Republican National Convention

Grand Old Party Animals

Filed under: Republican National Convention

Let’s face it: Outside of rodeos, high-end brothels, and airport bathrooms, conservatives are notoriously inept partiers. For one, they tend to dance like malnourished chimpanzees (assuming they’ve had more than three Coors Light and there’s no television set nearby to distract them) and are more likely to be seen banning fun than having it.

As Ted Haggard will tell you, when right-wingers really want to get down, it’s time to get bipartisan. Which is to say it’s time to place a begrudging call to the wild-eyed liberal they roomed with freshman year of college, the one dude with “connections,” wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Or, in Haggard’s case, a gay prostitute who also peddles crystal meth (What’s known in the business as a “triple threat.”)

So it should be no surprise that the first—first!—explicit, unequivocal Republican call-for-unity in seven years comes in the form of “the official line of RNC clothing,” more specifically a t-shirt depicting a harmonious donkey and elephant joining together to hold a sign reading, “Let’s Party!”

I think I speak for every Twin Cities non-Republican when I say: “Fuck off.”

Sure, whenever it’s politically expedient, conservatives will whip Middle America into a pants-shitting fear-frenzy about those dastardly immoral liberals, what with their Mary Juana, naughty language, and race music. But when it comes time for them to cavort, their tone transforms into calculated “can’t-we-all-just-get-a-bong?” pish posh.

No more.

We reject your clumsy call for unity! We scoff at your contrived cooperative façade! We heathens are hereby on strike! (And, no, we’re not going to keep the bars open an extra two hours just so you can work up the liquid courage to call an escort service. You can’t have your Puritanical superstitions and drink them, too.)

Now leave us alone. If you really need us, we’ll be over here hitting on your daughter.

Posted by Matt Snyders at May 14, 2008 2:38 PM | Comments (1)

 

Convention Fact Check: Rumors and Realities

Filed under: Republican National Convention

Pretty much from the moment in September 2006 when the Republicans unveiled plans to congregate in the Twin Cities for their shindig to mark the passing of the red telephone from George W. Bush to the party's new standard-bearer, speculation has swirled around the Great Event.

We now know, of course, that the Republican National Convention will be held at the Xcel Energy Center, from September 1 through the 4th. We're fairly certain that John McCain, barring health issues, will give a triumphant speech. And we're happy to report that scuttlebutt about large advance orders of tri-colored balloons, confetti, and bunting has been confirmed.

But what about all the rest? Here's a quick rundown of some of the rumors circulating around the convention, along with the realities.

* Will protesters be herded into a pen to shout their slogans miles from their intended targets?

No, says St. Paul's assistant police chief Matt Bostrom.

"The city of St. Paul is a free-speech zone," Bostrom said. "I say that proudly. I was disappointed when I saw what Boston did (in handling protesters at the 2004 Democratic Convention). I don't understand this idea of putting people in a pen someplace so they can express themselves. That's not the way we will do things."

* Will St. Paul bars be allowed to stay open until 4 a.m. to suck extra profit from visiting flat-taxers interested in spending their nights getting shit-faced?

Not on our watch, said the St. Paul City Council, by a narrow 4-3 vote.

"It would be nothing short of a nightmare," said Council Member Dave Thune, whose Second Ward includes downtown. He said he wants to spare downtown residents the sight of "puking Republican lobbyists" in the streets.

* Will the Secret Service shut down the vast network of tunnels connecting caves alongside the Mississippi to the basements of downtown St. Paul?

Well, yeah. But wouldn't you?

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS first reported on the tunnel systems in 2005. According to St. Paul city employees, there are places people could go and wreak havoc.

From caves along the river, to manhole covers—if you know what you’re doing, you could wind up downtown, in places touching the foundations of secured buildings.

"We are going to use a variety of means to secure those," said St. Paul Police Assistant Chief Matt Bostrom.

* And what about that homeless shelter, anyway? Will it be shut down for the convention?

Let's take a closer look at this one. In case you haven't heard, St. Paul's hockey-rink-cum-convention-center sits directly across the street from one of the Twin Cities' largest refuges for the homeless. The Dorothy Day Center, run by Catholic Charities, houses nearly 200 people per night. And because the security cordon around the convention has yet to be made public, speculation is rife that the shelter will fall within the perimeter, and that all those living at the shelter will be displaced.

This theory was explored by MPR last year in a story quoting three homeless folks staying at the shelter who worried that they'd get kicked to the curb.

"That's the whole idea is to make sure that none of us go over there, to harass the people or to panhandle, or anything like that," says [a homeless shelter guest]. "That's what they're more worried about, us going over there and pandhandling or harassing the people cause it makes them look bad."

Erin Dady, who said I could identify her as St. Paul's convention czar (her actual title is St. Paul Marketing Coordinator, as well as Director of Convention Planning), says such rumors are wildly overstated.

"I just don’t understand how this has been a story for two years," she says. "It blows my mind."

As it turns out, Dady was quoted in that MPR story confirming "the possibility" that the center could be within the security perimeter.

