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Thread: On the Ground @ DNC, RNC

  1. #31

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    Meanwhile at the Democratic Hat Parade


  2. #32
    Chief Antagonist Ninjahedge's Avatar
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    I don't know which is worse.

    the fact that the conventions have turned into some giant party-like celebration aimed at the aggrandization of the candidates running, or the fact that they work better than a serious dealing of the issues and discussion of plans and intents in the future positions at stake.

  3. #33
    Disgruntled Optimist lofter1's Avatar
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    Nancy Pelosi is clueless -- Night Three and she's dressed like she's going to an opening night. And not in a good way.

  4. #34

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    Denver Police slam CodePink protester to the ground, call her a "bitch" before arresting her.
    (Video)

    *****

    ABC Reporter Arrested in Denver Taking Pictures of Senators, Big Donors
    Asa Eslocker Was Investigating the Role of Lobbyists and Top Donors at the Convention

    By BRIAN ROSS
    Aug. 27, 2008—



    (ABC News)

    DENVER -- Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown Palace Hotel.

    Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.

    (Click here to watch video of the arrest.)

    A cigar-smoking Denver police sergeant, accompanied by a team of five other officers, first put his hands on Eslocker's neck, then twisted the producer's arm behind him to put on handcuffs.

    A police official later told lawyers for ABC News that Eslocker is being charged with trespass, interference, and failure to follow a lawful order. He also said the arrest followed a signed complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel.

    Eslocker was put in handcuffs and loaded in the back of a police van which headed for a nearby police station.

    Video taken at the scene shows a man, wearing the uniform of a Boulder County sheriff, ordering Eslocker off the sidewalk in front of the hotel, to the side of the entrance.

    The sheriff's officer is seen telling Eslocker the sidewalk is owned by the hotel. Later, he is seen pushing Eslocker off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic, forcing him to the other side of the street.

    It was two hours later when Denver police arrived to place Eslocker under arrest, apparently based on a complaint from the Brown Palace Hotel, a central location for Democratic officials.

    During the arrest, one of the officers can be heard saying to Eslocker, "You're lucky I didn't knock the f..k out of you."

    Eslocker was released late today after posting $500 bond.

    Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson."

    Click Here for the Investigative Homepage.

    PHOTOS: On the Money Trail at the DNC

  5. #35
    Disgruntled Optimist lofter1's Avatar
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    Only word for that: PIGS

  6. #36

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    Anti-Iraq War Activists Hold Festival, Protests

    By VOA News
    27 August 2008


    War veterans, music lovers, and a presidential hopeful are holding protests Wednesday near the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

    Anti-war activists, led by the group Iraq Veterans Against the War, have given out at least 8,000 tickets to a free music festival, known as the Tent State Festival to End the War, featuring the hard rock group, Rage Against the Machine.

    *****

    Obama camp meets with Iraq war veterans protesting at Democratic convention


    Doug Pensinger / Getty Images
    The Iraq Veterans Against the War group led the four-mile procession from the Denver Coliseum to the Pepsi Center, the site of the Democratic National Convention, calling for Barack Obama to end U.S. involvement in Iraq and improving healthcare for veterans.


    About 50 members of Iraq Veterans Against the War lead 4,000 protesters on a march that ends five hours later outside the Pepsi Center when their request to meet with a liaison is granted.


    By Nicholas Riccardi and DeeDee Correll, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
    August 28, 2008

    DENVER -- About 50 Iraq war veterans led a boisterous crowd of about 4,000 protesters to the gates of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday evening, demanding to speak at the podium inside.

    The four-mile march began at the site of a concert by leftist rock group Rage Against the Machine. It ended five hours later, after the Obama campaign resolved a tense standoff outside the Pepsi Center by agreeing to meet with representatives of the group, Iraq Veterans Against the War.

    The marchers said they wanted to hold Obama to his promise to end the Iraq war and called for him to pull troops out immediately. The Democratic presidential candidate has instead vowed to bring all combat troops home within 16 months of taking office.

    "We're here to hold the Democrat Party accountable," said Jason Hurd, one of the veterans at the front of the procession. "We voted them in to end this war. They've not done that. . . . We want our brothers and sisters to come home now, not later. Now."

    The veterans march was the largest demonstration so far in what otherwise has proven to be a generally subdued week; injuries were reported, but no arrests were made.

