Today’s top political and media headlines, with updates throughout the day:
(Editor’s note: here’s the latest from our RNC correspondent and Tampa Bay political activist and past candidate Kelly Benjamin)
— As of now, I’m still being charged with three ridiculous misdemeanors by the St. Paul City Attorney’s office: Unlawful Assembly, Obstructing Legal Process, and Disorderly Conduct — all of which I’m pretty confident I’m innocent of. I was all set to fly back to St. Paul and defend myself at my arraignment last week when I finally got a call back from the city attorney who is prosecuting my case. Reeking of “Minnesota Nice,” she advised me to hold off on flying up there so she could have more time to review my case and maybe even drop my charges. That was sincerely nice of her but I wish she would have told me that BEFORE I purchased another $350 roundtrip ticket. She didn’t have much to say about that. (Minnesota niced out I guess.) I postponed my court date and somehow managed to get a credit for my flight. Then I sent the prosecutor the video I was shooting right up to my arrest so she could see for herself that I was just sort of milling about peacefully when the cops chased me down and beat me up. She watched it and agreed that it didn’t look like I did anything illegal…”BUT“, she said, “you paused the tape.”
“Um, yeah, I think I pressed pause for a second or two by accident.”
“Aha! And how am I supposed to know that you didn’t break any laws while the tape was paused?”
“Well, I’m just not the kind of person that would do that…”
“Uh huh.”
(NOTE: This is not verbatim, just the gist .)
So now it’s a waiting game for me to see if the cops can come up with any evidence whatsoever to support their claim that I acted disorderly, obstructed their legal process, and/or assembled with others illegally (which I find particularly hilarious, seeing as Freedom of Assembly is one of those constitutionally guaranteed rights we supposedly enjoy).
But the most beautiful irony of the whole debacle, the one that puts a pretty red bow on top of this whole ugly mess, is that the court rescheduled my hearing in Minnesota for Nov. 4. Election Day.
