St. Paul Sued By RNC Protestors Over Parade Route, More RNC Updates

The host city of the Republican National Convention has its own set of moonbats:

Local antiwar groups filed suit in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis Monday seeking an injunction to order the city of St. Paul to grant a route for a demonstration on Sept. 1, the first day of the Republican National Convention.

Accusing city officials of violating protesters’ free speech, the suit says those officials frustrated their efforts to get a march route from the State Capitol to Xcel Energy Center and back to the Capitol.

Named in the suit are Mayor Chris Coleman, St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington and his assistant chief, Matt Bostrom, who is in charge of security for the convention.

“City officials are not keeping their promises or upholding city ordinances, and that is what brings us here today,” said Jess Sundin, a spokeswoman for the Coalition to March on the RNC, standing in front of the U.S. Courthouse with a group of protesters and lawyers to announce the lawsuit.

“The only thing standing between the Republicans and a massive antiwar protest on September 1 is the ill will of the city of St. Paul, namely Mayor Chris Coleman and Assistant Police Chief Matt Bostrom,” she said.

The RNC will also put a strain on cell phone and data transmissions, so companies are beefing up their capacity.

Anti-Israel Islamist GOP Candidate Nominated For Colorado House District?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?!?

Meet Rima Barakat Sinclair, here are her views on Israel–

“Occupation,” “land-grabbing,” “imprisonment,” “baby-killers”:

Joshua Sharf broke the news (via Ben DeGrow, Face The State):

The Republicans in State House District 6 in Denver are about to make a terrible mistake. At their Assembly on March 1, they nominated a terror apologist, and an avowed enemy of Israel, with no credible conservative credentials as their candidate to succeed Rep. Andrew Romanoff. Her name is Rima Barakat Sinclair.

Mrs. Barakat Sinclair is a local Muslim activist, who 1) works to discredit Israel and for its destruction, 2) has a stated goal of getting Muslims involved in the political process, and 3) builds alliances with mainline and liberal American churches, and leftist political organizations. When engaged in anti-Israel propaganda, she usually goes by Rima Barakat. When engaged in broader political work, she goes by Rima Sinclair, as she did at the Assembly.

When asked questions about terror, she responds with moral equivalence, and then proceeds to outright fabrications. In order to discredit MEMRI, practically the only English-language source covering Arab Friday sermons broadcast on state media, she magnifies small discrepancies into malicious conspiracies. She claimed, on air, that the Hamas Charter does not call for the destruction of Israel.
. . .
Her activities may not always have been so benign towards America herself. She served as a translator for CNN during the opening weeks of the Iraq War, a time when American and British soldiers and Marines alike were disgusted by the network’s coverage (“A Front-Row Seat to the War in Iraq,” Rocky Mountain News – April 14, 2003).

So how does a woman with an initial track record like this get nominated by the GOP?

Prevarication, of course:

In order to get the nomination, she represented herself at the District Assembly as pro-life. However, she has been quoted publicly contradicting that, “Sinclair, too, shares concerns about homeland security. She also likes parts of the Democrats’ social platform. ‘I would like to have a president who is pro-choice,’ she says.”(“Colorado Muslims Aspire to Become a Political Force” – Rocky Mountain News – August 14, 2004)

In fact, a Google search for Mrs. Barakat Sinclair turns up no op-ed, letter to the editor, or press release, on any subject other than Israel or the Middle East. While it may be fine to have a cause, this monomaniacism seems to have precluded her from any public statements on issues likely to be of interest to Colorado voters in a state legislative election. There is simply no public evidence of a conservative mindset, however defined, or any evidence that she has thought deeply or even at all about such issues as education, immigration, water, health care, taxes, energy, regulation, or individual liberty.

The irony is that she probably could have gotten on the crowded Democratic ballot merely by being honest. On the Republican side, she had to travel in cognito.

Sinclair’s nomination is not a given, and what is needed now is some publicity–especially blogs, to force her to clarify her positions on Israel and statements about being pro-life:

Republicans deserve a candidate who has a coherent conservative philosophical grounding for his policy views. They deserve a candidate who has spent years thinking and writing about relevant issues and governing approaches. Republicans deserve a candidate who is in step with their party’s unwavering opposition to radical Islam and support of our democratic ally Israel.

