a previously undisclosed court hearing - is that the city's new system for speedy processing of mass arrests failed its first major test that week.

At least one of the city's major justifications for delays in releasing protesters is not supported by state records. In addition, the city chose not to abide by a state judge's direct order to grant lawyers immediate access to their clients. When another judge gave deadlines for the release of certain prisoners who had been held at length, top city officials repeatedly came back to court to report that they could not track the prisoners down in time. There were 1,781 arrests in all.

While the mayor has accurately noted that prosecutors have dropped very few of the arrests, it is also true that more than 600 of the cases have been provisionally dismissed, indicating that the police detention amounted to a more severe punishment than any the courts would impose.

The city's top lawyer, Michael C. Cardozo, told a judge that much of the delay was not caused by the city, since it took "five or six hours to get the fingerprints from Albany," referring to criminal history records maintained by the state.

Yet state officials have a different story. They say that they sent 94 percent of the fingerprint reports to the city in one hour or less. Only one set of fingerprints - of 3,620 processed by the state from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3 - took as long as five hours to return to New York City authorities, according to a computer report provided by Jessica Scaperotti, a spokeswoman for the state's Division of Criminal Justice Services.

Numerous lawyers said they could not see their clients while they were in city custody. That state of affairs persisted even after a State Supreme Court judge in Manhattan, Emily Jane Goodman, drove to the courthouse at midnight on Sept. 1, and signed an order requiring the city to allow defense lawyers to meet their clients "forthwith."

Yet when defense lawyers delivered her order to corrections guards at a jail in the courthouse at 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 2, they were kept waiting nearly two hours and then were denied entry, according to Daniel L. Alterman, one of the lawyers. "The city refused to honor a lawful order of the court," Mr. Alterman said. Numerous other lawyers said they, too, had not been allowed to meet their clients in city jails or at a Hudson River pier used by the Police Department as a holding area.

Mr. Cardozo, the city's corporation counsel, said that he believed state law gave the city the right to an automatic stay of Justice Goodman's order in order to appeal to a higher court. John Feinblatt, the city's criminal justice coordinator, said that for logistical reasons, lawyers normally are not permitted to see their clients until they are in courthouse pens for arraignment, a point strongly disputed by defense lawyers. "There couldn't have been a night when safety reasons, security reasons, and efficiency reasons were more paramount," Mr. Feinblatt said.

A second state judge, John Cataldo of Supreme Court, gave the city a series of deadlines to bring prisoners before the court or release them during the last two days of the convention. Mr. Cardozo and Mr. Feinblatt told the judge that locating the prisoners was complicated because there were four places where they might be. Nearly 24 hours after the judge began setting deadlines that were not met, he held the city in contempt of court. In the next three hours, at least 311 people were released, records show.

Mr. Bloomberg has said that the office of Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, had declined to prosecute only three of the arrests. The district attorney "obviously thinks we behaved correctly and arrested the right people," Mr. Bloomberg said.

The prosecutor's office confirmed this week that it had dismissed only three cases. Still, of the 1,102 people who went before judges, 70 have pleaded guilty and 621 cases were "adjourned in contemplation of dismissal," according to Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Morgenthau. Such dismissals require the person to stay out of trouble for six months. They are a common outcome of minor arrests, including those made at major protests.

The uproar over the arrests and detentions began near the end of a tumultuous week of demonstrations during the convention, which were largely free of the violence and destruction that had been predicted by some authorities. Mr. Bloomberg has said that the larger picture shows that the city did an excellent job of keeping the streets safe and protecting civil rights.

Mr. Bloomberg said that the city wanted to move faster in getting people out of jail, but that the police were stymied by an extraordinarily high number of arrests, including hundreds made within several hours on the Tuesday of convention week. He and his senior aides say the extended detentions were simply a byproduct of the city's diligence in maintaining public order, while ensuring that hundreds of thousands of people could safely exercise free speech rights in dozens of marches, protests and demonstrations.

For the lawyers of many of those arrested, however, the city seemed to have swept up protesters, then managed the arrest process to keep them away from judges and in police custody until President Bush spoke on the last night of the convention. The tactics amounted, said Norman Siegel, a civil rights lawyer, to "preventative detention."

