The latest from MInnesota

MANIFESTO

Glenn Greenwald reports:

Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying ...

[A] lawyer from the National Lawyer's Guild who was detained and put in handcuffs, explain[ed] that [one of] the surrounded house[s] is one where various journalists are staying. Additionally, a photojournalist with Democracy Now was detained at that house as well. So, both journalists and lawyers—in addition to protesters—have been detained and arrested even though not a single violent or criminal act has occurred.

If this is the type of democracy the Republicans want to export to Iraq, it's problematic as to how this is appreciably different from what was going on prior to March, 2003.

I've long felt that Republicans were envious of the Daley Show staged in Chicago in 1968. With this inauspicious start to the St. Paul convention, perhaps the brown shirts can show 'em how it's really done in another Midwestern city.