I mean, seriously, this is criminal behavior on the part of the confederated stormtroopers, and we can't get ANY traditional media to look at it seriously?

"You have the right to free speech

As long as you're not dumb enough

To actually try it"

It is greatly disturbing that there has been virtually no attention to these Gestapo/Stasi tactics by local police in cahoots with the Bush administration. This is an outrage and I am glad that Glenn is putting the word out.

Looks like it will come down to this in America:

When they kick out your front door

How you gonna come?

With your hands on your head

Or on the trigger of your gun

And of course there are Thomas Jefferson's thoughts:

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

The underlying reason why there is no outrage: The police reported that they siezed weapons, slingshots, and buckets of urine, among other things.

This makes it look like the police, in fact, did a good job at preventing some really nasty folks from creating some major ugliness.

So the real question is: Are the police correct? If they are, contrived arguments and phony sympathy are not going to get a significant rise. Everybody who has read the news articles, is going to be too revolted to care whether every i was dotted and every t was crossed with full political correctness.

Of course, if the police are wrong, that's the makings of some serious issues.

But you can't totally duck the central issues and then profess to wonder why there is so little outcry. Focusing on non-central issues may make less-informed people think you have a real issue. But it won't spread far that way.

Can you outline (if you are aware of) the legal response planned by [whomever]? Are there legal teams stepping up? ACLU? Any outreach efforts to MSM in order to broaden awareness of the goings on?

Do you have any feel for a general "mood"? Is there a lot of tension, or is all of this just flying under the radar?

Try to stay out of the line of fire to the extent that you can.

Hence by discouraging or better still terrorizing Americans who take up political protests of sorts that do not comport with Federal or State preferences or right-good/wrong-bad thinking and point of views the game becomes be "Wal-Mart Happy" and like it or suffer.

The real hypocrisy coming out when Americans such as our current American President go around the planet mouthing off about "spreading democracy".

Of course that was not enough for George Bush. He went after Iraq's Saddam and attacked,invaded,put in an American Occupation of Iraq to give Iraqis some version of "American Approved Democracy" while letting Iraq become a big stinkpile of broken government and unbound terror infliction and death dealing. Much of which the Americans are fully part of.

George Bush goes to Thailand and lectures China over human rights and democracy and then comes home and presides over what is going on now in MSP,MN.

The arrogance of the ignorance astounds.

The flagrant hypocrisy leaves a strong stench of wantonness.

The underlying reason why there is no outrage: The police reported that they siezed weapons, slingshots, and buckets of urine, among other things.

I'm not sure if you heard or not, but millions and millions of Americas have "weapons". The Supreme Court actually just ruled that it's a Constitutional right to have them. But I'm sure the Police are ecstatic that there are people like you who think: "Oh my God - they had weapons -- and slingshots! The dirty scum. Who cares if every i was dotted. They even had urine!"

When I read stories like this, I always sing "I'm glad to be an American, where atleast I know I'm free." It's a bit of sarcastic irony. This is truly frightening and that it's receiving zero media coverage, even more so. If it does get reported, the corporate "journalists" will mindlessly report the police statements. Something to the effect that these were dangerous anarchists/anti-authoritians and were intent on causing death and destruction during the RNC. Most people have no idea what anarchy means or anarchists believe in, but it sure does sound scary. They were anti-authoritians on top of it, they deserve what they get. As a previous poster noted, we have freedom of speech in this country, just don't try to use it. You'll get arrested.

I've talked to a housemate in one of the raided houses, and to the Mpls police. Yes, because of Labor Day the Rules of Criminal Procedure means that the police can hold all those arrested until noon Wednesday even if they are never charged. See my site for interview and coverage of the ongoing story.

Whether they will be charged, or what they're lawyers have to say, or whether there will be more arrests, etc, is still unknown. The police generally get the benefit of the doubt, as they do in this case. However, we know for certain that the Bush administration is politicizing the enforcement branch on the federal level. Will this be a shining example of law enforcement or more sleazy Stalinistic repression by the right?

I await answers.

This is how the repbulican party works, talk about "less government", then use that hated federal government to go after anyone who disagrees wiht them. Why do you think talk radio has spent the last 20 years adccusing the media of a liberal bias? So they won't cover stories like this.

I'm pretty sure if you're Muslim, you already have had a pretty good look at this face of the US government. Thanks for getting this out Glenn, it's an outrage. Has there been any mention of this in any of the national media, at all? I haven't seen any.

Yeah, the hypocrisy of the media is nauseating...but how those cops don't see that they're de facto storm troopers is beyond me. Maybe they just don't care.