Fortunately, the nomination is not yet set in stone, and there is still a chance to petition a more appropriate candidate onto the ballot.

Face the State has more on her potential political influences and economic leanings–she is apparently the contact person for an article distributed by Voice of Revolution, a self-described “Publication of the US Marxist-Leninist Organization.

Yep, a real fine Republican candidate.

Exit question: will the local MSM pick up on her candidacy, or will the veil of silence be extended because she is a Muslim?

Joshua has more–”we’re not electing an Imam, as the saying goes, we’re electing a state representative.”

Colorado Voter Registration And Party Affiliation–March Update

From the Sec. of State’s office, these updated figures for March 2008 of Colorado’s voter registration numbers and party affiliation:

Democrats–893,472
Unaffiliateds–1,008,675
Republicans–1,015,993

Since February 2008:
Democrats +7,849
Unaffiliteds +5,672
Republicans +2,527

The trend since January 2004:

Takeaways–the rapid trend for the state’s unaffiliated ranks continues, as Republican recovery rate lags behind that of both unaffiliateds and Democrats since early 2007.

It will also be important to watch the numbers heading into the summer, and especially the final two reports–September and October–following the Democratic National Convention. Should Recreate ‘68 and its allies create the disruption and mayhem they are so eager to achieve, it may not matter if unaffiliateds have overtaken Republicans as the largest voting bloc in Colorado. Voter backlash against the Democrats could be considerable statewide, if not nationally, especially if the Democrats add insult to injury by having a heated, brokered convention.

Stay tuned.

Professor: Groups Protesting 2008 Denver DNC "Peaceful, Creative"

A political science professor (University of Florida) has met the activists planning to disrupt Denver’s DNC and says their agenda is, like, totally “non-violent”:

Despite threatening words from one of the groups planning to protest during the 2008 Democratic National Convention, most of the anti-war protesters eyeing Denver this summer are peaceful and creative, an expert says. [Riiight--ed.]

Glenn Spagnuolo of Re-create 68 said Thursday that city officials were “creating a very dangerous situation” after the convention host committee was selected by lottery for a Civic Center park permit for the eve of the convention. He said his group would not “give up” the park for its demonstrations, which he hopes draw 50,000.

R-68 has been meeting with groups such as United for Peace and Justice, which organized 500,000 protesters for the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, and CodePink, a women’s movement against the war that is another top-tier organizer.

“None of the mainstream organizations have any agenda like property damage,” said Michael Heaney, a political science professor who has studied the anti-war movement since 2002 and who was in Washington, D.C., last week observing the many protests marking the fifth anniversary of the war.

No agenda for violence or property damage? Then why “Recreate ‘68″?

“What they are planning on doing is peaceful protests,” Heaney said. “Basically their objective is to get media attention for their issues. They want to demonstrate to the Democratic Party that they have support for their positions.”

Wow. You need a PhD to come to that conclusion? Thanks Captain Obvious.

R-68 organizers were furious Thursday when a party planner for the Denver committee hosting the convention won — in a random lottery — the right to a permit for Civic Center on Aug. 24, the Sunday before the convention starts. The convention runs Aug. 25-28.

The organizers want to start an anti-war march at the park and continue to the Pepsi Center, which is to serve as the convention hall.

Heaney met Spagnuolo and R-68 organizers Mark and Barbara Cohen in Atlanta this summer during a convention of progressives, and found them serious and well-organized. He said he thinks that, depending on the nominee and whether the convention will be brokered, Denver could expect between 10,000 and 50,000 anti-war activists.

Plus the assorted moonbats who have other agendas. Denver’s DNC won’t just be a target for the anti-war crowd.

Anti-war organizers say that if Sen. Barack Obama is the nominee, they expect much lower protester turnout at the Democratic convention. Heaney, who has surveyed the movement, says four of five anti-war activists support Obama.

