RNC security update

photo credit: stories.avvo.com

 At the Downtown Cleveland Resident’s RNC Impact Meeting earlier this evening, many specific questions that required specific answers instead elicited general statements intended to reassure those living and working in the downtown area during convention week. One question concerned the report that members of the New Black Panther party will be protesting in Cleveland this week and will be open-carrying firearms. True? True. 

Ohio law allows NBP members who are domiciled in Ohio to open carry. Those from out-of-state cannot. Doesn’t this pose a risk? The strategy: If you see something, say something. There will be policemen everywhere. So that’s it? Some of us wanted more specifics, especially about contingency plans when violence erupts.

As planned, I asked whether they were going to call out the National Guard. The exchange of expressions between the guy from the FBI and the Secret Service guy was telling, as though they had hoped that direct question would not be asked. The Secret Service agent fielded the question by saying that some of the plans that law enforcement has in place will remain confidential. The Ohio National Guard is listed as a partner on the RNC Cleveland website, and I took that non-answer as a yes.

My impression is that all these agencies are walking a fine line between disclosing their security plans sufficiently to reassure Clevelanders, but not so sufficiently as to give anarchists and others intent on disruption and violence, information which they will immediately take on board, the better to execute whatever violent plans they are working on.

On the way back from the meeting, we passed a lot of black SUVs with out-of-state plates, some with FBI dashboard id's, and lots of pallets on the sidewalks with barrier equipment. Going up soon. I also stopped a Cleveland Policeman on the sidewalk, thanked him for serving, and shook his hand. If I am worried about how the next week will go, how must he and his fellow officers feel?

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UPDATE Jul-13: Tina commented (see below), and I found a link to a site called DC Clothesline containing the information. Oath Keepers picked up the report here.  

After Dallas: More security needed during RNC week

photo credit: pinterest.com

The Dallas shootings were horrific. How many citizens are aware that the murders of 5 cops were in part fueled by a false narrative of the Minnesota shooting that was promoted in the media. The misreporting of those circumstances  amounts to yet another instance of media malpractice.  The media has blood on its hands. 

And now there is more bad news from St. Paul (Black Lives Matter violence) and San Antonio (police under attack). What are the prospects for a violence-free RNC week in Cleveland? Not looking good.

On June 30, the convention committee published a news release that lists the various law enforcement and public safety agencies working on the RNC week. The good news: I am relieved to see that among the participating partners is The Ohio National Guard. I did not see any out-of-state National Guard units on the list, so that remains a question. Nor did I see that Mayor Jackson requested that Gov. Kasich actually activate the Ohio National Guard so they can be in place if/when needed. No good if it takes over 24 hours after the rioting begins to transport and put them where they were needed.

Thus far, I can find no report that the Ohio National Guard has been activated in advance. There is ample precedence for activating National Guard troops in advance for emergency preparations (e.g., here and here). It's my question for Tuesday's meeting at the Convention Center with, among others, CPD.

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Can federal agencies protect Cleveland?

photo credit: cleveland.com

Security and safety measures for downtown Cleveland during the Republican National Convention are planned and implemented by local, state, and federal agencies. Personnel from Cleveland Police Dept., Cleveland Fire Dept., Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Dept., state troopers from Michigan and Wisconsin, etc, are working with the Secret Service, the FBI, and FEMA, among other agencies. (Background reports are here and here.)

Just how effective are the federal agencies? Mr. Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds, published a few sobering thoughts in his USA article “FBI's reputation crumbles with Clinton email fumble.” An excerpt:

the FBI is just one of many federal agencies whose reputation for professionalism has taken a hit during the Obama years. The IRS, complicit in targeting Tea Party groups for their political views, is one. The Secret Service, which has figured in numerous sexual scandals and failures to protect, is another. And, in fact, the notion of a “non-partisan” and competent civil service has taken quite a knock, as one agency after another has seemed ready, willing and able to be compromised by politics.

Politicians have a short-term focus, seldom looking past the next election. But for those of us with a longer view, this is a serious problem. As The Atlantic recently noted, trust in government is collapsing around the world. The reason for this, I’m afraid, is that government isn’t trustworthy. 

I will be going to the meeting next week at Cleveland Public Auditorium to hear the updates from law enforcement and other personnel. My list of questions already includes: does CPD intend to deputize, say, any Oath Keepers? Has there been any communication with the Ohio National Guard? Is Gov. Kasich prepared to activate the compact to request National Guard troops from other states?

Am I overly concerned? Well, I was living in Cleveland during the race riots of 1968 and passed armed National Guard troops in jeeps or on foot on just about every street corner heading into downtown. I remember feeling safer because of their presence. Maybe I am overly worried about everyone’s safety during RNC week, but some of the reports and the list of organizations sending in paid protesters make me think that, to paraphrase Miss Piggy, too much preparation is never enough.

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Democrat Party budgets $800,000 to Disrupt RNC

photo from the San Jose Trump rally egg-throwing via YouTube

Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit reports on the rent-a-mobs and paid activists’ plans to disrupt the upcoming Republican National Committee at Cleveland’s Quicken Arena, and they will be getting an early start. The protesters will start setting up operations next week on July 11. Hoft’s report reproduces a budget (click here) prepared by the Democrat Party that was hacked by Guccifer, and line items include a “wrapped bus for Bus Tour and Mobile Visibility” and billboards; they are obviously going for maximum media coverage in addition to attempts to interfere with the actual convention proceedings, meetings, etc. Hoft links to The Smoking Gun report with specific plans:

A copy of the plan was obtained by the hacker “Guccifer 2.0,” who breached party servers and made off with DNC financial records, e-mails, research reports, and other documents. In e-mails to TSG, “Guccifer 2.0” has claimed to be a Romanian “hacktivist,” though security researchers who have examined the DNC breach have said that the infiltration appears to be the work of a Russian espionage unit.