That charge was described as a "patent lie" by Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who noted that protesters were moved through the system quickly until nearly 1,200 people were arrested in one four-hour period on Aug. 31.

The system had been swamped, Mr. Cardozo told Justice Cataldo. "Yesterday was the largest number of arrests in the history of Manhattan," he said.

In fact, while the total number of arrests on that evening - 1,128 - was extraordinarily high for any borough, it was 30 percent lower than the total on June 14, 1982: that morning, 1,691 people were arrested at disarmament demonstrations in Midtown.

Justice Cataldo took note of the circumstances of the mass arrests but pressed the city to begin releasing people who had been charged only with violations and had been in custody for more than 36 hours. More than a decade ago, the State Court of Appeals said that in the absence of extraordinary circumstances that could not be foreseen, people who have been arrested must be brought before a judge within 24 hours. On an ordinary day in Manhattan, when roughly 260 people are arrested, they are brought before a judge, on average, in 23.7 hours, Mr. Feinblatt said yesterday.

In repeated appearances before Justice Cataldo, Mr. Cardozo and Mr. Feinblatt said they were trying hard to comply with the order but were encountering significant problems in tracking down the prisoners.

During those proceedings, on Sept. 2, Mr. Siegel, Mr. Alterman, and other lawyers from the Legal Aid Society and the National Lawyers Guild obtained a writ of habeas corpus, one of the judiciary's most powerful, if sparingly used, tools. Issued by Justice Cataldo, it ordered the Police Department to bring the prisoners to court or release them.

Deputy Chief John J. Colgan, who oversaw the operations of the mass arrest facility at the West Side pier, said each prisoner went through an intricate, careful process.

They were unloaded from buses, photographed with the arresting officer, and searched, he said. Their belongings were listed on an inventory. "Everything was itemized, line by line," Chief Colgan said. He and Mr. Cardozo both said that Web sites had advised people going to the protests to bring laden backpacks for the purpose of bogging down the system. In addition, many of those arrested - more than 60 percent - were from out of state and were carrying all they had brought with them when they were arrested, said Mr. Feinblatt of the mayor's office.

Each case was also reviewed by lawyers from the Police Department's legal division before it was sent to the district attorney's office.

After that, the arrested people were taken from the pier to central booking in Lower Manhattan where they were fingerprinted, and a computer docket was created of their arrest. Justice Cataldo wondered why the city had not simply dispensed with the fingerprinting process. He noted that in the vast majority of the arrests, the offenses were so minor that state law did not require fingerprints, unless the police were dissatisfied with the proof of identity, or because they suspected that the person might be wanted on a warrant.

Mr. Feinblatt said the fingerprints were essential. "It's Criminal Justice 101," he said. "If you had forgone the printing, you'd have no idea if there were warrants."

Mr. Feinblatt was unable to say yesterday if anyone arrested at the protests was wanted elsewhere.

He was asked about the discrepancy between the city's assertion that it was taking five to six hours for fingerprint reports to come from Albany, and the state report showing that nearly all were produced in less than an hour. "A number of them took much longer than five hours," he insisted. The state report shows only one that took four to five hours to produce, and none that took more than five hours.

Another source of delay in receiving the fingerprint reports could have been a backlog in computer printing, city officials suggested.

During the court proceedings, Justice Cataldo held the city in contempt for not bringing the prisoners to court or releasing them, as he had ordered. Mr. Cardozo said the city would appeal that order.

Throughout those sessions, the judge and the defense lawyers repeatedly asked why people charged with such minor crimes were being held for so long. Near midnight on Sept. 2, five protesters were still in custody. Mr. Cardozo urged the judge not to order their release. Unlike most of those arrested in demonstrations, they had been accused of felonies - riot and assault. Using authentic credentials, they were among a group of 12 who got onto the floor of Madison Square Garden and disrupted a speech by a White House aide.

Mr. Cardozo said, "I would also like to say that these are very serious offenses. Some of the people were seen on national television. There was a serious threat in Madison Square Garden."

Their cases turned out to be not all that grave. By the next morning, the Manhattan district attorney's office had decided to drop the riot and assault charges. All that remains of the original charges, according to Robert Gottlieb, a lawyer representing a number of protesters, is disorderly conduct.