    On Monday night, police used pepper spray against a crowd of about 200 activists they said were blocking traffic; otherwise the daily demonstrations have drawn little notice.

    The war protesters made their mark throughout a wide swath of Denver. They left the packed rock concert at a stadium about four miles northeast of the Democratic National Convention at about 3 p.m. local time. The Iraq war veterans, many in full uniform and chanting in a military cadence, led the procession.

    "My buddy's in the foxhole with a bullet in his head," they chanted. "I called to get the medic, but he's already dead."

    Behind them strung a ragtag, motley crew of concert-goers. Some were dressed in the orange uniforms of Guantanamo Bay prisoners; others carried cardboard headstones bearing the names of soldiers killed in Iraq. One woman held a sign that said: "I'll pay MORE for gas!"

    The veterans drew cheers from pedestrians and delegates who crowded the sidewalks to watch them as they snaked toward the Pepsi Center. But as they approached the convention site, tensions heightened. Scores of riot police followed them to the barricades that separated the public from the convention site.

    Marchers demanded to be allowed to read a letter to the convention from the podium.

    "They are running a campaign based on an anti-war platform," said former Marine Lance Cpl. Jeff Key. "We want to send one veteran to read [our] letter from the podium."


    Left: Police in riot gear watch war protesters leave through Auraria Campus. Photo by Judi Villa | | | Right: Lnc. Cpl. Jeff Key Photo by RYAN SABALOW/THE ROCKY


    As armored vehicles filled with riot police pulled up and onlookers began to crowd the marchers, the police said Key and another veteran could go inside the convention perimeter. They emerged and said the Obama campaign's veterans liaison, Phil Carter, had agreed to meet with them.

    The crowd cheered and broke into the protest chant the Obama campaign has adopted: "Yes, we can!" And then the veterans marched off into the night.

    nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com

    deedee.correll@latimes.com

  7. #37
    Chief Antagonist Ninjahedge's Avatar
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    That riot police squad does not make me feel "safe". What a joke.

    Oh, BTW, most sidewalks are not owned by private property. There is a certain standoff that is owned by the city. If they wanted to, they could go to the city, get plans and see where that line is/what the regulation is.

    I don't know what that would do, but it would at least be grounds, if this was on tape, for charging the policeman with Assault.


    Would they win? Nope. But maybe if more of these cases were filed these guys would not have such an "untouchable" attitude when it came to this kind of thing.

  8. #38

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    Protesters denied access to attorneys, forced to march in leg shackles, ACLU charges

    John Byrne
    Published: Thursday August 28, 2008


    The ACLU issued a stinging rebuke to the Denver Police Department Wednesday, alleging that the department may have violated laws and constitutional rights of protesters arrested outside the Democratic National Convention.

    In the letter, obtained by RAW STORY, the ACLU revealed that the police refused those arrested access to attorneys. Police did not let detainees use phones unless they posted their own bonds, and even failed to provide shoes, in one case marching a protester into court in bare feet and leg shackles, according the ACLU.

    What's more, police are said to have tricked protesters into pleading guilty, by giving them the impression they had to plead guilty in order to post bond. This meant that no one was allowed to make a phone call unless they plead guilty, thus making it impossible for arrestees to even call a lawyer until admitting guilt.

    Most ominously, the ACLU letter claims that protesters were told they would be "facing 'years' in jail for a conviction of a single particular charge."

    "In fact, all the charges were municipal court violations that do not carry such penalties," the ACLU added in a footnote.

    Charges for arrestees were issued on pre-printed forms, where police were told to "cross out" charges that they were not facing. In many cases, police failed to cross out inappropriate charges, and so the detainee would be charged with "begging, loitering and throwing stones and missiles," the ACLU said.

    Nor were protesters even given the chance to back down before they were arrested.

    "It is not clear whether any order to disperse was given. No Legal Observer [sic], witness or arrestee on the scene we've debriefed heard any order to disperse," wrote Taylor Pendergrass, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Colorado. "Numerous persons, including Legal Observers, asked to be able to leave the blockaded area and were refused."



    "After the arrests, attorneys from the People's Law Project and the ACLU arrived at the Temporary Arrestee Processing Site [TAPS] to conduct confidential attorney-client consultations," Pendergrass continued. "The City refused to provide any access to allow these persons to meet with attorneys."

    Perhaps the most outrageous charge, however, is that one protester was forced to march barefoot into court in leg shackles.

