Over at True North and Anti-Strib, Tracy Eberly takes apart the “cute” anarkid video that’s been getting  yuks from the hear/see/speak no evil crowd.

Comments at Anti-Strib.

Let’s step back through some NARN history:

2004 State Fair Broadcast

Guest: The Funky Chickens.  A man and woman dressed as chickens, performing primarily for kids.  They sang chicken songs.  They made “cluck” puns as they spoke.  I’m sure their intended audience – 3-7 year old kids – love ’em.  They were, shall we say, misplaced as guests on a conservative talk show.

Highlight of Gig: Me, laying an egg.

Booked by:  Chad the Elder

Chad’s Status:  Absent from the broadcast that day.

2005 NARN Broadcast

Guest: Joe Schlabotnik (name changed to protect the innocent because I can’t remember it) the Conservative Comic.  A standup comic.  Who was conservative.  To be fair, he gave evidence of his conservatism.  But in a half-hour interview, he gave no evidence whatsoever that he was a comic. 

Highlight of Gig: Brian Ward and I, laying a metaphorical egg, trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.

Booked by:  Chad the Elder

Chad’s Status:  Absent from the broadcast that hour.

2007 State Fair Broadcast

Guest: Sewer Man.  A guy who talked for fifteen minutes on the NARN I State Fair broadcast last Saturday about sewage, as he mixed some sort of sewage-like concoction.  Brian, trooper that he is, plugged away at it, and did his best, but…ugh.   

Highlight of Gig: The guy (putatively) drinking his sewage-like concoction on the air.  I didn’t say it was a good highlight…

Booked by:  Chad the Elder

Chad’s Status:  Absent from the broadcast that day.

2008 State Fair Broadcast

Guest: Transgender Mimes for Kucinich.  A group of Transgender (and transgender -sympathizing) mimes who do silent performance art elucidating man’s inhumanity to woman, and why a Kucinich presidency and a Democrat/Green alliance in Congress would be best for the womynandchildren. 

Interview to be conducted by Chad the Elder. 

Highlight of Gig: Brian, John, Ed, King, Michael and I, sitting in the burger joint in the Horticulture building, watching the fun.

Booked by:  Brian, John, Ed, King, Michael and I.

Brian, John, Ed, King, Michael and My Status:  Absent from the broadcast that segment.  Or three.  Or maybe a whole hour of Transgender Mimes for Kucinich. 

I think you should book your tickets.

Last spring, when I appeared on MPR’s “In The Loop” on a panel discussion, Jeff Horwich asked me (and I’m paraphrasing closely) why conservatives aren’t out there on the street, protesting.

I stammered and yawped my way through the the answer, live on the air (it’s much easier being a host than a guest!).  As I noted later, I wished I’d said…:

“Jeff, I think the difference is that conservatism isn’t fundamentally about emotions, or their expression. 

Liberalism – or the left, anyway – is really a co-option (good or cynical, or a little of both, really) of a lot of things most of us are taught as kids; share with people, be nice, don’t fight, you’ll shoot your eye out with that gun.  That kind of thing.  Now, it adds some grownup things, like a legal imperative and, in extreme cases, a certain pseudo-religious ardor – but at the end of the day liberalism is  just an institutionalized version of things we all learned in kindergarten.

Conservatism is not about emotions, usually; it’s something that doesn’t come easily to a lot of people, since it’s something you have to think hard about, and in some ways on the surface it seems to fly in the face of things we’re brought up to believe.  You share, or be nice, or quit fighting, not because mommy or the government tell you to, but because it’s the right thing to do.  And you realize that there’s complexity to all these things; sharing in the form of charity is good, while welfare has and causes serious problems.  Fighting is bad, but sometimes it’s necessary to defend yourself, your family, and your country.  That kind of thing.

So if you consider that becoming a real conservative is largely a solitary, intellectual journey rather than an emotional wave one gets swept up in, it makes a lot more sense that we’re not out there waving signs and threatening to, say, bum-rush Erica’s convention, to pick a random example.

Now, I was oversimplifying, of course; emotion is a huge, and justifiable, part of the pro-life movement.  And the left’s war of bigotry against the law-abiding gun owner certainly left many a rigorously law-abiding citizen in a fit of pique or two. 