CodePink’s co-founder, Medea Benjamin, greatly doubts the 50,000 figure and says an Obama nomination could reduce interest to but a couple of thousand. Then again, Benjamin said: “We don’t feel that either of the candidates will get us out of Iraq without strong pressure.”

“(House Speaker) Nancy Pelosi will be the queen bee at the convention, and she has really disappointed us,” Benjamin said.

Benjamin met with Spagnuolo in Denver several weeks ago and toured Civic Center and other sites. She said Denver’s host committee shouldn’t get the park and agreed with R-68’s plan to occupy the grounds, but stressed CodePink would do so without violence.

Determining numbers this far out is pure speculation. The Democrats’ own intraparty squabbles and the evolving campaign itself will only play one part in determining protestor levels. Given the activists’ proclivity to inflate their own numbers, and the MSM’s eagerness to play along, just a few thousand protestors could easily become “tens of thousands” in media reports.

And besides, it only takes a handful of crazy moonbats to stir up trouble.

Blogs 4 Borders Video Blogburst 032408

Freedom Folks has this week’s latest edition:

Election 2008: Is there a candidate for us?

100% Preventable! Americans continue to pay the bloody price for open borders.
When will the madness end?

MSM Frenzy As War Toll Hits 4000; Profiles Of Colorado’s Lost Heroes

With each name I say a prayer–for the soldiers and their families–and praise their sense of honor and duty to country.

Here are a few of the many names, from the earliest part of the war to the end of December, 2006 (from the Rocky Mountain News)–the bios paint a small but touching picture of each soldier’s life, and the link includes a list of those from Colorado killed in the line of duty, as well as those stationed at Fort Carson:

Thomas Slocum, 22, Thornton

Rank: Marine Lance Cpl.

Died after an ambush near Nasiriyah, March 23, 2003.

Bio: “He had no fear,” said his mother, Terry Cooper. “He was ornery and always pushing the envelope.” Slocum grew up in Thornton and graduated from Skyview High School in 1998. Asked to name his favorite subject in high school, Cooper said, Slocum answered without hesitation: “Girls. Definitely girls.”

Randal K. Rosacker, 21, Alamosa

Rank: Marine Cpl.

Died after an ambush in Nasiriyah, March 23, 2003.

Bio: As a boy, Rosacker explored the outdoors, returning home with his pockets filled with new friends.

“He used to catch everything in the river near our house,” said his father, Navy Command Master Chief Rod Rosacker, of San Diego.

When he turned 18, the stocky football star had a U.S. flag and bald eagle tattooed on his bicep.
. . .
David R. Staats, 30, Colorado Springs

Rank: Army Staff Sgt.

Died after an explosion in Taji, Dec. 16, 2006.

Bio: Staats’ first tour in 2002 was spent in Kuwait. The next year he was sent to Iraq. He then left the military but decided to re-enlist.

“He didn’t like civilian life,” said his sister, Bethany Staats. “He liked the military; that was his life. It was in his blood.” Staats leaves behind a wife and two children.

Seth M. Stanton, 19, Colorado Springs

Rank: Army Pfc.

Died after a bombing near Baghdad, Dec. 17, 2006.

Bio: Stanton had been in Iraq only eight weeks when he was killed. “He could have chosen to go to college. He could have chosen to get a better job, but he chose to stand in harm’s way for the sake of others,” said the Rev. Mel Waters, a Vietnam veteran who presided at Stanton’s service.

The NY Times has an interactive listing of all those killed. A tour of Denver’s Fort Logan National Cemetery elicits a quiet understanding and appreciation of the sacrifice of the soldiers who keep this country free:

A world away, dogs bark and traffic hums along city streets. Geese fly overhead, honking and wheeling over Memorial Lake. Beneath their wings all is still, as it always is. Nothing moves but the wind because stillness — motion and quiet — is the way of Fort Logan National Cemetery.

