The Command Post - 2004 US Presidential Election - Co-Ordinated AFL-CIO Raids Hit Bush-Cheney HQs

October 07, 2004

| Co-Ordinated AFL-CIO Raids Hit Bush-Cheney HQs

Most were peaceful, one was violent, and some were in-between.

From Local6.com, Florida :

ORLANDO, Fla. — A group of protestors stormed and then ransacked a Bush-Cheney headquarters building in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, according to Local 6 News.
Local 6 News reported that several people from the group of 100 Orlando protestors face possible assault charges after the group forced their way inside the Republican headquarters office.

While in the building, some of the protestors drew horns and a mustache on a poster of President George W. Bush and poured piles of letters in the office, according to the report.

“We told them to leave, they broke the law,” Republican headquarters volunteer Mike Broom said.

Two protestors received minor injuries when the crowd stormed the building, including a Republican volunteer.
[…]
Local 6 News learned that most of the protestors were from the AFL-CIO and were taking part in one of 20 other coordinated protests around the country.

A spokesperson with the AFL-CIO told Local 6 News that the Orlando protest did not go as planned.

A protest similar to Orlando’s demonstration was held at a Bush-Cheney office in Miami at the same approximate time, Local 6 News reported

Most of the protests were more peaceful. From the Canton Respository:

CANTON — Republican Party workers refused to accept the messages left in front of their headquarters Tuesday.
The messages — five bucketfuls — were demands for overtime pay directed to the administration of President George W. Bush.

About 40 people marched from King Park at Sixth Street and High Avenue NW to Stark County GOP headquarters on Dewalt Avenue NW in an AFL-CIO sponsored demonstration against Bush-backed changes in overtime rules.

From TheIowaChannel.com :

DES MOINES, Iowa — A group of protestors marched on the lawn of the Republican headquarters in Des Moines on Tuesday.
About 100 people from the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations showed up at the GOP headquarters on East Ninth Street to protest the Bush administration’s new overtime rules.

From TwinCities.com (MN) :

A charged crowd of nearly 300 workers — armed with loudspeakers, bullhorns, signs and thousands of petition cards — converged on the St. Paul Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters Tuesday to protest changes in federal overtime rules that went into effect in August.
[…]
As roughly two dozen people attempted to deliver 10,000 signed petition cards demanding an end to the changes, office workers blocked the entrance with a large campaign sign. Undeterred, the group stood in the entry chanting slogans and then left the cards.
[…]
But the demonstration was as efficient as it was loud; after several speakers and energetic chanting, the group loaded back into the school bus that had carted protesters there less than 20 minutes earlier.

The AP has a slightly different account of the same incident; From the Grand Forks Herald :

A Bush volunteer attempted to shut the door, then to push out several protesters, including Jon Youngdahl of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, who struggled to yell through his bullhorn while the volunteer kept searching for a mute button on it. Others blasted air horns in the lobby while one man pushed repeatedly on the campaign’s intercom to yell his protest.
[…]
Bush/Cheney campaign spokesman Peter Hong said several dozen volunteers and ticketholders were trapped inside.
None of the protesters made it inside the offices, Hong said.

St. Paul Police Commander Tyrone Strickland said that Tuesday’s protest “was peaceful” and the group had a permit.

From the Detroit News :

DEARBORN - Union members from across Michigan protested Tuesday at a Republican campaign office in Dearborn against the new Fair Labor Standards Act regulations that oversee white-collar overtime pay.
About 120 people from unions including the AFL-CIO and United Auto Workers came together to dispute the overtime changes, which they say put some workers, including registered nurses, at risk of losing time-and-a-half pay for working beyond 40 hours per week.
[…]
Three rented buses brought the protestors to a Republican office on Michigan Avenue.

Finally, from the Wisconsin GOP Chairman :

(MILWAUKEE) – More than 50 demonstrators supporting Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry stormed a Republican campaign office in West Allis at mid-day today, trespassing, creating a disturbance through the use of a bullhorn in the office and then refusing to leave when asked.
The Chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin (RPW) condemned the action by Kerry supporters, and asked the Kerry campaign and the Democrat Party of Wisconsin to do the same.

“Do John Kerry and Wisconsin Democrats really believe this is conduct becoming of a presidential candidate and his campaign?” RPW Chairman Rick Graber asked. “It is unfortunate that Team Kerry feels the need to engage in such childish and obnoxious behavior.”
[…]
Graber called the latest incident part of a disturbing trend of criminal conduct by anti-Bush forces in Wisconsin, pointing to an incident in Madison last week in which Bush-Cheney yard signs were stolen from the yards of three homes. The vandals then used chemicals to burn swastikas into the lawns of the homes, which were within a two-block radius of one another.

