As more groups across Alabama sign on to the press release condemning police actions at the Republican National Convention, the Birmingham Peace Project released the following statement on these violations of civil liberties. Signees are listed in the end.

Very little has appeared in the general press regarding the astounding display of intimidation and violence launched by the St. Paul Police Department, with the apparent approval of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department and the office of Mayor Chris Coleman. Yet, throughout the independent press, private communications and e-news letters, recountings of illegal detentions, group arrests, searches and violence are flooding the country. Independent news source Democracy Now! reports hundreds of people arrested, and that “law enforcement officers used … rubber bullets and concussion grenades against protesters and journalists.” United for Peace & Justice’s National Coordinator Leslie Cagan and Veterans for Peace, David Waters, Alabama Chair, reported, “a heavily armed and extremely large police presence in St. Paul has intimidated, harassed and proved … in a number of instances, to have escalated situations when they used excessive force. They have used pepper spray … swung clubs, pushed people around, rode bicycles and horses against peacefully gathered groups and surrounded people (who were) simply walking down the streets.” According to International A.N.S.W.E.R., “police fired large amounts of tear gas and ‘anti-crowd’ explosives at thousands of protesters who gathered outside the Xcel Center at the end of the anti-poverty march. On Tuesday, they turned off the electricity at a permitted outdoor concert.”

Their large numbers indicate reinforcements were imported for the convention, at the onset. From St. Paul visitor Amanda Peterson: “Police forces from as far away as Tucson, AZ, and Arlington, TX, are in town to help the Minneapolis and St. Paul officers. I even met one female officer who said she was from Camden, Alabama.” UFPJ Coordinator Cagan additionally stated, “National Guard and State Troopers are also in the mix, to say nothing of the Secret Service and Homeland Security … ” Cagan concluded these remarks with the assertion that both Denver and Minneapolis/St. Paul had received $50 million each from Homeland Security to buff up local law enforcement resources.

To cap off these actions, police peaked by arresting the reporters themselves, jailing two producers from Democracy Now! who were engaged in covering police activities. Leading independent journalist and best-selling author Amy Goodman was arrested trying to defend the two producers.

Bruce Nestor, speaking on Democracy Now! September 4, said:

“All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Ms. Salazar (experienced) violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, ‘I’m Press! I’m Press!’”

Nestor also reported that local authorities in Minneapolis/St. Paul made a deal with the RNC host committee requiring that committee to insure itself for the first $10 million in litigation costs arising from the police response to protesters. Apparently no cost is too high when it comes to the “business” of suppressing dissent and keeping order before a duped public.

A majority of the over three-hundred detainees continue to be held, in violation of Minnesota’s own laws which require those arrested to be either charged or released within 36 hours.

The BPP not only deplores these developments but suggests that the deterioration of relationships between local police and general citizenry, and the increased acts of violence initiated by local police throughout the US, constitute not merely a national trend but a top-down initiative executed by those who stand to lose the most, in a country beginning more and more to resemble a police state. Perhaps the Republican National Convention should, upon its departure from Minneapolis/St. Paul, commission to remain there, a monument to the death of the U.S. Constitution.

The Birmingham Peace Project
David Gespass, Chair
Diane McNaron, Press Contact
dianemcnaron@aol.com

North Alabama Peace Network, T. Moss, 256.468.5314, Mr. Carlson@knowlogy.net;
Alliance for Democracy, Al McCullouch, mmc@hiwaay.net;
Alabama_PeaceFirst, Beckett3@cableone.net;
The Alliance for Peace and Justice, Auburn University, www.peaceeagle.org ;
North Alabama Chapter, Veterans for Peace, David Waters, President, 205. 591.0835
Tuscaloosa Chapter, Students for a Democratic Society, chapinrose@gmail.com.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat, decided to defer the vote scheduled for Wednesday on a resolution finding Attorney General Mukasey in contempt after receiving a letter from the Bush Justice Department.