The DNC plan notes that the party’s efforts in Cleveland will cost in excess of $800,000. In addition to 16 staffers on the ground, the party will have numerous surrogates available for media interviews and an RV to “serve as a mobile billboard” and green room. The plan was honed when the GOP field narrowed to Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich. Subsequent updates focused primarily on “gimmicks” to ridicule Trump.

. . .

DNC officials also plan to “infiltrate friendly union hotels and properties around the convention that Republicans will be patronizing to distribute ‘care’ packages” to those who will be sickened by Trump’s nomination.

. . .

The production of an eight-page “Trump Tabloid” designed to look like the New York Post. The paper--“ideal for dumping oppo” research on the developer--would include a Trump-penned advice column entitled “How to Talk to Women.”

. . .

Producing milk cartons with the photos of the many GOP leaders who are skipping the convention.

Just harmless pranks and publicity stunts?  Cleveland Police Department and Secret Service personnel in Cleveland have been training to contain riots, prevent vandalism, assault, and other fine behavior we’ve seen at Trump rallies -- all committed by anti-Trumpers and paid protesters. I doubt that the DNC is budgeting at least $800,000 just to pull some Halloween pranks.

For another report on what can go wrong, see the report on Radical Democrats Target RNC Convention With Planned Riots, Cleveland Unprepared posted by NavyJack at Ammoland here.

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Independence Day from a British perspective

art credit: en.wikipedia.org

Breitbart UK’s James Delingpole is one of my favorite reporters/commentators, and his Independence Day column is a good example of why:

For me, Independence Day means the birth of the Anglosphere. As an Englishman, I don’t feel at all resentful that you triumphed over George III’s Redcoats, nor do I count it as a defeat. It was a victory for all of us: the settlers in the thirteen colonies got to forge their own destiny; the mother country could focus her attentions elsewhere, notably India; we could all enter a new mature relationship as free traders (bringing both parties massively increased prosperity); and, best of all, it resulted in the U.S. Constitution.

Yes, of course, none of these happened without bitterness, betrayal, and much bloodshed. As happens in civil wars, it pitched friend against friend, father against son, even husbands against wives. In Britain, it became pretty much a replay of the English Civil War with “Roundheads” – Whigs and Low Church Dissenters supporting the Colonists, and Royalists – Catholics and Tories on the Loyalist side. Among the pro-American faction was MP Edmund Burke, representing the key trading port of Bristol. He famously wrote, “The temper and character, which prevail in our colonies, are, I am afraid, unalterable by any human art. … An Englishman is the unfittest person on earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.”

Burke was right. He was talking about the impulse for liberty that courses through all our veins, English and American alike. We are far, far more similar than we are different. Certainly, we British have far more in common temperamentally and intellectually with our fellow English-speakers than we do with our neighbours on the continent – which is the true reason, of course, that we British just voted for Brexit in the EU referendum. At heart, you Americans and we British are instinctive patriots: heirs to the traditions established by Magna Carta. We believe in our nations’ exceptionalism, and rightly so. Andrew Roberts once argued that we should see the British Empire and the post-war U.S. as discrete entities, but merely as a benign Anglosphere hegemony which has been making the world a better, freer, safer place for four centuries.

It’s because we understand this that we are prepared to die so readily for our countries. We are part of a tradition that goes back to the birth of democracy at the Battle of Salamis when the Greek city states won their unlikely victory over the Persians. Better to die a free man than live a slave.

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Happy Fourth of July weekend

art credit: pinterest.com

Commemorating our 

Independence Day

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America First Rally July 18

America First Unity Rally 2016

  

After a protracted battle through the courts, a Free Speech victory was secured for our right to rally and show our support for GOP nominee Donald Trump during the RNC Convention.

  

Make America Great Again in 

Cleveland during the RNC Convention at the

America First - Unity Rally 2016!

  

Hosted by Citizens for Trump, and co-hosted by Roger Stone & Alex Jones, the America First Unity Rally 2016 will be where we all come together and take the first step in taking back our government and the White House.

• Date: Monday July 18, 2016 11:30am - 5:00pm
• Location: Settlers Landing Park
• (East Bank Flats / Click for Map)

Join in with the Bikers for Trump, Truckers for Trump,the electrifying Pastor Darrell Scott, Alex Jones of Info Wars, Roger Stone and many more as we stand in unity & support the GOP nominee Donald Trump at the America First Unity Rally 2016!

  

Speaker's:

• Alex Jones / Alex Jones Show
• Roger Stone / The Stone Zone
• Wayne Dupree / Wayne Dupree Show
• Chris Cox / Bikers for Trump 
• Ralph King/ Tea Party's for Trump
• Pastor Darrell Scott / National Diversity Coalition for Trump
• John Adams / Former Ohio House Assistant Majority Floor Leader

More to be announced....

  

To volunteer for the America First Unity Rally email us at clevelandteaparty@gmail.com.

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