For Reince Priebus, Chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), the above tweet was the last straw. He wrote a letter to Phil Griffin, President of MSNBC saying,

Sadly, such petty and demeaning attacks have become a pattern at your network. With increasing frequency many of your hosts have personally denigrated and demeaned Americans- especially conservative and Republican Americans- without even attempting to further meaningful dialogue.

After declaring that MSNBC is “poisoned because of this pattern of behavior” Priebus declared, “Until you personally and publicly apologize for this behavior, I have banned all RNC staff from appearing on, associating with, or booking any RNC surrogates on MSNBC.”

Obviously Priebus has not been tuned into the way Rhode Island conservatives and Republicans feel about the boycotting of news stations. Justin Katz weighed in recently on a similar boycott against radio station WPRO because of outrageous and demeaning comments made by John DePetro in which he called women union workers “hags,” “cockroaches” and “whores.” Arguing that elected officials are not acting in their private capacities when appearing on news shows, Katz said:

This is public officials abusing their privilege and responsibility to keep the public informed in an attempt to starve a private business of the content that constitutes its product. They have a right to interpret their responsibilities so as to allow that. But it isn’t right, and Rhode Islanders should consider it evidence that they aren’t fit for public office.

Katz went on:

It sends a signal down the line to talk show hosts — or me or you — that if you are thinking of saying anything close to the nebulous line of what’s not sayable, you might be better off softening your criticism or even going with a different topic altogether.

Peggy Price, the woman who started a petition in defense of DePetro, must be outraged at the RNC’s new policy. Writing about attempts to silence unpopular speech through boycotts by political leaders, Price wrote:

Do not allow politicians… to suppress free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment!

Should Americans consider this RNC boycott of MSNBC as evidence that RNC candidates “aren’t fit for public office”? Is Reince Priebus attempting to “suppress free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment!”? These are serious charges, and in the interest of consistency Katz and Price will either have to apply their critiques to the RNC, admit they were wrong about the DePetro boycott, or attempt to lawyer their way out of the contradiction.

MSNBC has deleted the tweet and fired the staffer responsible. That wasn’t enough for Priebus until Phil Griffin personally apologized, which he did. Priebus vows to “aggressively monitor the network to see whether their pattern of unacceptable behavior actually changes.”

Here in Rhode Island Republican gubernatorial candidates Alan Fung and Ken Block have already gone back on their promise not to appear on WPRO or DePetro since the radio jock returned to the airwaves in January. Fung provided no explanation for his turnaround and Block delivered an word salad that explained nothing.

Meanwhile, John DePetro is still on the air.

I was arrested while walking through a park at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota four years ago.  Along with many other alarmed citizens, I was charged with Felony Riot and taken to Ramsey County Jail.  With the support of Minneapolis Hip Hop group Atmosphere and the Rhode Island music label Strange Famous Records, I was bonded out of jail and then hired a private attorney.

We beat the case handily and all charges were dropped.

Police arrested over 800 people in four days at the RNC 2008.  Many of us believed this was not only unlawful but an intentional effort to suppress citizen voices of dissent at the convention.  So we filed a civil suit and took the City to Federal Court for violating our First and Fourth Amendment Rights.  After four years of fighting the case is now over.

In 2010, with trial set for a month away, our first judge granted the City a summary judgement and threw the case out.  Along with our attorney, my fellow arrestees and I found this unacceptable.  We felt it was our civic and patriotic duty to pursue justice and continue doing anything in our legal power to make sure that these violations didn’t go unchecked.  Together, we then appealed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals but ran up against a very conservative judge who said that the police should be “praised for their work at the RNC, not sued.”

Having come this far, and being unwilling to give up till all possibilities were exhausted, we took the case to the highest court in the land.  In November of 2012, after examining our case and the previous decisions, the Supreme Court chose not to hear the appeal.

There are no legal options left and my comrades and I are satisfied that we defended ourselves and the constitution to the best of our ability.  After an arbitrary, mass arrest, we were given trumped up charges and threatened with harsh penalties in hopes that we would accept a plea deal for actions we weren’t guilty of, but we didn’t take any plea.  From my vantage point, this is not a defeat, it’s a clear victory.

We beat the city fair and square, and then we went on the offensive.  We refused to allow the City to break the law without impunity.  We took them to court.  And then appealed to a higher court each time we were brushed off.  If all working class defendants had the proper counsel, time, resources, and support to fight all the way through the Trial and Appeals process it’d be significantly harder for police and prosecutors to wrongfully arrest and jail people.

I for one am more than happy to have been a thorn in their side for the past four years and to be part of the recent rising trend of working class people learning their rights, getting help, and fighting back.

My attorney drafted a letter to multiple Minneapolis publications in December and January.  It was never published.  I’ve now been given permission to make the letter public.  His insightful and eloquent words are posted below.

