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| MAIN ST BETWEEN 3rd & 4th STILL ILLEGALLY BLOCKED BY ILLEGALLY CAMPING PROTESTERS |
I went by Occupy Portland again tonight. Smells of tobacco, cart food, and sounds of a drum circle filled the air. A spotlight jury rigged onto a street lamp illuminated the blocked Main street between third and fourth where dozens of protesters awaited a message from the non-leader-leader of the general assembly who spoke through a microphone powered by–uh, something. KOIN 6 previously had reported that our our anti-greed protesters had been greedily and illegally consuming stolen electricity from electric car charging stations until supposedly the city cut them off. Nobody had shut off anything that I could see. The microphone and spot light were powered by something. And the street they were filling was supposed to have been emptied of protesters and opened to the commuters by today sometime.
Which brings us to the problem: Sam. He can’t say no to the left. He just doesn’t know what to do when dreadlocked, tatted, pierced anarchists (see nearby
post) are vewy, vewy unhappy with him. But, Sam, seriously we need to have someone take a firm hand here. Trust me, these guys don’t think you’re “the man.” Honestly. They think you’re a eunuch. We want you to man-up and get these yippies outta here.
However that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. I mean, listen to their logic. My producer Eric asked this question yesterday based on Rees Lloyd’s piece on the blog yesterday which you can find (here).
Amy, I was asked to forward this question to you: Did the city open up a legal can of worms by allowing the Occupy Portland group to march in street, camp overnight in parks etc without the proper permits? If another group wanted to do the same thing but had a different political platform than the Mayor and they weren’t allowed to march or camp without permits could it be considered discrimination? Thanks
The CITY ATTORNEY had no answer and lateraled it over to Sam’s office! He’s not an attorney in case anyone hasn’t noticed. So Eric gamely sent the same email over to Sam’s spokeswoman, Amy Ruiz. She responded:
We’re not getting into “what ifs” as it relates to Occupy Portland or other protests. The Mayor is monitoring the situation, and making day to day decisions based on current information. His goals are to respect people’s right to peacefully protest, while also keeping the city working.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amy Ruiz Communications Director Office of Mayor Sam Adams City of Portland 1221 SW Fourth Avenue, Suite 340 Portland, OR 97204 Phone: 503-823-4799
Here’s Rees’ reaction to that response:
I am at once appalled and amused at the cavalier, to-hell-with-you-peasants response that you and Eric Peterson received from the City to your inquiry of how the City can do for the latter-day hippies, yippies, and self-righteous narcissists purporting to “Occupy Portland,” what it manifestly has not done in regard to the Tea Party patriots or others. It is fundamental First Amendment law that a city can regulate time, place, and manner of demonstrations and other First Amendment expressive acts. But it must apply the law equally. It cannot under any circumstance based its actions on the “content” of the expressive activity.
All the talk about the “peaceful” nature of the self-proclaimed “Occupiers” is naught but dross: The law was broken when the Occupiers of Portland publicly refused to even seek a permit. Period.
The constitutional reality the liberal “progressive” Mayor Sam Adams and members of the Portland Commission have established a dangerous precedent, and have done so knowingly. What they do for Occupied Portland liberal progressive totalitarians, including allowing them to act at all, peacefully or otherwise, without a permit, establishes a precedent and policy which must be equally applied under the Equal Protection. Clause to the KKK, New Black Panther Party, the Islamist jihadists, etc., et al.
The attempt of the city’s agents to dodge and evade answering your direct questions, i.e., “we don’t address hypotheticals,” is proof of their knowledge of the dangerous precedent they have established, proof of their lack of integrity, and evidence of the of totalitarian streak at the essence of liberal “progressivism.”
Rees
Oh, Portland, I’ve got more bad news. The protest camp site has grown. Now it’s two blocks long. Good job, Sam.
Tell ’em where you saw it. Http://www.victoriataft.com
