Unemployed “Occupy” Mitch McConnell’s Senate Office

They need to Occupy “C” Street where these Rethug scumbags live…Give them no lace to hide.

Jobless Protesters Occupy Mitch McConnell’s Office As Congress Dithers On Jobs

Protesters Sit in Waiting Room

Roughly 30 jobless protesters from D.C. neighborhoods occupied Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office in the Russell Senate Office Building Thursday, saying they wanted to talk to him about jobs.

But McConnell was busy at the Capitol Building, where he led Republicans in blocking a $60 billion infrastructure bill. The protesters said they supported the measure.

McConnell’s legislative director offered to sit down with the group, but they declined, saying they’d rather wait for the senator himself. So they sat in his office, taking up every chair and lots of floor space while McConnell’s staff went about its business. A Capitol Police officer scoped the situation and said her heart went out to them for losing their jobs.

The protesters, most of whom said they lived in the poorest part of Southeast D.C., had no affiliation with the Occupy Wall Street movement. They’d been organized by a community group called OurDC, which has been hectoring Congress about jobs since it launched with SEIU seed money earlier this year. The protesters remained in the office as of Thursday afternoon as of 3 p.m. and said they wouldn’t leave before meeting the senator.

“Hopefully we can all get together with the senator today before time is up,” said Ted Black, a 58-year-old resident of Southeast D.C. Black said he is a Vietnam-era veteran and that he lost his job as a radiologist tech three months ago. He supports President Obama’s jobs package, he said, including the blocked infrastructure bill.

“I’m here supporting the cause for veterans and also for teachers and children and schools and residents who are unemployed or underemployed or homeless,” Black said.

McConnell’s office declined to comment on the protesters.

 

Occupy Baltimore Gets Support of Police and Firefighters Unions

One of the things being challenged by Occupy Baltimore is the failure of the Education System…

The Occupy Movement evening meetings appear to be the only place democracy is actually working in America anymore. There certainly isn’t any democracy left in the big marble buildings just 30 miles down Interstate 95 from Baltimore.

Egyptians March in Support of Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy movement has truly gone worldwide. Yesterday, pro-Democracy Egyptians in Cairo marched in solidarity with Americans in the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The brutal assault on the Occupy Oakland protest has gone worldwide.

As they vowed earlier this week to do, Egyptian pro-democracy protesters marched from Tahrir square to the U.S. Embassy today to march in support of Occupy Oakland—and against police brutality witnessed in Oakland on Tuesday night, and commonly experienced in Egypt.

Yet another battle is brewing in Louisville, where Police were ordered by Tennessee’s Republican Governor to arrest protesters for the second time this week. Once again, a Judge has thrown out the arrests as illegal.

The arrests and harassment of Occupy protesters is beginning to resemble that endured by Civil Rights protesters in the 60′s. It’s not nearly as violent (yet)… But if some of the local authorities don’t get a grip – it may be. As evidenced by the protests in Egypt, people worldwide are disgusted with the assault upon the First Amendment rights of the protesters in the supposed bastion of Democracy.

Occupy Nashville protesters arrested again

State troopers for the second straight night arrested anti-Wall Street protesters for defying a new nighttime curfew imposed by the Republican governor, in an effort to disband an encampment near the state Capitol in Nashville.

And also, for a second time, a Nashville night judge dismissed the arrest warrants.

The Tennessean newspaper reported early Saturday morning that Magistrate Tom Nelson told troopers delivering the protesters to jail that he could “find no authority anywhere for anyone to authorize a curfew anywhere on Legislative Plaza.”

Occupy Nashville protesters – including many of the 29 arrested in a pre-dawn raid on Friday – returned to the Legislative Plaza that evening and remained through the 10 p.m. curfew…

Occupy the Hood!

One of the criticisms levelled at th Occupy protests across the country by conservatives is the “lack of black participation”. Of course, it’s your typical right wing lie, in defense of Tea Party racism. The Lawn Jockey squad of black conservatives brad and butter is dysfunction in the urban black community. Pretending that no one in those communities is doing anything  but “living on the plantation”.

