Do we have time to squeeze one more Occupy post in for 2011? Why, sure we do, and this one comes to us courtesy of Chris Moody at Yahoo, who is in Iowa covering the caucuses. Occupiers plan to stage big demonstrations to disrupt the Republican caucuses on Tuesday, and the man at the center of this confrontation wears a T-shirt helpfully advertising their plot. If he and his two partners are an example of the brain trust, though, the GOP has little to fear on January 3rd:
On Friday morning before a planned event appearance by Newt Gingrich, some members of “Occupy Iowa” made a stop at Java Joe’s, a coffee shop here that MSNBC has been broadcasting from (MSNBC was not, however, broadcasting the Gingrich appearance).
The protesters didn’t get far before the owner of the shop gave them the boot. … “I just had to shut it down, I couldn’t stand it,” Amy Brehm, who owns the store, told Yahoo News after police escorted the last demonstrators out. “We all have our rights, but not in my place.”
“I hear what you’re saying” just isn’t going to cut it, not when the owner of an establishment wants you out of her coffee shop. Neither is claiming that “C-SPAN called the cops!” And yes, hypocrisy is beautiful when it’s Occupiers complaining that the homeless are eating their food, but what’s hypocritical about a property owner objecting to the hijacking of her business for a political protest she obviously doesn’t support?
I’m not too concerned about the Occupy the Caucuses plot, although I’ve been asked twice about this in radio interviews. The caucuses are not held in just one or two places — they’re spread out all over the state. In order to have any impact, you’d have to have thousands of people organizing hundreds of events, and the decentralization would mean little concentration and impact in almost every case. They might try a concentrated effort just in Des Moines — where most of the media will be, of course — but even that would mean spreading out to a number of venues, and thanks to the loose lips and the T-shirts, the GOP and the police will be ready for them. Expect a big fizzle on Tuesday night.
Do we have room for one more Steven Crowder video? You bet we do, because Crowder debated a Canadian comedian on the air about the Occupiers, and he brings us the clip from the exchange — along with citations:
I look at this as … something beautiful.
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