But as Dady explains it--and as she insists she explained it when MPR asked the same question more than a year ago--the center will almost certainly fall outside of the core perimeter, meaning that no one working or staying at the shelter would need a special security clearance or a photo ID to come and go from the building. However, she adds, the shelter is highly likely to be within the no-driving zone.

Should Catholic Charities decide it's too much of a pain to keep the center open during the convention, Dady says, the city will help find somewhere else for all the homeless to stay.

As for Catholic Charities, spokeswoman Rebecca Lentz says the organization will make no decisions until the perimeter--determined by the Secret Service together with the St. Paul PD--has been publicly announced.

Posted by Jonathan Kaminsky at May 13, 2008 3:00 PM | Comments (0)

 

Surveilance, mass arrests, endless lawsuits: The legacy of the 2004 RNC

Filed under: Republican National Convention

All you protester-types gearing up for the RNC in St. Paul would do well to study up on all that has been written about the surveillance, mass arrests and lawsuits of the last convention, held in New York City in 2004. Four years later, there is still court activity. Most recently, it was a subpoena issued by the New York City Law Department and served to Tad Hirsch, a doctoral student at M.I.T. who invented the service called TXTmob that allowed activists at the 2004 RNC to communicate in real time, via text messages, about actions going on throughout the city.

According to the New York Times:

Lawyers representing the city in lawsuits filed by hundreds of people arrested during the convention asked Mr. Hirsch to hand over voluminous records revealing the content of messages exchanged on his service and identifying people who sent and received messages. Mr. Hirsch says that some of the subpoenaed material no longer exists and that he believes he has the right to keep other information secret.

“There’s a principle at stake here,” he said recently by telephone. “I think I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect their privacy.”

The subpoena, which was issued Feb. 4, instructed Mr. Hirsch, who is completing his dissertation at M.I.T., to produce a wide range of material, including all text messages sent via TXTmob during the convention, the date and time of the messages, information about people who sent and received messages, and lists of people who used the service.

In a letter to the Law Department, David B. Rankin, a lawyer for Mr. Hirsch, called the subpoena “vague” and “overbroad,” and wrote that seeking information about TXTmob users who have nothing to do with lawsuits against the city would violate their First Amendment and privacy rights.

The article also revisits some rather staggering numbers:

The subpoena is connected to a group of 62 lawsuits against the city that stem from arrests during the convention and have been consolidated in Federal District Court in Manhattan. About 1,800 people were arrested and charged, but 90 percent of them ultimately walked away from court without pleading guilty or being convicted.

Many people complained that they were arrested unjustly, and a State Supreme Court justice chastised the city after hundreds of people were held by the police for more than 24 hours without a hearing.

Another New York Times story, published one year ago, examined law enforcement action before the convention--a rather comprehensive and nationwide effort:

For at least a year before the 2004 Republican National Convention, teams of undercover New York City police officers traveled to cities across the country, Canada and Europe to conduct covert observations of people who planned to protest at the convention, according to police records and interviews.

From Albuquerque to Montreal, San Francisco to Miami, undercover New York police officers attended meetings of political groups, posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, the records show.

They made friends, shared meals, swapped e-mail messages and then filed daily reports with the department’s Intelligence Division. Other investigators mined Internet sites and chat rooms.

I'll leave all the civil liberties talk to the experts. Me, I've got a date with Rockwell:

Posted by Jeff Severns Guntzel at March 31, 2008 10:31 AM | Comments (0)

 

Anarchists order Tasers just in time for RNC

Filed under: Republican National Convention

The RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist/anti-authoritarian organization, has ordered Tasers for each of its members. That is, if a press release circulated by the group earlier today is to be believed.

"Due to a unique corporate-anarchist confidentiality agreement, the exact number of tasers or documentable evidence of this new order will not be disclosed," reads the statement, going on to claim that the tasers' order "has absolutely nothing to do with the upcoming Republican convention... the timing is purely a coincidence."

The faux move lampoons the St. Paul Police department's purchase of 370 tasers--one for every patrolman--last month. Asked if it had to do with the fast-approaching convention, police spokesman Tom Walsh told the AP that the purchase was "in no way related. It simply isn't."

The Welcoming Committee assures the public they will not seek out any "machine guns, rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, concussion grenades, batons, water cannons or helicopters."

Posted by Matt Snyders at March 13, 2008 4:09 PM | Comments (2)

 

Free Speech Zones

Filed under: Republican National Convention

Marches during the RNC will be restricted to one route, and protesters confined to a yet-to-be-determined area. Let me consult my shopping list:

[ ] Constitutional
[X] Upheld by the courts
[ ] Will end well

Posted by Jeff Shaw at February 28, 2008 1:01 PM | Comments (2)

 

Don't Tase Me or St. Paul, Bro

Filed under: Republican National Convention

It's time to rename Kellogg Boulevard "Electric Avenue." The St. Paul police want to buy an additional 230 Tasers to outfit every member of the 370-strong force with a portable Mr. Zappy.

The St. Paul City Council is likely to approve the $210,000 funding request on Wednesday, but they should not. There are three reasons why.

REASON NO. 1: Tasers are more dangerous than people think, and we're learning more about how dangerous all the time. New health studies cast doubt on the manufacturer's safety claims, and suggest that running 50,000 volts of electricity through a body can cause long-lasting cardiac effects.

