Saint Paul 2008

For the last week or so, there has been all kinds of hysteria over the City’s plans to acquire tasers for every officer in the SPPD. There’s a small but vocal crowd who are opposed to tasers on philosophical grounds, calling them instruments of “torture”, and who apparently think that the British model of […]

Earlier this morning it was reported that a couple of the elitist kidddies from the RNC ‘Welcoming Committee’ have - OMG, OMG - been barred from entering Canada. There’s no official word on their website yet (it’ll probably be a couple days before the “Committee” agrees on the wording of their statement), but I […]

While millions of dollars are being spent to protect delegates, the media, and other potential victims from terrorism during the 2008 RNC convention - be it the ever-present fear of al Qaeda, or more local, domestic terror organizations - you have to wonder if some of that money might be better spent elsewhere.
Scratch that, there’s […]

Protestors at the 2008 RNC Convention in Saint Paul want to march around the Xcel Energy Center. They are in for a bit of a disappointment, unfortunately.

The FBI is watching people involved with the 2008 RNC convention protests, however peripherally.

Even if they never have to pony up a penny, someone’s going to have to guarantee operating expenses for the RNC convention in St. Paul in 2008 - up to 39 million dollars. It could be the state; it could be the Metropolitan Council; it could be some other body. Nobody’s quite sure […]

Every time we dare to question, or worse yet, criticize any of the groups, committees, or collectives planning and organizing protests and demonstrations at the 2008 RNC Convention here in St. Paul, lots and lots of angry activistas yell at us, like we’re the enemy or something. So, with eye- and hearing-protection firmly in […]

Following in St. Paul’s wake, Murderapolis Minneapolis has announced the creation of their own “committee to protect the rights of protesters”, including no less august a person than mayor R.T. Ryback himself, possibly the only city mayor in the country to have a beer named after him. (It’s a pretty decent beer, too.) […]

Bob Fletcher, erstwhile Ramsey County Sheriff, says he’s been advised by the Saint Paul Police Department to plan for three-thousand arrests during the 2008 RNC convention, and is asking for more than four million dollars to help do so.

It’s probably overkill, but as Commander Joe Neuberger of the SPPD said, “it’s easier to scale back […]

The St. Paul city council has voted (unanimously) to create a special advisory panel to “oversee demonstrations” at the 2008 RNC convention here, vowing to treat protesters “with the same respect and honor accorded to conventioneers.”
Like many local government actions, everybody loses with this decision. The demonstrators and protesters lose, in that they want […]