    "Arrestees were kept barefoot at [the detention center]," Pendergrass wrote. "I personally saw one such arrestee later at the City and County Building. I saw her marched from the elevator to the courtroom in bare feet and leg shackles. I saw her appear in bare feet and leg shackles."

    "Some arrestees who could not make their own bond spent 6, 7, 8, or more hours waiting at TAPS before being transferred to court," he added.

    Pendergrass also elaborates on the detainees being kept from being able to talk to a lawyer. The only opportunity lawyers had to speak with those arrested was in front of the jury gallery or in open court in front of the judge.

    "The only access we were given to those clients was to whisper," he wrote.

    Among the seemingly more minor complaints, Pendergrass also notes that many detainees weren't able to eat because they were vegetarian or vegan and the city mostly provided meat-based food.

    In addition, he said that the city was well aware that the ACLU and other groups had arranged for attorneys to be present. "Attorneys were at the court from 11 pm on the night of Aug. 25, 2008 and were staying until each and every arrestee came to the City and County Building."

    In conclusion, the ACLU demands the City permit attorney access at the detention facility; provide blankets, shoes and slippers; allow phone calls immediately upon entering the facility; permit detainees to use restrooms individually and privately; and permit confidential attorney-client consultations in the City and County Building.

    Last week, New York City agreed to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit claiming 52 Iraq war activists were unjustly arrested.

    The activists were arrested in April 2003 outside the Manhattan offices of a military contractor, the Carlyle Group.

    Lawyers for the activists charged that the tactics used by police at the demonstration were similar to those used a year later when hundreds of activists were arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden.

    The city of New York and police department faced backlash after the convention, with critics claiming the aggressive response showed a blatant disregard for the demonstrators' civil rights.

    PDF OF FULL ACLU LETTER CAN BE READ AT THIS LINK

  9. #39

    Default Barackropolis

    Some photos of the set designed "to evoke the White House and the Lincoln Memorial" and called the "Temple of Obama" by the McCain Campaign.

    "It's only appropriate that Barack Obama would descend down from the heavens and spend a little time with us mere mortals when accepting the Democratic nomination," said Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz.


    (Note the 'novel solution' to the Doric corner conflict.)

  10. #40
    Chief Antagonist Ninjahedge's Avatar
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    What, the "Democratic Convention Wraparound"?

  11. #41

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    50,000 expected to protest RNC
    David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
    Published: Friday August 29, 2008


    *****

    Massive preemptive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis

    Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. [continued]

    *****

    A complete search warrant and seizure list for one of the residences.

    Some of the items sought:

    • Photographs and maps of downtown St. Paul
    • Paint and spray paint
    • Sticks and poles
    • Nails, screws
    • Bricks
    • ...chicken wire, roofing tar, duct tape, PVC or metal piping
    • Computer systems, including but not limited to, the main computer box, monitors, scanners, printers, modems, and other peripheral devices.
    • Media in whatever form, including, but not limited to, magnetic (such as floppy disks, hard drives and magnetic tape), flash (such as media cards and USB thumb drives) or optical (such as compact disks and digital video disks).
    • Digital camera equipment.
    • Electronic devices, including but not limited to, MP3 players (including, but not limited to iPods), X-Box gaming systems, cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
    • Programs and manuals related to operating systems or applications.
    • Notes and other documentation, including maps, charts, membership lists.
    • Data contained on either hard drives, electronic devices or removable media...
    • Data contained within any seized cellular phone, SIM card, PDA or electronic device to include, but not limited to, call logs, contacts, text messages, audio messages, images, internet cache and deleted data.


    Some of the items seized:

    • Two foam padding rolls
    • Two jars of 9/16" staples from basement
    • Four boxes of literature, "propaganda"
    • Climbing equipment
    • US currency $670.00
    • Computer harddrive
    • Helmet, U-bikelock, two digital cameras, cellphone, goggles
    • Hatchet, wire cutter "tools"
    • "Filter mask" found in basement
    • Box or RNC propagands, spraypaint, cellphones
    • Laptop Apple I-book
    • St. Paul city maps/propaganda, books
    • Dell computer
    • silver "thumbdrive"
    • Two boxes of literature propaganda, two motorola two way radios, Verizon cellphone
    • Several 5gal buckets, two kryptonite bikelocks, 1 hacksaw, 2 long curtain rods, multiple bicycle innertubes
    • 13 cans of paint in garage
    • 6 vehicle tires in garage
    • Large red bolt cutter in garage
    • Hardware bolts, nails, screws in garage
    • Silver cable in garage
    • Pry-bar "stanley" "wrecking bar" in garage
    • propaganda banner in garage
    • Can of charcoal lighter in garage
    • Denatured alcohol in garage
    • 1 can mineral spirits in garage