In addition, reports of stolen, defaced and damaged Bush-Cheney campaign signs are surfacing throughout Wisconsin.

“Our volunteers, from children to the elderly, have every right to feel safe when they are working on behalf of a cause and candidates they believe in,” Graber commented.

Posted by Alan Brain at October 7, 2004 12:45 AM | TrackBack

Comments

..if this can be proved to be co-ordinated,since it crosses state lines..would not these crimes be federal offenses..now with shots involved with some..hate crimes ?..the “family” is back..HOFFA LIVES…

Posted by: Rob_NC at October 7, 2004 08:16 AM

..voter intimidation..as one who has personal knowledge of these thugs..they are terrorist of the home grown variety ..dont think for a moment that there is not a criminal component close by..Unions have a place..but there is a place and a time..this will escalate..
…:-((((..

Posted by: Rob_NC at October 7, 2004 08:26 AM

Well we might just get some bloodshed out of this election yet, wont that be a proud way to show the rest of the world how civilized we Americans really are. If it starts with only a few fistfights then the candidates will have to move quick with thier speeches to intervene or it will escalate into lynchmobs and maybe some molotav cocktails.

Wonder who is going to draw first blood. The democrats have more frothing mouth members who are “peacefull” fanatics, but the conservatives are getting fed up with the abuse and do tend to be more likely to be card carrying NRA members (Chuck Heston is MY president). Just have to make it through the next few weeks with nobody losing thier nerve.

Posted by: Ronin at October 7, 2004 10:18 AM

The ironies here are almost surreal.

First, you have Al Gore erupting over “digital” brownshirts. Then, you have moron.org and their villification of Bush as Hitler.

And here we have the Democrats base constitutents acting like a bunch of real SA brownshirts trying to intimidate people and a bunch of Kerry supporters burning swastikas into Bush supporters’ lawns.

I guess that’s what you have to resort to when your party has no ideas and your candidate is a vascillating piece of crap.

Posted by: TL at October 7, 2004 10:52 AM

Sorry about the non-sequiter, but I’m writing to those of you who posted about this before…

Any of you notice that Move On For America.org is now taking donations and supposedly running ads. Problem is I don’t think any of this is true (click on the links too for an explanation.) Would somebody please check this out besides me?

However, if they are collecting donations from any of the knotheads who actually think this would be a good idea, then I believe it is called fraud.

Posted by: Marty at October 7, 2004 01:19 PM

This is just great. Thanks “liberals.” The American Kristallnacht can’t be far behind.

:jackson

Posted by: jackson zed at October 7, 2004 03:03 PM

…and notice not a word from the various Kerry supporters registered here. Come on guys…speak up and say this is entirely unacceptable. Your silence…how should we take that?

Or is your “tolerance” mantra getting the better of you?

We should “tolerate” these invasions as “free speech”?

We should “accept” these people’s behavior because Karl Rove drove them to it?

We should try to “understand” their anger and work with them to find away to calm them down?

Screw all that. These people are trespassing, disturbing the peace, and it seems that some are actually guilty of outright assault. I HOPE that the “mainstream” Kerry supporters are outraged by this behavior. If they are not then things may well get interesting when Bush wins this thing. I’m pretty fed up with this whole thing…ready for the election. I”m also ready to deal with whatever comes after the election.

Ronin has a point that these minor league barbarians should take to heart. Conservatives take their Liberty VERY VERY seriously.

Don’t Tread on Us.

Posted by: Wayne Fielder at October 7, 2004 06:50 PM

I think you guys need to calm down. Nobody has gotten seriously hurt. Sounds like the Orlando protest got a little out of hand, but it wasn’t exactly Kent State. Some yard signs have been stolen by both sides. The only thing really offensive was the idiot (who cannot really be identified with either side) who burned the swastika’s in people’s yards. He pretty much deserves what he gets. Many of you conservatives seem to be salivating at the thought of kicking some liberal’s head in. Some things never change.

Posted by: rdelephant at October 7, 2004 07:16 PM

I see your eyes haven’t gotten any whiter, rdelephant. A bunch of union thugs go out and try to physically intimidate Republican volunteers, people shoot into Republican offices and the only thing you can find to say is “You conservatives need to calm down, and we know you all want to act like Nazis in your heart!”

