The Schumachers Fight City Hall for their Rights.
The latest on the City Council meeting with the Schumachers below:

Protester Matt (left, of course) Is that Matt’s tushie the Schumachers captured on film on one ho hum Saturday protest? Maybe Matt’s will have another party this weekend. There will be a training on “Effective Street Protesting” put on by In Defense of Animals (249-9996) on Sunday, March 12 at Free Geek (1731 SE 10th Avenue, Portland), from 3-6:30pm. There will be specific strategizing around the Schumacher fur demos, and we strongly encourage anyone who has been coming to these demos to come and participate! Refreshments will be served.
As we discussed on the show Friday, the Schumacher fur folks may be booted from their property in Portland, Oregon for showing two posters for a total of an hour and a half in the windows invoking a small part of the same invective the protesters are pouring out on them for the past 21 weeks and and for hours every Saturday. Thanks Commissioner Randy Leonard for showing the signs on your web site at the city of Portland. Here’s his blog entry about the same. Because those posters were displayed in the windows of the Schumacher Fur for an hour and a half on one Saturday and because Randy Leonard showed them on his website, the Schumachers could be evicted. Landlord Tom Moyers is mulling it over.
Randy also helpfully provides a link on his blog to this site, discussing the availability of RAT fur coats.

“My nose began twitching. And I have to say, every time I smell a rat and don’t listen to my instinct, I grow to regret it.

I learned from the police bureau that the Schumachers, far from being innocent victims of protests, actually were taunting the protesters with signs such as the picture of this poster that adorned their business’s front door.”

Those poor, poor protesters. Obviously Randy chooses to tell only one side of the fur story on his city website. I looked and looked and LOOKED but found none of the pictures of the protesters…the naked guy is a real goodie…on his website provided (video too) by the Schumachers.
Read more on the Schumacher testimony below.
Now juxtapose this incident with the incident we talked about Monday and Tuesday on the show (and that the national media have just discovered): The way in which the Oceanside (CA) school district has dealt with the pro illegal alien protesters from their schools. In addition to closing the junior and senior highs in O’side last Thursday and Friday, the school officials banned the display of any flags or patriotic clothing–INCLUDING AMERICAN.
The Mexican students (250) of them walked out, started ripping down AMERICAN flags in Oceanside and the response of the district is 1) close the schools for the other 10,000 students and, 2)stop the DISPLAY of all patriotic clothes AND flags–including AMERICAN.
Clearly the responses of both display a social relativism–nobody’s right, nobody’s wrong– that is disconnected from reality. It was the nutty protesters disrobing, vandalising, screeching at customers, and attempting to shut down the fur store that caused the problem. The response from the city of Portland is to blame the victim when the victim gets mad. Now the city is calling for mediation. MEDIATION FOR WHAT? The protesters are breaking the law, the Schumachers are not. The protesters have stated they want the Schumachers out of business; exactly what would make them happy at a mediation session?
In Oceanside the decision is to blame the pro American crowd versus the pro illegal immigration crowd. The pro illegal alien crowd left the schools and did the vandalism. They did it. The American flag did not provoke them. But the answer is to blame everybody. This is the height of ignorance.

Back to the Schumacher Fur incident: The Schumachers were received graciously by the Mayor and council today but didn’t say much to them except at the end when the Mayor stressed the city must look out for the ‘rights of the protesters (pause, pause) and the rights of the Schumachers.” The Schumachers testified they were frightened by the crowds every Saturday and that they have been personally threatened with harm–including murder– by the protesters. Obviously since heretofore the city has not helped them the Schumachers brought back up. Among those testifying, the Schumachers security guard who looked up the statues and kindly offered up all the laws the anti fur/anti leather/anti…anti…anti… everything protesters had broken including, but not limited to, menacing, vandalism (grafitti), public nuisance, traspassing, and blocking the side walks. Then he offered them the video previously given to the city with footage of all the antics.
Also testifying: the Schumachers accountant who has a stalking order out on one of the protesters which, as he testified today, the police ignored.
I loved the gentleman from Zell Brothers jewelry who testified he’d personally seen the vandalism, stalking of customers up the street, and jumped at by a mask clad nut, and who said words to the effect: I’m a liberal and I believe in rights of free speech, but there has to be an even keel here.
A member of the Atiyeh family, who still have some stores in Portland, was there to back up the Schumachers. They wrote a letter to the editor in the ‘o’ yesterday. Read it here.