But either way, with few exceptions, conservative movements are generally not about standing about in the street and waving signs – and certainly not about standing around hoping to get “arrested” and slapped with what in the (liberal) protester-friendly Twin Cities generally involves the most token possible charge and released instantly. 

And I have no desire whatsoever to change that!

But if there’s one thing “protests” are good for, it’s getting outdoors, meeting people, and having a good time.

Now, on Saturday the 15th, the Anarkids are going to be throwing a “tune-up” march in downtown Saint Paul, in the environs of the Capitol and the X – basically the area that’s going to see most of the action next year.

And it’d be fun to get some of the Good Guys and Gals out there.  To “show the flag”, literally and figuratively.

Of course, being a group of conservatives, we have to have an operating philosophy; I suggest “WWPJOD” (“What would P.J. O’Rourke Do?”)

Over this next week, a group of us at True North will be organizing a counterprotest; a big, fun, loud, fun, raucus, fun, “tune-down” for the passersby. 

We’d love to see you there.

Details forthcoming.

It may be out of character – but it’ll be fun. 

Yesterday, along with their “prepared statement” – which their spokesbeing read word for word from the exact same handout that’d been given to all the “press” and any other onlookers that asked – the Anarkids handed out this statement about last week’s riot in Minneapolis, produced here word-for-word from the “release”.

While fisking it is probably not going to be as interesting as finding out who the writer’s English Teachers were over the years, it’s probably worth a look:

On Friday, August 31, nineteen people were arrested after police brutally attacked cyclists with Tasers, pepper spray, and excessive physical force.  The cyclists were part of the monthly Critical Mass bike ride.

This month’s Critical Mass was a kick-off for the pReNC, a weekend of organizing against the Republican National Convention to be held in St. Paul in 2008.

Interesting.  On some of the local discussion forums, lefties are claiming that there is no, was no, never has been any connection between the two. 

  The RNC Welcoming Committe (RNC-WC), a group hosting the pReNC, gave a public speech before the ride exhorting riders to avoid confrontation throughout the weekend. 

Well, bully for them! 

But of course, in the months before the ride, they were busy talking about all the mayhem they were going to carry out.  Wonder if that “speech” managed to counteract all of that braggadocio? 

While the police as a whole use excessive and brutal force in our communities on a daily basis, we feel that yesterday’s police response was highly inconsistent with their usual behavior.

Um – hello?  So which is it?  If they’re a bunch of jackbooted fascists “on a daily basis”, what’s “inconsistent”? 

The bikers did not provoke this incident, as they committed no violent or destructive acts. 

It’s perhaps not surprising that this contradicts the Strib’s account of the incident. 

 Unmarked cars filmed and targeted specific people.  A State Patrol helicopter accompanied the entire event. 

And is it any wonder?  Given all the threats that these jackbooted little wannabee fascists have been making, if I were a cop I’d make sure that there were plenty of cameras aimed at the scene, too. 

 Three police cars followed throughout the ride, attempting to intimidate the riders by sounding their sirens regularly and driving into the crowd, but issued no official dispersal orders.

Wow. Cops driving into a crowd of bicyclists? 

I’m a bicyclist.  I know if a cop ran into my bike, I’d have some damage to show for it.  Right away!

Two cruisers – #993 and #998 – drove into the back of the Mass at the corner of La Salle and Grand.  Witnesses report that at least one bicyclist was hit by a squad car.  At this point, the police began to arrest and pepper spray those who had gathered at the site of the accident.  They pointed Tasers at a nonviolent crowd, as if to create a sense of panic.

Again – and naturally, and not unexpectedly (“HONEST, officer, someone put that crack pipe IN my purse!  Really”), this contradicts everything I’ve seen in the media on the subject, which reported the cops tried to arrest someone who was playing “chicken” in traffic, and were in turn attacked by a crowd of anarkids. 

Now – take careful note of this next part (emphasis added):

  Nearly twenty squad cars arrived on the scene.  Over forty police created a line formation in which they advanced on bikers, arresting, and brutalizing those who fell behind.