But in that stillness, 93,000 simple eulogies are whispered from the headstones. Especially the newer ones, the headstones that mark the final resting place of 17 men killed in the Iraq War — 17 who are part of the 4,000 men and women whose lives have been taken in combat. It is the latest milestone of staggering loss. Until another, sadder milestone replaces it. And it will. That is the way of war.
. . .
The ground between the graves is mottled with patches of dirty snow, precocious nubs of green grass, and pine cones. All sound — geese honking, cars moving, earth-moving equipment sculpting the land into new burial ground — is gently absorbed by a calm that isn’t so much vacuum as vessel. Periodically, the vessel tips and the sound is poured out.

Particularly one sound. A sound that has free rein.

Most days there is an average of 15 funerals at Fort Logan. Old warriors and young warriors. During those funerals, the saddest song in the world is played. And no matter where you are among the sprawling 214 acres, you can hear each trembling note. Some days only minutes separate the end of one Taps and the start of another, as if the air is pausing to clear its throat before allowing a new ceremony of death with honor to commence.

The headstones fan out in all directions in strict military dress- right-dress formation. No matter which way you look, they are perfectly aligned. Marble carved from the earth. Shaped by hand. In rows of manmade precision.

Gateway Pundit brings the disgusting story of anti-war moonbats desecrating an Easter Mass by screaming and spraying fake blood on the churchgoers.

More Moonbat 1968 Nostalgia–Tariq Ali Laments Loss Of Revolutionary Zeal, Film Chicago 10 Glorifies DNC Agitators

First, moonbat lefty Tariq Ali’s frothy paean to the “revolutionary” spirit of that fateful year, and the lament that it was not sustained:

The glorious decade (1965-75), of which the year 1968 was only the high point, consisted of three concurrent narratives. Politics dominated, but there were two others that left a deeper imprint – sexual liberation and a hedonistic entrepreneurship from below. We had cause to be grateful for the latter. We were constantly appealing for funds from readers when I edited The Black Dwarf in 1968-69. One day a guy in overalls walked into our Soho office and counted out 25 grubby £5 notes, thanked us for producing the paper and left. He would do this every fortnight. Finally, I asked who he was and if there was a particular reason for his generosity. It turned out he had a stall on Portobello Road and, as to why he wanted to help, it was simple. “Capitalism is so non-groovy, man.” It’s only too groovy now and far more vicious.

In some ways, the 60s were a reaction to the 50s, and the intensity of the cold war. In the US, the McCarthyite witch-hunts had created havoc in the 50s, but now blacklisted writers could work again; in Russia, hundreds of political prisoners were released, the gulags were closed down and the crimes of Stalin were denounced by Khruschev as eastern Europe trembled with excitement and hopes of rapid reform. They hoped in vain.
. . .
Were the dreams and hopes of 1968 all idle fantasies? Or did cruel history abort something new that was about to be born? Revolutionaries – utopian anarchists, Fidelistas, Trotskyist allsorts, Maoists of every stripe – wanted the whole forest. Liberals and social democrats were fixated on individual trees. The forest, they warned us, was a distraction, far too vast and impossible to define, whereas a tree was a piece of wood that could be identified, improved and crafted into a chair or a table. Now the tree, too, has gone.

“You’re like fish that only see the bait, never the line,” we would mock in return. For we believed – and still do – that people should not be measured by material possessions but by their ability to transform the lives of others – the poor and underprivileged; that the economy needed to be reorganised in the interests of the many, not the few; and that socialism without democracy could never work. Above all, we believed in freedom of speech.

Freedom of speech–except for those that disagree with them. That is so “non-groovy, man.”

But what would an entry about 1968 be without a reference to the Democratic National Convention of that year–with a movie detailing the Chicago agitators using archival footage and rotoscoping animation entitled Chicago 10 (via Drunkablog):

The Year 1968–Posturing Rebels And Moral Equivalency

Playwright Tom Stoppard on the whining rebels and the year 1968 (via Instapundit):

I was as aware as most people were that not everything in the gardens of the West was lovely and of course we didn’t know – one never knows – the half of it. But when in August 1968 the armies of the Warsaw Pact invaded and occupied Czechoslovakia, an act which was simply the ongoing occupation of eastern Europe writ bold, my embarrassment at our agit-prop mummers’ “revolution” turned to revulsion.