AN UNFORTUNATE LEGACY OF THE 2008 RNC

The City of St. Paul hosted the Republican National Convention four years ago, and most Minnesotans are likely relieved that it is behind us. But there is a legacy from the RNC that most Minnesotans are not aware of. Last fall, the United States Supreme Court signed off on a decision from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in a mass arrest case arising out of the RNC. That decision in Bernini v. St. Paul diminishes the Fourth Amendment rights of all citizens attending public events.

The Bernini case carved out an exception to the Fourth Amendment to allow officers during demonstrations to arrest every single person in an area for the purpose of identifying alleged lawbreakers. This exception undermines the bedrock principal enunciated by the Supreme Court over thirty years ago in Ybarra v. Illinois that probable cause for an arrest cannot be based merely on “where [a] person may happen to be.”

The facts of the late afternoon mass arrest on September 1, 2008 are as follows: the incident location was Shepard Road, the boulevard that borders the Mississippi next to downtown St. Paul. A group of 10 to 15 protesters attempted to cross Shepard toward Jackson St., an entry point into downtown. Stationed at the entry to Jackson was a law enforcement unit in riot garb.

What happened next was captured on video and has been posted publicly on the internet. The small group shuffled slowly behind two signs. When the small group reached the median of Shepard, the officers launched stinger blast balls at them, followed by smoke and gas. The officers claimed that the group had attacked them with a barrage of rocks, urine, and feces. The video showed no such attack.

Over one hundred officers massed on Shepard and pushed all civilians in the area west, away from downtown. Law enforcement commanders had set up a “blocking line” further to the west on Shepard to corral all civilians being pushed towards them. In carrying out this corral, officers swept up people who had nothing to do with the protesters and those who had been nowhere near Jackson.

Upon completing the corral next to the Mississippi, officers had surrounded approximately 400 confused, peaceful civilians. Officers then announced by loudspeaker, “Ladies and Gentlemen, you are now under arrest.” There was one, huge problem: officers only claimed to have probable cause to believe that a small percentage of the 400 arrested had committed a crime.

The Senior Commander that day was well aware of this probable cause shortcoming and so admitted when testifying in Bernini:

Q. [D]id you know that some of the people who were going to be arrested, you did not have probable cause on?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. [Y]ou knew that you had approximately 200 people in the area within the encirclement who you did not have probable cause on?

A. Correct.

So how is it that the courts gave their imprimatur to the arrests of at least 200 innocent civilians? First, the District Court Judge took offense that throngs of people sought to disturb the RNC. He could not contain his displeasure and declared in open court, “the police force of the City of St. Paul should be commended and not sued… I’m distressed by, frankly, the existence of this case.” So much for the Fourth Amendment.

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the court that reviewed the District Court decision, assumed that everyone who was released after being put under arrest

wasn’t really “arrested” and thus had no Fourth Amendment protection. The judges then engaged in the fuzziest of math, to arrive at the proposition that officers can use rough numbers when arresting civilians. Otherwise put, civilians in any given area are interchangeable widgets for arrest purposes. As long as officers arrive at a reasonable ballpark estimate for the number of people to arrest, their actions are constitutional.

Over forty years ago, the Supreme Court cautioned, “we cannot forgive the requirements of the Fourth Amendment in the name of law enforcement.” Bernini tells us the courts can – and have.  -David L. Shulman

Chris Christie of New Jersey spoke last night at the RNC. I am not sure whose agenda he was pushing … his own or Mitt Romney’s.

Interesting that after I turned off the RNC speech made by Gov. Christie, I should see this in today’s Dr Diane Ravitch’s blog:

I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your  pension is going to change when I am governor. – Chris Christie, “An Open  Letter to the Teachers of NJ” October, 2009

In his speech, he mentions several times for dramatic effect, I supposed, by repeating it over and over was “that the greatest lesson his mother of Sicilian descent taught him was that there would be times in your life when you have to choose between being loved and being respected.  She said to always pick being respected-love is fleeting.”

Well, I have neither, for this hypocrite who slammed the NJ teacher union (where was the respect, Mr.Christie?) in his speech last night. He also called his mother “the enforcer” and that  “he was his mother’s son.”

My mother was an Italian Brooklyn mother, tough as nails, too. And her father, my grandfather was from Sicily….And I am my mother’s daughter, tough as nails. I speak my piece and  I let nothing go by that I feel is wrong. But my mother taught me not to insult people like he does; my mother taught me to be humble not arrogant like he is; my mother taught me to stand up for my rights but not be VAIN like he is; my mother taught me to stand up for my principles but not shove them down people’s throats like he did last night in his RNC speech.

And as far as I am concerned the only trip he is going to be on, in his future is his ego trip, not any political one.

Chris Christie is too high and mighty for his own good to capture the vote of anyone who has had to work hard to get and keep what they have, and I thank God every day I was never a New Jersey teacher working under cavalier, cocky and conceited Christie…