"Thousands voiced their anger toward President Bush in the streets on Tuesday, but peace activist Fernando Suarez del Solar of Escondido took his message to the floor of the RNC. As Laura Bush was delivering her prime-time speech in Madison Square Garden, Suarez, standing near the Texas delegation, held a banner that read, 'Bush Lied. My Son Died.' Suarez, who had made it through security on a borrowed credential and hid the banner under his clothes, was quickly escorted out. Yesterday, the father of 20-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez del Solar, who died in Iraq, said he welcomed the opportunity to perform his act of civil disobedience. 'A friend told me, 'Now is your chance,' so I took it,' Suarez said. He was surprised by and thankful for the responses of a few Republican delegates who expressed sympathy and understanding as he was being led out of the convention hall. 'They said, 'I agree with you. I'm sorry,' ' he said. Suarez was not arrested."

Todd Gitlin, now a regular columnist for openDemocracy.net, takes on the GOP. They kept their smiles plastered on their faces, he reports, but what they promised was war. Gitlin quotes Bush's proclamation that "the terrorists should be afraid, because freedom is on the march", and notices how, "The language is democracy but the body-language is force". "The nation is indeed embroiled in a sort-of war - several of them, in fact - but there is nothing sort-of about the war that the Republicans dream of. It is a war of will and a war of wish. The will expresses the wish that the world be tamed so that Americans can once again retreat behind their oceans and celebrate their godliness and all-around excellence. The Republicans believe in will. They believe that America is the incarnation of will, and that their own successes are its very emblems." It is a "war that has rescued Bush from the emptiness of his ambition and given him a purpose he believes divine -- an endless war."

The word Bush used most was "will." "It appears 76 times. This was a speech all about what Bush will do, and what will happen, if he becomes president. Except he already is. He already ran this campaign. He promised great things. They haven't happened. So, he's trying to go back in time. He wants you to see in him the potential you saw four years ago. He can't show you the things he promised, so he asks you to envision them. He asks you to be 'optimistic.' He asks you to have faith [...] Recession. Unemployment. Corporate fraud. A war based on false premises that has cost us $200 billion and nearly a thousand American lives. They're all hills we've 'been given to climb.' It's as though Bush wasn't resident. As though he didn't get the tax cuts he wanted. As though he didn't bring about postwar Iraq and authorize the planning for it. All this was 'given,' and now Bush can show up, 3.5 years into his term, and start solving the problems some other president else behind."

Amy Goodman reports, "During Schwarzenegger's address, peace activist and Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin was on the floor of the convention. As she was standing less than 20 feet away from Vice President Dick Cheney, she unfurled a pink banner that read 'Pro-Life: Stop the Killing in Iraq.' Security officials quickly approached her and told her to put it away. Medea responded by saying it was a pro-life banner. Minutes later, a Secret Service man came up and asked for her press credentials. She stalled for a few minutes cheering Schwarzenegger along with the Republican crowd. She was soon surrounded by more security officials. When she realized she was being escorted off the convention floor. Medea Benjamin turned to Vice President Dick Cheney who was sitting 20 feet away and repeatedly yelled 'Stop the killing in Iraq.' Secret service members carried her upside down off the convention floor."

Tom Engelhardt writes, "Walking the convention floor talking to delegates, what most struck me was the way in which this was really Dick Cheney's convention, even though no delegate I met even mentioned his name. Of all the members of this administration, Cheney was the one who never stopped hammering directly at the supposed connections between the 9/11 attacks, Saddam's regime, al-Qaeda, and the invasion of Iraq; connections that, along with Saddam's 'weapons of mass destruction,' and despite everything we now know, seem seared into the minds of at least 50% of the American people. The Republican Party's audacious decision to convene in New York City, to return to Ground Zero, reinforces such connections without having to engage in argument at all. It reinforces in a deeply emotive and fearful way the idea that the acts of 'them,' an amorphous mass of interchangeable terrorists and bad guys, are all one and the same."

