Blue Republic / Green Living

The 2012 Republican primary debate schedule

2012-01-28T09:12:00.000-05:00

The last one, Jan. 22, Jacksonville, FL:
8 PM ET on CNN
http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012/01/video-watch-the-full-cnn-florida-republican-debate/

THE FULL LIST OF NEXT UPCOMING DEBATES:
Feb. 22 at Mesa, Arizona [before the Arizona and Michigan primaries]
8 PM ET on CNN

March 1, at a Georgia location [before March 6, Super-Tuesday]
8 PM ET on CNN

March 5, at Reagan Library, Simi, California [also preceding Super Tuesday]
TBD on NBC

March 19, at Portland, Oregon
9 PM ET on PBS
Source:
http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012-debate-schedule/2011-2012-primary-debate-schedule/

BREAKING: Court: Only Romney & Paul Qualify for Va. Ballot - No Newt or Rick in Virginia

2012-01-21T14:32:00.004-05:00

Just in:
A court ruling today (January 21, 2012) confirms that only Mitt Romney and Ron Paul qualified for the Virginia GOP primary ballot. Thus, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will not be on the ballot.
Virginia law requires 10,000 signatures to get a candidate onto the ballot.
Source: SportNews.com, from Christian Science Monitor (csmonitor.com)

The Missouri caucus (March 17) also does not have former House Speaker Gingrich. Yet, it has everyone else on the ballot, even orthodox libertarian Gary Johnson. (The state has a non-binding primary on February 7.)
Source: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/MO-R

And:
LOYALTY OATH IMPOSED ON VIRGINIA PRIMARY VOTERS?
Ah, the chickens come home: Remember how much Republicans wanted loyalty oaths from Americans from the 1940s to the 1960s (and in some places until the 1980s)?
Well, now that courts are keeping the super Tuesday (March 6) primary a two-man race Virginia politicians are embarrassed by the oaths they wanted to impose on voters, binding them to support the Republican nominee for president.

A divisive “loyalty oath” requiring voters in Virginia’s March Republican presidential primary to support the eventual GOP nominee is being removed from the ballot in an expedited, last-minute request from the state Republican Party.

Scrambling to meet a Friday deadline for finalizing primary ballots, Virginia Republican chairman Pat Mullins and the party’s executive director, Dave Rexrode, polled the state party’s governing central committee by phone and e-mail.
The committee voted overwhelmingly to reverse its December decision to place the pledge on the GOP ballots, and the Virginia Republican executive committee made the decision official.

The central committee had planned to vote at a special meeting on Saturday, said Lee E. Goodman, an attorney and longtime adviser to the party, “but that would have been too late. The ballots are sent out on Friday.”

Rexrode rushed the executive committee’s authorization to Donald Palmer, executive secretary of the State Board of Elections, who said the proviso was being struck from the ballot.

Republicans, long suspicious that independents and Democrats were meddling with their nominating process in primaries, saw the pledge as a way to address the concern in a state where voters do not register by party affiliation. Virginia Republicans sometimes hold statewide conventions to ensure that only credentialed Republicans select their nominees.

Mullins began working to reverse the decision when it drew condemnation from across the political spectrum.

The American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue the GOP unless it was rescinded. Democrats ridiculed it, saying it defines the GOP as an exclusionary party.

Read the full link below for end of the AP story.
From the Washington Post, from the AP, January 17, 2012: "Va. Republicans ask state elections board to delete loyalty oath from March primary ballot".

Best page for 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries dates, # of delegates, winner-take-all or proportional

2012-01-15T03:10:00.001-05:00

My developing table on 2012 Primaries and Caucuses for the Republican Presidential Nomination: (parentheses = probably)
The Republican National Convention will be held at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, Tampa, Florida, August 27 (Monday) to 30 (Thursday), 2012.

State	Date	Caucus or primary	Open or closed	Winner-Take-All or proportional	Number of delegates
Iowa evangelical	January 3	Caucus	Closed	Proportional	28
New Hampshire libertarian but New England	January 10	Primary	Open to Republi- cans and Indepen- dents	Proportional	12
South Carolina evangelical	January 21	Primary	Open	Winner-take-all	25
Florida evangelical, Old South north; cosmopolitan southern section	January 31	Primary	Closed	Winner-take-all	50
Nevada libertarian West; besieged with foreclosures	February 4	Caucus	Closed	Proportional	28
Maine	February 4 to 11	Caucus	Closed	Determined at precinct level (Likely WTA)	24

Table in progress. Corrections, comments are welcome.
Aside from the above table,
the following is the link for THE best site for the races for the 2012 Republican presidential nominating convention: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/R-DSVE.phtml
The Florida and Virginia primaries (January 31 and March 6, and 50 delegates and 46 delegates, respectively) will be pivotal. Florida will be a winner-take-all state. Virginia winner-take-all at the district level; WTA at state level if a candidate gets a majority. These Virginia rules will be moot, since Mitt Romney and Ron Paul were the only ones that qualified for the ballot, one of the two will get a majority, of course.
So, in essence, Virginia is throwing the nomination to Romney, with its ballot qualification rules.

The following states had their allotted delegate counts reduced by 50 percent for moving their primary election dates earlier: New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Michigan.
1,128 delegates are needed for the Republican nomination; 2,255 delegates are available.

The site, "The Green Papers: Presidential Primaries 2012: Republican Delegate Selection and Voter Eligibility", gives a wide range of important details: not just election date, but also indications for primary or caucus, winner take all or proportional, number of delegates:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/R-DSVE.phtml

Other authoritative reference:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2011/1102/Election-101-What-s-the-Republican-primary-calendar-for-2012/The-Fab-Five --but only for first five elections

Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum

Gentically modified food may be harming our health

2012-01-15T02:43:00.000-05:00

And when shopping, do we know which foods are modified and if so how?
"How Genetically Modified Foods Could Affect Our Health in Unexpected Ways: Yet another reason to test GMOs for safety.
January 11, 2012 from AlterNet.

Primaries, the Whiteness of Iowa, NH; Low Unemployment Rates

2012-01-13T00:06:00.017-05:00

It is very curious that we are giving so much first in the nation stock to two states that are hardly representative of the United States.

Iowa and New Hampshire both have white populations of over 90 percent (IA: 92.6%, NH: 94.8%, for the 2005 to 2009 year range). The national figure for the white population is 74.5 percent. In Iowa and New Hampshire, of the other groups, African-American, Asian-American, Hispanic or Latino and Native American, none exceed five percent.

(See, for example, this Fact Sheet at the U.S. Census' FactFinder site: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ACSSAFFFacts?_event=Search&geo_id=&_geoContext=&_street=&_county=&_cityTown=&_state=04000US19&_zip=&_lang=en&_sse=on&pctxt=fph&pgsl=010
(By the way, on January 20, 2012, the Census' new portal will be :
factfinder2.census.gov )

More diverse Florida and Nevada
At the end of January and at the beginning of February, will come the primaries in Florida and Nevada.
Florida of course has a larger percentage of Latino voters, as compared to Iowa or New Hampshire.
Nevada will also be a more diverse state than the first primary or caucus states. It has become a magnet for Asian heritage Americans. Demographers in a USA Today article ("In a twist, USA's Asians are heading to the Mountain West" [7/6/2008], http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-06-Asians-West_N.htm ) hypothesize that Asians are doing what middle class whites have done for decades: moved to different states, to find easier costs of living. Nevada in the 2004 to 2009 period had an Asian percentage (6.2 %) higher than the national average of 4.4 percent. (Las Vegas' Asian percentage is 5.9 percent.
The 2008 USA Today article reports:

Filipinos are the largest Asian group here, at about 45%. Chinese are the next at 15%, Japanese and Koreans make up 9% each, Asian Indians and Vietnamese represent about 5% each, and other Asians make up 12%.