Huh-whah?

Anarkids on bikes couldn’t escape a bunch of cops, loaded down with gear, advancing deliberately in a line (per normal riot training)?

Am I the only one who suspects that they must not have been trying to “get away” all that hard?

One cyclist was pepper sprayed when she attempted to obey dispersal orders.

“I swear to God, officer – I have no idea where that TV came from!  Stolen, you say?  Someone must have stuffed it into my backseat!” 

  She was then handcuffed and held to the ground as a third officer Tasered her in the neck.  Witnesses were also pepper sprayed and one bystander was among those arrested. 

I’ll be interested in seeing the video. 

 Most of the nineteen arrestees were held on “Probable Cause” for Riot charges and their bail was set at $3,000 each.

Let me take a step back here.

I know that it is entirely possible that the police might have overreacted.  Nothing about being a conservative involves blindly accepting government’s view of things – indeed, since every actual systemic government infringement of free speech in our society today attacks conservatives rather than liberals, we are right to be vigilant. 

But what do you suppose the odds are that the Minneapolis Police Department – one of the most intensely-politicized police departments in the business, which works for among the farthest-left-leaning city governments in the nation – being fully aware of both the Anarkids’ proclamations and intentions and the sympathies so many of their civilian bosses have for the “protesters“, would allow their officers to go all unhinged?  Indeed, I’m going to make a very fearless prediction here; the officers covering and responding to the “protest” knew that they were going to be on dozens of videocameras, both official eyes in the sky and a thousand points of cell-cam.  I’d be amazed, under those political and technological circumstances, if there were more than the thinnest film of police misconduct.  Just a hunch – but like most of my predictions, I’m pretty comfortable with it.

We believe that the police aggression experienced Friday night was a pre-meditated attempt to intimidate the anti-RNC organizers.  Although members of the RNC-WC were the intended recipients of police violence, the officers present exercised no discretion in their brutality.  All Critical Mass riders were subject to the police’s use of unrestrained force.  This was, with no question, a police practice run for next year’s RNC.

Well, they were half right.

I’ll bet anything that this was an intentional provocation, intended to inflame a sense of righteous victimhood on the part of the “protesters” – to create a sense of “we have nothing to lose, so anything goes.  Our ends now justify our means!”. 

Indeed, their next passage indicates almost exactly that (emphases added): 

  When the RNC-WC says that the State brings violence to the streets and leaves poeple, pacifist or otherwise, with no peaceful option for resistance, these acts of brutal force are what we speak of.  We do not expect the police to be held accoutnable by a system that necessitates their violence; however, we remain committed to confronting this repression wherever it exists and with whatever means available.

We will not be intimidated.

No, I don’t suspect “being intimidated” has ever been on the agenda. 

UPDATE: A commenter noted that, while I DO try to avoid using “nazi” references, I did let one slip through. 

I’ll cop to it.  The thought of these jagoffs polluting my city, my adopted hometown, with their puerile/violent little fantasies, is noxious to me.  So I slipped.

Good catch.

I wonder sometimes:  If a group of diabolically-weird behavioral scientists were to build an entire universe around a test subject in which the reality we experience is altered in some key ways, a la The Truman Show – say, a red sky, gravity pulls sideways, the sun rises in the north, the Twins are having a good season – what would happen if the subject of that test were to suddenly (a la Truman) escape from that experimental world, and experience life out here with the rest of us?

Would they adapt?  Or would the fundamental change in everything they saw, felt, pre-supposed and believed so disorient them that they’d find it impossible to carry on, and wither and die like a spider kept in a jar?

Along those lines, I also sometimes wonder:  If the DFL stopped issueing talking points, could Lori Sturdevant adapt to the non-talking-point reality?  Or would she flash out of existence?

Sunday’s column makes me want to bet the “under”:

The media bigs tell Minnesotans regularly that U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman’s reelection bid is in trouble because he has mostly supported President Bush’s policies in Iraq.

Ah.  “Media Bigs” say so. 

It must be true!