Occupy Boston’ Meets ‘Occupy the Hood’

In Roxbury, as Christians stood with Muslims and as white college students stood with a black woman who recently lost two nephews to gun violence, the voice of the Occupy Boston movement sounded more diverse than ever in the three weeks since protesters set up tents in the Financial District.

“We’re one family,’’ said True-See Allah of the Nation of Islam, addressing a crowd of more than 500 in Dudley Square during a rally for Occupy the Hood, a movement in Roxbury allied to Occupy Boston and other Occupy movements around the country.

“It’s not about black and white; it’s about who’s wrong and who’s right,’’ he continued. “The Nation of Islam stands with you 1,000 percent. This is a beautiful sight, and we want to take this moment, and we want to build from it and continue to grow and grow.’’

While the occupation in Dewey Square has been diverse, whites have been the majority. Yesterday’s Occupy the Hood Rally was nearly evenly divided between whites and non-whites, as students and Occupy Boston regulars joined local residents.

“The message of this movement, when you boil it down, is that we are the 99 percent,’’ said Brian Kwoba, 28, of Cambridge, one of the Occupy the Hood organizers. “There’s the top 1 percent, and the rest of us are denied a voice. But people of color are disproportionately denied a voice. Therefore, in order for us to unite all of the 99 percent, we need all of us to unite together, communities of color and other communities.’’

Son of Bo Diddley Arrested for Occupy Protest… In Bo Diddley Park

Wow…Getting busted in a park named after your Dad! Actually, unlike the New York Police, the Gainsville Police were pretty civilized about things…

Occupy is spreading all over the country.

Bo Diddley’s Son Arrested for Occupy Protest in Park Named After His Father

Not many people plan on getting arrested on purpose, but such was the case with Elias Anthony McDaniel, the 56-year-old son of rhythm and blues legend Bo Diddley who was cuffed for trespassing in a plaza named after his father, according to the Independent Florida Alligator.

McDaniel, who was taking part in the Occupy Gainesville movement, was accompanied by at least four other protesters when he was picked up by the police on Friday morning for being in the park after hours. The protesters claimed they had decided to get arrested in order to prove a point.

“This is my father’s park,” said McDaniel, who resides in Gainesville. “For them to arrest me in that plaza is ludicrous … I’m an American. This is freedom of assembly.”

The members of Occupy Gainesville had procured a permit which allowed them to gather in the park for Wednesday night and Thursday morning, but it did not extend past regular public hours on Thursday night. That’s when the protesters decided to occupy the space for as long as it took for them to be arrested.

Those who were arrested were handcuffed but released several minutes later with a notice to appear. “We’re just enforcing a law,” Cpl. Angelina Valuri said. “We have a job to do.”

Despite being released, McDaniel is still incensed. “There’s a symbolic stone in front of me that says freedom of speech,” he said, referring to a gray stone inscribed with the Bill of Rights. “I feel like a number of my rights have been violated.”

Guy Fawkes Day in America – Moving Money

So what happens if 100,000 people move their money to small banks?

The fees charged by the big banks have gotten progressively ridiculous, and several of the major banks like Bank of America purposefully manipulated customer accounts to maximize overdraft fees to the tune of $2o billion a year…

Bank executives continue to get massive multi-million dollar bonuses… despite the fact it was American taxpayer money that bailed those very same banks out of a crisis created by the banks themselves.

Wall Street Protests Get Specific: Could ‘Bank Transfer Day’ Pit Americans Against Their Big Banks?

The growing anger directed at U.S. banks (especially the big ones that took federal bailout funds) over recent fee increases coalesced this weekend into a Facebook-driven campaign urging Americans to close their accounts at large banks and move their money to credit unions by Nov. 5.

Though not initiated by the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York and other cities around the country, the effort has been embraced by the protesters, and their “We are the 99%” mantra is all over the “Bank Transfer Day” Facebook page — making this the first specific action by a political movement that has been criticized as unfocused and incoherent.