What an, ahem, shock.

More than 150 people have died in the U.S. after being shocked by police, and as it turns out, many studies that say Tasers are safe are commissioned by the manufacturer -- hardly an unbiased party. Yeah, you'd rather have someone get tased than shot, but is that really the only choice?

REASON NO. 2: Once police forces have the Tasers, they suffer from "mission creep," and use of the devices snowballs. The 2004 Amnesty International report [PDF] Excessive and Lethal Force? Deaths and Ill-treatment Involving Police Use of TASER found that “…far from being used to avoid lethal force, many US police agencies are deploying Tasers as a routine force option to subdue non-compliant or disturbed individuals who do not pose a serious danger to themselves or others.”

In one Colorado county, a 2004 study found that one-third of the 112 people tased were handcuffed at the time the juice went through 'em. A taser might be a dangerous piece of equipment, but it feels like a toy, and people treat it as such -- when you have one, you want to use it.

First, it's a rioter throwing a rock. Then, it's a skateboarder who is pissing you off.

REASON NO. 3: They say it's not about the Republican National Convention. But we all know it's about the Republican National Convention. I'm not even going to take the obvious tack and point out that it's a risk to civil liberties when you can just tase every annoying street theater performer (tempting as that may seem). It is a risk to civil liberties, but there's another angle I want to talk about.

Speaking as someone who reported on the WTO riots in Seattle, the last time you want police officers to be trying out new equipment is during a massive demonstration -- there's so much potential for miscalculation and escalation. You run the risk of not having officers fully trained, not knowing how to use the devices properly or in what context to use them, and, worst of all, the very real potential for overuse.

Nonlethal weapon use by American police is a complex issue, and one that I see both sides of. Whatever side you come down on, though, now is the worst possible time to implement a policy like this.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at February 17, 2008 5:45 PM | Comments (10)

 

Time: Split decision could loom

Filed under: Republican National Convention

Time floats the possibility of a fractured GOP vote even after Feb. 5's "Super Duper Tuesday" primaries. This is a tantalizing possibility, if for no other reasons than drawing out the suspense and creating the most fascinating national convention atmosphere possible.

Before anyone gets too excited (I know, I know, I can see your eyes roll through the monitor), a lot would have to break correctly for this to happen. Historically, someone tends to pick up momentum and push the others to the wayside.

To this point, though, that hasn't happened, and one of the alleged leading candidates (Rudy) hasn't even started trying yet. What happens if three or even four candidates are still alive come Groundhog Day? What if Rudy does win Florida? It's a huge swing state, and McCain has pulled ahead in some polls. What if one of the two candidates ekes out a narrow win there, enough for both to keep moving, but each of the remaining Republicans performs well in their respective regions?

As the article puts it, that scenario leading up to and including the Feb. 5 races "could have the effect of further splintering the race rather than consolidating support for a winner."

Make sure your air popper is working, stock up on the butter and pay your Internet bill. There's intrigue a-brewin'.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 21, 2008 5:06 PM | Comments (0)

 

Average GOP convention-goer to spend $1600 in Minnesota

Filed under: Republican National Convention

That's the headline from a new Pi Press story. This reminds me of the game where you read a fortune from a fortune cookie, and add "in bed" to the end of it.

Here are five fairly obvious ones:

"Average GOP convention-goer to spend $1600 ... on porn."

"Average GOP convention-goer to spend $1600 ... at Deja Vu in the Champagne Room."

"Average GOP convention-goer to spend $1600 ... before breakfast."

"Average GOP convention-goer to spend $1600 ... bribing police."

"Average GOP convention-goer to spend $1600 ... but not at the Science Museum."

Got more? That's why coders invented comments.

Posted by Jeff Shaw at January 15, 2008 4:37 PM | Comments (2)

 

Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!

Filed under: Republican National Convention

Those of us hoping for a brokered GOP convention could get a big boost today with a Romney victory. Then it's Huckabee in South Carolina, Rudy in Florida, a half dozen different jackasses on February 5--and chaos come August in St. Paul! One can dream anyway. The Washington Post's Peter Baker has a lengthy post over at The Trail dissecting this possibility. Here's an interesting bit:

The talk has only escalated as Iowa and New Hampshire voters weighed in. "None of our candidates seem to be able to break through," former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said on Fox News last week as voting began in the Granite State. "And if you look at the candidates, all have serious problems. I think, it's my prediction, I think we're headed for a brokered convention. I don't think we're going to get a nominee." Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) even postulated that a contested convention could be a useful thing for a Republican Party trying to find its way after President Bush. "I just think there's nothing unhealthy about the Republican Party having a serious discussion," he said Sunday on ABC's "This Week." "We are at the end of the George W. Bush era. We are at the end of the Reagan era. We're at a point in time where we're about to start redefining ... the nature of the Republican Party in response to what the country needs."

Posted by Paul Demko at January 15, 2008 4:18 PM | Comments (0)

 

How do you know the GOP Convention has come to town?

Filed under: Republican National Convention

Posted by Corey Anderson at August 10, 2007 5:03 PM