Now, here’s the part that’s missing from the discussion: The members of the press should have stood up for those people. They are protected under the exact same law. If I’d been a reporter covering that meeting and I had a video camera, you can be goddamned sure I would have had a camera right up in that cop’s face.
But “journalists” these days are well trained to avoid controversy.
“But “journalists” these days are well trained to avoid controversy.” Well paid….to avoid controversy. The oligarchy has purchased all of the major news sources, with FOX taking the lead, and are paying their “reporters” very well to skirt the real issues. Money can’t buy you love, but it sure can buy all the propaganda necessary to keep “we the people” in the dark and in our place.
But we know that they won’t ask questions anymore and risk the chance of losing access and actually having to do work. I wonder if there is the basis for a lawsuit here against the police. Plus I would to see some reporter have the guts to ask the congressman why he is afraid to be caught on the record.
A pack of EFF laywers with cellphone cameras, backed up with some union “goons”, are about the only way to get this nonsense to stop.
I pass the city rec center where this took place at least once a week and I read about this incident in this morning’s Cincinnati Enquirer.
The rec center is in North Avondale, a predominently low to moderate-income African-American neighborhood which interestingly enough, includes a very old and upscale subdivision that is home to lots of professors and doctors, and a disproportionate number of them are Jewish (it is only a few minutes away from two universities and “pill hill”). So it is a *very* Democratic area.
One of the cameras that were confiscated belong to Liz Ping, a Democrat who ran unsucessfully for the Ohio House last year. According to the paper, the direction to seize the cameras came from Chabot’s staff, who certainly recognized Ping — Cincinnati is not all that big a place, and everyone involved in politics at that level knows who each other is.
The other camera belonged to David Little, a local Democrat who is working with Progress Ohio. I have no way of knowing how prominent he is but it is also possible that Chabot’s staff recognized him as well.
I mention this because the Enquirer reports that “Since the death of Osama Bin Landen in May, the House Sargent at Arms issues (sic)a memo to House members telling them to coordinate with local law enforcement when they hold public events in their district.” Putting aside everything else about that memo, Chabot’s staff absolutely knew that Ping wasn’t there to avenge OBL’s death.
The paper’s big announcement is that Chabot will no longer be asking for cameras to be confiscated. His next town hall is in his side of town, in Westwood, which is a German Catholic (read completely Republican) neighborhood. It works out nicely for him. Anyone at that town hall who is filming him is doing so to show the grandchildren an historic event grandpa witnessed.
Somewhat related: Cincinnati used to be a reliably BLUE Congressional district. Then the districts were redrawn and the city was split in two, with the west side of the city becoming part of the First Congressional district (from whence Chabot hails) and the east side of the city being joined to the Second.
One look at the Second District and you can see it is gerrymandered. It snakes along the Ohio River eastward and includes mainly very rural areas that have nothing in common with the neighborhoods that are part of the City of Cincinnati and its older, inner-ring suburbs. I’ll add that the east side of Cincinnati is the more affluent and sophisticated; as proof, I offer the small example that when Nordstrom’s came to our area, they built their store in the eastern suburbs.
And who represents the Second district? Yes, the famous Jean Schmidt. It was a grand victory for the Republicans when they got to split Cincinnati in two.
Either they’re getting ready to round up all of the “activists” after Marshall Law is declared (A fantastical fantasy that the oligarchy primes the Right to believe in.) Or they are overreacting (maybe on purpose. But probably not because most of them are cowards to begin with) to the assassination of the Congresswomen from Arizona. The oligarchy has become very nervous about lots of things lately. Have you seen the latest poll numbers?