After 3 days of fawning media coverage for the Republican convention, an astonishing thing is happening - Bush is actually DROPPING in the polls! Just before the convention, Bush led 48%-45% in the Rasmussen's daily tracking poll. By Wednesday, Bush's lead had disappeared, with a 47%-47% tie! It looks like all the nasty attacks on Kerry are backfiring. And Americans aren't stupid - they recognize a "compassion" farce when they see one. As Bush famously said, "fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again."

Michael Moore is covering the convention for USA Today. Here's live coverage by NPR's Andrea "Seabrook: Yes, I am in the middle of a...you might be able to hear the Secret Service yelling into my mic at the same time. There, there are a bunch of Secret Service that have surrounded Michael Moore's section. There are three or four reporters with him right now, but they are trying to kick all of the reporters and press photographers who are around him out of his area. The convention staff is also here. They're standing here telling us that we have to move from this are... they're obviously disturbed by the fact that Michael Moore is here and want as little public here as possible. Stachio: Can we hear? Can we hear what's going on? Can you stick a mic in there? I don't know if we can hear. Seabrook: Yeah...ah...eh...they've sort of moved me away." As with all Bush events, the Secret Service has been turned into Karl Rove's political police suppressing ALL dissent. Impeach Bush Now!

It is hard to imagine how the GOP could have assembled a speakers' list that would better represent everything the party stood for: self-interest, deception, opportunism, and corporate pandering. From Zig Zag Zell Miller (a veritable 'Gollum' of a turncoat trickster) to John 'Kerry's my Friend but Don't Expect Me to Act Like It" McCain, to Michael 'Paid Token Diversity Rep' Steele to Rudy 'Squeezin' 9/11 for All It's Worth' Guiliani...the GOP is showing it's true colors!

"Upon hearing of multiple news reports that GOP delegates are belittling the injuries soldiers sustained during service by wearing Band-Aids with purple hearts, DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe said: 'It is inexcusable for a Republican delegate to mock anyone who has ever put on a soldier's uniform. It is inexcusable to mock service and sacrifice. Our service men and women put their lives on the line every day. If they are wounded in the line of duty it is because they are fighting on the frontlines for freedom. Anything but complete respect for their service is unacceptable. 'Mindful of the fact that over 3,700 purple hearts have been issued during the Iraq war so far and none of us know how high that number will climb, I call on John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, before they speak, to tell their delegates to disavow these tactics... tell their delegates that service matters, sacrifice matters, and that no Republican delegate should ever mock the service of our soldiers.'"

Boston.com: "Sixth Avenue is usually packed with speeding yellow taxicabs, but yesterday there were so few cars that at one point in the early afternoon a bicyclist owned the one-way street on the edge of Times Square, where one lane was closed for security reasons. ''It's absolutely deserted," said Diane Dreyfus, a lone protester in Lower Manhattan who was dressed in a white moth suit. ''It's so dead you can see three blocks down." Long before the convention began, many residents said they did not want to be in the city during the four-day gathering. Having Republicans encroach on Manhattan, which is solidly Democratic, is one thing, but dealing with heavy security, gridlock, and protests or anything else that might disrupt the city's rhythms seemed too much."

While our respect for Michael Moore grows daily, our respect for John McCain has dropped to zilch . AFP: "The US Republican national convention has thunderously booed film maker Michael Moore and his anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 when it was mentioned in a speech. As Moore looked on from the press gallery, Senator John McCain took the film to task while defending the decision to invade Iraq...'Don't let anyone tell you otherwise,' Senator McCain said. 'Not our political opponents and certainly not a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace, when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls.'" Of course McCain fails to mention the 30,000 dead men, women and children left by US bombings in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unlike Kerry, McCain learned NOTHING from the Vietnam war.