I read this next bit, and picture Sturdevant, standing, looking as eager as a sophomore hoping the dreamboat senior class football star will ask her to prom, silently chanting “he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…“:

Maybe so. But for my $11 price of admission, the best measure of Minnesota political reality can be had at the State Fair. On Thursday, I listened as Coleman fielded questions about bridges, ethanol, bridges, transit, bridges, floods, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, the federal deficit, and — did I mention bridges?

“I want to tell you just one thing,” said a stern-faced Ray Martin of Stillwater when he caught up with his senator in the middle of Underwood Avenue.

If Coleman braced himself for a barrage on Iraq, he needn’t have.

“he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…“: 

 [Coleman’s questioners] may not have walked away satisfied [although Sturdevant gives us no reason to assume either way – ed]. But my guess is that the senator did. They’d just provided him with more of the evidence he’d been collecting at the fair that Minnesotans’ minds are on matters Republicans seeking reelection find congenial — that is, matters other than Iraq.

“he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…“.

Alternate possibility:  Minnesotans, like Americans, are starting to realize that Iraq might be doable.  Maybe not instantly, maybe not ending in a surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship built by a nation organized into the greatest manifestation of the New Deal experiment, but – in the way of all counterinsurgencies that aren’t resolved by killing all the locals and scorching the earth – eventually, and with subtle signs of improvement to go along with the declining costs.

Minnesotans (I will speculate) aren’t worried about Iraq because, for the first time since the contractors mutiliated bodies were pulled from that bridge in Fallujah, it’s starting to seem like the US is getting into control of the situation.  And when I say “Minnesotans”, I mean “people who live outside newsrooms and DFL covens like Merriam Park and Kenwood”.

“he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…if he doesn’t, it’s because he’s busy, or he’s got a lot on his mind…he’s GOT to ask me…”

That includes the calamities Minnesotans will forever associate with August 2007, the Interstate 35W bridge collapse and the flash floods in southeastern Minnesota. The federal response to both of those disasters is getting mostly high marks — and for that, Coleman can take a bow…He turned the president’s attention to the needs of flood-ravaged Minnesota towns when, serendipitously, Bush came to the state two days after the flood to raise money for Coleman. Coleman’s pleas, and those of GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty, cut through the red tape associated with federal disaster declarations and got FEMA and the Small Business Administration on the ground with a speed that has to astound survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

Grooooaaaaan.

That’s right, Lori.  Never mind that the disasters are of orders of magnitude different scales, and that unlike Louisiana Democrat Governor Kathleen Blanco and NoLA Democrat mayor Ray Nagin, local officials were both competent and less interested in securing political cover. 

Ms. Sturdevant must have gone into journalism because she flunked math.

“he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…he knows it’s TRUE LOVE, as much as I do!…he’s GOT to ask me…”

I add emphasis below:

…Coleman may have been spared barbs about Iraq because, as he claimed, “most Minnesotans support my position that we simply can’t cut off funding for the war” and abruptly withdraw troops. On the other hand, the State Fair chapter of Minnesota Nice may have precluded the kind of conversation — or confrontation — the topic begets.

“he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…if he doesn’t…” …then blame it on a bit of facile folk-pop psychology.

One thing’s for sure; when it’s time to measure Minnesota’s cultural barometer, you can count on Lori Sturdevant to check the wind gauge:

Fairgoers weren’t shy about mentioning the war down Underwood Avenue a piece [“a piece”.  Oh, good lord.  ed.], where DFL challengers Mike Ciresi and Al Franken had set up shop.

 To be fair, fairgoers at the Franken booth “weren’t shy” about issueing dangling Halliburton references or theorizing that the World Trade Center fell to a controlled demolition, either.

But while Sturdevant is tone-deaf to culture outside of her native habitat, she is a master of Socialist Realist flakkery, issuing a pealing paeon to those the Talking Points anoint:

If ribbons were awarded for crowd-drawing capacity by politicians, Franken would take purple. Every time the former “Saturday Night Live” comedian, author and radio talker showed up — which happened daily, for long hours — a queue formed for photos and autographs. Old political hands likened his appeal to that of 1998 fair phenom Jesse Ventura — a portentous comparison.