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Schadenfrau]

From the Times article: "That charge was described as a 'patent lie' by Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who noted that protesters were moved through the system quickly until nearly 1,200 people were arrested in one four-hour period on Aug. 31. "

Wasn't it just days before the convention that Ray Kelly went on television saying he anticipated at least 1,000 arrests a day?

[Kris]

November 12, 2004

Mayor and Party Feuded Over Convention Speech

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2004/11/12/nyregion/mayor.184.jpg
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg wanted to say his city deserved more national security aid and refused for a while to deliver his speech.

New Yorkers who sat through the Republican National Convention last summer saw thousands of protesters, hundreds of balloons, and people from Montana and Utah wearing giant rhinestone "W" pins. What they never saw was a behind-the-scenes clash between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Bush campaign aides over whether the mayor could give a speech lashing out at the Republican-led Congress for failing to deliver on post-9/11 security aid.

Less than three hours before the speech was to be delivered, Mr. Bloomberg directed an aide to tell the Bush team that they would now have "eight more minutes to fill" in their schedule, because he would not be giving his speech, according to aides to both camps.

Mr. Bloomberg has often chided his Republican colleagues in Congress in the last year over the way they have calculated domestic security funds, and he wanted to make that point again in his welcoming remarks, the aides recalled. Bush campaign officials, who read the speech the night before the convention began, were not amused by the idea of Mr. Bloomberg slamming members of his own party at their convention.

At 8:30 the next morning, as he stood in the kitchen of his townhouse on the Upper East Side, campaign operatives on the other end of the phone ordered Mr. Bloomberg to remove that portion of his remarks. Mr. Bloomberg, lacing his response with some language that was decidedly not borrowed from his party's platform, said he would not be giving a speech at all. His name was even deleted from the program of speakers.

Only after tense down-to-the-wire negotiations did Mr. Bloomberg take the stage, according to aides from the Bloomberg administration and the president's campaign. In the end, a single sentence - a line directly attacking Congress - was excised, they added. Mr. Bloomberg did say, "We all must recognize that homeland security funds should be allocated by threat and no other reason," a line that was greeted with stony silence.

The next day, the matter was seemingly already in the past. Word of the hidden drama emerged only after the election, and the details were confirmed in interviews yesterday. When contacted, both Mayor Bloomberg's aides and those who worked on the Bush campaign were reluctant to discuss publicly an incident they considered long over.

The incident may be the most illustrative example of how Mr. Bloomberg struggled to balance his role as reluctant Republican with that of convention host in a town that was deeply ambivalent about its guests. Mr. Bloomberg personally raised millions of dollars for the convention, promoted the event for months beforehand and took a hard line with protesters who tried to disrupt the proceedings. But he also spent the week trying to avoid direct contact with President Bush - keeping out of his photo ops and his box at Madison Square Garden - and held parties for gay Republicans as well as for Republicans who support abortion rights.

Mr. Bloomberg had maintained for a year that Congress's formula for distributing antiterrorism money should be based on risk, not population. The fact that it cost millions to secure the city for the convention seemed to underscore his point, and aides said he wanted to make it in his speech.

"The convention was a boost economically for New York City and gave us a great opportunity to make our case to the country," said Edward Skyler, the mayor's press secretary.

But from the Bush-Cheney re-election team's perspective, it was unbecoming of Mr. Bloomberg to make any critical remarks of other Republicans during their moment in the spotlight in a such a fiercely contested election.

The way Mr. Bloomberg saw things, he had undertaken the enormous security and political risks associated with the convention, put up $7 million of his own money for the event and was entitled to speak about whatever he wished, and his wishes ranged from factoids about New York City to domestic security.

So it was that while few people even bothered to show up for the speech - 11:15 a.m. on opening day of the convention was not prime speaking time - Mr. Bloomberg kept his remarks pretty much as he wrote them, and delivered them to a crowd that was more concerned with practicing line dancing and chatting.

"I will repeat this message to my fellow Republicans, Democrats and independents as many times as it takes so we can keep New York safe and secure," he said during his remarks. Only when he praised Mr. Bush profusely was he applauded thunderously.