    *****

    Inside an RNC Raid

    By: Lindsay Beyerstein Saturday August 30, 2008 12:59 pm

    Thanks to the miracle of cellular technology, I was able to talk to a homeowner while his home was surrounded by police conducting an RNC-related raid. At approximatedly two-thirty this afternoon, I reached Mike Whelan, a waiter and army veteran, at his duplex at 951 Iglehart Ave. in St. Paul, Minnesota.

    Whelan said he'd invited independent observers from the group LegalWatch stay in one half of his side-by-side duplex while they monitored RNC protests.

    Whelan described himself as a supporter of the RNC demonstrations, but said he is not affiliated with any particular group. "I want to build a country that's based on good social values," he explained.

    When I spoke to him, Whelan was waiting in one half of the duplex with his roommates, Dan and Julian. The three were afraid to go outside because the police were still there. Whelan said he thought that the police were inside the opposite side of the duplex, where the legal observers were staying. "I think they are detaining people," he added.

    Whelan, who seemed remarkably calm for a guy whose flower garden had just been trampled by police with drawn automatic weapons, said he'd just returned from a morning of garage sale shopping when the commotion started. That would have been about one o'clock local time. He described what happened:

    "About an hour and a half ago 20 to 30 heavily armed police officers surrounded the house," Whelan said. "One of my roommates said 'I want to see a warrant' and she was immediately detained."

    "Are they still outside?" I asked.

    "Oh, yes, they're still outside," Whelan replied cheerfully, "The streets are blocked off."

    "How you did figure out there was a raid going on?" I asked.

    "It sounded like people were falling down on my porch," he said, "Cops were running up both sides of the house onto the porch.

    Whelan says his roommate, Erin Stalmaker, went out to talk to talk to the police. She asked the officers why they were there. The officers asked why people were running away from them. Erin reportedly told the officers that their drawn automatic weapons probably had something to do with it. She was detained after asking to see a warrant.

    "Are you scared," I asked."

    "No, I'm a veteran," he said, "I was in the army. I was a military police officer. I wouldn't have done this."

    Whelan said it was especially perplexing that the police would target his home.

    "There's nothing here," he said, "These are the "checking" people. They're not even going to be in the demonstration. Some are lawyers."

    Whelan was watching a large crowd of legal observers gathering across the street, many wearing red or green hats. The police officers he could identify were from St. Paul, but he thought there might be other forces on the scene as well. The officers were wearing black uniforms. Their vehicles were "non-descript" vans, not police cruisers. TV cameras were also on the scene. Whelan couldn't be sure because a tree was blocking his view, but he thought City Council member Melvin Carter had arrived. Whelan called him when the raid started. (Talk about constituent service.)

    "You figure this would be going on in South Africa, or Russia, not in St Paul," Whelan said, marveling at the incongruity of it all,"St. Paul is nice."

  12. #42

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    30 sec video of a woman being pepper-sprayed at close range by a marching legion of police while standing on the side of the road holding a flower.

    *****

    Amy Goodman of Democracy Now -- the radio and TV broadcaster who has been a working journalist for close to 20 years -- was arrested on the street and charged with "conspiracy to riot."




    Video of Amy Goodman being arrested.

    Read more.

    *****

    Regarding my earlier post about the house raids:
    "The searches were led by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office. Deputies coordinated searches with the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments and the Federal Bureau of Investigation." [source]



    "aided by informants planted in protest groups." [source] [background]

    More:
    The Minnesota Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild is seeking a judicial review into six activists arrested during a police raid on a group organizing protests against the Republican National Convention, The Minnesota Independent reported Sunday.

    A representative of the National Lawyers Guild said the police officers are simply trying to prevent the activists from their right to protest as no charges or official complaints have been filed.

    “If they have evidence of a criminal act, then they should charge them,” he says. “And if they can charge [my client, Monica Bicking] with a complaint, then we will go defend that in court. But right now they are just holding them. You can’t just hold [Bicking] to prevent her from exercising her free speech.”