Less “portentous” than strained.  Ventura took in – as in, “bamboozled” – a little over a third of the electorate with a mixture of faux-populist bluster and a veneer of libertarianism (that he tossed aside like a Mustang Ranch souvenir mug when he got into office), which he sold to a credulous state at a time when people took elections as seriously as they take American Idol. Franken’s demographic – autodramatic middle-aged granola crones, gaunt state workers with anal-retentive gray beards, fashionably-downmarket-looking Hamline students – are comparable to Ventura’s masses only by the triteness of their understanding of the issues.

Those words undoubtedly buoyed his spirits that evening as he boarded an airplane bound for Baghdad. Minnesotans may have given him a pass on the war at the State Fair — but he has to wonder whether it was only a respite, as fleeting as the fair itself.

“he’s GOT to ask me…he’s GOT to ask me…if not today, then tomorrow!…he’s GOT to ask me…”

People ask me all the time – “Mitch?  Is there any subject on which you agree with Jeff Fecke?  And by “anything”, I mean other than “Radiohead sucks?””

Well, that alone is significant – indeed, pivotal. 

But no.  There is at least one other thing.

When you’re a Republican in Saint Paul, you get used to feeling like a Finn at Suomussalmi. 

It’s a rare thing indeed when the good guys outnumber the left at much of anything in this town.

Today was the last day I expected to be one of them.

The Anarkids – the various arrested adolescents who are planning on bringing violence to the Republican National Convention next year – had a “News Conference” at the Capitol at 11:30 today. 

Present were:

• Camera crews from two cable access outlets and WCCO TV.
• A reporter from Minnesota Public Radio (indeed, the same one I talked with on Friday).
• Lassie from Freedom Dogs
• Leo from Pscychmeister’s Ice Palace
• Jamie Delton, blogger and local GOP activist.
• Sandra Brown-Rivers, spokesperson for the RNC Welcoming Committee.
• Three or four anarkids.  One of them drove…(wait for it…wait for it…) a Prius – brand new and mighty expensive, for a bunch of kids who reject capitalism and money.  It was plastered with bumperstickers.
• Myself.

So – of the 15 (I counted ’em) people at the “news conference”, both the news media and the GOP presence were greater than the Anarkids!

Ms. Brown-Rivers – a short woman who looked either frumpily perky or perkily frumpy – did a lengthy soundcheck, looking hot and sticky and uncomfortable in her dark, dirty-looking standard-issue anarkid-wear duds, and sounding tentative behind the microphone, at the bottom of the capitol steps.  Then she cleared her throat, and as camera crews and the cute redhead reporter from WCCO tried to get her name for attribution, replied “We’re not taking questions…”

“No, we’d like to get your title”, replied one of the camera guys, who I suspect must have been wondering what he did to piss off his assignment editor.

Finally, after an extended buildup, Ms. Brown-Rivers read the following statement, word for word (barring a few flubs which I won’t bother to re-create):

Thank you, ladies, gentlemen, and otherly-gendered of the press, for joining us on this, most glorious of occasions.  This Labor day weekend, anarchists and anti-authoritarians from every city, every town, every hamlest, every last Hooverville of this great nation convened a grand congress.  Together, we have magicked into being a detailed plan, worthy of note, to receive the Republican National Convention. Like many a good plan, it is broad in scope, aimed an othering less than complete controll (!!) of this hallowed turf, our fair city.  Today, declare our first victory, having a chieved a complete shutdown of government services citywide.  This we have accomplished whilst wading in the dark tide of the State and their attempts to crush us on the first even of our festivities, when the gentle flesh of our comrades was met with hard metal and penetrating volts by members of the self-appointed police force – a foreshadowing glimpse.  Yet here we stand, and our chariots ride on.  Much as a phoenix rises from its own ashes, we admist that tomorrow the city will function anew.  But know this:  its hegemony, like all but the truest of loves, is fleeting, ephemeral.

I thought about fisking it – but this may be the most perfectly self-fisking statement in the history of public oratory (although other bloggers may feel free to go for it!).

Ms Brown-Rivers stalked off the steps, leaving the reporters looking mildly pissed. 

And so the season begins!

(more…)

On Friday, I talked with MPR reporter Jess Mador about the countdown to the Republican National Convention, which stands at “one year” right about now.

