http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080902/ap_on_el_pr/cvn_convention_protests

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Excerpt:

Members of the Connecticut delegation said they were attacked by protesters when they got off their bus near the Xcel Center, KMSP-TV reported. Delegate Rob Simmons told the station that a group of protesters came toward his delegation and tried to rip the credentials off their necks and sprayed them with a toxic substance that burned their eyes and stained their clothes.

One 80-year-old member of the delegation had to be treated for injuries, and several other delegates had to rinse their eyes and clothing, the station reported.

Five people were arrested for lighting a trash bin on fire and pushing it into a police car, St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said.

Of the arrestees, 119 faced possible felony charges, authorities said.

At least four journalists were among those detained, including Associated Press photographer Matt Rourke and Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, a nationally syndicated public radio and TV news program. Goodman was intervening on behalf of two producers for her program, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, when she was arrested, said Mike Burke, another producer.

St. Paul police spokesman Tom Walsh said Rourke was held on a gross misdemeanor riot charge. Goodman was arrested on a misdemeanor charge, Ramsey County sheriff's spokeswoman Holli Drinkwine said. Neither Walsh nor Drinkwine had information on the other two journalists.

"Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background."

I am relieved that the McCain campaign has seen fit to vet Ms. Palin now, according to the NYT article. That's prudent.

It meshes seamlessly with his master election strategy as seen here:

http://tiny.cc/McCainStrategy

(I have a photo of this but couldn't find a way to insert it)

I saw this on a new Mustang today in Medford, OR. "PATIOTIC DISSENT IS A LUXURY OF THOSE PROTECTED BY MEN BETTER THAN THEY" with the emblem of the US Marine Corps. It's been bothering me all day long. Is this an official position of the US military? What does it mean? It's one of the most senseless yet button-pushing sayings I've ever seen.

What's your point? The US has a higher incarceration rate than China? It might have something to do with the higher crime rate in the US, for starters. In any case, is that supposed to prove something about protesters being sent to labor camps and tortured in China, which as far as I know isn't happening to protesters in the US? Enlighten us.

Derbig Mooser writes: "Now the State is engaged in finding out which of its young men (and a few young women, too) are willing to attack their fellow-citizens for a paycheck."

Heck, Derbig, I'm sure there are a lot of burly, shaven-headed, tattooed white guys (& gals) out there who'd gladly whack their fellow-citizens (especially the incorrectly thinking lib'ral ones) for free. Probably these folks, and the folks that support them are a majority in America. And you know something is really going on with their choice of eyewear -- what's with the silly semi-athlete sunglasses already? Doesn't matter if they're in the military or the police. Give 'em a uniform, a gun/baton/taser/pepper-gun and a pair of those 'brotherhood' sunglasses and they go all-tribal on you. Hoo-haw!!

Anyway, I'm surprised that everyone is in such shock that this is happening. In America!! The Land Of The Free!! The Defender Of Democracy!! Jaysus, what do you expect in a country where people worship the flag, worship the military, and live in constant fear from the 'other'?? Same as it ever was . . .

“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”[19]

I hope to be chuckling to myself silently about that after November.

Rmrwm...I hear this argument from time to time and find it surprising that it still gets bandied about. Ask one of these proud military patriots how attacking a third world nation with little military that can't even keep its sewers running keeps my right to dissent in clover, and they get a little lost. I know from experience. They've never thought this one out, they're just regurgitating. But its fun to see their little eyes spinning around in their sockets as they;re forced to think for the first time in their lives.

-The fact that there were some criminals engaged in some destructive acts (who, needless to say, should have been arrested)...-

But were not due to....shortage of security resources?

As a resident of the Twin Cities, this is humiliating. Yes, I'm angry at the idiots who smashed windows. I was in the main march today, and they give all protesters a bad name. I can understand why the police were wary. But this thuggishness, like the arrest of Amy Goodman, and the macing of the woman in the posted video, just isn't something I expected. Feared maybe, but not expected. I understand responding to incidents, but I have to wonder to what degree the heavy hands of the police provoked them. This was a depressing day.

I took a photo of the line of police during the march. The quality is just cellphone quality, but you can see the way the police are holding their riot sticks.

...

Then its that a guy who owns a store front should take a shotgun to someone who breaks his window. Great for the tough guy feel, isn't it? A plate glass window equivalent to a human life? Just an overgrown jerk who thinks talking tough will grow something.

...

-ondelette

No, not what I had in mind. I think I am in the kind of shape where the average protester would be somebody I could chase down and catch myself. But to chase someone into a crowd of protesters like that might not be the best for my health and welfare. That's where a nice 20 ga. with a short barrel would be handy. Because I wouldn't shoot some punk in the back for breaking a window. But if a gang of protesters were throwing bricks, bottles, pipes, bombs, whatever at me, then I think I just might fire.

You seem to think that property damage is somehow immune from punishment or retribution. I expect the police to stop property damage, and if members of a large group of protesters are causing property damage, I'd expect them all to be arrested on a charge of conspiracy to riot. If, in the course of those arrests, the police are interfered with, I'd expect those individuals to be arrested, too. If the police are threatened with harm in the meantime, I'd expect those officers to defend themselves.

Just because the Democrats have lost the last two Presidential elections and protesters are consumed with rage toward President Bush and Vice President Cheney, it does not confer on anyone the right to destroy property or to riot in Minneapolis and St. Paul.