Because the Asian community is still relatively small in numbers, ethnic divisions are not as distinct as in places such as Los Angeles, San Francisco or New York.

Given voting patterns that we have seen in California and New Jersey, a "purple" or swing state status, between Republican red and Democratic blue could be in the cards for Nevada. The state might be a potential President Obama win in November and the Democrats might take the Republican senate seat there this year.

Ah hah!: Iowa and New Hampshire unemployment rates out of sync with the nation
Will the unemployment rates of South Carolina, Florida and Nevada provide a contrast in voting patterns to voting patterns in low unemployment states of Iowa and Hampshire?
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics site ( http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm ), which uses December 20, 2011 data for the latest reported state-by-state unemployment figures:
The first states had some of the lower unemployment statistics:
Iowa, number 6 for lowest unemployment: 5.7 percent
New Hampshire was number 4 with 5.4 percent unemployed

South Carolina's primary (January 21) should bring out more of the mood affected by unemployment: ranking 42 in lowest unemployment (translation: one of the ten worst states for joblessness) with 9.9 percent unemployed.
Florida's rate (the state has its primary on January 31): 10.0 percent without jobs.
Nevada's caucuses (February 4) likewise has 13.0 percent unemployment, the worst in the nation.

South Carolina Time Bomb for Romney in Bain-Created Job Losses?

2012-01-06T04:08:00.001-05:00

Under Romney, Bain Capital Made Millions From South Carolina Business That Shut Down, Laid Off 150 Workers --From ThinkProgress, December 19, 2011.

Wonder if laid off South Carolina workers will tell neighbors in Gaffney, S.C. (in Cherokee County on the I-85 path between Greenville and Charlotte north of the border in North Carolina) about how good Bain Capital was to Holson Burns Group workers, and how Republican primary voters there will act on January 21, on hearing the news .... (Romney sounds like more of job killer than a job creator.)

In a wayward attempt to rebrand himself as a middle-class hero, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney is running headlong into his history with Bain Capital. Not only does the firm have a history of making millions by buying up and gutting companies, but Romney also secured a plush retirement deal from Bain that brought him “millions of dollars in income each year.”

Of course, Romney has tried to spin his private sector role as that of a “job creator.” But a closer look at Bain’s modus operandi reveals that firm spent a lot of time laying off company employees rather than hiring them — all while turning a profit. More than 20 years ago, Bain — with Romney at the helm — opened a new plant in Gaffney, South Carolina with the promise of “highly anticipated manufacturing jobs,” only to shut down that plant four years later, laying off 150 workers while making millions:

More than two decades ago, Mitt Romney’s business venture came to town with a bounty of highly anticipated manufacturing jobs. The new plant, just past the gas station off Interstate 85, needed skilled workers to churn out thousands of photo albums.

Four years later, the Holson Burns Group Inc. – the company controlled by Romney’s Bain Capital LLC – closed the factory and laid off about 150 workers. Some jobs were sent north, where months later many of those were also eliminated. Other operations went overseas. [...]

For Bain, the plan was a financial success: Holson Burnes raised $24 million from its initial public offering on the over-the-counter trading market, with Bain executives retaining the majority of the company’s shares. Bain, in the end, reaped more than double the return on its initial investment. But workers were left jobless just as the local economy began to slump.

“In the real world, some things don’t make it,” Romney offered as an explanation for the layoffs he had overseen as Bain’s CEO. However, the plant in South Carolina is not an isolated incident. Under Romney, “four of the 10 companies Bain acquired declared bankruptcy within a few years, shedding thousands of jobs.” But documents show that “Bain investors profited in eight of the 10 deals, including three of the four that ended in bankruptcy.” Indeed, the firm pointedly made higher profits “by firing workers, seeking government subsidies, and flipping companies quickly for large profits.”

As Romney’s own business partner stated, “I never thought of what I do for a living as job creation.” It’ll be an interesting display of acrobatics to see how Romney explains to South Carolinians that the profit his company made off the backs of 150 laid off workers proves his bona fides as a job creator.

* * *
And do not forget the impact of lies with statistics in this instance:
From DemocraticUnderground (http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002119578), citing ThinkProgress and Washington Post:
"Romney Camp Admits That Its Bain Job Creation Number Is Bogus"
"The Romney camp . . . admitted that the statistic is nothing but cherry-picked job growth from a few companies that did well after they were bought by Bain.

Statistics Slap Gingrich in the Face Over Labeling Blacks as Food Stamp Users

2012-01-05T19:25:00.000-05:00

Newt Gingrich appeared in Laconia, New Hampshire and generalized African-Americans as a community needing lecturing about the importance of having a job rather than using food stamps.

(Before we get to the race angle, we should point out to Newt that seeking the two are not mutually exclusive. Wages are so low for millions of employed Americans that they must use food stamps to keep up their food intake. We would like Newt and other politicians, Republican and Democratic, to seek living wage legislation across the nation.)

Multiple times last year former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich labeled Barack Obama as the "food stamps president". But truthfully, since we are speaking about the races and food stamps, we should note that it was Obama's white mother that briefly was impoverished to the point that she used food stamps.

From Daily Kos, here is Gingrich's stereotype-laden quote:

“I will go to the NAACP convention, and explain to the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps."

But as Joy-Ann Reid in the blog, the Grio today (January 5, 2012) reported in "Newt Gingrich: 'I will tell black people to demand paychecks instead of food stamps'",

A 2009 study found that 1 in 8 Americans, and 1 in 4 children -- of all races -- received food assistance, in the wake of the 2007 recession. The study found that 28 percent of blacks, 15 percent of Hispanics, and 8 percent of whites, received food assistance that year.

When it comes to total welfare receipts, Whites receive 34 percent of federal food assistance benefits, African-Americans 22 percent, and Hispanics 17 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

NRA Gun Policy is Killing Cops in 2011

2012-01-05T18:55:00.000-05:00

The Second Amendment to the Constitution has language safeguarding an armed militia.

Interpreted in the 20th and 21st centuries has been allowing the loosest restrictions of high-powered firearm weaponry access. Practically speaking the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America have been opposing restrictions upon just about the most destructive guns.

All the hysterical lies that President Barack Obama will take away Americans' guns has the White House handicapped in critiquing the gun plague that even centrists such as New York City's mayor Michael Bloomberg has.

So, to ABC TV News' report on "World News with Diane Sawyer" (January 5, 2012), about a spike in shootings of police we must cite the gun law laxity.

If this keeps up, we will probably see more police officers' associations lobbying for candidates that push stronger gun control laws, at least on high-powered "cop-killer" rifles.

South Carolina's Winner-Take-All Nail-BIter

2012-01-05T03:41:00.001-05:00

The January 21 South Carolina Republican primary will be a nail biter.

The state's 25 delegates will ALL go to the highest winner. (Its delegate count got chopped in half from 50 because S.C. GOP moved its date early, to preserve its first in the South status.)
It's an open primary, which brings in Independents and Democrats in a no Democratic contest year. This is the only plus factor for Mitt Romney, and maybe for Ron Paul. But this is the evangelical Protestant Christian South, so look more to the avowedly social conservatives.
It's set for a Saturday, which should bring in more blue collar voters. A plus again for the social conservatives.