What repelled me was the implied conflation of two categorically different cases. The “free West”, God knew, was all too often disfigured by corruption and injustice but the abuses represented, and were acknowledged to represent, a failure of the model. In the East, though, the abuses represented the model in full working order.

A small incident which must have confirmed some people’s worst suspicions about me occurred when I was asked to sign a protest against “censorship” after a newspaper declined to publish somebody’s manifesto. “But that isn’t censorship,” I said. “That’s editing. In Russia you go to prison for possessing a copy of Animal Farm. That’s censorship.”

Communism’s “normality” relied on the distortion of language and my new hero, George Orwell, had long since diagnosed the disease in his own society, so I took this kind of thing very much to heart.

Awash in a sea of freedom, the youth of 1968 rebelled.

Some in Denver and around the nation want to “recreate ‘68″ this election year.

And like all faux-revolutionary poseurs, they don’t know the half of it–the price of freedom, or the responsibility for one’s actions.

Just lashing out at the targets of their anger, labeling everyone and everything in their path as the enemy, and continuing the “conflation” of categorically different ideas/themes/messages in order to make a political point and win concessions through intimidation and manipulation of the current PC culture.

Why recreate 1968? For the leftist moonbats, nothing has changed. Everyone else grew up and matured. They seem captivated by their lingering insecurities and the thrill of (impotent) action.

And they’re bringing their roadshow circus to Denver’s DNC this August.

More discussion (Via Bob’s Blog)–Caplis & Silverman on Recreate ‘68.

Dems’ Denver DNC Could Backfire, Turn State Red; City Can’t Handle DNC; Protestors "Duty Bound" To Destroy Democrats If Obama Not The Nominee

The great irony is that the choice of Denver was a political calculation to show a state that had turned (in the minds of the party bosses) from red to blue. The end result will likely be to to turn the state back to red….”–Campaign Spot

“It won’t be the chaotic street protest and battle with the cops that occurred in ’68: we’ve learned too much from that. It will be organized, Gandhian in its adherence to discipline and nonviolence, and more massive than anything maybe ever seen in the United States’ long history of social movements. If the party leaders choose to destroy democracy by denying the fair-and-square winner the nomination, democracy will then be duty bound to destroy the party”–Campaign Spot

First, the city’s ability to handle the DNC is in question, says one observer from the Campaign Spot at NRO (h/t Ben DeGrow):

Regardless of whether the convention turns into a repeat of 1968, with filthy hippie war protesters camping out on the state capitol grounds and the large public park in front of the city and county buildings across Broadway Blvd. (which are, incidently [sic], only about two blocks away from the Pepsi Center and big hotels the delegates will be staying at)[--more like a mile, ed.], the whole experience promises to be a circus and a fiasco the city of Denver has never seen in its history. The flawed nominating process this year will play no small role in this. That is assuming it doesn’t turn into Los Angeles 2000 for the Democrats, in which case it will be something far worse for both the city (and its Democrat mayor) and the state (with a new, supposedly law and order Democrat Governor). Denver is not equipped to handle any convention scenario other than a coronation, and certainly not the most (potentially) contentious national convention in 40 years.
. . .
Having lived in Denver, Seattle, and Los Angeles, I assure you Denver is a lot more like Seattle than it is Los Angeles. Perhaps the law enforcement officials and Democrat officeholders in Denver will rise to the occassion and find the magic formula to keep the city from breaking under the critical mass of the crush of media, Democrat delegates, liberal celebrities, left-wing activists, unions, and the teeming hordes of war protestors, but I would bet not.

At the end of the day, not only did the DNC make a hash of their nominating process, but they also chose a city that will be ill-equipped to deal with the convention circus to officially nominate the eventual candidate. Even the newly returning students for the fall semester from Boulder, Fort Collins, and the other assorted colleges in the area will be enough street activists in Denver to give the locals headaches that week.

The great irony is that the choice of Denver was a political calculation to show a state that had turned (in the minds of the party bosses) from red to blue. The end result will likely be to to turn the state back to red….

Read it all.

Denver Democrats and other civic leaders assured both the DNC planners and the citizens of Denver that the city was capable of handling a large gathering of political activists, party delegates, and national and international media.

