Testing the First Amendment with the Bush Legacy Bus

Email inbox reports that Miami police did a motorcycle box around the Bush Legacy Tour yesterday, and here’s the video from Channel 4.



Funny, the guy in the beard looks familiar.

Here’s some text from the email, sent by Julie Blust of the Bush Legacy Tour, sponsored by Americans United for Change, which was formed in 2005 to oppose privatization of Social Security.

You need to hear about the Bush Legacy Tour's stop near Miami yesterday.
The local AFL-CIO set us up with space a few doors down from their office, which happened to be in front of McCain/Palin headquarters.

Before we arrived, though, the Miami police were out in force. But so were dozens of supporters. The police wouldn't let the bus stop. They surrounded us on motorcycles and prevented us from turning in to the parking lot.

Instead, we did a few laps around the strip mall, with the crowd of supporters going wild each time we did. Fortunately there were news crews already there and they captured the whole thing.

We eventually tried to park in the AFL-CIO parking lot nearby, but it was a tight turn, so we needed to swing wide and turn from the middle lane to do it. The amazing guys from the local came out and helped safely block traffic so we could finally get off the road and allow the large crowd on to see the exhibits.

Well, the police didn't like that and tried to ticket our driver!

A lot of truckers drove by during the course of all this and many of them honked to show their support, but some of them got ticketed.

If there's been one consistent theme as this bus has crossed the country, it's that everywhere we go, we draw attention to the Bush legacy. Protesters, supporters, reporters, and everyone in between -- when the Bush Legacy Bus pulls into your town, you can't help but look.

McSame demo with cutouts

Almost alarming, how much these cutouts look like the real perps.



John McCain was raising money Monday afternoon at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami, and a crowd of about 50 of us from the Miami-Dade Democratic Party and the AFL-CIO demonstrated for two hours, getting good response from motorists on Biscayne Boulevard and from people waiting for the next Metromover.

He ain't no maverick, we said, with signs and cutouts on the theme of Six of One, Half a Dozen of the other.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a CBS4 report on the event. Click on the first video to see ample coverage of our demonstration.