UPI's Jillian Jonas reports, "Many residents of NYC have been making their disapproval of the administration abundantly clear, sometimes in exceptionally creative and NY-specific ways. Protests started in earnest Thursday, when 11 AIDS activists were arrested for disrupting traffic with a nude demonstration to urge Bush to keep his commitment to fighting AIDS through funding in underdeveloped nations. On the same day, a group calling itself 'Operation Sibyl' scaled the wall of the tony Plaza Hotel, unfurling a massive anti-Bush banner... And the local chapter of satirical group, Billionaires for Bush, plans several events that are relevant to NY as a tourist mecca. On Sunday, they played 'Billionaire Croquet' in Central Park, 'barring anti-Bush protesters so that we can play croquet, as part of our 'keep off the grass' campaign to privatize Central Park.' The Billionaires, outfitted in formal attire, also invaded Broadway, welcoming Republican delegates to the city's theater district."

KTOK-AM: "One of the 2,509 delegates to the Republican National Conventions has dropped out because of dissatisfaction with President Bush. Congressional Quarterly reported Friday that after attending four previous conventions, Philadelphia's Jesse Walters was chosen as a delegate to this year's GOP convention in New York only to resign the position, saying he could not support Bush and expressing concern with the rightward move of the Republican Party. Calling the decision to drop his position one of the five hardest he has had to make in his life, Walters said he plans to cast his first-ever vote for a Democrat for president in November." We applaud Walters for his courage and true patriotism - and we scorn the remaining 2,508 delegates who are too ill-informed, unpatriotic, misguided and/or intimidated to show the same strength of character.

The Observer "George Bush will take the stage at the Republican convention in New York this week to launch a last desperate fight for the White House. With two months to go, one of the bitterest and tightest elections in American history is now in its final stages.... 'I am not going to come in second place,' [Bush] told USA Today [but] New York is not a welcoming place for Bush. [A]nti-terrorist measures have New York in a vice-like grip ... several hundred arrests have been made by the thousands of police [w]ith up to 250,000 protesters expected to march against the President and his policies today, the convention could become a symbol of America's division.... Things are not going to plan ... Bush was expected to be invincible; instead he is fighting for his political future. [Bush's] devastating, dirty campaign against ... John Kerry's Vietnam record continued unabated. Shadowy groups, funded by Republicans close to Bush, have chipped away ... but the fight is far from won."

Leaving nothing to chance, the Repugs are being steered toward all the pablum NYC can offer and away from the REAL city. Officials are even trying to get New Yorkers to act syrupy sweet to appease the descending fascist hordes. Even Broadway has been "revised" to suit the anally retentive Repugs. The [selected] shows "are decidedly white-bread. All eight are musicals, many of them perennial tourist favorites because of upbeat glitz and family-appropriate stories," like "The Lion King." Left out were the wildly popular "Avenue Q," featuring puppets singing about [among other things] Internet porn, and the Tony-winning "I Am My Own Wife," the story of a German transsexual who survived the Nazi and Communist regimes, which, incredibly is actually CLOSED DOWN for the week! "Naked Boys Singing," a popular gay-themed off-Broadway show, was removed from the city tourism bureau's Web site when the Repugs whined that it was "unsuitable. "

"In direct violation of DOD policy issued August 02, 2004, the Republican National Convention is touting 3% of it's 4800 delegates (144 delegates) as active duty military personnel. The new initiative, put out and signed by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz outlines the policies regarding active duty military personnel. Among the policy's prohibited behaviors or activities is listed in DOD Directive 1344.10 under section 4.1.2.3 is: 4.1.2. A member on active duty shall not: 4.1.2.3. Participate in partisan political management, campaigns, or conventions (unless attending a convention as a spectator when not in uniform). This new policy, enacted after the Democratic Convention (July 26-29), clearly states the prohibited and acceptable behaviors of military personnel in regards to political affiliation and endorsements." Will the Pentagon prosecute Republican criminals in their ranks? Will the media demand it?

"A recent poll of this city of 8 million found 11% of New Yorkers plan to protest in some manner, and a full 81% approve of the convention protests. Yet more striking, 68% approve of non-violent civil disobedience... [Even moderates] say the GOP's decision to delay Bush's nomination to just nine days before the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center amounts to something of a provocation. 'It's like they're trying to hijack our pain,' says Mike de Seve... animation director for Beavis and Butthead [who is] feverishly at work trying to build 1000 flag-draped coffins to call attention to the US soldiers who have died in Iraq... The city's refusal to grant a permits for the big Central Park rally and other events has only galvanized the direct action crowd, who are now threatening to turn the whole city into a 'free speech zone,' with schemes to use cellphone text-messaging and pirate radio broadcasts to orchestrate a 'be-in' in Central Park and other creative swarms."