    The activists were arrested when the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department stormed a rented meeting place of the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described “anarchist/anti-authoritarian” group, in St. Paul, Minnesota Friday night, CNN reported.

    As many as 30 police officers entered the building with guns drawn, temporarily detaining and photographing at least 50 people.

    St. Paul Police spokesman Tom Walsh said the men acted under a search warrant, but said “the cause for the search warrant is not public at this time.”

    Bicking's brother:
    "I've been told that the police have 36 hours to charge her, and that 36 hours starts after the labor day holiday, so they only have to charge her sometime Wednesday."
    Last edited by Jasonik; September 1st, 2008 at 10:58 PM.

  13. #43

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    Marchers urge Republicans to halt Iraq war

    16 hours ago
    ST PAUL, Minnesota (AFP)
    — They came in their thousands -- veterans, grandmothers, young families and even disgruntled Republicans bearing banners and peace flags, and calling in one voice to end the war in Iraq.

    Under the watchful eye of scores of police in riot gear, thousands of protestors marched through the streets of St. Paul urging Republicans gathered for the party convention to bring US troops home.

    Snipers looked on from nearby buildings and a helicopter hovered overhead, at times drowning out the shouts from the parade.

    Trouble flared when one group split away from the beginning of the march and tussled with police, who fired pepper spray on the crowd, including at an AFP photographer. Reports said five people were arrested.

    But the atmosphere was mostly festive with demonstrators keen to press home their message, even though they went unheeded as they funneled through a fenced-in walkway, barely within sight of the convention center.

    "I'm here for all the Iraqi women who can't be here," said 72-year-old Mim Olsen, from Texas, a veteran of some of the country's most powerful civil rights marches.

    "It can be very lonely out there, if you are grieving. So this kind of gathering is important for each other, to say to everyone that we are all members of the human family."

    As the march got underway, some demonstrators tried to taunt the riot police stationed at key intersections, visors covering their faces, long wooden truncheons braced at the ready.

    The mostly-women marshalls from the organizers of the "March on the RNC" rally anxiously shepherded people past potential flashpoints on the short parade from the capitol building.

    Iraq veterans against the war fell in step with mothers pushing prams and rowdy students shouting anti-government slogans. Some estimated there were about 10,000 people in the crowd.

    "We joined up with an altruistic vision of promoting freedom and justice around the world," said Vince Emanuel, a Marine lance corporal who did a tour of duty in Iraq from August 2004 to April 2005, explaining why he was marching.

    "Except we saw the killing of innocent people and the destruction of property ... for a lot of us it was very disenfranchising."

    The veterans group tried to hand a message to the campaign of Republican White House hopeful John McCain calling for a withdrawal from Iraq, reparations for the Iraqi people, and full medical benefits for veterans.

    No-one from McCain's campaign received them, Emanuel said.
    Earlier, demonstrators had gathered on the steps of the capitol building, listening to a giant rally.

    Families lounged in the hot sun in park. "This is a once in a lifetime chance," said Allysen Hoberg, 32, from Minneapolis, who had brought her six-year-old son Henry to the rally.

    "These days could go down in history if we elect a Democrat president."

    As two rappers wearing masks of McCain and President George W. Bush sang out their toe-tapping "Insane in the McCain-Brain" rap, other demonstrators mopped their brows with water from a melting ice-sculpture of the word "Democracy"

    Randy Harmen, from Colorado, was signing a giant poster bearing the preamble of the US constitution which starts with the words "We the people."

    Harmen, a supporter of former Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul -- who McCain defeated in the nominating contest -- acknowledged he was an unlikely demonstrator.

    But he said: "The war was based on false premises. That's the thing we have in common with the peacenuts."

    Members of the group "Grandmothers for Peace" rubbed shoulders with "Psychologists for Peace" at the event. There were even a group called "Loons for Peace," referring to Minnesota's state bird.

    "Well I just think those lunatics in Washington are giving our state bird a bad name," said St Paul resident Barbara Peterson as she waved her home-made bird banner.

    *****

    Mass show of peaceful dissent soon makes violent descent



    By CURT BROWN, Star Tribune
    Last update: September 1, 2008 - 11:41 PM


    Bolstered by emergency help from the Minnesota National Guard, police in St. Paul arrested 284 people Monday after outbreaks of violence and road obstructions linked to rogue bands of demonstrators among an otherwise peaceful throng estimated at 10,000 people.

