I’m not one of those conservatives who reflexively bashes the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union.
But I do relish the chance to give them a rhetorical wedgie.
They’re organizing a phalanx of lawyers to defend the well-heeled “anarchist” fops that’ll be swarming the Cities about this time next year.
Katherine Kersten, as usual, is the only voice in the major media with the real story:
The pinstripe brigade may see lots of action. At the 2004 Republican convention in New York City, police arrested more than 1,800 people, though a smaller crowd of protesters is expected here next year.
The MCLU’s volunteer lawyers will go to bat for any demonstrator arrested at the convention, regardless of conduct or offense, says Samuelson.
Really?
So if a ProtestWarrior runs afoul of a cop for whatever reason, the MCLU will be there, defending a conservative counterprotestor?
What sort of protesters are likely to benefit from these legal eagles’ skills? Earnest grandmas who wave signs outside the Xcel Energy Center aren’t likely to get in trouble with the police. Arrestees will probably disproportionately be anarchists and other self-proclaimed rabble-rousers who are eager to flout the law.
One such group is Unconventional Action, an “emerging network” whose national membership advocates “militant direct action.” At a recent planning conference, members listed goals to “shut down” Minneapolis and St. Paul, and “to deter [other] cities from wanting to host [political] conventions in the future,” according to an anarchist web site.
Unconventional Action lauds the strategy of an organization that helped create havoc at World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in 1999, another website says. In Seattle, according to published accounts, a relatively small group of activists used weapons like Molotov cocktails and ammonium-nitrate bombs with nails to provoke violent confrontations with the police. Millions of dollars in property damage and numerous injuries resulted.
So the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union is going to elevate malicious violence to the level of a civil liberty, worthy of our defense?
According to Unconventional Action, the Twin Cities have “strategic vulnerabilities unique to any trade summit or party convention of recent years.” The group is considering blockading traffic on narrow highway interchanges, bridges and key intersections and conducting other kinds of civil disobedience.
Hm. It’s a little late to organize this, but wouldn’t it be fun to organize a counteprotest to visit this next bit…
This weekend, the so-called RNC Welcoming Committee, a local anarchist group, is hosting activists from across the country — including Unconventional Action — to strategize. The committee has urged people to march through St. Paul to “gather information, take measurements, check drain covers, etc.” At a news conference on Monday, the group showed a video featuring masked figures and hinting at violence. “There exists no ‘peaceful’ option,” it said in a news release.
…and block their right to speak freely?
Wonder how they’d like it?
No matter. The MCLU, head buried firmly in sand, will be there to get Ian and Ashley out of the clink:
Samuelson says that protesters have no “license to riot.” But he expressed little concern about anarchist threats, and said that serious problems — if they occur — are likely to arise spontaneously.
So, Chuck Samuelson – is the MCLU defending the right to commit violence as a general thing?
Or only violence against Republicans?
No doubt the courts will be overwhelmed with Republican crimes like securities fraud, accidental shootings, soliciting BJs in men’s room stalls…
While i do not condone the violence preached by the anarchists, Samuelson may be right with this: “The MCLU’s volunteer lawyers will go to bat for any demonstrator arrested at the convention, regardless of conduct or offense…”
Of the 1800 arrested at the 2004 RNC, any guess how many had their charges dropped?
90%. (as usual KK not providing ALL the pertinent information)
I think the 2004 RNC proved, just because the cops charge people with certain “crimes,” it doesn’t mean they actually committed them – and we need groups there looking our for our civil liberties.
The left has already decided that not matter how violent the act, their lawyers will scream “police brutality”.
So Fulcrum, if a show up wearing a mask and a very large bat and start smashing windows at a Planned Parenthood abortion mill, the MCLU will defend my right to do that?
Chuck before you spout out rhetorical dribble, why don’t you take a second to google the arrests stemming from the 2004 RNC.
How many people were arrested for violent actions? How many people were falsely arrested? How many cases had VIDEO PROOF that the cops made false statements on the arrests?