Hard to say who will win the state.

Easier to address who will have trouble:
RON PAUL: the libertarian won't win because of --as the New York Times pointed out on January 4, the day after the Iowa caucuses-- the high military enrollments and the military base(s) in the state. He hasn't had any peaking period. His controversial newsletters and emails shouldn't be a problem in this very conservative state. He only peaked at 12 percent in December.
RICK PERRY: will be seen as a goof because of his debate and memory goofs/flubs (which caused him to sink from his S.C. polled high of 50 percent at the end of August --and this was in a selection of a field narrowed to Perry, Mitt Romney and Michelle Bachmann, so a poll excluding Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich). The last time he polled 10 percent or more was in October.

The contest is between MITT ROMNEY, NEWT GINGRICH AND RICK SANTORUM.
ROMNEY: He peaked in the polls at 27 percent on September 20. Plenty of flip-flops, expect an onslaught of Gingrich TV ads bringing up Romney's liberal or moderate positions on guns, abortions, and maybe gay and lesbian civil unions.

So the race is really between Gingrich and Santorum. The question is whether the former House Speaker's bitter, vengeful vendetta tone against Romney will backfire. Look also to who polls third (Gingrich or Santorum) in New Hampshire.
In SC expect Gingrich and Santorum to have 55 percent easily to split between the two of them.
(How long will the new charges against Santorum as a tax and spend beltway insider stick? They're dubious criticisms when you consider the interest group ratings of him and Newt. google: the no-partisan Project Vote Smart. The two Washington veterans have VERY similar records. But Gingrich has more heterodox positions that might hurt him, such as his perceived leniency on illegal immigrant families and his positive comments about Massachusetts' "RomneyCare" health program.)

Poll sources: http://www.politico.com/2012-election/presidential-polls/south-carolina/south-carolina-gop-primary/ (drawing from different polls, albeit latest poll was December 20, 2011 amidst the Newt Gingrich surge (and before the Romney machine ad money barrage vs. Gingrich))

Challenging Conventional (Traditional) Wisdom on NH & Primaries

2012-01-02T17:04:00.000-05:00

Time was professors and pundits intoned that the New Hampshire primary (January 10 in 2012) mattered do deeply because the victors turned out to be the major political parties' presidential nominees.

However, in recent years, that axiom is showing not to true. South Carolina (held on January 21 in 2012) is the better bellwether state.

In 1996, conservative political commentator Patrick ("Pat") Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary. In 2000 Arizona Senator John McCain won that primary.
The Democratic primary victors have differed from the eventual nominee in more contests: in 1984, Sen. Gary Hart won; in 1994 Sen. Paul Tsongas won; in 2008 Sen. Hilary Clinton won.

SOUTH CAROLINA THE BETTER BELLWETHER (FOR REPUBLICANS)
By contrast, in South Carolina the Republican primary race winners at least since 1980 have all eventually become the nominees.
For Democrats, however, South Carolina primary or caucus results have not matched the eventual nominess: in 1988 the South Carolina Democrats held a caucus and chose Rev. Jesse Jackson. In 2004 the primary winner was Sen. John Edwards.

(One practical resource: http://uselectionatlas.org/WIKI/index.php/1976_Primaries)

Civil Rights Activists in NYC Protest Voting Restrictions / Roundup of States' Restrictions of Voting Rights

2011-12-29T15:26:00.001-05:00

NY1, December 10, 2011: Protesters March To UN In "Stand For Freedom"

* * *
FACTS BEHIND THE VOTING "FRAUD" SCARE
ANN MCFEATTERS in San Angelo, Texas Standard-Times, December 10, 2011: "Too many states making it harder to vote"

New York University's
Brennan Center for Justice's Comprehensive list of voter suppression laws passed in states, in 2011.

Brennan Center PDF report by Wendy R. Weiser and Lawrence Norden, "Voting Law Changes in 2012"

"Expanding the Vote Abroad, Suppressing It At Home" by Yanick Saila-Ngita – 12/08/11 at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Thankfully, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has woken up and has addressed this issue. (It is not just a matter, by the way, of interest to minorities. A range of people do not need or carry a photo identification ("ID") card for their daily or weekly business. Youths, elderly, MANY people will be barred from voting, because of these new voter ID laws.)
From the Los Angeles Times, December 13, 2011: "Atty. Gen. Holder takes aims at new state voting laws: Atty. Gen. Eric Holder hints that he may challenge some laws placing new restrictions on the voting process. He also proposes that the federal government automatically register all citizens to vote."

TPM< December 13, 2011, "The ACLU sues Wisconsin' voter ID law; cites law as modern day poll tax."

READ THIS PIECE, on the phony non-issue of "voter fraud:" at Think Progress, December 2, 2011: "Despite a 0.0002 Percent Rate of Voter Fraud, Reince Priebus Claims Wisconsin Is ‘Riddled With Voter Fraud’" [Reince Priebus is the Republican National Committee chairman.]
Think Progress recognizes that the notion of rampant voter fraud is a red herring ruse to restrict access to polls, to the right to vote.

Stephen Colbert captured the absurdity of Priebus' argument:

[C]omedian Stephen Colbert joked that “our democracy is under siege from an enemy so small it could be hiding anywhere” . . . .

Martin Bashir (formerly of ABC, now on MSNBC) interviewed Priebus in the context of his arguments that voter fraud is rampant (It follows narration by Think Progress):

. . . Priebus went on MSNBC to defend Wisconsin’s new photo ID requirement and yesterday’s anti-voting rights measure passed by the House GOP. When host Martin Bashir pushed the RNC Chair about his party’s motivations for restricting voting rights, Priebus pointed to his home state of Wisconsin and declared, “I come from a state in Wisconsin that was absolutely riddled with voter fraud, okay?”

BASHIR: Just last night Republicans in the House voted to dismantle the Election Assistance Commission, the sole purpose of which is to make sure states meet voting standards that prevent fraud. Why would Republicans do that if they’re honestly concerned about preventing fraud? [...]

PRIEBUS: Well listen, I don’t want to get into the specifics here, but let me tell you something. I come from a state in Wisconsin that was absolutely riddled with voter fraud, okay? They had the smokes-for-votes exchange in Milwaukee. This is something that has nothing to do with constitutional rights of the people who are committing the fraud, it has to do with the constitutional rights of people under our Constitution that one person gets one vote, not two or three or four or five, by not having reasonable voting standards in this country to make sure that fraud doesn’t occur.

See at right, where I have uploaded Bashir's interview with RNC chair Priebus.
Think Progress closed with these observations:

Research has found that voters are 39 times more likely to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud at the polls, and 3,500 times more likely to report a UFO encounter.

