Riot Police Guard Against Anti-Billionaire Protesters in Rancho Mirage. John Amato is on the scene

By karoli

This is live video sent back from the Quarantine the Kochs rally in Rancho Mirage about an hour and a half ago. John Amato is on the scene and has called me a couple of times with updates. There are about 1500 people or so there, peacefully protesting the convocation of billionaires at the Rancho Las Palmas resort. The purpose of the meeting is to figure out how to impeach Obama and take over our government in order to preserve their wealth, justice, and liberty at the expense of ours. Glenn Beck was the keynote speaker last night, and Eric Cantor was also on the guest list. (Full list here (PDF))

Remarkably, there are scores of riot police guarding the driveways into the resort. The last report I've seen says 25 people have been arrested. Here's a shot posted earlier today:

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At the end of that video you'll see more of them, even.

Andrew Breitbart has evidently caught the fever. It’s been reported that he’s hanging out with the protesters. Too lazy to walk, he’s sporting shorts and rollerblades. Be afraid. In his usual less-than-forthright manner, he claims “internal emails from organizers necessitate riot police.” Mmmhmmm.

John will be writing up a much longer and more interesting post than this one, I'm sure. But for now, I thought it important that we see the exercise of OUR right to free speech and assembly, too.

I have more photos and links on my liveblog. Nancy Goldstein is covering it for TheNation here, the local CBS station has a nice article here, and you can follow the Twitter hashtag #UncloakKoch. The organizers of the rally are Common Cause, TheOther98.com, and California Nurse's Association.

Here's David Dayen's report. His twitter stream was one of the best for real time updates.