The mystery – When will the piece air?

It might be on “All Things Considered” this afternoon.

Or it might be on “Morning Edition” tomorrow.

And it might or might not include anything I had to say…

I’ll tune in, natch – but let me know if anyone hears it.

UPDATE:  I actually met Ms. Mader this afternoon at the “Press Conference”, and had a brief but pleasant conversation.  She informs me the piece should be on ATC this afternoon.

BEFORE:  

Earlier this summer, the City Pages’ Peter “Snoopp Peete” Scholtes wrote about the Critical Mass bike rally:

What always strikes me about this parade is its quiet, a gap in rush-hour racket that absorbs even the clink of chains, the shouts to passersby. The effect might explain why participants prefer to joke with–rather than preach at–people they pass. On a previous ride, when the cyclists glided past a man looking under the hood of his overheated sedan, one rider couldn’t resist yelling: “Time to get a bike!”

That’s about as didactic as this roving protest gets. Though against automobile traffic in both the physical and philosophical sense, Critical Mass is a ride first and foremost, an exercise in guerrilla leisure conceived ten years ago in San Francisco and duplicated across the planet, from Tel Aviv to Sydney. The name was lifted from Ted White’s 1992 documentary Return of the Scorcher, in which one interviewee described the bike buildup and spontaneous group forays across the busy intersections of Beijing as “critical mass.”

Sounds peaceful.

Almost bucolic. 

Almost something I can get into. 

Indeed, an old friend turns up:

“It’s an exhilarating feeling to ride on some of the streets where we’re most vulnerable and feel absolutely safe,” says Jason Goray, a Web developer who joined the Mass in April. “I never realized how much tension I carry around when I ride; the feeling that a car could take you out at any point.”

This exorcism inevitably backs up traffic and irritates weary motorists, but Goray doesn’t like the word protest. Like many riders, he believes the movement’s civilly disobedient slogan–“We are not blocking traffic. We are traffic”–is an assertion, not a dare.

After a summer of biking to work – which, with a 17 year gap, followed a decade of serious biking, albeit most of it in the country – I can agree.

What could be wrong with that?

AFTER:

From WCCO on Friday:

Minneapolis Police arrested 17 adults and 2 juveniles during a monthly bicycle protest Friday night…The trouble started Friday night with one bicyclist.

“Somebody was driving straight at cars,” said Deputy Chief Allen.

Police tried to arrest that bicyclist on Hennepin Avenue, but were unsuccessful. In a videotape of the incident provided by a friend of one of the bicyclists, the crowd grew vocal and restless as officers tried to make the arrest. “What’s the charge? What’s the charge?” the group chanted.

According to Police, the bicyclist escaped back into the mass of riders. Officers made another attempt at an arrest on LaSalle Street, not far from Loring Park, at 7:15 p.m. Friday.

“There were individuals physically trying to pull officers off the individual under arrest,” said Deputy Chief Allen. That’s when the officers called for backup, and at least 50 squad cars responded to the scene.

On the videotape provided to WCCO-TV, an officer is seen spraying pepper spray at some of the bicyclists. According to Allen, that was warranted, because the bicyclists were being aggressive and refusing to back away from the arrest scene.

“They were set upon by a large group who started fighting with the officers,” he said.

The Strib article on the incident goes into more detail:

When officers tried to arrest a rider they felt had been trying to provoke them, a scuffle broke out, said Minneapolis Police Lt. Marie Przynski.

“When the officer went to arrest him, his buddy came up, and they started to struggle with the officer,” Przynski said.

A group surrounded the officers, and begin to chant “Let them go!”Then several people tried to prevent the officers from arresting these individuals,” she said, and a skirmish ensued.

Soon, the two officers were surrounded by about 30 people, and they issued the call “officer needs help.”

That brought 48 officers from six different law enforcement agencies racing to the scene, where the situation escalated and the officers used chemical Mace in an attempt to control the crowd, Przynski said.

And the Strib noted, almost as an afterthought:

The ride was also linked with weekend protests of next year’s Republican National Convention in the Twin Cities.

Hmm.