Voter fraud certainly ought to be prosecuted in the extremely rare instances when it occurs. But Republicans like Priebus are using the false specter of fraud as a cudgel to disenfranchise millions.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg calls NYPD "my own army"; Pepper Spraying ALEC Protestors; OWS Library Trashed

2011-12-29T13:11:00.001-05:00

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had the original Occupy Wall Street encampment aggressively shut down. Also, the New York Police Department (NYPD) put the OWS library of a thousand or so documents into the trash. Organizers said that they could only salvage about 10 to 25 percent of the original library.
Bloomberg a few weeks later, in an apparently delusional moment, said that the city's police force was his own private army.
Given the mayor's inclination to micro-manage, we cannot help but think that he had a hand in choosing to have the police hastily dispose of the books. (Of course, very disturbing has been the general reticence by the general commercial media on this matter.)
This trashing of a library is what spurred me to upload the photo of the Guy Montag figure from Francois Truffaut's film version of “Fahrenheit 451” and Heinrich Heine's quote about burning books and burning people. What an irony that the same season that saw the disposing of a library into the trash also saw the violent abuse of people, including the pepper-spraying of non-violent protestors.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg calls NYPD "my own army"; Phoenix Police Pepper Spray Protestors Demonstrating ALEC
Hunter Walker, November 30, at PolitikerNY had the best piece on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's public boast on Tuesday, November 29, 2011, that the New York Police Department (NYPD) is "my own army".

In a speech at MIT [in Cambridge, Massachusetts] last night to discuss the packed sweepstakes to build a tech campus in New York City, Mayor Bloomberg said he prefers City Hall to the White House. Almost immediately after Mayor Bloomberg dampened recent speculation he’s eyeing a White House bid, he added fuel to the fire by explaining why a mayor would be the best person for the job.

Mayor Bloomberg’s recent criticism of President Obama for allowing the debt reduction Supercommittee to fail led many political tea leaf watchers to believe he’s eyeing a potential White House bid. To the dismay of those who hope he’ll mount presidential campaign, Mayor Bloomberg began his speech last night by discussing why City Hall is just fine by him.

“I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have,” Mayor Bloomberg said.

At first, Mayor Bloomberg sounded he was outlining why three terms as mayor was enough experience in public office for him, but he quickly switched gears and began characterizing City Hall as the perfect preparation for the White House because it allowed him to buck the Beltway establishment get real on-the-ground knowledge.

“I don’t listen to Washington very much, which is something they’re not thrilled about,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “We have every kind of people from every part of the world and every kind of problem.”

Mayor Bloomberg explained that, unlike Washington politicians, mayors are people of action.

“The difference between my level of government and other levels of government is that action takes place at the city level,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “The cities and mayors are where you deal with crime, you deal with real immigration problems, you deal with health problems, you deal with picking up the garbage.”

You see, according to Mayor Bloomberg, he and his mayoral colleagues are focused on results. It’s the rest of the politicians who are screwing things up.

“At the state or federal level, that’s where the real problems are. You see it particularly in American government at the moment where they are just unable to do anything, and yet, the mayors of this country still have to deal with the real world,” said Mayor Bloomberg.

Mayor Bloomberg closed by expressing the desire for someone with real, executive experience to arrive on the scene and change things in Washington.

“Unfortunately, people at the federal level or the state level typically spend their whole lives in politics, and they’ve never been an executive and it shows,” Mayor Bloomberg said.

* * *

Daily Kos reports that on Wednesday, November 30, 2011, Phoenix, Arizona police pepper sprayed protestors demonstrating against the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)'s States and Nation Policy Summit, "Pepper spray at the Arizona ALEC protest, Indigenous elder sent to hospital".

(The right-wing energy barons, the Koch Brothers, are benefactors of ALEC.)

Police drew attention to anarchists armed with nail-filled sticks. Occupy movement members said that the anarchists invaded their movement.

Most problems were blamed on a group of anarchists who were bused in from out of state. According to police, a few wielded nail-filled sticks. Seven were arrested.

* * *
Mediabistro, November 16, 2011: "Occupy Wall Street Library Evicted" [dumped in the trash by the NYPD]

Alternet, November 15, 2011: "City Attacks Information at Zuccotti: Books Dumped in the Garbage, Press Intimidated: Books dumped in the garbage. Press intimidated and shut out. These are not the signs of a functioning democracy."

"That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also."
Heinrich Heine, German writer, 1821, whose works were burned by the Nazis in 1933.

Best page for 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries dates, # of delegates, winner-take-all or proportional

2011-12-29T03:58:00.020-05:00

State	Date	Caucus or primary	Open or closed	Winner-Take-All or proportional	Number of delegates
Iowa evangelical	January 3	Caucus	Closed	Proportional	28
New Hampshire libertarian but New England	January 10	Primary	Open to Republi- cans and Indepen- dents	Proportional	12
South Carolina evangelical	January 21	Primary	Open	Winner-take-all	25
Florida evangelical, Old South north; cosmopolitan southern section	January 31	Primary	Closed	Winner-take-all	50
Nevada libertarian West; besieged with foreclosures	February 4	Caucus	Closed	Proportional	28
Maine	February 4 to 11	Caucus	Closed	Determined at precinct level (Likely WTA)	24

Table under construction. Corrections, comments are welcome.
Aside from the above table,
the following is the link for THE best site for the races for the 2012 Republican presidential nominating convention: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/R-DSVE.phtml
The Florida and Virginia primaries (January 31 and March 6, and 50 delegates and 46 delegates, respectively) will be pivotal. Florida will be a winner-take-all state. Virginia winner-take-all at the district level; WTA at state level if a candidate gets a majority. These Virginia rules will be moot, since Mitt Romney and Ron Paul were the only ones that qualified for the ballot, one of the two will get a majority, of course.
So, in essence, Virginia is throwing the nomination to Romney, with its ballot qualification rules.

The following states had their allotted delegate counts reduced by 50 percent for moving their primary election dates earlier: New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, Michigan.
1,128 delegates are needed for the Republican nomination; 2,255 delegates are available.

The site, "The Green Papers: Presidential Primaries 2012: Republican Delegate Selection and Voter Eligibility", gives a wide range of important details: not just election date, but also indications for primary or caucus, winner take all or proportional, number of delegates:

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P12/R-DSVE.phtml

Other authoritative reference:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2011/1102/Election-101-What-s-the-Republican-primary-calendar-for-2012/The-Fab-Five --but only for first five elections

Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum

Rally in NYC at Koch Bros and at UN, for Voting Rights Which Are Threatened By New Laws

2011-12-09T17:03:00.000-05:00

Democracy for NYC

ALERT: March & Rally for Voting
Rights, tomorrow, Sat., Dec.10th

MARCH & RALLY FOR VOTING RIGHTS

When: Tomorrow, Sat., Dec. 10th, 11 AM
Where: Convene at the NYC office of the Koch Brothers
61st St. at Madison Avenue

March to the UN for a 12 PM rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (E. 47th St. and 2nd Ave.)

Conservative Governors and Legislatures across the country are promoting and passing laws to restrict voting rights-an effort being financed by right-wing financiers, including the notorious Koch brothers. We are in the middle of the most extreme push to limit the franchise for the last 100 years. And it will have a disproportionate effect on students, the elderly the poor and people of color-which will promote a conservative advantage in elections.

The NAACP is leading a response. Sign their pledge here
and join us for the march and rally on the UN tomorrow.

Show up to defend voting rights for all.

For more info about the march, go to Stand for Freedom [a coalition project with NAACP as a lead sponsor].

Common Cause's statement on the Republicans' legislation assaulting voting rights, on the occasion of CC's joining the Stand for Freedom coalition:

Common Cause/NY Stands Up for Voting Rights
Joins the Stand for Freedom Coalition to advocate for more access to the polls on Election Day

Common Cause/NY is proud to join the Stand for Freedom Coalition in advocating for increased access at the polls this year by removing existing barriers, changing registration and voting practices, and ensuring voting rights for all Americans

"It is an outright disgrace that more than two-thirds of state legislatures across the nation are on the verge of taking a huge step backwards with respect to inclusivity and the basic right to vote. Restrictive voter identification laws, the exclusion of ex-felons from voting, and the refusal to increase access at the polls by passing such straightforward laws as early voting and No-excuse absentee voting undermines our core democratic principles. We are proud to support the Stand for Freedom Coalition and show up on December 10th to demand a equitable and accessible voting process on Election day," said Susan Lerner, Executive Director.

