You wonder if protests actually achieve anything. But if "The Man" is eager to shut 'em down, perhaps they know something I don't.

Keep up the good work, I'll send you some $$$.

For criminals and thugs who have tortured, renditioned, trashed our laws and constitution and directly are responsible for millions suffering and dying, to disrupt traffic in protest so that the M$M might pay attention, these are heinous criminals who need to be swatted and locked up. You should change your screen name to Wrong2000-2008

As always, great work, Glenn. These raids, and the main-stream reaction (if any) to them show where America is heading.

Are you sure about the use of automatic weapons or sub-machine guns? Many police departments use semi-automatic rifles that one might think are automatic weapons, and it would obviously be very intimidating to see law enforcement officers wielding them. The right-wing apologists will attack you on this point if they weren't automatic weapons.

It's a wonk and a joke when you mention prosecuting these people, on liberal blogs, conservative blogs, wherever you mention it, it ain't gonna happen, we're all to realpolitik, you know.

But deep inside the Bush administration, they've been focussed on avoiding prosecutions from day one, with dead seriousness. They need the surety of a Republican president, they don't care if they have to elect Donald Duck to do it. They desperately need a seat on the Supreme Court to ensure they won't be prosecuted for the war crimes. They have supporters, most among the 'law and order' crowd. If they have to, they'll use violence.

Put them in jail or lose your democracy.

"Here is the first of the videos, from the house that had just been raided:"

Do you know if adnoto was there and if so, in what capacity?

Arrestee or arrester?

Glenn and all you baristers that routinely post here:

I'm 62 years old and have watched someone elses government (I know it's not mine) kill innocent women and children in the name of 'law and order.' None of what you are witnessing today will change until the members of your chosen profession are willing to risk their careers (You know that old meaningless LIVES, FORTUNES AND HONOR) stuff. I know what I was willing to do to bring about change and I did it, I was then told by lawyers and judges 'Sure, we know you are RIGHT. But WE just can't let this change happen. It is better for social order that you and others who believe as you do, though you are indeed right, should now go off to jail so as to maintain the orderly society WE all benefit from.' What is really ironic it to watch the way the ABC producer was arrested on a sidewalk in Denver and then listen to legalists opine about human rights in China.

I am not surprised at all that Bob Fletcher's goons did this.

Fletcher is old-school St Paul, the inheritor of the permissive policing that welcomed John Dillinger to St Paul for the summer. His officers have shot citizen's dogs, taken marked money, and I don't like his campaign "strategies" one bit. (The marked money trial just wrapped up this week, and one of those guys was in Fletcher's wedding!)

The other partner here is John Harrington, the Chief of Police. He is an incredible chief and probably the only thing keeping Fletcher from doing more of this.

Harrington is a big fan of community policing, and his department has been admired across the country for their diplomatic ways.

Minneapolis cops make me nervous, St Paul cops make me want to stop and chat.

Harrington is also a Zen practitioner and a very nice guy.

Let's hope Harrington's ways take hold from here.

I am not surprised at all that Bob Fletcher's goons did this.

Fletcher is old-school St Paul, the inheritor of the permissive policing that welcomed John Dillinger to St Paul for the summer. His officers have shot citizen's dogs, taken marked money, and I don't like his campaign "strategies" one bit. (The marked money trial just wrapped up this week, and one of those guys was in Fletcher's wedding!)

The other partner here is John Harrington, the Chief of Police. He is an incredible chief and probably the only thing keeping Fletcher from doing more of this.

Harrington is a big fan of community policing, and his department has been admired across the country for their diplomatic ways.

Minneapolis cops make me nervous, St Paul cops make me want to stop and chat.

Harrington is also a Zen practitioner and a very nice guy.

Let's hope Harrington's ways take hold from here.

This is really disturbing. Combined with this http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush_seeks_to_institutionalize_war_powers_0830.html it is enough to get me seriously worried about what might happen in November.

From Starhawk

Through the kitchen door, we cansee young kids sitting on the floor, handcuffed. We walk across the street, back, made more phone calls. An ambulance is parked in front, and the paramedics head into the building, leaving a gurney ready. Susu, from her car around the corner, reports that the cops have been grabbing pedestrians from the street, forcing them down to the ground, handcuffing them.

Song, one of the local organizers, calls her City Council member. She wants to call the Mayor, Chris Coleman, who has promised that St. Paul will be as welcoming to protestors as to delegates, but no one has his home number.

What I have forgotten to tell people at the training is how much of an action is just this: tense, boring waiting, with a knot of anxiety in your stomach and your feet starting to hurt. Song talks to a helpful neighbor, who’s come over to find out what’s happening. He knows where the mayor lives, says it’s just a few blocks away, and draws us a map.

We decide to go and call on the Mayor, who could call off the cops. About five of us troop down there, through the soft night and a neighborhood of comfortable homes and wide lawns on the bluffs above the Mississippi. The Mayor’s house is a comfortable Dutch Colonial, and lights were on inside. We decide that just a few of us will go to the door, so as not to look intimidating. Song is a round, soft-bodied middle-aged woman with a sweet face. Ellen is a tiny brunette with a gap-toothed smile, and Lisa, formidable organizer though she is, looks slight and unthreatening. The rest of us hang back. Someone opens the door. Our friends have a conversation with the mayors’ wife, who is not pleased to be visited by constituents late at night, and who tells us we should call the office. The Mayor, she says, is asleep, and she will not wake him up.

We think a mayor who was doing his job would get up and go see what’s going on. Nonetheless, we head back to the convergence space.

A protestor has been released from the building. A small crowd has gathered across the street, and Fox News has arrived. They interview Song, who does her first ever Fox media spot. She tells them the truth—that people were in there watching movies—a documentary about Meridel Le Seuer. Meridel would be proud, and I’m glad she is with us in some form.

One by one, protestor’s trickle out. Now we get more pieces of the story. The cops burst in, with no warning. They pulled drew their guns on everyone—including a five year old child who was there with his mother, forced everyone down on the floor. It was terrifying.

They had a warrant, apparently, from the county, not the city, to search for ‘bomb making materials.’ They were searching everyone in the building, then one by one releasing them as they found nothing.