As a citizen, one should be concerned when mass arrests are performed, and 90% have their charges dropped. That speaks to me that something is wrong.
Really, Chuck. Was this decision reached at a regularly scheduled meeting of “the left” with a quorum present? And do the terms of “the left’s” retainer agreement with “their lawyers” specify that the lawyers must “scream ‘police brutality'” continuously, or just in court appearances? “No matter how violent the act” – so rape, murder, flying an airplane into the IDS Center just to scare Kermit – will all of these result in screams of police brutality? Cause Angryclown is thinking that might not be the best litigation strategy. But I’m sure “the left” knows what it’s doing.
Either that or you’re just pulling stuff out of your ass as usual.
Fulcrum and AC, it’s unfortunate the your side has so much hate for conservative-Americans that your people have planned a trip 13 months ahead of time, for the sole purpose of going up to my side and screaming obsenities at me.
Ever hear of a nice trip to Orlando, or a national park. Better yet, why don’t you go to the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota and do some volunteer work. Or do what one of my co-workers (a Christian Republican) is doing. Her church is raising money to build a well, water tank and water distribution system in….I think it is in El Salvador. They are heading down there this fall to complete the job.
Wouldn’t that be more productive then just expressing hate.
Mr. Kettle, i mean Chuck. Aren’t you the same one who claims repeatedly that liberalism is a disease? Aren’t you the same one who posted 3 times hating about the seed art lady? To use your words, “Yes, what a sad depressing exsistance (sic)”
A vast majority that will be here next year are here to utilize their constitutional rights to free speech. Unfortunately there are those, who are planning violence. Those that are advocating violence are anarchists. Anarchists are not part of the Democratic Party. Nobody is condoning the violence that the anarchists are advocating. As AC correctly points out, there is no Monolithic Left as there is no Monolithic Right.
As the 2004 RNC showed us, we must be vigilant to protect the rights of the protesters and counter protesters.
Aren’t you the same one who claims repeatedly that liberalism is a disease?
That’d be Michael Savage, actually.
While AC is correct about the “monolithic left”, I have to point out…
Nobody is condoning the violence that the anarchists are advocating.
Condoning:preparing to defend in court without question as tomato:tomahto.
Just because the charges were dropped, it doesn’t mean the offense didn’t happen and it certainly doesn’t mean the charges were false. It only means that in a very full criminal justice system, prosecution decided they would rather allocate thin resources to prosecuting other crimes.
Protesters have every right to free assembly, but they have no right to shout threats, intimidate, provoke violence, obstruct traffic, litter or vandalize.
If I am threatened by a protester for my beliefs, I might see if one of these MCLU suits wants to pursue charging them with a hate crime.
Defending accused criminals isn’t the same thing as condoning criminal acts. It’s a natural error, though, considering that wingnuts’ copy of the Bill of Rights goes from the Second Amendment straight to the Tenth.
If you plan your annual vacation 13 months ahead of time to go to St Paul to tell Republicans how much you hate them, then maybe liberalism is a mental disease.
I don’t know of one conservative who would drive 2 hours to scream at Democrats, let alone go to Denver to do it.
You don’t know what you’re talking about, Nordeaster. Angryclown was in New York. There were about 1,700 arrests, many of them round-ups that included people who weren’t doing anything remotely illegal. More than 90 percent of the cases were dismissed because there was no evidence to support them. The city paid a substantial settlement of civil suits brought by the protesters.
More than 90 percent of the cases were dismissed because there was no evidence to support them.
90% of Manhattan prosecutors are punks.
What exactly is the goal that the A’s are trying to achieve? If it’s political change using violence or the threat of violence it’s difficult to not call it terrorism. On the other hand, if all they want is attention, why give it to them?
Fulcrum: The arrests vs. charges filed numbers you cite do not prove that the majority of protesters arrested during the 2004 RNC were innocent. the DA can decide not to pursue charges for any number of reasons. Having the charges against you dropped before scheduling a hearing or a trial are not an acquittal.