Common Cause/NY has consistently advocated for election reform, working to improve accessibility, accuracy, transparency, and verifiability in our democratic process at the city, state and national level. New York State and states around the nation can take the following steps to increase voter participation:

No Excuse Absentee Voting

Amend the state constitution to permit voters to choose whether to vote in person or through an absentee ballot, without having to satisfy requirements currently mandated (ie: a checklist of excuses why an individual can't vote in person).We trust voters to choose their elected representatives, surely we can trust them to determine whether or not to vote in person or through an absentee ballot.

Early Voting

Pass Early Voting legislation which would allow voting at the county board of elections or at an alternate location fourteen days before a general, primary, or special election. Early voting is both convenient and efficient.

Voter ID laws

Eliminate driver's licenses as a pre-requisite to vote. Requiring voters to show a license often disenfranchises the elderly, students, and low income individuals.

Michael Moore's winter entrenchment strategy for more occupations: Occupy the Winter

2011-12-07T03:54:00.000-05:00

From Michael Moore's website:
OCCUPY THE WINTER

A proposal to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street from Michael Moore

1. Occupy Our Homes. Sorry, banks, a roof over one's head is a human right, and you will no longer occupy our homes through foreclosure and eviction because well, you see, they are our homes, not yours. You may hold the mortgage; you don't hold the right to throw us or our neighbors out into the cold. With almost one in three home mortgages currently in foreclosure, nearing foreclosure or "underwater," the Occupy Movement must form local "Occupy Strike Forces" to create human shields when the banks come to throw people out of their homes. If the foreclosure has already happened, then we must help families move back into their foreclosed homes -- literally (see this clip from my last film to watch how a home re-occupation is accomplished). Beginning today, Take Back the Land, plus many other citizens' organizations nationwide, are kicking off Occupy Our Homes. Numerous actions throughout the day today have already resulted in many families physically taking back their homes. This will continue every day until the banks are forced to stop their fraudulent practices, until homeowners are allowed to change their mortgage so that it reflects the true value of their homes, and until those who can no longer afford a mortgage are allowed to stay in their homes and pay rent. I beseech the news media to cover these actions -- they are happening everywhere. Evictions, though rarely covered (you need a Kardashian in your home as you're being evicted to qualify for news coverage) are not a new story (see this scene I filmed in 1988). Also, please remember the words of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Toledo (in 'Capitalism: A Love Story'): Do not leave your homes if the bank forecloses on you! Let them take you to court and then YOU ask the judge to make them produce a copy of your mortgage. They can't. It was chopped up a hundred different ways, bundled with a hundred other mortgages, and sold off to the Chinese. If they can't produce the mortgage, they can't evict you.

2. Occupy Your College. In nearly every other democracy on the planet, students go to college for free or almost free. Why do those countries do that? Because they know that for their society to advance, they must have an educated population. Without that, productivity, innovation and an informed electorate is stunted and everyone suffers as a result. Here's how we do it in the U.S.A.: make education one of our lowest priorities, graduate students who know little about the world or their own government or the economy, and then force them into crushing debt before they even have their first job. That way has really worked well for us, hasn't it? It's made us the world leader in … in … well, ok, we're like 27th or 34th in everything now (except war). This has to end. Students should spend this winter doing what they are already doing on dozens of campuses -- holding sit-ins, occupying the student loan office, nonviolently disrupting the university regents meetings, and pitching their tents on the administration's lawn. Young people -- we, the '60s generation, promised to create a better world for you. We got halfway there -- now you have to complete the job. Do not stop until these wars are ended, the Pentagon budget is cut in half, and the rich are forced to pay their taxes. And demand that that money go to your education. We'll be there with you on all of this! And when we get this fixed and you graduate, instead of being $40,000 in debt, go see the friggin' world, or tinker around in your garage a la the two Steves, or start a band. Enjoy life, discover, explore, experiment, find your way. Anything but the assistant manager at Taco Bell.

3. Occupy Your Job. Let's spend the winter organizing workplaces into unions. OR, if you already have a union, demand that your leaders get off their ass and get aggressive like our grandparents did. For chrissakes, surely you know we would not have a middle class if it weren't for the strikes of the 1930s-1950s?! In three weeks we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the workers in my hometown of Flint, Michigan taking over and occupying the General Motors factories for 44 days in the dead of winter. Their actions ignited a labor movement that lifted tens of millions out of poverty and into the middle class. It's time to do it again. (According to the Census Bureau and the New York Times, 100 million Americans either live in or near poverty. Disgraceful. Greed has destroyed the core fabric of our communities. Enough!) Here are two good unions to get your fellow workers to sign up and join: UE and SEIU. The CWA are also good. Here's how to get a quick primer in organizing your place of employment (don't forget to be careful while you do this!). If your company is threatening to close down and move the jobs elsewhere, then it's time to occupy the workplace (again, you can get a lesson in how to successfully occupy your factory from my movie).

4. Occupy Your Bank. This is an easy one. Just leave them. Move your checking and your credit card to a nonprofit credit union. It's safe and the decisions made there aren't based on greed. And if a bank tries to evict your neighbor, Occupy the local branch with 20 other people and call the press. Post it on the internet.

5. Occupy the Insurance Man. It's time to not only stand up for the 50 million without health insurance but to also issue a single, simple demand: The elimination of for-profit, privately-controlled health insurance companies. It is nothing short of barbaric to allow businesses to make a profit off people when they get sick. We don't allow anyone to make a profit when we need the fire department or the police. Until recently we would never allow a company to make a profit by operating in a public school. The same should be true for when you need to see a doctor or stay in the hospital. So I say it's long overdue for us to go and Occupy Humana, United Health, Cigna and even the supposed "nonprofit" Blue Crosses. An action on their lawns, in their lobbies, or at the for-profit hospitals -- this is what is needed.

So -- there are my ideas for the five places we can Occupy this winter. Help the foreclosed-upon to Occupy their homes. Occupy your college campus, especially the student loan office and the regents meetings. Occupy your job by getting everyone to sign a union card -- or by refusing to let the CEO ship your job overseas. Occupy your Chase or Citi or Bank of America branch by closing your account and moving it to a credit union. And Occupy the insurance company offices, the pharmaceutical companies' headquarters and the for-profit hospitals until the White House and Congress pass the true single-payer universal health care bill they failed to pass in 2010.

My friends, the rich are running scared right now. You need no further proof of this than to read this story from last week. The Republicans' top strategist met privately with them and told them that they had better change their tune or they were going to be crushed by the Occupy Wall Street movement. They didn't have to change their greedy actions, he assured them -- just the way they talk and PR the situation. He told them never to use the word "capitalism" -- it has now been made a dirty word by the Occupy movement, he said. Only say "economic freedom" from now on, he cautioned. And don't criticize the movement -- because the majority of Americans either agree with it or are feeling the same way. Just tell the Occupiers and the distressed Americans: "I get it." Seriously.

