You think that maybe the “big, brave, GOOPERS” got scared away by a couple “anarchists” who were already in custody? Or maybe, aside from the sheeple who attended, the bulk of the GOP know it’s over? The pundits seem to think so, when they don’t know they are being recorded.

10,000 people in the street. There weren’t a lot more than that inside were there, 30,000 maybe, 50 maybe more but that’s a lot of protesters.

I think someone should be thinking of ways to settle this down instead of increasing the violence. It could be done but I am afraid the opportunity will slip away.

That many people with something to say would be easy to deal with if the authority were not operating out of fear of losing control of the situation.

And, once again for the slow-witted, legitimate police work doesn’t excuse the abuse of power. Ever. And the evidence for widespread abuse of power is overwhelming.

Remember, claiming you are a member of a gang of thugs won’t mean squat if you put your face in the path of a boot, a baton, or a bullet. And criminals in uniform are no less disgusting than those in “gang colors”.

backup Says:

Painting all police with a broad nazi brush is more irresponsible than anything that happened in Minneapolis.

I consider that a complement coming from you.

I’m sorry, I’m bitterly dissatisfied with the quality of police we have in this country.

I know, it’s just a few hundred thousand bad apples, right?

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/officials-examine-denver-reports-of-threat-on-obama/

Painting all police with a broad nazi brush is more irresponsible than anything that happened in Minneapolis.

anarchists, commies, dirty hippies, etc. labels to justify force…oh I forgot jihadists….that’s got to be one of them now.

Remember nazi’s, these are the same kind of people that forced an end to the viet-nam debacle. Don’t underestimate them. They will push you until you do something that even our crass society will regret.

I know it’s hard work to think but you guys had better be thinking of a way to resolve this peacefully, even if it means admitting you are wrong.

The Americans in the streets are right and you will lose in the long run.

This is nothing new, we just haven’t had it in our faces for a while.

backup wants to say the police were right. Were they right at Kent State? How much force is too much backup?

I got news for ya, if things don’t change then this will just get worse. This is a product of bad governance.

When you pit our police against our citizens there will be no winners, we will all pay in the end.

Good to see we have a healthy sampling of nazi’s here tonight. Sure, I used the word….it never applied more than it does now.

I have a question to all of you that think the police spying on these groups was wrong.
If we could have infiltrated the group responsible for 911 and stopped it from happening do you think that would have been wrong?
Do you think we should have waited until it happened because no crime had been committed yet?
You are not in St. Paul.
I am.
You have no idea what is going on.
I have just read the search warrant.
One of those arrested in the raids is sitting in jail because he had the materials to make napalm.
Those ingredients are not something just found lying around the house.
Should the police have waited until he used it hurting maybe killing several people, maybe more?

SO, let us tke this to ultmate extreme. Should they be allowed to kill the person because they have “intel” (lets remember WMD in Iraq please)
If we could have influenced Atta’s mother, should we have influenced her to get an abortion, or should be have given her a forced abortion?

Your logic is ridiculous on its face. It is the stupid ticking time bomb logic.
IF there IS a ticking time bomb, then the person that decides to take matters into their own hands and BREACH the law to server “the greater good” as they see it, SHOULD be able to rely on a court and a judge to side with them, WHEN they are brought before the bar of justice to answer for their breach of law.
WE SHOULD NOT lower the bar of the law to allow unlawful searches, seizures, or pre-emptive arrests BECAUSE it MAY be in the public’s greater good. THAT IS EXACTLY what the founding fathers had tried to legislate against.
Read the document, it is called the Constituition.

On the surface, it looked to me like the police had legitimate reasoning for their actions.

But, I’m with you. I don’t want the police trampling on legitimate free speech rights.

If they have intel that poses a safety concern, I’m on board. But, I’m not on board, if they are squelching non-violent dissent.

I’ll take a harder look at it.

Alright backup… but what about the pre-emptive raids? Where was the violence there?
What about the photographers and producers who are arrested?
Surely it’s not to much to ask of police to seperate the journalists from the violent protester when the journalists are wearing credentials, shouting ‘I’m a journalist!’ and asking police NOT to arrest them?
Surely the police are able to make that leap even during stressful and violent protests…

The first acts of violence in this chain of events were perpetrated by police, against innocent people, BEFORE A SINGLE PROTESTER TOOK THE STREET! Many of those people were not targeted because they belonged to, allegedly dangerous, subversive groups. They were targeted because they had identified themselves by announcing their plans to protest.

And the police continued their preemptive raids despite the fact that the only persons they have produced evidence against were in custody from day one.

This discussion is not about the reasonable arrest of people who were identified as dangerous or acting lawlessly. This is about the separate, but related, abuses of power directed against my neighbors for the expressed intent of preventing “embarrassing” incidents.

And it damn sure had nothing to do with public safety. Public safety was served by the arrest of the one person who allegedly acted on his violent threats and the police presence on the street. And it ended when they beat people who were not breaking any law.

We expect our officials to act appropriately. But, we should have some empathy that when things turn violent, their duties become much more difficult.

And the jeopardy exists that if they act too forcefully, their actions will be questioned – but if they don’t act forcefully enough, their actions will be questioned.

Much easier to be judging them from the safety of my computer keyboard, then responsible for the safety and security of the public on the streets of an angry mob.

I would say that there’s plenty of evidence for that opinion.

Again backup, no one is arguing the point that this man should be arrested… this has happened and the alleged attack was prevented, the police did their jobs in this instance.

It is NOT their job to arrest journalists, make mass indescriminate arrests, or to make pre-emtive raids at protest meetings- all of this has also happened, the police did not do their jobs in these instances… they acted to intimidate- and that’s un-American and illegal.

What are the police suppose to do? Let the protestors who make threats carry them out?

If there was an attack that killed a few dozen, wouldn’t we be asking why they didn’t act on the intel?

We need to preserve the right for peaceful protests, but we also need to keep an open mind that authorities are charged with public safety.

http://www.wnbc.com/investigations/17382666/detail.html