As you can see, reports are coming in fast from St Paul - with multiple demonstrations happening at once - some dedicated to legal protests and others to disrupting the RNC. The video above is of the Iraq Veterans Against the War march and here's a view of the legal march going on now:
Thanks to Teddy and his diary over at Kos, we also have a description of some not so legal events from a local resident who reports:
I was there, and I got gassed (6+ / 0-)
I live less than 1/2 mile away from the convention. I was on my way home when I saw the protesters appear. I followed them and was tear gassed.
They first appeared, to me at least, at Dayton and John Ireland Avenues in front of the St. Paul Cathedral. For a few hours the police and riot cops flanked them and forced them to march in certain directions. I personally witnessed the group blockade a number of streets. There appeared to be somewhere between 100 and 125 of them. They also pushed with them at least two dumpsters full of garbage on two occasions, emptying the contents out on the street as they went and both times overturning the dumpsters in the middle of the street to block police vehicles. They also grabbed trash cans, road signs and sandbags along the way to throw at police and block streets. I also witnessed them break out windows on at least three police vehicles, slash the tires of a limousine, throw a number of empty glass bottles at police officers and police vehicles and throw sandbags and a street sign off of a freeway overpass.
It appeared to me that the police were using excessive force, but to be fair these were not peaceful protesters.
Thanks to the amazing folks at The Uptake for supplying video from the scene!
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Thanks for keeping the news coming.
What does a lawyer have to do to see their client — get arrested themselves?
Lovely: people being kicked in head by horses on kellogg
Nifty way to keep people from having an attorney.
Where’s the clause that says “You have the right to an attorney UNLESS the jail’s on lockdown. Then never mind.”
Why’s it on lockdown? Contraband search? Weapons search? Anyone asking questions as to why? How long will the lockdown last? (How long will the convention be there?)If someone needed to go to the ER could they, or would the response be, Sorry, we’re on lockdown. ??
Tuned in to C-Span to see what “they” are up to. I have never seen so many white faces in one room at the same time in my life.
Police State
And half the seats are empty.
Laura Bush!
the seated the delegation from Ohio front & center
I certainly wouldn’t go there to hear Laura and Cindy.
This is pitiful. They couldn’t fill the seats for Sweet Laura. And don’t you just LOVE the background? The Blue Screen of Death with the flag?
Half-hearted applause to the concept of helping the people in the Gulf Coast Region…
I have. But it was while watching earlier R National Conventions. If you recall, in Y2K and ‘04, the only faces of color were on the stage giving speeches and not in the audience.
Message from Rick “Goodhair” Perry. Manly man. Troops as backdrops.
Love the basket shot of Rick…
Alabama Gov. not a manly man. But obviously ready for work, no jacket, no tie. Drone….
Maybe if those asshats had done this 3 years ago… [spit]
Ooooh… Charlie “I’m really straight” Crist in the wind, but hair not moving. Robin’s egg blue shirt. Smoooooth…
Haley Barbour is just sad. Does he have a chaw in his lower lip?
Haley’s a good ol’ boy… mentioned “The Fedrul Gummint.”
OOOOOH…. not Bobby Jindal… It’s Cindy!!! In the most amazing yellow thing I’ve seen in years. Sweet heavenly host, where on earth did she FIND that thing?
When they show a long shot of the stage with all those empty seats stage right it’s really pitiful. And now the background changes to clotted blood red…
Chair introduces priest to lead benediction, nothing… nothing… nothing… panicky look behind him… Finally out shuffles the priest to drone on…
Forgive me, but I just do not have a happy feeling when I see a gang of Republicans with their heads bowed in prayer…
I had to turn the tv on when you mentioned Cindy’s yellow frock and missed her. I assume she will be wearing it when she speaks.
Empty seats all over the place… Some fool dressed up like Lincoln, and lots of plastic cowboy hats… Nothing happening on the podium, people just milling about.
She was up and down so fast if you weren’t looking for her you would have missed it. I hope to heaven she wears it for her big speech — It’s fricking dreadful. Oh, there she is with Laura…
Now they’re going to start taking calls as people are LEAVING the convention floor…
Gawd … somebody there is wearing a Goldwater button the size of a dinner plate.
Wow!!! OMG!!!!111!!! Pat Boone is there!!!!
Is it over? Aren’t the ladies supposed to speak?
Well, of course. They may need him to raise the dead.
Maybe they all had to go and change their Depends… or catch the Early Bird Dinner Special. I’m sure they’ll trickle (no pun intended) back in later.
This is truly pathetic. They should have hired some clowns or magicians or something.
It’s truly amazing. The Democrats always had someone on the podium (not that the McCain Stream Media would show them) promoting Democratic ideals and telling the Democratic story. Their convention hall is now empty. For 105 minutes. I have no idea what’s happening on the McCain Stream Media because I’m sticking with C-Span.
Because of the hurricane(s), I read they were doing an abbreviated program this afternoon although I understood that it was supposed to be for 2.5 hours or so.
I hope I can stay awake for the nominating speeches… I’m fresh out of No-Doz… Maybe double-strong coffee, but I’ve got to be up to get to work in the morning.
Me, too, for C-Span. I may have to look in on the others to watch the talking heads try to fill in all this empty time. Should be hilarious since they really don’t have anything they can talk about.
Heh. They must be simply devastated that Gustav is now downgraded to a 1. They can’t wallow in pictures of misery which, I’m sure, would somehow turn out to be Obama’s fault. [spit]
Well, there’s the warm family story of the unmarried 17 year old child of the new mother of a Down syndrome baby Governor who believes in abstinence-only education who’s suddenly announced to be “about 5 months” pregnant and is going to keep the baby and marry the father…
Was that “Lifetime” and breathless enough for them? I’m not good at that…
They can only talk about that behind their hands. It’s just family business for Repubs.
Hey, Marion, we have our own private blog.
David Dreier, the horse’s ass from CA 26, has just informed us that “the nominee” does not have to be at the convention to accept the nomination. They’re probably struggling to find a devastated area for him to have his big photo op in front of. I’m sure his 26-car motorcade and all the Secret Service and McCain Stream Media will be of ENORMOUS help in the recovery effort as he makes his acceptance speech. The man is fucking shameless.
Works for me! (Is there anything upstairs that we don’t know about?)
Apparently that video post that had “comments closed” earlier now has 14 comments… Go figure…
They’re all complete focused on street violence, and I will choose not to go there.
Yep, Julia’s up.
Quite frankly, their “repeat 68″ crap didn’t work in Denver so it would not surprise me in the least if all of the disruption of this snooze-fest wasn’t Rove et al’s work.
That’s brand new. I’ll check it out…
*faints*
Yeah! Me too! /snark
Okay. The meatloaf is in the oven… What did I miss?
(God, I crack myself up sometimes…)
Sounds like the Repubs or people supporting them have hired some people to cause trouble, so the police have an excuse to gas and arrest a bunch of people to stop dissent.
I don’t buy that there are that many real protesters that are causing trouble by slashing tires and breaking windows.