Yes, in just 12 short weeks we have killed their most sacred word -- Capitalism -- and we have them on the run, on the defensive. They should be. Millions are coming after them and our only goal is to remove them from power and replace them with a fair system that is controlled by the 99%. The 1% have been able to get both political parties to do their bidding. Why should only 1% of the population get to have two parties -- and the rest of us have none? That, too, is going to change. In my next letter, I will suggest what we can do to Occupy the Electoral Process. But first we must start with those who pull the strings of the puppets in the Congress. That's why it's called Occupy Wall Street. Always better to deal with man in charge, don't you think?

Let's Occupy the Winter! An #OWS Winter will certainly lead to a very hopeful American Spring.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com
@MMFlint
MichaelMoore.com

2011 Holiday TV Specials Calendar of Networks, Times

2011-12-04T22:58:00.002-05:00

2011 is turning out to be a sad year for the traditional Christmas television specials (especially the cartoons).

Time was, before the dominance of cable by the late 1980s, the animated stories could be seen on the three main commercial networks, ABC, CBS or NBC.

This year, overwhelmingly, the broadcasts are on ABC-Family or other cable companies. (This past Saturday, ABC Family broadcast "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas".)

That said, here are the up-coming Christmas specials on broadcast networks:
(already passed: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer CBS Nov 29, 8PM)

Frosty the Snowman CBS, Friday, Dec 9, 8PM

The Flight Before Christmas CBS, Saturday, Dec 10, 9PM

The Story of Santa Claus CBS, Saturday, Dec 17, 9PM

Saturday Night Live Presents: A Very Gilly Christmas NBC, Tuesday, Dec 20, 9PM

It's a Wonderful Life NBC, Saturday, Dec 24, 8PM

Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!, Dec 29, 8PM

source: "What the World is Looking for
Chiff.com Web Guide", http://www.chiff.com/home_life/holiday/christmas/whats-on-tv.htm.
I left out the holiday specials on cable networks. The above link lists the rest of the holiday specials, those being on the cable networks.

And from the San Jose Mercury News (http://www.mercurynews.com/entertainment/ci_19594253)
New Year's Eve celebrations -- So you can't make it to that big noisy, sweaty bash this year? No problem, you can party down on Saturday night from the comfort of your couch as TV rings in 2012. (Just remember to vacuum up the confetti in the morning.)
Among the festive telecasts is
"Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve With Ryan Seacrest 2012" (10 and 11:30 p.m., ABC), which has the guys celebrating with Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Florence + The Machine and others.
Meanwhile, on "New Year's Eve With Carson Daly" (10 and 11:30 p.m., NBC), our host is joined in Times Square by JB Smoove, Amy Robach and Drake.
In addition, there's "New Year's Eve Live With Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin" (11 p.m., CNN), featuring our favorite TV odd couple,
and "MTV's New Year's Eve Bash 2012" (11 p.m., MTV), hosted by Demi Lovato and "Teen Wolf" star Tyler Posey.

December 10: Stand For Freedom March in NYC

2011-11-24T11:12:00.000-05:00

December 10: Stand For Freedom March in NYC

This year, two-thirds of state legislatures (Southern AND Northern) have introduced laws that undermine the right to vote. Early voting and Sunday voting are under attack, photo ID requirements will introduce the first financial and document barrier to voting since the poll tax, and racially-motivated bans on ex-felons will wipe tens of thousands off the rolls.

This effort is unprecedented, it is coordinated, and it is targeted. African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, students, working men and women, seniors and immigrants of all colors will be disproportionately affected.

The right to vote is the heart of our democracy. Throughout our history Americans have been murdered for defending this basic human right. We will not let it be taken away from millions today.

IN NEW YORK CITY:
Join us on Saturday, December 10th—The United Nations’ Human Rights Day—to proclaim to America and the world:

It’s time to Stand for Freedom. We must protect our right to vote.

11 am: March from the NYC office of the Koch brothers, major funders of anti-voting rights measures, at 61st St. & Madison Ave, NYC.

12 noon: Rally at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, United Nations East 47th Street & 2nd Avenue, NYC

Over 32,000 rallied in NYC on Occupy Wall Street 2 month anniversary

2011-11-19T11:39:00.000-05:00

OccupyWallStreet.org reported in "November 17: Historic Day of Action for the 99% " yesterday (11/18/11) that over 32,000 people were in the marches and rallies in New York City on Thursday, November 17, 2011.
The New York City Police Department (NYPD) estimate was 32,500.
NY1.com television reported Thursday night that the Police Department made the crowd size estimates from its helicopter surveillance of the crowds. At Foley Square, by this writer, there were at least six helicopters in the sky.
The crowds for the anniversary of the start of the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park (Liberty Plaza) were in Union Square, Greenwich Village, Foley Square, the Financial District and the Brooklyn Bridge. Even though the march on the bridge was permitted, the NYPD arrested dozens on the bridge.
About 300 were arrested throughout the day.

Here is the DemocracyNow link for the November 17 coverage.
Huffington Post's coverage of OWS' return to Brooklyn Bridge.

Democratic Mayors, Govs, Repression Against Occupy Encampments

2011-11-12T09:35:00.001-05:00

While the pioneering Occupy encampment of the year, our Arab Spring in the autumn, has been Occupy Wall Street, in a city with a Republican mayor, Michael Bloomberg, Democratic mayors figure prominently in the cities with crack-downs today, this weekend, this month, against the Occupy encampments.

Occupy Portland, under Democratic mayor Sam Adams, facing an eviction order for midnight tonight, Saturday, November 12th.
His explanation:

Occupy has had considerable time to share its movement's messages with the public but has lost control of the camps it has created. The cost to the larger community is rapidly increasing. The city itself finds itself at a turning point. Thus, the city will soon temporarily close Lownsdale and Chapman Squares to the public to put an end to public safety, health and crime problems, and to repair the park land.

--From KDRV, http://kdrv.com/page/230337
--Actually, one can read a more balanced presentation (with lengthy, uninterrupted statements by an Occupy Portland representative, Jim Olver) at the PBS News Hour site from Veteran's Day, November 11: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/occupyportland_11-11.html

My position is this: sadly, with human nature there is often violence and unkempt decorum. Since when have cities demonstrated an absolute record of totally preventing crime and litter? The first amendment, with its guarantee of free speech and assembly, has no exemptions for the prerogatives for police power.
Is it not interesting that this weekend is seeing an almost simultaneous police enforcement of curfew laws / organized repression of free assembly and free speech?

Occupy Oakland, under Democratic mayor Jean Quan, facing police eviction notices: Oakland Tribune: http://www.insidebayarea.com/top-stories/ci_19319311

Occupy St. Louis, under Democratic mayor Francis Stay: a federal judge denied a request for a restraining order to allow them to stay in Kiener Plaza through this weekend: KMOV video: http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Occupy-St-Louis-protesters-given-3-pm-Friday-deadline-to-clear-out-Kiener-133651343.html

Occupy Dallas, under Democratic mayor Mike Rawlings, facing a Saturday eviction order as well, in spite of video showing that a police officer pushed a protestor from a planter: NBC DFW: http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/133717633.html

UPDATE: DEMOCRATIC GOVERNORS ALSO:
Occupy Albany: New York State governor Andrew Cuomo (Democrat) has insisted that an 11:00 PM curfew be enforced this evening (Saturday, November 12th) at state-owned Lafayette Park. Yet, Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares (admittedly, also a Democrat) has said that he will not prosecute peaceful violators of the curfew. (AP at: http://online.wsj.com/article/APaf6a39e0a44d4544b30a84a9cbf6287f.html)

See the scene across the United States at more occupy events at Free Speech TV: http://www.freespeech.org/blog/daily-occupy-report-111111

CORPORATE MEDIA, PARTIES, THE 99%
Have the politicians, police, media forgotten that issues such as wildly out of control CEO salaries, evisceration of progressive tax rates, wealth gaps unseen for a century, went unrecognized, unmentionable by the corporate media or wannabe populist politicians, until the Occupy Wall Street movement arrived on the scene.
Notice that these local and state governments are run by Democrats. Whose party are they? Are they facilitating free speech by people from the 99% Or, by their exclusion of protestors from public assembly, are they more accurately seen as the party of the 1%. Rich people and corporations have spaces in which they can assemble and discuss their views. Cannot the sub-0ne percent people have their own speech in public places of their choosing?

