Plus, this is a direct attack on the first amendment by the actual government. Alt-right trolls silence ends in …
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OMG don’t even get me started on ANSWER. If you want me to take you seriously, clean up your flyers after you protest instead of letting them rot for weeks after. Gah!
And yeah, agreed, I’m a couple degrees separated from a couple of the people who took over the Women’s March, and they definitely seemed to know. It helps that it was right after the Inauguration, so everyone knew the stakes. I had to go on MULTIPLE people’s social media (often people I was surprised to see buying it) and comment on a pervasive meme[0] that DC wasn’t on fire that day, and it was a very small, specific group of morons.
On the plus side, it did elicit more “Thanks, I honestly had no idea.” responses than arguments, so there’s that.
[0] Essentially an image of black bloc kiddies, not even sure it was from DC or that day at least, tearing up a car and other property. Caption was something like “Said Trump would destroy America. Proceed in destroying America”.
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Someone should organize a protest against this outrage!
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Have a bunch of people go stand near them wearing tactical boots from the local surplus store.
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On behalf of the state I don’t know why I ever moved back to, I apologize. 
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Someone just needs to point out that under this bill, police would be within their rights to seize firearms owned by protestors at protests that turn violent. The NRA lobby would bury this bill so deeply Jimmy Hoffa would be found before the remains of the bill.
I’m not a lawyer so take this with a grain of salt, but just reading the statute as amended by this (ALL CAPS text marks the additions):
It sounds like to me that technically if you and two of your friends got drunk and decided to smash someone’s mailbox, window, etc. that could count as a riot that could trigger felony charges and police seizure of your assets.
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“You now have a situation where you have full-time, almost professional agent-provocateurs that attempt to create public disorder"
It’s outrageous enough that that people upset by the possibility of losing health insurance are being falsely labeled paid provocateurs by legislators who don’t want to deal with dissent, but to use that as an excuse to attack the right to protest is monstrous.
Let’s face it - any protest could be labeled a “riot” by the state. How many peaceful protests have seen violence by law enforcement? Bang, it’s now a riot. This is nothing less than outlawing protest itself, with no trial required for the accused. What they’re doing here is trying to eliminate the possibility any form of public dissent in between doing nothing and outright armed rebellion.
And yet asset forfeiture has managed to survive in the US, despite being blatantly unconstitutional. You can see how they figured they were on safe ground by taking that approach.
Well, it’s worked well for this long, so…
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In the US context there is the excessive fines clause (in the 8th amendment). Maybe you were thinking of that? I looked for a term that means specifically what you said. I came up with “grievous amercement.” Although it seems to have evolved to mean something more like “punitive damages,” on account of it’s been a while since we had feudalism.
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I am only hoping that Trump inspires the lawmakers to go so completely batshit crazy that the voters will be motivated to remove them when they are up for election. This may become a long lasting example of how not to govern a state or country.
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Meanwhile, a bill in Virginia to ratchet up penalties for protesters who remained at the scene of an unlawful assembly after being told to leave was recently introduced in the state legislature. The bill proposed changing the existing statute from:
“Every person, except the owner or lessee of the premises, his family and nonrioting guests, and public officers and persons assisting them, who remains at the place of any riot or unlawful assembly after having been lawfully warned to disperse, shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor.”
to “is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.”
(A Class 3 misdemeanor is punishable by a fine of up to $500, no jail time. Class 1 misdemeanors carry a jail sentence of not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500, either or both.)
I’m pleased to announce that the measure did not pass, in spite of the otherwise nutty right wing majority in Richmond.
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Sounds like one could use those criteria to go after the police in some circumstances.
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Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, said that chilling effect is aimed at a very specific group of protesters. “You now have a situation where you have full-time, almost professional agent-provocateurs that attempt to create public disorder," he said. “A lot of them are ideologues, some of them are anarchists," Kavanagh continued. “But this stuff is all planned."
I’m still waiting for my check. All of us who were at the Women’s March are waiting!
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except they know the law will only be targeted at left leaning protestors, because that’s how these things work.
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Uh oh. The NCAA better have a good lawyer.
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Not even necessary:
“Republican state senators voted Wednesday to give police new power to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration that may turn bad — even before anything actually happened”
Actually, even that isn’t necessary:
“There’s something else: By including rioting in racketeering laws, it actually permits police to arrest those who are planning events.”
Both quotes from the Arizona Republic: http://azcapitoltimes.com/news/2017/02/22/arizona-senate-crackdown-on-protests/
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Mississippi is grateful that Arizona exists, because it gives them a state whose collective behavior is consistently worse.
You know, it’s coming around to that time of year when Arizona’s Colorado River water is going to be pumped over the Continental Divide for a few months. The Interstate compact is getting harder to support with every action, and there’s some really good historic water rights precedent for breaking that compact. (not to mention how much of the water leaks out of Lake Powell because building a dam on a fault is always such a good idea…)
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And Bloc tends to be open (stupid, cocky, arrogant) enough about their methods and intentions that they post their tactics on public blogs, so it’s really not that hard for a bunch of yahoos to read and emulate.
And I say this as someone who is more sympathetic to Bloc tactics than the average liberal activist.
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Is giving Arizona back to Mexico an option?
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In addition, the White House is now trying to remove protests (along with schools and houses of worship) as safe havens where immigration raids can’t be carried out. The effort to chill protest is a concerted effort by both federal and state conservative politicians.
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