Can you see how others might find your point of view to be less than informed or intelligent?

Posted by: TL at October 7, 2004 08:10 PM

Oh, those poor intimidated volunteers. My heart breaks for them, bullhorns, can you imagine ??

Posted by: rdelephant at October 7, 2004 08:22 PM

Just think how much richer your life would be if the money you give your dealer, apparently quite frequently, to feed your habit was spent on a book discussing the history of free speech and tolerance.

Posted by: TL at October 7, 2004 08:50 PM

I think you guys need to calm down. Nobody has gotten seriously hurt. Sounds like the Orlando protest got a little out of hand, but it wasn’t exactly Kent State. Some yard signs have been stolen by both sides
*****************************************
There did not happen to be anyone in the offices during the drive by shootings. That’s a bit more then signs stolen, rdelephant ole buddy, can you find us some examples of Kerry headquarters being shot at as well?

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20041005-024050-1855r.htm
Knoxville, TN, Oct. 5 (UPI) — An unknown gunman fired several shots into the Bearden, Tenn., Bush-Cheney campaign office Tuesday, WBIR-TV in Knoxville reported.

Oops I was mistaken here people WERE shot at.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5901781/

HuntingtonUSA - Republican supporters in Huntington were watching their candidate accept the party’s nomination when a gunshot rang out right in the middle of George W. Bush’s speech.

“We heard a small snap, and felt glass come sliding by us.We looked up and saw a hole in our window and realized somebody was shooting at us”, said Paula Stewart.

Witnesses tell police that someone fired a shot at the Republican Headquarters office at 1402 4th Avenue around 10:30pm Thursday night.

Twenty five people were inside facing the window, watching the speech on TV, when the shot was fire.

The bullet went over their heads.

No one was hurt.

The bullet left a hole in the front window.

Police do not have any suspects at this time.

Posted by: Dan Kauffman at October 7, 2004 10:47 PM

Oh, those poor intimidated volunteers. My heart breaks for them, bullhorns, can you imagine ??

Posted by: rdelephant at October 7, 2004 08:22 PM
***************************************
No (defamatory label deleted) good buddy rifle bullets!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Dan Kauffman at October 7, 2004 10:49 PM

http://acepilots.com/mt/

Brownshirt Meter
Khorosho! All across the country, Revolutionary partizans are violently attacking Criminal Reactionary Repugnicans! To the barricades, comrades!!!

Please email or TB Commissar with more reports of Revolutionary Violence. Brownshirt meter is at 11. We can do better, comrades!

West Allis, Wisconsin - Dem. demonstrators stormed a Republican campaign office, Oct. 5.

Knoville, Tennessee - Gunshots fired into Bush-Cheney headquarters, Oct. 4.

Orlando, Florida - Mob attacks Bush-Cheney office, Oct. 5.

Madison, Wisconsin - Swastika Burned Into Grass On Bush Supporter’s Lawn, Oct. 1.

Vail, Colorado - Vandals chainsaw Bush-Cheney sign on Magnus Lindholm’s yard, Sept. 29.

Columbus, Ohio - Purple Heart Iraqi vet attacked, Sept. 30.

Gainesville, Florida - Democrat slugs area GOP chief, Sept. 18.

In flight, over Canada - Drunken Kerry supporter assaults seatmate in flight, Sept. 16.

Dallas, Texas - Family of dead soldier harassed at candlelight vigil, Sept. 9.

Bozeman, Mont. - Bush campaign office vandalized, paint sprayed and rocks thrown, Sept. 4. (per reader Prakk)

Huntington, West Virginia - Gunshot fired at Republican headquarters, Sept. 2.

Seattle, Wash. - Veteran for Bush booed at parade, July. (per reader Jessica)

Posted by: Dan Kauffman at October 7, 2004 10:55 PM

I guarantee all of these “protesters” were white.

If I took a bullhorn and entered a Dem office, I would be immediately handcuffed and arrested.

- Bert

Posted by: Agrippa at October 8, 2004 02:16 AM

Or beaten to death.

Posted by: Ronin at October 8, 2004 09:55 AM

These violent incidents confirms that Democrats / Liberal are nothing but ignorant thugs. They can’t win on ideas, so they have to fight. But they are so cowardly, the only people they can fight are Republicans, not the communists of China, or the old USSR, or N. Korea, or the terrorists.

Posted by: Patriot at October 8, 2004 12:27 PM