Nicolle Devenish, Mr. Bush's campaign communication director, would not comment directly on the dispute, but said, "Mayor Bloomberg was an extraordinary host, and his contributions and his role were second to none." She added, "It was very important to us, and we were honored to have Mayor Bloomberg speak at the president's nominating convention - we would have been sorely disappointed if anything had prevented him from speaking."

National Republican officials said that as much as the mayor's help was appreciated, they could not approve a speech critical of party members at their own convention. The Bush team had gone to lengths to keep a show of unity, avoiding an ugly public platform fight and carefully vetting all convention speakers. A welcoming speech by Mr. Bloomberg in which he criticized the domestic security formula, these officials said, would have set the wrong tone.

The standoff was solved only after the president of the city's host committee, Kevin Sheekey, made an urgent call to Karl Rove, the president's chief political strategist, to inform him of the situation as Mr. Rove was giving a speech in the Midwest. At that point, Mr. Bloomberg's advance team was informed that he would not be going to Madison Square Garden, and his name was deleted from the program.

Mr. Rove finished his speech, then read the section of Mr. Bloomberg's remarks that were in question and the incident officially ended there.

Mr. Bloomberg gave his speech three minutes early, and then rushed off to run the city.

Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company


Unfair Share of Security Money (http://forums.wirednewyork.com/viewtopic.php?t=1451)

[BrooklynRider]

Sounds like a "well-placed" story by a Bloomberg administration insider, showing how he "fights" for the city. Let's nnot forget he's entering his own "election season".

No Central Park permit for the United for Peace and Justice March Harassment and continuing arrests of Critical Mass bikers, Pier 57 holding center, the continuedmilitarisation of NYC - there is nothing that can compel me to pull the lever for him again.

[NYatKNIGHT]

Not surprising that no one was allowed to talk about dissension in the ranks at the Republican convention. So since he feels so strongly about it why doesn't Bloomberg make a big stink about funding for security now? You're allowed to make the speech now Mike, your boss got re-elected.

[Kris]

November 23, 2004

Lawsuit Is Filed Over Detention of Protesters During Convention

By JULIA PRESTON

Civil rights lawyers filed a federal class-action suit against the city yesterday claiming the protesters detained during the Republican National Convention were held too long and in "excessive, unnecessary and punitive" conditions.

The suit, filed initially on behalf of 24 people who were among more than 1,800 detained during the convention late this summer, contends that their constitutional rights were violated by arbitrary arrests and by harsh conditions at Pier 57, a former bus repair depot where they were held for as long as 48 hours on minor charges. The suit contends that the pier was contaminated with asbestos and toxic chemicals.

It was filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the New York chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.

Jonathan C. Moore, one of the lawyers who filed the suit, accused New York of creating a "little Guantánamo on the Hudson," a reference to the military detention camp in Cuba. "All that was missing were the orange jumpsuits," Mr. Moore said.

Deputy Police Commissioner Paul J. Browne vigorously disputed the allegations, saying that Pier 57 was "safe and clean to temporarily hold" those who were arrested.

He said that the police, in preparation for the convention, had installed lighting, ventilation and sanitary facilities and had ordered an environmental inspection.

"The hyperbole of these advocates is always over the top," Mr. Browne said. "Those who broke the law are still complaining that they were inconvenienced by arrest, and their advocates continue make false allegations about conditions at the pier."

Several of the people suing the city said that they were still suffering aftereffects. For example, Rebecca Stoneback, a 25-year-old jewelry designer and glass artist from Asbury, N.J., showed several blemishes on her face at a news conference yesterday. She said they erupted, along with a rash on her body, while she was sitting handcuffed on the floor at Pier 57.

Ms. Stoneback said she was arrested as she was walking with a friend from Union Square to a designated protest area near the convention at Madison Square Garden.

She said the floor in the holding center was covered with grease, oil and other chemicals. During nearly 50 hours of detention, she said, she asked repeatedly for medical attention for an allergic reaction in which "my eyes were swelling shut, my nose filled up with fluid and I developed a persistent cough."

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

May 10, 2006
2 Top Officers Are Criticized for '04 Arrests
By AL BAKER

The city agency investigating the police response to protests at the 2004 Republican National Convention has sharply criticized the performance of two deputy chiefs, saying that they yelled incomprehensible orders to marchers, resulting in many unnecessary arrests.