Joan Baez Occupy Wall Street Solidarity Concert, NYC's Foley Square, Veterans' Day, 2011

2011-11-12T01:17:00.000-05:00

Long time folk singer and peace activist Joan Baez gave a free concert on Veterans' Day, November 11, 2011. Occupy Wall Street Encampment/Zuccotti Park/Liberty Plaza to Foley Square.
The commercial media assiduously ignored the event, but contributors to youtube uploaded some of her great songs from the open air New York City concert:
Salt of the Earth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBDmEA6DmUE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT7dIsrhseI
Joe Hill: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh1z-E5RDhM
from another vantage point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7tKT1Pxl1Q
Her introduction to her songs and Where's My Apple Pie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L7YpwLt6Ss

What an AlterNet Correspondent Experienced When He Asked Asbout NYPD Tower Over OWS (Zuccotti Park)

2011-11-11T09:52:00.000-05:00

As the story at AlterNet
in "What Happened When I Tried to Get Some Answers About the Creepy NYPD Watchtower Monitoring OWS
There’s a metal monster looming over Liberty Square, but don’t ask questions about it or else. "
don't ask questions or else.

But there was something special about Officer Guzman. He wasn’t one of the 25 police officers I counted standing on the perimeter of Liberty Square that first wintery day. He wasn’t one of dozens more shooting the breeze with their partners inside a police van or sitting alone in a cruiser texting. Officer Guzman spent the day suspended in the air, two stories up, at the corner of Trinity Place and Liberty Street, inside a little metal box that goes by the name Sky Watch.
. . . .
“We have cameras for everything”
Officer Guzman seemed like the strong silent type. At least he looked strong. But what I can most vouch for was his silence. He preferred to let other officers speak for him.

Read on at the original article.

Website URLs for Weekend News Shows

2011-11-06T20:02:00.001-05:00

Missed the weekend (Sunday morning) news shows?:
ABC This Week with Christine Amanpour
alas, the previous sunday's episode: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/
CBS Face the Nation:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/ftn/
NBC Meet the Press:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/
PBS Washington Week in Review:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/
CNN Fareed Zakaria GPS:
podcasts (including video podcasts): http://rss.cnn.com/services/podcasting/fareedzakaria/rss
CNN Reliable Sources:
http://reliablesources.blogs.cnn.com/
MSNBC Weekends with Alex Wit:
unavailable

NIGHTIME SHOWS
CBS 60 Minutes: Full episodes: http://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/
60 Minutes Overtime: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

MSNBC Rachel Maddow: vlog stream:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/

PBS
Need to Know: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/

Bottles Thrown at Oakland Police, No Rationale for Tear Gas or Police Grenade Fired At Rescuers

2011-10-29T04:43:00.002-04:00

Video interview between protestor and MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell includes the claim that protestors, on Tuesday, October 25, had thrown bottles and rocks at the Oakland Police.
Acts of violence against the police are unacceptable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHlHiNEZ1wA&feature=player_embedded

However, it is unconscionable that the Oakland Police have fired tear gas at protestors. One protestor, Marine Corps veteran or two Iraq tours, Scott Olsen, was struck in the forehead with a tear gas canister fired by Oakland Police.

And it is further unconscionable that the police fired a live grenade at protestors that rushed to the aid of Olson after the attack by the police.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZLyUK0t0vQ

Authors: New Technology is Crowding Out Jobs for Real Humans

2011-10-28T06:39:00.000-04:00

Two authors say yes, definitely, to this question about jobs for people and new technology:

Are American workers in a race against the machine?
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/american-workers-race-against-machine-165318939.html

A Love Story: Pepper-Sprayed OWS Woman with Rescuer

2011-10-28T06:35:00.000-04:00

See this Daily News story for heart-warming news on how romance blossomed for the woman pepper-sprayed last month by Inspector Anthony Bologna in Union Square, with an assisting protester-medic:

Occupy Wall Street protester who was pepper-sprayed finds romance with fellow demonstrator:

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/10/26/2011-10-26_occupy_wall_street_protester_who_was_peppersprayed_finds_romance_with_fellow_dem.html

NYC's Mayor Bloomberg Outlawing Free Speech By Coming Cracking Down on Occupy Wall Street Speech

2011-10-22T02:38:00.000-04:00

SPEECH WITH A PERMIT IS NO FREE SPEECH AT ALL.
As this blog says, if permits are required to speak and assemble in public,
then there is no free speech.

We see this in action with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's second declaration of war against the Occupy Wall Street protestors at Zuccotti Park (aka Liberty Plaza).

In These Times, an independent left magazine publishing out of Chicago reported Friday afternoon,
Bloomberg Promises Crackdown on Occupy Wall Street"

The Mayor has declared himself "The State," akin to Louis XIV, with an entrenched commitment to the city's tradition of requiring permits for marches of more than 20 people.

The permit "must" --according to these monopolizers of power-- be obtained from the police department.
Here is the New York Police Department page on the rules of assembled free speech (permit application process).
Here is the actual application for collective free speech in motion (or a parade application).

SPEECH HAS A $25 FEE
If there is an assembly in a park, then there a $25 fee. There is precedence for this mayor's denying park assemblage even after an application. In 2004, on the occasion of the Republican National Convention, Mayor Bloomberg denied rally organizers' application.

ARRESTS ARE ON THE WAY
As In These Times noted:

The problem with these permits, of course, is that they can be denied or revoked for any reason, at any time. It makes the "disobedience" part of "civil disobedience" impossible by preempting any action.

"We will start enforcing that more," the mayor ominously stated when referring to the permits. The Post interpreted that as more arrests looming on the horizon.

MORE REPORTS IN THe NEWS:
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2011/10/21/live-blog-for-ows-day-35-bloomberg-says-occupiers-should-expect-crackdown/
COURT SUPPORT FOR ORGANIZED FREE SPEECH A THING OF THE PAST
As a commenter to the In These Times article added,

When we had rule of law and a functioning Republic, these permit processes and arbitrary denials were held to be unconstitutional. In Shuttlesworth versus Birmingham, the principle of rules for all or none was upheld. City officials can’t limit the rights of some and not others. They cannot arbitrarily set standards using “public safety” as a reason to limit our rights to gather.

The problem is that our courts, including the Supreme Court, are bought and paid for by the same plutocrats that control the Republican Democrat duopoly. Our public spaces are being privatized at alarming rates through gentrification. Privately controlled parks eliminate our Constitutional amendments/rights in one move.