Defending accused criminals isn’t the same thing as condoning criminal acts.
If you’re a defense attorney, or a public defender? Of course not.
If you’re the MCLU – who is there to “defend civil liberties” (or at least the ones the left finds fashionable), though?
It’s a natural error, though, considering that wingnuts’ copy of the Bill of Rights goes from the Second Amendment straight to the Tenth.
Yeah, what would we know, being the only Americans that have actually had rights infringed, and have Hillary Clinton eyeing the First Amendment the way Lindsay Lohan eyes a line of bolivian marching powder?
While the fact that charges are dropped does generally mean that guilt or innocence is irrelevant, Terry had one good point:
Fulcrum: The arrests vs. charges filed numbers you cite do not prove that the majority of protesters arrested during the 2004 RNC were innocent. the DA can decide not to pursue charges for any number of reasons. Having the charges against you dropped before scheduling a hearing or a trial are not an acquittal.
I have no idea about most of the cases in NYC – but I know that a politically-motivated DA’s office can drop an awful lot of prosecutions against people they politically favor. Twin Cities’ protesters benefitted greatly from having DFLers in the County Attorney jobs in Henco and Ramco; ask those “Honeywell Project” yahoos how much actual jail time THEY drew in 20 years?
Yeah, we get it. Limiting how much the NRA can pay to throw elections to the Republicans is the greatest outrage to the Constitution you can think of.
Obviously libs have a problem staying on point.
Conservative commenter at SITD:
“What about the right of the delegates to peaceably assemble and choose their party’s candidate for president?”
Liberal commenter’s response:
How can you use the word “peaceably” when Dick Cheney shot his hunting partner in the face!
NRA = Good. Let’s see, if I ran the numbers right, I need to have one less beer a week to pay for membership to that storied civil rights organization.
Funny thing is Terry, that really isn’t satire anymore.
“Seven months after the mass arrests of over 1,800 protesters at the Republican Convention in New York City last summer, 91 percent of the nearly 1,700 cases that have been concluded have resulted in acquittals or the dismissal of charges. Four hundred cases were dismissed after video recordings made by volunteer observers and others showed that there was no reason for the arrests, the New York Times reported last week. Some of the videos also exposed false testimony by the police.”
So i could only quickly prove that 22% were wrongly arrested and had their rights infringed upon….
or how about this?
“In a May 15 letter to Kelly (ed: Commissioner Raymond Kelly), Dunn (ed: NYCLU associate legal director Chris Dunn) noted that the Manhattan district attorney’s office dismissed charges against all 227 people arrested at one location after reviewing videotape showing that everyone on the block was surrounded and arrested within one minute of a deputy chief’s shouting an order to disperse.”
Let me get this straight. Conservative posters here here are more concerned about potential hypothetical violation of delegates’ rights, than actual violations that occurred.
I don’t understand your point, Fulcrum. Should the people who are plotting to disrupt the RNC — to prevent or intimidate delegates to achieve their political aims — not be harrassed, arrested, etc. by the cops because they will fail in their stated plans? Or because you believe it is protected speech? Or is there some third option I’m not getting?
Terry, here’s another concept you wingnuts don’t quite get. People are not to be “harrassed, arrested, etc.” by police unless the police have reasonable cause to believe they’ve committed a crime. It’s a little thing called the Constitution. Read it someday when you’re finished with the Turner Diaries and Mein Kampf.
Godwin’s Law.
Terry = Hitler.
AC, the NRA is hardly the largest PAC out there.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/topacs.asp?cycle=2006&Type=R
And the NRA donates to candidates based upon the cadidates voting records and positions on gun rights related issues. It does not favor candidates by political party.
The 4 million members of the NRA also make donations voluntarily. Unlike the labor unions listed on the PAC list who are forced to donate through their dues.
okay, we’re through here. You lost me at Katherine Kersten.
You lost me at Katherine Kersten
Don’t be modest. You always get lost way before that.