The agency, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, outlined its findings in a two-page letter sent yesterday to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. The board plans to distribute the letter today at its monthly meeting.

In the letter, the board described the tangle of events at two demonstrations in Manhattan on Aug. 31, 2004, at which it said marchers were given little chance to obey the deputy chiefs' orders to disperse, and wound up being arrested.

The board found that protesters got penned in on the sidewalks with no easy way to leave during a march on Fulton Street. Later, at a march near Herald Square, the police orders to "clear the streets," created confusion. In both cases, the letter said, the fact that the chiefs did not use bullhorns left some police officers unaware of their orders and raised the possibility that marchers who were arrested would have obeyed had they heard them.

While not directly addressing the question of whether the chiefs had addressed the crowds properly, Commissioner Kelly defended the department's actions during the convention, pointing out that the police are not obligated to give warnings before making arrests. "And the implication that the N.Y.P.D. failed during the R.N.C.," he said, "turns truth on its head."

"The policing of the R.N.C. was one of the Police Department's finest hours," Mr. Kelly continued. "It protected the city against a potential terrorist attack while accommodating massive, peaceful protest. The Aug. 31 arrests cited by the C.C.R.B. came on the day a minority vowed to shut the convention down."

Neither of the deputy chiefs was named in the letter, though the police and people familiar with the proceedings identified them as Stephen Paragallo and Terrence Monahan. The board said it could not substantiate a more serious claim that Chief Monanan had ordered improper arrests on Fulton Street. In March, the board charged Chief Paragallo with abuse of authority for ordering the arrest of a 56-year-old Brooklyn woman near Herald Square, where at least 15 people were arrested.

The board said the Police Department should review the training it gives officers charged with policing public events that could attract protesters.

"The board believes that if the deputy chiefs had employed different tactics, the Police Department may possibly have avoided arresting a large number of individuals," it said in the letter, signed by Hector Gonzalez, its chairman, and Florence L. Finkle, its executive director.

The board's recommendations cap its formal evaluation of 63 complaints stemming from the Republican National Convention, at least three of them against chiefs who were at the scene and came into contact with the public.

Of the 63 cases, only 3 were substantiated, a point Commissioner Kelly stressed last night. In the others, the board found no misconduct in 32, 18 were dropped, 7 were stymied because the officers could not be identified, 2 were listed as miscellaneous because the officers left the department before the investigation could be completed, and 1 was mediated.

The Police Department is not obligated to follow the board's recommendations. The board, established in 1993, can make recommendations, but Commissioner Kelly has the final say. A majority of the members are appointed by the mayor and the commissioner. The board said it had reviewed video of both marches and mass arrests.

Chief Monahan ordered the arrests of 227 people participating in the large march on Fulton Street on Aug. 31, 2004. In October 2004, the Manhattan district attorney's office announced that it would not prosecute cases against them.

Christopher Dunn, the associate legal director for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the group has filed two federal lawsuits against the city and Mr. Kelly, challenging the mass arrests of protesters at Fulton Street, as well as the arrests of nearly 400 people at a march later that day on East 16th Street.

In the second case, prosecutors have not dismissed any criminal charges against marchers. The board's letter to Mr. Kelly yesterday echoed complaints voiced by demonstrators in the aftermath of the convention, Mr. Dunn said. "From the start, the mass arrests of protesters at the convention have been tainted by complaints that people were not given clear orders to disperse, were trying to cooperate with the police and were acting lawfully," he said. "This report from the C.C.R.B., which is an official city agency, now shows that those complaints were entirely valid."

The same issue — ambiguous instructions given by senior police commanders at public demonstrations — has been cited in a federal lawsuit against the city and several police officials. The suit was brought by Daniel M. Perez, a civil rights lawyer, on behalf of 16 protesters who attended a march in the city on Feb. 3, 2002, for the World Economic Forum.

