The New York Times<\/a>
\nBy Matt Flegenheimer<\/p>\nMore than 100 Occupy Wall Street protesters marched to a Midtown hotel on Wednesday night to protest a fund-raising event for President Obama.<\/p>\n
Escorted by police vehicles as they helped snarl traffic across the Times Square area, beginning at Bryant Park, the group settled in front of barricades on the southwest corner of 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue, in view of the Sheraton hotel at which Mr. Obama was expected to appear by 9 p.m.<\/p>\n
Demonstrators held signs that leveled some of the Occupy protest\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most pointed criticism to date of the president. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Obama is a corporate puppet,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d one said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153War crimes must be stopped, no matter who does them,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d read another, beside head shots of President George W. Bush and President Obama.<\/p>\n
One man, wearing a mask of the president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face and holding a cigar, carried a sign that read, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I sold out!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Ben Campbell, 28, one of the march\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s organizers, said he hoped to prove to skeptics of the protests that the demonstrators were political critics of equal opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153President Obama is coming to town solely to raise money from the richest of the rich,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mr. Campbell said.<\/p>\n
The 45-minute march from Bryant Park forced shoppers and theatergoers into retreat on what most likely would have been a difficult night to find sidewalk space anyway. At one point, two pedestrians tried to move through the crowd head-on but quickly reconsidered, breaking into a jog in the other direction. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You better not go that way,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d one protester told them moments earlier. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to hit democracy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Officers, on foot and on motorcycles, followed the protesters with each step, trying \u00e2\u20ac\u201d with occasional success \u00e2\u20ac\u201d to keep marchers off the road. Many protesters chafed at the sight of barricaded pens near the hotel, but a majority decided to stay, given how close they were to their destination. Shortly before 9 p.m., as the police cut off traffic and began making final preparations for the president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s arrival, officers informed demonstrators that the area had been designated a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153frozen zone\u00e2\u20ac\u009d until the president\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s departure: They were not allowed to leave their enclosure, bound by three lines of barricades and a Chase bank. Some protesters tried to break through, but were swiftly rebuffed by officers, who shoved them back to their initial perches.<\/p>\n
Before the trek began around 6:45 p.m., one officer appeared to foretell a difficult evening. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is going to be fun,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said to a colleague, dropping his head. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I already tore my A.C.L. on this job.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He supported them and now they are turning on him! People have warned that this will happen.. the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend. Obama has “gotten into bed” with radicals to win…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[1131,12,248],"tags":[4,3037,3036,3035,317,801,3038],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/savingtherepublic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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