    The demonstrations, on a steamy first day of the Republican National Convention, began with block after block of marchers -- far fewer than the 50,000 some had predicted -- chanting and peacefully waving signs on downtown St. Paul's narrow streets. As the day wore on, the carnival atmosphere turned ugly.

    Before most of the demonstrators had finished their march, a few hundred protesters splintered off and became confrontational and sometimes violent. Some smashed windows at Macy's and a downtown bank building. Others challenged police by blocking roads.

    Late Monday, authorities said 130 of the 284 people arrested may face felony charges. Dozens were pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed. One police officer was punched in the back and another suffered from heat exhaustion. St. Paul emergency rooms reported nine minor injuries and several heat-related cases.

    Hundreds of police officers, sweltering in heavy riot gear, swept in to block streets and protect delegate buses. About 3 p.m., St. Paul police requested help from 150 National Guard troops.

    St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman said officers showed restraint as a small number of law-breaking demonstrators marred an otherwise peaceful day of free speech.

    "Their efforts were nothing short of heroic," Coleman said. "They did not fail. They did not take the bait."

    But observers from the National Lawyers Guild took issue with police action.

    "We think it's unconscionable. We think it's out of control," said Gina Berglund, an attorney and legal observer coordinator for the guild's Minnesota chapter. "The response by the police was completely out of proportion with what they were faced with."

    *****

    Photo Gallery: Monday protests at the RNC

  14. #44

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    The Revolution Will Be Twittered

    By: Jane Hamsher Tuesday September 2, 2008 6:17 am

    There's absolutely nothing interesting about what the GOP is doing here in Minnesota. The party itself is like an enormous cadaver whose funeral is being held in the Xcel Center, and the wakes thrown by its drunken hedonist powerbrokers bear more than a passing resemblance to Roman vomitoriums.

    Not that the Democrats in Denver were much more interesting -- more lifelike, to be certain, as the baton of power and pork passed over to them, but completely staged and lacking in spontaneity nonetheless.

    What happened on the streets of St. Paul yesterday was something else altogether. Whereas Denver was the site of young people clutching their blackberries and hustling passes to more and better parties, in St. Paul they were creating a whole new model for communication, documentation and activism.

    Members of the Coldsnap legal collective fanned out across the city and communicated with each other (and the world) openly on Twitter about what was happening during the protest, and were thus able to alert and steer journalists, observers and anyone else with an interest immediately to what was happening on the street throughout the day. Nothing that law enforcement did happened in secret, and ACLU lawyers and other observers were able to be quickly alerted to anything that was happening. When we first arrived we started following their bulletins in the wake of the weekend raids, and as more information came in verifying their reports it became clear that they were a highly trustworthy source of information.

    Meanwhile, the Uptake provided an army of video journalists with Qik cameras that broadcast live on the internet. You could track their whereabouts on a Google map, and they provided on-the-spot coverage of what was happening in real time. Really, I can't recommend enough going to their main page and taking a look at what they managed to do yesterday. They also provided a lounge where visiting bloggers could have internet and video editing space, and that's where we were headquartered yesterday. We were able to not only hear about what was happening all across the city virtually instantaneously, but see their reporters quickly diverted to anything that was happening and watch as their cameras went into action.

    It was like a million ants scurrying around the city, passing back bits of information that formed themselves into a whole in a completely decentralized manner. Its very nature defied efforts to control and spin and propagandize.

    It was the anti-Fox News.

    Today we're going to the Ron Paul convention, where the nascent pro-civil liberties, anti-war insurgency within the GOP is congregating in Minneapolis. Their use of the internet as a broadcast and organizational tool has been impressive (Glenn Greenwald and I are working with members of the Break the Matrix group on the Accountability Now project), and it should be interesting to hear what Ron Paul and Bruce Fein have to say today.

    Lindsay Beyerstein and I will be reporting throughout the day on the Campaign Silo.

    Denver, with its forced marches to the Pepsi Center, its Blue Dogs and its consultants jockeying for AT&T's money and party power made me ill.

    There's something happening here.

  15. #45
    Forum Veteran TREPYE's Avatar
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    Does anybody get as absolutely sick to theri stomach watching Lieberman talk?

    Not because he is an ex democrat taking stage at the RNC, but because he, more than ANYBODY, is the reason we ened up with that imbecile in the white house for 8 yrs. Boy, what was Gore thinking....

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