What it didn’t bargain for was the potential for a contentious, attention-amplifying, possibly brokered convention, or the onslaught of local and national protest groups, at least not to the level that perhaps my be encountered come August.

Denver’s urban center is compact, but not as high density as the larger cities listed above. There is the clear potential for traffic bottlenecks, as I-25 and Speer/Colfax are closed, even temporarily and even if the convention was merely a coronation of the eventual party nominee. This doesn’t account for the security zone established around the Pepsi Center, the various activist groups inhabiting the city’s parks, and the general mayhem that might ensue should groups like Recreate ‘68 or the anarchists actually carry out their plans to effectively shut the city down.

Locals are already planning on avoiding Denver like the plague, scurrying to the area foothills, joining their friends in the suburbs, or taking a vacation. CU-Denver, where I am currently enrolled pursuing MBA/MS-Marketing degrees and which is located directly across from the Pepsi Center, will be completely shuttered for the entire week.

There was no city-wide referendum on bringing the Democratic National Convention to Denver, only promises made that we richly deserved it because of the state’s trend to “purple,” and its geographical potential to attract votes in the Mountain West. Those who aren’t fleeing that week will be monitoring the situation up close–observing and documenting the moonbat protestors’ excesses, fact-checking the city on costs/cleanup/damages, and keeping track of the MSM and international media’s reaction to our great city.

---

As if all that wasn’t enough . . .

If Barack Obama doesn’t get the nod at the DNC, then Democrats and activists–outside of the moonbats above–will march on Denver:

Call it Plan Jericho: Like Joshua of the Old Testament and his troops who circled the halls of the city, marched around it silently for six days, on the seventh day marched around it seven times more and then, on cue, sounded a horn to end the silence and shout all at once, toppled the walls, entered the city, and “killed” (the Bible says so literally, but this time it will be politically, not mortally) every man, woman and superdelegate – including any imposter they might “nominate” by imposition – that did not participate in the certain walk-out protest that will occur under their scenario and instead chooses to remain inside the hall.

It won’t be the chaotic street protest and battle with the cops that occurred in ’68: we’ve learned too much from that. It will be organized, Gandhian in its adherence to discipline and nonviolence, and more massive than anything maybe ever seen in the United States’ long history of social movements. If the party leaders choose to destroy democracy by denying the fair-and-square winner the nomination, democracy will then be duty bound to destroy the party.

The narrative of this campaign has created an opening for the triumph of a radical, non-electoral, political narrative if the electoral path becomes blocked by a handful of insiders that think they know better than us. The big news is that, for the first time in decades, a black-white alliance from the street will be possible: Montgomery 1955 meets Seattle 1999 in Denver 2008.

Just what Denver needs–More angry people.

Slightly off topic–why Colorado may be a tough state to poll.

**Update: DNC Permit Lottery Awards Parks; Recreate ‘68 Whines, Threatens A "Dangerous Situation"

**Update–Recreate ‘68 organizer Glenn Spagnuolo threatens City of Denver over loss of Civic Center space:

Denver could face a “dangerous situation” on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, war protesters said Thursday, after losing a coveted permit for Civic Center to the convention host committee.

“When things blow up because the police have to enforce a permit that the Democrats got, don’t blame us for that,” said Glenn Spagnuolo, an organizer for the Re-create 68 Alliance.

“Blame the Democrats for trying to silence dissent in the city of Denver.”
. . .
But when Jenny Anderson, event planner for the Denver 2008 Convention Host Committee, won the permit for Civic Center for a kick-off Aug. 24, Spagnuolo accused the committee of creating a “very serious, dangerous situation . . . for everybody.”

Re-create 68 – which has promised demonstrations that will rival those at the bloody 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago – will be at Civic Center on Aug. 24, with or without a permit, he said.

The group, which is expecting up to 50,000 protesters from across the country, plans to march from Civic Center to the Pepsi Center, where the convention will be held, on Aug. 24, even though a parade route or a security zone hasn’t been announced.