Bank Transfer Day was started by a 27-year-old Los Angeles art-gallery owner, Kristen Christian. She says she’s not affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protesters but that many organizers of those demonstrations had reached out to her to express support.

Christian chose Nov. 5 because of its association with 17th century British folk hero Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up the House of Lords but was captured on that date in 1605. In an interview with the Village Voice, however, Christian and Occupy Wall Street leaders who discussed the effort to get Americans to move their money from large banks to small institutions emphasized that they weren’t trying to create a collapse of the financial system. ”I’ve been very careful to state that this is not … anarchy,” Christian told the Voice. “It’s shifting the money to a company people respect the practices of. It’s like, if you don’t like Walmart’s practices, shopping at a local grocery store instead.”

Arab Spring in San Francisco

One of the tactics utilized by the Hosni Mubarak Government in Egypt to ty and stop the protests was to cut off internet and cell phone services…

Seems it worked so well for Mubarak,,, The San Francisco Subway Authority (BART) decided to try it.

S.F. subway muzzles cell service during protest

The operators of the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway system temporarily shut down cell service last night in four downtown San Francisco stations to interfere with a protest over a shooting by a BART police officer, a spokesman for the system said today.

“BART staff or contractors shut down power to the nodes and alerted the cell carriers,” James Allison, deputy chief communications officer for BART, told CNET. The move was “one of many tactics to ensure the safety of everyone on the platform,” he said in an initial statement provided to CNET earlier this afternoon.

Activists had planned to protest the fatal shooting of Charles Blair Hill, who BART police said went after them with a knife before an officer shot him on July 3.

“Organizers planning to disrupt BART service…stated they would use mobile devices to coordinate their disruptive activities and communicate about the location and number of BART police,” said the original BART statement. “A civil disturbance during commute times at busy downtown San Francisco stations could lead to platform overcrowding and unsafe conditions for BART customers, employees, and demonstrators.”

The initial statement from BART said the subway system had asked the wireless carriers to suspend the service in the stations, but Allison later said BART itself pulled the plug and notified the providers after the fact.

Conyers Calls for March on White House

President Obama just signed his death warrant as a two termer. The sad thing is – he didn’t accomplish shit to have made it worthwhile.

Congressman John Conyers joins the long list of Progressives who have had enough… (the video quality on this one is poor)

Take Back the Land

Recently departed Jazz Musician Gill Scott Heron’s seminal piece was a song called “Winter in America”. I think Gill Scott saw the destruction of the American Dream years before it reached the crisis point.

Something is really, really wrong here – and other than a few intrepid groups like “Take Back the Land” – there doesn’t seem to be anyone in power doing a damn thing about it.

The right wing in this country is spending a lot of time defending the banks, the major corporations, and the rich by foisting one Trojan Horse issue after another upon the public airwaves.

A $15 a year tax break isn’t going to save you from being foreclosed on your house.

Protesters ‘Liberate’ Foreclosed Homes

When Virginia Henry bought her boarded-up and abandoned Rochester, N.Y., home in December 2007, she saw potential where others were blind to it. The house, a short sale, became her home to live in and care for, she said. She plopped down her $20,000 and filed her paperwork for a loan program that would pay the balance — $43,000 — to rehabilitate the property.

But what followed was a series of unanswered calls and letters to Bank of America, Henry says, eventually culminating in her arrest Friday for a charge of trespassing on her own front lawn. The arrest, like much of this story, is the source of a dispute. Henry asserts police officers shoved her to the ground during the arrest, police claim she fainted from the intense heat. She has a court date for the trespassing charge July 28.

The facts of the short sale are also at issue. The bank has told Henry that the short sale never closed and that the house at 5 Appleton St. — with all her worldly possessions trapped inside — is no longer hers. A Bank of America spokeswoman, Jumana Bauwens, said she would investigate the claims.

“This is my home,” Henry told AOL Real Estate in a phone interview after the arrest. “How can I be trespassing in my own home?”