"This is a systemic problem that the Police Department is incapable of dispersing groups of demonstrators without either surrounding them with nets or scooters or riot-clad police officers, and arresting all of them," said Mr. Perez, who is a partner in the firm Kuby & Perez.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[Kris]

May 17, 2006
F.B.I. Is Seeking to Interview Jailed Activists
By AL BAKER

As part of a continuing criminal civil rights investigation of the New York Police Department, the F.B.I. is seeking to interview protesters who were arrested in 2004 during the Republican National Convention and then had the charges against them dismissed. Investigators are specifically seeking one protester whose case prompted the federal inquiry.

Agents from the New York office of the F.B.I. have sent a letter to the New York Civil Liberties Union asking for help in identifying and finding those whose arrests and prosecutions were dismissed based on contradictory videotape evidence.

"We are attempting to determine if any police officers' conduct violated federal civil rights statutes," said the two-page letter, dated May 11, which was sent by agents from the New York field office of the F.B.I.

In addition to being a broad appeal for help from the civil liberties group — which has represented demonstrators and filed lawsuits over the arrests — the letter bore in on one arrest that prompted John Conyers Jr., the ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, to seek a Justice Department inquiry in April 2005 into the events of August 2004.

In that case, Dennis Kyne, who was accused of inciting a riot and resisting arrest — and who was one of the first of the 1,806 people arrested during the convention — had the charges against him abruptly dropped by prosecutors after a videotape of the arrest contradicted an account by the arresting officer, Matthew Wohl.

"Regarding Officer Whol (sic), we are attempting to locate Mr. Kyne and his attorney, and we are seeking to obtain any documentation of the arrest and the particular videotape of Mr. Kyne's arrest," the F.B.I. letter said. "We are also searching to find any other individuals who may have been arrested by P.O. Whol at the R.N.C."

Gideon O. Oliver, a lawyer who represents Mr. Kyne and two other people who Officer Wohl claimed to have arrested on the steps of the public library on Aug. 31, 2004, said he got the letter from the civil liberties union yesterday.

Mr. Oliver said he planned to respond to it. "To the extent that the F.B.I. is seriously looking into what happened that day, I am certainly encouraged," Mr. Oliver said. "But, obviously, a little discouraged by the timing, frankly."

Asked to elaborate, Mr. Oliver said: "The truth is, it has just been a really long time. My impression was that it was very obvious to the district attorney's office, in the middle of the trial, that Officer Wohl had not told the truth. So I am not sure why it is taking everyone else that long to figure that out."

The treatment of hundreds of thousands of protesters by the police remains a simmering issue nearly two years after the convention. Demonstrators and their advocates have said that several people were wrongly arrested. Last week, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, a city agency that monitors reports of police abuse, criticized two deputy chiefs for their performance during the convention, saying that because the chiefs did not use bullhorns, some of the arrests of 240 people at two demonstrations on Aug. 31 were unnecessary.

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly has defended the chiefs and said that hundreds of thousands of demonstrators dissented freely and openly in the streets during the convention as the police kept public order and fulfilled antiterrorism duties.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman, said an internal investigation had been opened into Mr. Kyne's arrest.

"The Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau opened a case on the matter in September 2005 and has been working with the F.B.I. and the Manhattan district attorney's office since then," Mr. Browne said.

But Christopher T. Dunn, the associate legal director of the civil liberties group, to whom the F.B.I. letter was addressed and who provided it to Mr. Oliver, said the letter raised questions beyond the issue of Mr. Kyne's arrest.

Mr. Dunn said that police accounts of marches at East 16th Street, near Union Square, and on Fulton Street, both on Aug. 31, a day on which 1,100 arrests were made, deserved to be compared with the evidence.

"We have overwhelming evidence that hundreds of protesters were unlawfully arrested during the convention and we look forward to working with the F.B.I. as it conducts its criminal investigation," he said.

In the Fulton Street march, 227 people were arrested. Two months later, the Manhattan district attorney's office said it would not prosecute cases against them. Mr. Dunn said that he would ask the F.B.I. to look at the nearly 400 arrests made at the march near Union Square that he was seeking to have dismissed.

James M. Margolin, a spokesman for the F.B.I.'s New York office, declined to discuss the investigation or confirm its existence.

Mr. Kyne, 36, who lives in San Jose, Calif., said, "I am just a little disappointed it took them so long to get the investigation started."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company