"In the first major clampdown on protesters before the Republican National Convention, New York police arrested 264 people Friday night during a mass demonstration. About 5,000 cyclists gathered in Union Square Park at 6 p.m. for 'Critical Mass,' a monthly bike ride around Manhattan, sponsored by environmental group 'Times Up!'... Cyclists said the bike ride was peaceful and the police acted unreasonably. 'It was a very peaceful, friendly occasion, like a parade,' said one of the cyclists, Ellie Maxwell. 'Everyone was riding along when police suddenly penned us in and started picking people off,' Maxwell said. 'The police actually caused more disruptions than the cyclists because they blocked off roads -- at one point for as long as an hour and a half -- whereas the cyclists were always moving.'"

Common Dreams: "Most New Yorkers, 81%, approve of lawful demonstrations during the convention, and 68% approve of nonviolent civil disobedience: "The city is rolling out the red carpet for the Republican delegates, but most New Yorkers would roll out the green carpet of Central Park for the anti-Republican demonstrators," Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute says.Seventy-one percent of the city's registered voters think protesters should be allowed to demonstrate in Central Park during the Republican National Convention, and 11 percent plan to go to a demonstration themselves, according to a poll released Thursday." Sounds like NYC's government is pretty darn non-representative of the people. A situation wWhich fits the Repug Convention like a glove.

The GOP is touting its "diversity" by having MD's black Lt. Gov. Michael Steele as keynote speaker at the convention. But Steele, was hired to be Bush buddy Gov. Bob Ehrlich's "sidekick": An 8/27/02 article in the Baltimore Sun reports: "The Maryland [GOP] is paying Michael S. Steele $5,000 a month in consulting fees under an arrangement that began shortly after his selection as gubernatorial candidate Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s running mate..."It looks to me like they've hired themselves a candidate," said David Paulson, a spokesman for the state Dem. Party. But Paulson said "there's something obscene" about the arrangement. They are paying a guy to be on this ticket whose very presence is being used by Ehrlich and [GOP] as a show of diversity. They are the ones who call it the `opportunity ticket.' We just didn't know how much of an opportunity it was." (article costs $2.95 to access).

To give the appearance of "diversity," the Repugs have rounded up as many black delegates as they can muster to attend the Republican Convention. US Newswire: "The number of African Americans attending next week's Republican National Convention will be almost double the number in 2000, according to Blacks and the 2004 Republican National Convention, a new report by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. The 167 black delegates represent a 96.5 percent increase, and also set a new record for the largest percentage of black delegates (6.7 percent)." Yep, gotta get those "statistics" up. But that it is merely a cattle call for warm bodies is indcated by the finding that "Fewer African Americans will be holding key positions at the Republican convention than at the Democratic event last month" and that the increase in delegates came only from a few key states and thus represent concentrated hard sells (or inducements) rather than real diversity.

AP: "Thousands of people waving pink slips will line Broadway for three miles, their jobless-in-America protest stretching from the site of the Republican National Convention to Wall Street. Near the Brooklyn Bridge, a mammoth red megaphone will amplify election-year opinions from a variety of people 24 hours a day, blasting them live into a square that's home to New York's courts of justice. While the Republicans meet at Madison Square Garden, America's biggest city will offer edgy spectacles in its streets, squares, parks and stages, with top names from Lauren Bacall, Robert Altman and Margaret Cho to Spike Lee, John Sayles, Marisa Tomei and eye-patched rapper Slick Rick."