Protesters Step In

Winter in America

On the passing of Gill Scott last week… Been too busy to post much, so I am way behind in events.

“Tens of Thousands” March On Wisconsin Capitol

Things are just getting revved up… This is a good start to the recall effort to take down the criminal Republican legislators in the state.

Protesters march at Wisconsin Capitol

Tens of thousands of protesters marched around Wisconsin’s Capitol on Saturday while hundreds more gathered in the building’s rotunda as part of a planned daylong demonstration against a new Republican-sponsored law that drastically weakens the state’s public employee unions. Opponents of the legislation that strips most public employees of nearly all their collective bargaining rights say the fight is not over even though Gov. Scott Walker signed it into law on Friday. “I’m here because I think it’s important that not only the governor but other people need to understand that this is not simply a union issue,” said Bridget Stafford, 43, a teacher and union member from Stevens Point, Wis., who was watching other protesters from a balcony in the Capitol.  ”It’s about people’s rights.”Stafford she was especially angry over the legislation because she felt Walker didn’t propose it during his campaign. “He’s been lying from the get-go,” she said. The cold, breezy day started quietly, with a few dozen people gathered in clusters outside the Capitol. Groups of police officers also huddled outside the building. As the morning went on, however, more people streamed toward the Capitol. By late morning, tens of thousands of protesters were marching around the Capitol, cheering as dozens of farmers driving tractors joined in the procession. Chants of “This is what democracy looked like!” echoed off the buildings surrounding the Capitol’s square.

They Bought 5 Supreme Court Justices… Governor Scott Walker was a Bargain!

Corruption in the United States has reached epidemic proportions. Whether it is Republican Judges in Pennsylvania taking kickbacks to lock up kids in private prisons on minor offenses, or corrupt Supreme Court Judges like Scalia and Thomas taking money, and getting their marching orders from the Koch brothers…

Wisconsin Protesters in State Capital

 

Seems the Koch brothers buying spree didn’t end with judges and the usual Congressman and Senators…

They bought a Governor.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Funded by the Koch Bros.

Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker, whose bill to kill collective bargaining rightsfor public-sector unions has caused an uproar among state employees, might not be where he is today without the Koch brothers. Charles and David Koch are conservative titans of industry who have infamously used their vast wealth toundermine President Obama and fight legislation they detest, such as the cap-and-trade climate bill, the health care reform act, and the economic stimulus package. For years, the billionaires have made extensive political donations to Republican candidates across the country and have provided millions of dollars to astroturf right-wing organizations. Koch Industries’ political action committee has doled out more than $2.6 million to candidates. And one prominent beneficiary of the Koch brothers’ largess is Scott Walker.

Wisconsin – The World

You probably won’t hear about this on Faux News… But the folks in Egypt, as well as a number of other countries are paying a close eye on the events in Wisconsin.

From Cairo to Madison, some pizza

Someone in Egypt has been paying attention to what’s happening in Madison and wanted to send a message of solidarity from across the globe — so they ordered a pizza.

It might seem like a small gesture, but it’s overwhelming to the staff at Ian’s on State Street — a campus staple mere blocks from the Capitol — where in the last few days, they’ve fielded calls from concerned citizens of 12 countries, and 38 out of 50 states looking to donate money to provide free pizza to the Wisconsinites who have congregated here.

On Saturday alone, Ian’s gave away 1,057 free slices in their store and delivered more than 300 pizzas to the Capitol itself.

By 2 p.m. local time Sunday, they’d given away 351 slices and sent countless other full pies to the rotunda, where protesters have been gathering since well before noon. As a few locals stood waiting for their slices, an Ian’s staffer went to the chalkboard hanging behind the register and wrote, “Turkey” in big block letters and co-workers expressed a sense of disbelief.

“I don’t think we started it,” said Ryan O’Connor, a sophomore at a local technical school who works the register at Ian’s. “We made a post to our Facebook page because of the volume of calls we already had been getting unprompted.”