So what could have possible taken a peaceful (if typically, Minnesotan-ily passive-aggressive) protest and turned it into a riot?

A hysterical lefty site gives us a hint (and photos):

Police attack Minneapolis Critical Mass @ pReNC and arrest around 20 cyclists

The first day of the pReNC gathering in Minneapolis/St. Paul (in preparation for next year’s Republican National Convention) saw an utterly unprovoked attack by police on a non-confrontational Critical Mass ride. Around 20 people have been arrested, several from out of state.

A strong critical mass of around 400 or more cyclists were attacked by the police at the corners of LaSalle and Grand as the tail end of the Mass went under the bridge.

The site also asks, plaintively:

If you know these people and know that they were part of Critical Mass or the pReNC, let us know immediately so that jail support can work to help them. Many out-of-state Anarchists journeyed to the pReNC alone and it is our fear that they may not have written down the jail support number and now be languishing in jail without our knowledge. 

Huh.

According to this site, all but three of those arrested have been released:

Gus Ganley  (Henco jail record)
Paul Krisopovich  [Actually Kristapovich, of Prospect Park – and he’s been released]
David Renz [Henco jail record]
Alan Palazello   [Henco jail record]
Dohovan Lessard   [Henco jail record]
Joshua Nichols   [Henco jail record]
Alice Battey [posted bail]  [Henco jail record]
Julia Bates   [Henco jail record]
Isaac Peter (a minor)  
Alia Trindle   [Henco jail record]
Magdelena Kaluza (a minor)  
Luce Guillen-Givins  (She’s popped up before)  [Henco jail record]
Jeff Pemberton   [Henco jail record]
Joel Leders     [no Henco jail record on the website]
Daniel Barnett   [no Henco jail record on the website]
Mike Kirk [Henco jail record]
Jeff Fick  [Henco jail record]
Hunter Gsoell [Henco jail record]

…Those not listed are being charged with felonies and kept till at least Wednesday, bail set at $3,000.

So: heretofore peaceful local protest plus [possible] out-of-town anarchists (some of the names were just too common to Google) and thugs equals riot.

It’s going to be an interesting year.

I’m going to be taking the day off – mostly (the story that’s coming up next was actually written on Sunday).

Hope you are, too!

Back tomorrow with a full slate of fun stuff.

Today’s the big launch for True North. 

We’re a blog.

Perhaps you’ve heard; there are 70 million blogs out there. You might be forgiven for asking: “Why another?”

The answer: because it’s needed.

Minnesota is a tough place to be a Republican; it’s tougher still to be a first-principles based, center-right conservative. We face a media and DFL machine that is huge, well-funded, and has insinuated over the past three or four generations into every corner of Minnesota life.

And yet for all of that, we – underfunded, working mostly as volunteers – have twice brought this state to the tipping point, from “purple” to the ragged brink of “red”. In five straight elections, from ’98 to ’06, Minnesota’s volunteers took on the paid, plutocrat-propped minions of the DFL on the streets, in the community centers, and finally at the polling places. And except for the national debacle of ’06, we gave MUCH better than we got. We turned “liberal” Minnesota into a swing state.

And it’s been a lot of work. Minnesota’s volunteers are tired. They’ve been asked a lot. But they’ve delivered.

Among those volunteers have been Minnesota’s center-right bloggers. Minnesota’s center-right has, since 2004, fostered a blog community that is the nation’s most vibrant, smart and influential.

And they’ve put in a lot of work. And they’re tired, too.

But it’s another season. And someone needs to do their bit to help focus those bloggers, that alternative media, those many many volunteers in precincts and wards across this state, to shake off the fatigue, and ride once more to the sound of the guns; like bagpiper Mike Millin leading Lord Lovat’s troops across Sword Beach on D-Day with the skirl of his highland pipes, someone’s gotta fly that flag and walk toward the fight , so that everyone else can see, grit their teeth, and follow along.

That’s why we started this blog. What makes us think that “True North” is guaranteed to succeed? Simple. It’s a blog. There are no guarantees. But we’re in the right place, at the right time, with the right people:

True North has a bunch of Minnesota’s finest center-right bloggers and other pundits. These are people who’ve waved Minnesota’s cultural barometer in the world’s face for years, now, and made the world listen. We have some people with INCREDIBLY good insights on board.We are living in a situation that is ripe for this type of blog. We face a huge-profile Senate race, one that will pit Hollywood (and Kenwood) against Main Street.