Mukasey was on the verge of being charged with contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena calling for the release of hundreds of pages of documents in a number of ongoing investigations, including military spying on U.S. citizens domestically and the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman.

Mukasey and Conyers exchanged letters on the subject today. You can download them from the committee’s Website from this page.

Meanwhile Harriet Miers, the former White House Counsel who has so far avoided testifying under a broad claim of executive privilege, is the sole witness listed on the committee’s site for Thursday’s scheduled noon hearing of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, where the subject will be, the “continuing investigation into the U.S. attorneys controversy and related matters.”

We’ll report more when we know it…

by Glynn Wilson

Update: Scratch that. The hearing has been postponed due to the seventh anniversary of 9/11 and the memorial dedication.

The United States House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law Thursday at noon in the “continuing investigation into the U.S. attorneys controversy and related matters,” according to the committee’s Website.

According to the TPMMuckraker, the committee will consider a citation for contempt for Bush’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey Wednesday “for his failure to supply documents in accordance with the subpoena” issued in late June.

At the Democratic National Convention a couple of weeks ago, former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman pleaded with Colorado’s congressional delegation to vote to hold Karl Rove in contempt of Congress before it adjourns for the year, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly said she would work to bring the issue up for a vote in the full House.

But informed sources who have watched this Congress in action for the past two years since the Democrats took back control as the majority in the 2006 midterm elections are not sure there is the will or the votes in an election year to uphold the law.

Chances are the Democratic leadership will poll members of Congress and find out they do not have enough votes to sustain a vote of contempt for Rove, and they will make an announcement to that effect. Alternatively, if they see political capital to be gained from forcing a vote of the full House, they may bring the issue to a vote, even if it seems destined to lose, just so that members of Congress who are sworn to uphold the law will be on the record voting not to uphold the law.

The committee voted 20-14 to hold Rove in contempt on July 30, for failing to respond to a subpoena to testify under oath before the committee. He has been accused of manipulating the Bush Justice Department for political purposes, including having a hand in the prosecution of Siegelman.

And there is ample, sworn evidence for this, as we have reported time and again. North Alabama attorney Jill Simpson signed a sworn affidavit to that effect last May, and testified under oath before the House Judiciary Committee legal staff one year ago, last September. And she has called on Pelosi to hold Rove in “inherent contempt.”

Birmingham attorney Doug Jones also testified under oath before the full committee that there is “no doubt” Siegelman’s case was “political.” Rep. Artur Davis, the Birmingham Democrat and a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has said the same.

According to Montgomery attorney Priscilla Duncan, who represents Ms. Simpson, if the full House doesn’t vote to hold Rove in contempt, there will be no reason for any American citizen to pay heed to a subpoena from Congress.

“The House has a duty to us as citizens to uphold the Constitution. If the members don’t have the spine to vote upholding the authority of their own subpoenas, they should be shamed from office,” Duncan said. “Karl Rove hasn’t been granted any executive immunity from the President in the Siegelman investigation. This is a no-brainer.”

If the House fails to follow up on this action, it will be a travesty of justice, for sure. I mean what is the job of a member of Congress if not to uphold the law? This is especially true as it relates to enforcing subpoenas to enforce Constitutional checks and balances to hold one branch of government, the executive, accountable to another, the legislative. That is their prime Constitutional directive.

“The full House must vote on the Rove contempt citation ASAP,” Siegelman said in response to an e-mail Wednesday morning while he was on his way to Tennessee to meet with former Vice President Al Gore and others.

Our editorial position is this: Any member of Congress who fails to support that effort should be impeached and removed from office. It is their duty according to their sworn oath to uphold the law and the Constitution.

Plus, if the Democrats in Congress don’t do something to weaken Karl Rove right now, he will continue to play a destructive role in the McCain-Palin campaign for president. What better way to get him out of the way for the next two months? Confiscate his little Blackberry and his cell phone and put his lying, spinning, pasty white ass in jail for contempt!

And for any other bloggers or media outlets lurking here, you can quote me on that!