O’Connor said Ian’s got its first call Thursday when a mother of a University of Wisconsin student called and offered to donate $200 to help feed the people her daughter told her had flooded the Capitol. Since then, the outpouring of money from all over the world has put the pizza-makers into overdrive.

The blackboard behind the counter lists the “countries donating” as “Korea, Finland, Egypt, Denmark, Australia, US, Canada, Germany, China, London, Netherlands, Turkey” and has the abbreviations for all 50 states listed below, with donating states circled. As of Sunday afternoon, 38 states had been marked as contributors.

A Confederate Flag Taken Down… By Neo-confederates

Apparently the guardians of the Southern Myth didn’t like a painting by Gainsville State College, located in Gainsville, Georgia by  Professor Stanley Bermudez. Seems Professor Bermudez made the mistake of painting what he felt when he saw the flag…

Neo-confederate and hate groups promptly voice their ire, intimidating the College to remove the flag from the Art Exhibit.

GSC professor teaches the importance of art as his own work comes under fire

“When I was growing up in South America, we had the freedom of expression in my country. But when Hugo Chávez came into power, he started manipulating that freedom. Everything from the media to art was being censored,” said Bermudez, who is from Venezuela.

“Anyone who made a negative comment about the government … was being attacked or repressed. I don’t agree with that kind of censorship.”

As an artist, Bermudez often takes to canvas to express his feelings and thoughts. One of his most recent works, “Heritage?,” illustrates what comes to his mind when he thinks of the Confederate flag.

The red flag, with the blue St. Andrew’s Cross emblazoned across the front adorned with white stars, was carried onto the battlefield by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. While some people argue that the flag represents Southern heritage and pride, other people — Bermudez included — see it in a less positive light.

Growing Pushback Against Airport Security Measures

Dealing with Airport Security can be a royal pain in the ass. The rules are confusing, sometimes seem trite and arbitrary, and the personnel could use some sensitivity training.

Case in point -

Airport pat-downs provoking backlash

New pat-down procedures at airports have prompted a growing backlash among pilots, flight attendants, civil-liberties groups and security-weary passengers who say the touching goes too far.

In the latest escalation of the debate over the balance between security and passenger rights, privacy advocates have enlisted consumer-rights activist and four-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who calls the screening techniques “extremely voyeuristic and intrusive.”

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) calls it the new reality of airport security.

The new TSA pat-down procedure is part of a general tightening of air security that includes new full-body scanners which use X-rays to see through clothing to detect suspicious objects. If a full-body machine — like those now in use at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport — shows something strange or a passenger declines to go through the machine, a TSA officer will perform a more personal search.

The examinations routinely involve the touching of breasts and genitals, invasive searches designed to find weapons and suspicious items. The searches, performed by TSA security officers of the same sex as the passenger, entail a sliding hand motion on parts of the body where a lighter touch was used before, aviation-security analysts say. The areas of the body that are being touched haven’t changed.

“It’s more than just patting you down. It’s very intrusive and very insane. I wouldn’t let anyone touch my daughter like that,” said Marc Moniz, of Poway, Calif., who is planning to accompany his daughter’s eighth-grade class from San Diego to Washington, D.C., in April. “We’re not common criminals.”

Brian Sodergren, of Ashburn, Va., who works in the health-care industry, is organizing an “opt-out” day to encourage passengers to say no to advanced imaging technology, known to industry insiders as a “virtual strip-search.” He’s planning the protest for one of the busiest travel days of the year: Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving.

“Many people only fly around the holidays and may not be aware of the security changes,” Sodergren said. “I think once people are made aware of what is happening, they may have reservations about the new procedures.”

An activist group has launched WeWontFly.com, a website, and says it has gotten more than 70,000 hits a day since going online just a week ago. The site asks passengers to say no to scans and pat-downs and for TSA to remove its “porno-scanners” and “gropers.”

“We’re opposed to letting TSA treat us like criminals,” said James Babb, 42, of Eagleville, Pa., who is organizing the We Won’t Fly campaign.