Topic: On security at the RNC ........

[Pandora]

ROGER KIMBALL: PERIMETER ACCESS.

    The entire area surrounding the buildings is cordoned off with a maze of high fences and security check points and patrolling guards from, I’m told, 60 separate law-enforcement agencies. I’ve seen scores of secret service agents, FBI agents, state troopers, military soldiers, local policemen, and TSA agents. They’re on foot, on bicycles, on horse back, aboard golf carts, in SUVs, and God-knows what else. It took my party about forty minutes to get into the Forum for a media gathering last night, not because there were long lines — those will come later — but because we had to park about three quarters of a mile from the building and then walk through a warren of security checks. One friend told me he’d been through 5 separate checks before he was let in and handed a lukewarm Coors Lite. “Never seen anything like it,” said this veteran of several national political conventions. . . .

    I have no idea who is ultimately responsible for the unpleasant and unnecessary security nightmare that has been assembled in Tampa. Knowing the Obama administration as I do, I would not put it past them to have had a hand in in it. But before the Republican love fest starts in earnest — and let me say I am intending to emit as much good cheer as anyone — it is worth pausing to acknowledge that the unseemly growth of government is as much a Republican problem as it is a Democratic problem. Of course, one needs to be careful. We live in a dangerous world. There are a lot of bad guys out there who mean us, and our leaders, ill. But the most effective security is usually the least obtrusive. Over the last couple of decades we have let our politicians arrogate more and more of the trappings of despotic power to themselves. It’s unattractive and, I’d say, downright un-American. I hope that when Mitt Romney becomes President, he will do something about it.

If he doesn’t, we should.

PJ Media via Glenn Reynolds

[Pandora]

Commenter at PJ Media pointed here:

Via infowars, but backed up by other sources, here's your government-creep image of the day. Check out these bored-looking Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents spotted at a Paul Ryan campaign event by a Florida political blog. That August 18 event, by the way, took place at an enormous retirement community. So we've arched from horror stories of Grandma getting groped or shamed at the airport, to the potential gropers coming straight to where Grandma lives; or at least where she considers her options for November 2012. As the Florida Examiner set the scene:

    At 7 a.m. they opened the gates and then we had to go through a screening process with Secret Service and TSA members before we could access the ‘secure’ area, which was the area where we could get right up close and personal to our special guest.

What the Transportation Security has to do with elderly potential Romney-Ryan voters is not clear. The slow progression of the TSA into port and bus station security is one thing —logical, though a bad sign — but their presence at a campaign event is baffling. Is this what TSA chief  John Pistole meant when he told USA Today back in 2010 that he wanted "to take TSA to the next level"?

Commenter here wrote he was there and had his wallet gone through.  That. would. be. the. day.

[Libertas]

Too many are too comfortable with ceding their liberties and rights.

We are not the enemy, the enemy are those who violate our rights and appease our once natural foes.

FUBAR.

[Glock32]

And the Republican leadership also decided to make official the utter disdain in which they hold all of us with their rule change efforts at the convention.  I actually had not even heard about it until listening to Rush today.  It just puts me back into a "Fine. See if I ever vote for these assholes." mood again.

I swear, the GOP is just as much the enemy as the Democrats.

[Libertas]

Yeah, same old same old.

The EGOP/RINOs/AINOs/Rovians are still calling the shots...for now.

Conservatives and Libertarians and Tea Party people are taken for granted and treated like second class citizens...they want our support, our donations and our votes, but other than that they do not want us, period.  The feeling is mutual.

This is the last election they take us for granted, this stuff will just not fly anymore.  If not for wanting O'Bongo out at any cost, the GOP would already cease being a viable national party.

[Glock32]

Sometimes I'm almost willing to see Obama back in the White House if that's what it will take to destroy the GOP. It's an archaic obstacle that needs to go away. Its only purpose is to corral the conservative vote and then silence it.

I don't know anyway to fix the paradigm other than killing off the GOP and accepting the short term consequences of uncontested Democrat rule.

[Libertas]

I think it is on its last legs, this incoming crop has an enormous weight on its shoulders, and if they fail, it's over.  Too many people have simply run out of patience.

[Sectionhand]

And of all things a female Secret Service Agent left her side arm in the bathroom on Romney's plane during his trip to Indianapolis . Obviously , she wasn't on the return flight to Tampa . She was ratted out by a reporter . 

[warpmine]

Trading liberty for security, a sure sign of weakness of mind.