Tom Hayden writes, "Adding to the preconvention tension is the floating rumor that Karl Rove, Bush's campaign strategist, is laying a trap for the protesters, counting on the very fact of disorder to bolster the president's image as a strongman. In this view, protesters are supposed to behave themselves lest they throw the election to Bush. I say Karl Rove is overrated. Despite untold campaign funds, he couldn't win a majority for Bush in 2000. His script for Iraq called for an easy 'mission accomplished.' His tax cuts were supposed to generate a jobs boom. Social issues like gay-lesbian marriage were to fuel a permanent Republican majority in Congress. Nominating Bush in September, uptown from Ground Zero, was to be as triumphal as entering the new Baghdad. Clearly, Rove's script is in tatters."

NY Times reports, "Mr. Bush's advisers said they were girding for the most extensive street demonstrations at any political convention since the Democrats nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in Chicago in 1968. But in contrast to that convention, which was severely undermined by televised displays of street rioting, Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president."

"The FBI anticipates violent protests at the upcoming Republican National Convention but does not have enough evidence to move against any group or person... Federal investigators have infiltrated some organizations and are monitoring plans for protests being published on the Internet... The FBI has noted that some activist Web sites critical of Republicans and the convention include links to a site that lists Molotov cocktails, slingshots and bolt cutters as appropriate 'offensive weapons' to carry during protests... The warning of a possible attack against media trucks, disclosed days before the Democratic convention, was based on claims by an informant who described an alleged plot by self-described anarchists in the Midwest to throw Molotov cocktails at television vans... The ACLU, which was contacted by some of the protesters who were interviewed by the FBI, said agents never asked directly about such an alleged plot." Will the FBI itself firebomb the media to blame protesters???

Now it just doesn't get any more appropriate than this! In a stunning act of total self-honesty, the GOP has named as its keynote speaker, Georgia 'Me Party" Senatory Zell Miller. Miller says he's a Democrat, but his past shifts between party loyalties for personal gain defines him as a "Me Party" member - as in every many for himself. And since the motto "Every Man for Himself " has long defined the GOP, as has betrayal, dishonesty, and two-facedness, we feel that the Party has chosen its keynote speaker astoundingly well. Surely no one but a self-gain-obsessed sellout could possibly better represent all the Repugs stand for! Congratulations, Mr. Gillespie!

Nick Turse writes, "Choppers hovering above; military fighters streaking overhead; under foot, fumbling with cameras they never seem to know how to work, those famously easy-to-spot undercover cops clad in bulky sweatshirts (no matter the weather); federal suits listening to their earpieces; protective fences; 'frozen zones' (huge swaths of 'public' city streets to ordinary citizens); metal barriers; 'vehicle checkpoints around the perimeter of the Garden manned with heavy weapons, dogs, and portable Delta barriers, which are enormous metal contraptions that lie almost flat in the road and can be raised very quickly with the flip of a switch'; mounted police; cops on bikes and scooters; NYPD K-9 units; stormtrooper-esque 'Hercules' teams; conventional 'arrest teams'; cops boarding commuter trains and subway cars one stop before they reach Penn Station, the hub nearest the Garden; permit refusals... the GOP, the mayor, the NYPD and the Feds are visibly running scared."

The Guardian reports: "Ever since the announcement that for the first time in convention history the Republicans would be coming to Manhattan, a multi-layered conflict has been looming." At the forefront of the battle is the Counter Convention website operated by a group of young people who "are the kind of people you would happily take home to mother." The group says the RNC is cynically exploiting the WTC tragedy. To counter the outcry, the RNC is pleading for support: "In what reads almost like a cry for help, the CEO, William Harris, promises a 'uniquely redefined' event for Americans 'all over the country.'. Meanwhile, the rightwing extremists at FreeRepublic brush off the backlash.' The extreme left is angry.' But a recent Quinnipiac poll shows that a double-digit majority of all New Yorkers are angry - Bush's approval rating in NY is at an abysmal 40%, while 53% say they will definitely be voting for Kerry!