We are a Purple State with a governor that is a contender to go to Washington. We are going to be hosting a national convention (and a few thousand demonstrators in the bargain), which will put our state and our people on the world’s front pages. And the Minnesota House in the balance, as Minnesota wakes up from the ’06 election, sees what the DFL has tried to abscond with, and quietly tries to chew its arm off to avoid waking the Democrats up; we could flip the State House, and possibly the US House, back to the GOP.

The question isn’t “why do this blog”. The question is “could we do without it?” Hope you can join us. It’s going to be wildest year of our lives, so far.

(Cross-posted on True North)

Today’s the big debut:

About the time this article publishes, we’ll be giving True North its big sendoff at the State Fair (tune in on AM1280 The Patriot). 

Some people have asked – “why another conservative blog?”  (Others, rather than asking, have tried to go all Chloe on us.   Really, guys – less drama, please?)

But as the Democrats try to wheedle the state into holding a special session to repair the bridge (and increase Local Government Aid and put a state trooper at every intersection and raise all of southern Minnesota twelve feet and increase education funding and built a light-retaining wall around Nicollet Island and…) and trucks full of Hollywood money are rumbling up I90 to Al Franken’s office and wannabe thugboyz and riotgrrls are measuring manhole covers in Saint Paul for next year’s convention and plutocrats pour money into buying a left-leaning alternative media presence in this state, it’s time for us – the state’s center-right alternative media – to step things up.

True North is just another blog, in a sense.  It’s true. 

It’s also going to be the online equivalent of what Keegans is for the non-partisan Minnesota Organization of Bloggers; a place to get together; to talk; to organize things.

It’s not an organ of the state GOP.  Far from it.  While probably 95% of the votes I’ve cast since age 20 have gone to Republicans (and that is, naturally, a conservative estimate), it’s because the GOP is the only party that even pays lip service to the principles I care about; in many other ways, the State GOP and some of the Congressional District party organizations are as much the problem as they are the solution. 

No.  True North is rigorously independent of all parties.  It is allied purely to first principles: from the Manifesto…:

• Liberty: lower taxes, less (and more sensible) regulation, and a focus on freedom, whether economic, intellectual or political.

• Prosperity: the promotion of the freedom of the market to bring the most opportunity to the most people, and the promotion of merit that drives this prosperity.

• Security: the defense of this nation from enemies abroad, the protection of its citizens from crime and criminals at home, and the security of our borders.

• Culture: The recognition that America is a melting pot that welcomes newcomers who come with a desire to join in our novel experiment, enjoy freedom, wealth and a brotherhood of common principle, rather than view it as a candy store to be plundered.

• Limited Government: A government that is focusing on whether you’re smoking or eating Big Macs is a government that has too much time, money and power on its hands.

• Family: the belief that government needs to uphold, rather than undercut, the basic building block of all healthy societies, the family.

True North is a center for writing and discussing these principles.

Kind of like every other blog.  Yepper.

But it’s also a place to network.  To organize.  To counter George Soros’ and Laurie David’s millions with the things Minnesota conservatives do have plenty of.

Ideas.

Energy.

Commitment.

Passion for the cause.

This next 14 months are going to be an amazing time.  True North seeks to chronicle that time – and, to the extent that a bunch of volunteers in the pajamas sitting behind keyboard in their basements can, to drive that time.

So join us!

Today on the Northern Alliance Radio Network and our final day at the fair:

• Volume I The Opening Act The First Team – John, Brian and Chad – will, I presume, order Spam sculptures of David Strom. 
• Volume II “The Headliner” – Ed and I’ll will be in next, from 1-3. 
• Volume III, “The Final Word” – King and Michael will reprise their triumphant afternoon-drive debut and drive the whole thing home.

So join us on the Northern Alliance Radio Network, live at the Minnesota State Fair, 11AM-5PM Central on AM1280 The Patriot, and at Townhall.com!