"War Pigs" is one of the best known of all Black Sabbath's work. It first appeared on their incredible 1970 release, Paranoid. Now it's a classic and not only has it been covered by dozens of bands (including Faith No More, Weezer, Phish, Sacred Reich, Gov't Mule, Red House Painters, and Pig) but there are even two bands, one from Australia and one from Hungary, named War Pigs. It was originally an anti-Vietnam War song, but has come to be used by anyone who hates the horrors of war and warmakers. Read more...

Minnesota Monitor:

In an supplemental budget request, Ramsey County Sheriff Bill Fletcher is expected to ask for considerable funding to pay for security during the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Fletcher, who narrowly won re-election in 2006, expects to arrest between three and five thousand protesters during the GOP's presidential nominating convention in September 2008. According to a source close to the policy-making process in St. Paul, the unconfirmed amount of $4,432,804 includes more than $80,000 for chain link fence to build outdoor holding areas for protesters. According Dave Verhasselt, spokesman for Ramsey County Manager David Twa, the Saint Paul Police generally have jurisdiction over arrests, and the Sheriff over jailing once arrests are made.

Verhasselt (who could not cite specific numbers but indicated a request "between three and four million" dollars) also said that discussion of arrest numbers at this point is purely speculative.

Protesters are a part of every large political convention, and the scope of Fletcher's projection seems to split the difference between recent examples. In 2004, six protesters were arrested at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, while approximately 10,000 were arrested during the RNC in New York City. According to sources close to the budget process, however, the St. Paul Police Department has already begun working with groups interested in expressing peaceful opposition to the RNC, and Fletcher's request appears, on its surface, to conflict with that process.

Mike had this in his Blog Round Up, but it certainly merits a closer look.

NY Times (reg. req'd.)

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.

From these operations, run by the department's "R.N.C. Intelligence Squad," the police identified a handful of groups and individuals who expressed interest in creating havoc during the convention, as well as some who used Web sites to urge or predict violence.

But potential troublemakers were hardly the only ones to end up in the files. In hundreds of reports stamped "N.Y.P.D. Secret," the Intelligence Division chronicled the views and plans of people who had no apparent intention of breaking the law, the records show.

RNC Intelligence Squad???? That's a division of the NYPD? Is there a DNC Intelligence Squad to spy on Republican counter-protesters? Just how shriveled up and anemic is the 4th Amendment in NYC?

The Largest Minority gives their take on the Peace March in Los Angeles.

At the rally I went to in San Francisco, police guessed the crowd to be 3,000; it looked about 5,000 to us. New York City officials didn't give numbers to their turn out.

Mayor Rocky Anderson gave a great speech at the Pentagon.

Did any of you participate in a rally? Please share your experiences here.

UPDATE: Far From Iraq, A Demonstration Of a War Zone (h/t Matt)

UPDATE #2: National Park Service Says Pro-War Demonstration Attendance Exaggerated

Denver Post:

White House staffers directed two men serving as bouncers at a 2005 Denver appearance by President Bush to eject three activists from the public event, the bouncers said under oath today.

It was the first time in the long-running controversy over the barring of the so-called "Denver Three" from the Bush event that specific White House officials have been named as having been involved in the ejection.

The paid White House staff members were identified in sworn depositions as Jamie O'Keefe, who was lead advance staffer for the appearance, and Steve Atkiss, White House trip director, attorneys said after the depositions today in federal court in Denver.

The bouncers were being questioned in a lawsuit claiming three activists were kicked out of the public event for political reasons.
[..]The suit, filed with help from the American Civil Liberties Union, claims Bush volunteers violated their free-speech constitutional rights.
[..][The Bush administration has run into similar trouble elsewhere after critics were ejected from Bush appearances.

People in North Dakota complained they'd been put on a list of guests who should not be allowed to enter an event in 2005. And the ACLU filed a case on behalf of two West Virginia residents arrested in 2004 after refusing to remove anti-Bush T-shirts at a Bush campaign event.

The ACLU has looked into whether there was a pattern of illegally preventing critics from speaking at Bush public forums.

The Denver Three case could set a precedent for how exclusive a White House event can be. During the administration of the elder President Bush in the early 1990s, a federal court of appeals in Missouri held that White House staffers can exclude people from presidential events if those running the event believe the people are likely to be disruptive.

Wolverines at DailyKos has the very strange story.

While the Senate hems and haws about whether they should even have a vote on a non-binding statement condemning Bush's escalation in Iraq, twenty states have drawn up resolutions opposing the escalation.

Progressive States Network:

The Progressive States Network announced today that over 20 state legislatures so far have introduced resolutions opposing the President's proposed escalation in Iraq. This ongoing effort, which has included resolutions and subsequent high profile legislative hearings in state capitols, is part of a campaign organized by the Progressive States Network that began two weeks ago with a conference call with state legislators and national leaders. On the call Senator Ted Kennedy highlighted the importance of states' input on the President's proposed deployment of 20,000 more troops.
See http://www.progressivestates.org/iraq for more.

We've gotten several emails requesting video of Moriah Arnold speaking at the rally yesterday. Unfortunately, I've not been able to find any footage of it. If any C&Ler does have additional footage of the rally, especially of Moriah speaking, please let us know.

Newsweek does offer coverage of the rally here, including a mention of Moriah. But as is typical, they focus more attention on Jane Fonda's attendance than anything else. You can launch NBC's report on the rally here.

Protesters energized by fresh congressional skepticism about the Iraq war demanded a withdrawal of U.S. troops in a demonstration Saturday that drew tens of thousands and brought Jane Fonda back to the streets.

A sampling of celebrities, a half-dozen members of Congress and busloads of demonstrators from distant states joined in a spirited rally under a sunny sky, seeing opportunity to press their cause in a country that has turned against the war.

The House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers, threatened to use congressional spending power to try to stop the war. "George Bush has a habit of firing military leaders who tell him the Iraq war is failing," he said, looking out at the masses. "He can't fire you." Referring to Congress, the Michigan Democrat added: "He can't fire us."

Here's my problem with the coverage given to the protest so far: not ONE has failed to mention Jane Fonda. Now don't get me wrong, Fonda's a good actress and a committed liberal. I have no personal problem with her or her right to participate in protests. I think her actions during Vietnam have been mythologized by the right wing noise machine into being worse than they empirically were, but she did take responsibility for them and apologized for the perceived insensitivity. But we all know that the media downplays and marginalizes protests as a matter of course. As much as I dislike the lumping together of the media as some monolithic entity, their focus on Fonda makes me think that media coverage is being directed by the SwiftBoat Veterans. The MAJORITY of Americans do not support either Bush's escalation or the war itself. Why the need to marginalize it by the thinly veiled allusions to Hanoi Jane?

C-Span has been doing coverage of the DC anti-war rally all day.

PoliticsTV got video up on YouTube for those of us unable to attend. It's nice to see some Congresspeople at the rally, but the absence of every senator does not go unnoticed either.

Continue reading »

WSJ via HuffPo:

A group of more than 50 active-duty military officers will deliver a petition to Congress on Tuesday signed by about 1,000 troops calling for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. "Any troop increase over here will just produce more sitting ducks, more targets," said Sergeant Ronn Cantu, who is serving in Iraq.

Under the 1988 Military Whistleblower Protection Act, active duty military, National Guard, and Reservists may communicate with any member of Congress without fear of reprisal, even if copies of the communication are sent to others.

Will Cheney accuse them of undermining the troops as well?