"Jim Wilkinson has gone from politics to war and back since he worked for George W. Bush in Florida during the 2000 election, and his journey is a mark of the administration's utilitarian approach to marketing war, politics and the Presidency... [He] gave up plans to become an undertaker to go to work for Republican Congressman Dick Armey in 1992. Mr. Armey soon became House majority leader; his communications director, Mr. Wilkinson's mentor, was Ed Gillespie, now chairman of the R.N.C. Mr. Wilkinson first left his mark on the 2000 Presidential race in March 1999, when he helped package and promote the notion that Al Gore claimed to have 'invented the Internet.' Then the Texan popped up in Miami to defend Republican protesters shutting down a recount: 'We find it interesting that when Jesse Jackson has thousands of protesters in the streets, it's O.K., but when a small number of Republicans exercise their First Amendment rights, the Democrats don't seem to like it,' he told the AP."

"'We're looking at embedding reporters, we're looking at new and interesting camera angles," Jim Wilkinson said in the quick, confidential drawl reporters got used to at the U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar. But while the Republican operative spent much of the year in desert camouflage as General Tommy Franks' director of strategic communications, he's now in Brooks Brothers mufti in foreign territory, New York. Mr. Wilkinson started last month as the director of communications for the Republican National Convention... His office, on the 18th floor over Madison Square Garden, is furnished with the essentials: leather-bound Bible, Yankee cap, Fox News on the flat-screen TV. His task: establish a communications center in the core of the media capital of the Western world. Slight, blond, sports-minded, Mr. Wilkinson will be on the front line of Bush-Cheney 2004, responsible for staving off a media army more than 16,000 strong. It's Operation Garden Storm."

"Adding the Internet and e-mail to traditional organizing techniques, protest groups say they are getting an early start in attracting tens of thousands of demonstrators to New York for next year's Republican convention. Opponents of the Iraq war, welfare reform -- even those angered by the selection of New York City -- say they will seek protest permits and arrange travel for the four-day convention that begins Aug. 30, 2004. Protests are an expected sideshow to any political convention, but Steve Ault, a veteran activist helping organize a massive anti-war demonstration, said the events taking shape for next year are unprecedented. 'There's a rather profound and unique opposition to Bush developing, and we see that in the early interest in these actions,' said Ault, who helped plan a 1982 nuclear disarmament rally in Central Park that drew 750,000 people. 'We haven't seen anything like this.'"

"Although it's still a year before the Republican National Convention, activists here and around the country are already teeming with protest plans and ideas. Why in the world would the party of kleptocrats choose America's largest and most diverse city, hardly a GOP stronghold, as the site of their coronation of George W. Bush for a second term? Well, that's easy. Remember 9-11? And, come to think of it, with Wall Street headquartered here, the Republicans probably think it is their stronghold. The GOP's power, however, will be met with power. A critical mass of demonstrators and activists is getting ready to swarm the fat cats like so many yapping dogs. Veteran activist Steve Ault...marvels at 'the level of buzz and activity already.' And why not? 'It's all scripted,' Ault says of the convention. 'It's a big public relations scam, and the people of New York are the f-cking props -- the Republicans are using suffering as a prop.'" Check out the organizations already involved!

At a meeting to plan 2004 convention protests, "One woman suggested, 'How Bush stole the election in Florida,' and another offered, 'The politicization of 9/11.' Perhaps most important, they promised to bring together their divergent voices in the name of tarnishing what is planned to be a shining moment for the resident... [More than 150] groups intend to voice their disagreement with the Bush administration's policies, especially the Iraq war, and the perception that his re-election campaign will politicize the commemoration of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks... Republican officials insist their convention will not politicize the attacks, though they have wrestled internally over what, if anything, to do or say about ground zero. But former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the chairman of the convention host committee, said at a gathering of party leaders last month that discussion of Sept. 11 and the resident's actions should not be off limits."

"To George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and the Republican Party: We, the undersigned, are outraged by your cynical decision to hold the 2004 Republican Convention in New York City in a transparent and disgusting effort to exploit the profound pain of September 11 for the crass political gain of George W. Bush. Your motives are clear from the coverage in the New York Times: 'Republican officials said they chose New York over two competing cities, Tampa and New Orleans, in part because of what they described as the enormous political and emotional symbolism that has become attached to the city since the terror attack on Sept. 11, 2001.' Unfortunately, this is simply the culmination of a series of appalling actions by you to exploit 911 for political gain." Sign the petition!