Thus, the meme of violence and mayhem laid at the hands of the City of Denver–because of a lottery snafu Recreate ‘68 calls evidence of bias against the group–and the police sent in to enforce permits. Expect a planned occupation of the Civic Center by Recreate ‘68 and its allies for the duration of the Democratic National Convention, and the moonbats agitating for engagement and media exposure.

Don’t be fooled. They want this. Peaceful, boring protests get little or no attention. Recreate ‘68 (its name should explain a great deal about their mentality) craves the spotlight, and confrontation and mayhem are the best avenue for achieving their moonbat goals.

The Denver Post has more details on the park allocations.

---

Glenn Spagnuolo said it was unfair, since the group already had control of the Pepsi Center. He warned that protestors from around the country are coming to Denver and will ignore the permitting process.

He said his group was willing to make Denver “ground zero” for the fight over freedom of speech.

Guess it doesn’t always pay to stuff the “ballot box” by submitting multiple identical permit requests in an attempt to game the system (video):

Mark Cohen got there early. He’s with Recreate ‘68 and wanted to make sure everything went smoothly because the group was left out on Tuesday due to a problem with the sorting process.

“We did come early to double check because the last time, the city said they had safeguards in place,” said Cohen.
. . .
In all, the city received more than 800 requests from groups who wanted their claim at some 12 parks around Denver for the DNC.

“We’re hoping to get Civic Center Park for all the days that we applied for,” said Cohen.

About an hour into the lottery, the process appeared to be working as intended, but it didn’t all go Recreate ’68’s way.

The group wanted to hold all of its demonstrations at Civic Center Park since it has the largest capacity, but the luck of the draw only granted them half of their requests.

“That’s the problem with this process is a group brings tens of thousands of people and you have somebody who doesn’t have an audience who wants to show there art somewhere and they are getting the same amount of space in the city,” said Glenn Spagnuolo, also with Recreate ‘68.

The city says it is willing to work with applicants who didn’t get their first pick.
. . .
Recreate ‘68 says it’s been patient and it is going to make a statement, permit or not.

The city estimated that only 50 percent of the dates available would be filled today due to the number of applicants so groups could have a shot at different sites and dates than what they originally requested.

It’s called fair and equal access, Glenn, no matter what the size of your group. Quit whining.

Not that you’re likely to honor the City’s regulations, or properly distributed permits to rival groups, in any event:

Glenn Spagnuolo said it was unfair, since the group already had control of the Pepsi Center. He warned that protestors from around the country are coming to Denver and will ignore the permitting process.

He said his group was willing to make Denver “ground zero” for the fight over freedom of speech.

Meanwhile (via the Drunkablog), the Democrats have declared the Hyatt Regency Denver their official hotel, and the Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post will be hosting a “media party” for over 15000 members of the decaying MSM, 6000 delegates, and other Democrat “VIPs”:

Held on the Saturday night before the Aug. 25-28 convention, the party kicks off a week of reveling. Denver’s host committee is responsible for arranging the fete, as well as parties for the delegations. Private parties also will abound. In all, more than 1,500 parties, large and small, are expected in and around convention week, but none approaching the scale of the media party.

On the other hand, if you are not into Easter, but would still like to go on a “hunt” of sorts, then join “Revo the Rabbit” and Recreate ‘68 on the “Great Camera Hunt”:

Join “Revo the Rabbit” and Recreate 68 as we search downtown Denver for hidden spy cameras that have been installed by the City to keep an eye on activists! Come with a group or join-up with one and see if you can win the Great Camera Hunt! To win, your team needs to locate the most spy cameras in your designated area. Meet back with R-68 at Civic Center Park for a potluck picnic. Celebrate the resurection, the resurection of a revolutionary spirit.

WHEN: SATURDAY – MARCH 22, 2008 CAMERA HUNT 1 – 3 PM
PICNIC 3-5PM
WHERE: STARTING POINT: SKYLINE PARK AT 12:45pm
PICNIC: CIVIC CENTER PARK

All intelligence gathered will be used to develop an
interactive map for the community.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING AND WE
HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW WHERE!

Photo of flyer swiped shamelessly from the Drunkablog