Videos: 10/15 NYPD White Shirt Punching Protestor Only the Latest; List of Abuse Videos

2011-10-16T09:58:00.001-04:00

Videos: 10/15 NYPD White Shirt Punching Protestor Only the Lates

A New York City Police Department (NYPD) upper level ("white shirt") was publicized, in video shown on television news, punching a protestor, in the October 15, 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City, with the highest number of protestors in Times Square.
(I do not associate with comments by the video posters or comment contributors.)

Yet a search produces several instances of police officers punching people.

Here is a list, chronological, from oldest, to newest:
Dates in parentheses are (UPLOAD DATES).

NYPD cops punch girl in face on 9.24.2011 (aftermath of punching, purported victim is held and carried by her arms by arresting officers, while she pleads, "please take his badge"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIM6p8aEgLA

NYPD Caught On Camera Punching #OccupyWallStreet Protestor In The Face (9/28/11):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzke07SiwFs

NYPD Cop [white shirrt] punches [female] protester in the face during occupy wall street - 14 Oct: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZrv6FkoSbM

NYPD Cop [white shirt] Punches [female] Protester at Occupy Wall Street, 10/14/11 (3 min version):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZcJ31g0ScQ

#OWS Police Punch Protestors - March On Times Square (10/15/11):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa3f8-otGwY

HORSES USED AS WEAPONS!-Protesters document NYPD horses ramming in Times Sq. (10/15/11):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS2x7T926Z4

* * *
The most blatant of these police assaults is not yet available as a stand-alone video. This is a video currently being shown on the locally broadcast Times Warner cable channel NY1 (Video available!):

Updated 10/15/2011 05:16 PM
Two Dozen Arrests Made During "Occupy Wall Street" Protest, By: Erica Ferrari

Confrontations occurred between the police and protesters Friday. Violence was captured on video, as a high-ranking police officer could be seen punching a protester in the face. Another protester allegedly had his foot run over by an officer.

As such, police were out in full force Saturday, as protesters planned to march up to Times Square after gathering in Washington Square Park.

"We are going to enforce the law when it's violated," said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

Bloomberg, NYPD Set 10/14 Showdown w/ Occupy Wall St. (OWS) When 10/14, 7 AM Deadline Comes?

2011-10-13T18:03:00.010-04:00

CALL TO CLEAN PARK, 10/13; CALL TO MASS AT PARK AT 6:00 AM TO DEFEND THE PARK
NYC MAYOR SETS FRI., 7:00 AM EVICTION TIME
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is set to evict the protestors at 7:00 AM on October 14, 2011 from Zuccotti Park (nee & renamed Liberty Plaza). The ruse for this anticipated showdown between the New York City Police (NYPD) and the Occupy Wall Street protestors is to clean the park.

Occupy Wall Street has resolved to clean up the park in the night of Thursday, October 13. This afternoon it has begun carrying out its plan to beat the 7:00 AM deadline to encounter the NYPD's eviction of protestors.

It will be interesting to see whether the cleaning committees beat the deadlines and yet still see the aggressive police eviction of the protestors. Peer elsewhere on this blog's posts this month and you will see a Soylent Green still of protestors being scooped up.
We see the following so far:
New York Times: "Facing Eviction, Protesters Begin Park Cleanup" http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/told-to-leave-protesters-talk-pre-emptive-strategy/

From the Associated Press:
Publicity of a public call to defend the park at 6:00 AM:

The protesters' response was to plan a demonstration for an hour before they are supposed to evacuate Zuccotti Park while it is cleaned with power washers Friday morning. They believe the effort is an attempt to end the protest, which triggered a movement against unequal distribution of wealth that has spread across the globe.

Protest spokesman Patrick Bruner sent an email to supporters Thursday asking them to join the protesters at 6 a.m. Friday to "defend the occupation from eviction."

It this a Gulf of Tonkin type of Resolution ruse to provoke a confrontation with protestors and provoke a token violent response from a small number of protestors, and then to cast them in the media as violent, so as to set up semi-military police actions against the protestors

ARE THE NATION'S MAYORS COORDINATING?
In the same general week of Bloomberg's NYPD eviction of park
comes news (from "The Nation:" "The OccupyUSA Blog for Thursday, With Frequent Updates" blog by Greg Mitchell) of a Denver plan to forcibly evict its protestors:

3:40 Denver campers to be evicted, state governor states. “The governor made the announcement at a press conference with Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, who read out the law that forbids overnight camping. The three alluded that police action was imminent but provided no details. ‘We’ve been talking to the group every day since Monday,’ Hickenlooper said this morning. ‘And every time we’ve talked to them, we’ve told them it is illegal and unsafe to camp in the park.’ But the protesters, along with some homeless people who have sheltered in the park, have said they’re not going anywhere. ‘This is beyond the governor and the city,’ said James H. Andresen, 58, from New York City.

NYC Mayor Bloomberg Planning "Sweeping [OWS] Park" -Soylent Green Days of Occ Wall Street Battle?

2011-10-13T02:50:00.002-04:00

Image of police scooping protestors in the 1970s futurist, dystopian film, "Soylent Green."

Will Mew York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg engineer a Soylent Green showdown, or a back-handed approach to sweeping free speech protestors from Zuccotti Park [Liberty Plaza]?"

The peoples' cleanup, already begun.

Bloomberg Announces Zuccotti Park Cleanup While Meeting Protestors: Demonstrators Say Mayor Pulled A Fast One And Is Trying For A Clear Out

October 12, 2011 11:59 PM

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – Wall Street protestors are being told they will have to pack up and leave — at least temporarily. However, some activists are now accusing Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who personally stopped by Zuccotti Park on Wednesday, of dirty politics.

Greeted by a mix of cheers and jeers, Bloomberg ordered the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators to get out of of the plaza long enough for the area to be sanitized on Friday morning by Brookfield Properties.

However, protestors say the cleanup sounds more like a clear out.

After 26 days of food, trash and other debris piling up high for pickup or recycling, Bloomberg’s office said while protesters “have a right continue to protest…the last three weeks have created unsanitary conditions and considerable wear and tear on the park.”

“Like wear and tear on what? On marble and concrete? Like how do we wear and tear that?” asked Will Schneider.

Schneider is not alone in his skepticism of the mayor’s cleanup plan. Other occupants are also none too pleased about the his announcement and told CBS 2′s Derricke Dennis that they were keeping the area clean by themselves.

“We are working 24/7; we do not rest. We encourage cleanliness. We encourage everyone to take care of their belongings and pack it up neatly,” said Lauren DiGoria of Clifton, N.J.

Protesters said the city has been trying to get them to leave for weeks, and with this plan to clean the park in stages on Friday, many say there’s now a clever excuse.

But the owner of the park, Brookfield Office Management, claims the area has not been maintained. It wrote to Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, saying “conditions at the Park have deteriorated to unsanitary and unsafe levels.”

For video and more of the article, see the WCBS-TV site.

Echoes of Tompkins Square Park battles between police and squatters and protestors, in 1988, 1989, 1995.

See: Radio journalist Paul DeRienzo's site: http://pdr.autono.net/tapecat.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/05/03/nyregion/protest-in-tompkins-square-park-draws-300-officers-and-16-arrests.html
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/31/nyregion/riot-police-remove-31-squatters-from-two-east-village-buildings.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
The last reference: "Using a tanklike armored vehicle and carrying riot gear, hundreds of officers moved in . . ." --on squatters in city-owned buildings. Shades of Soylent Green?

Occupy Wall Street to Millionaires March to Tycoons

2011-10-11T07:15:00.002-04:00

PolitikerNY: "Occupy Wall Street Protesters Plan March on Mansions"

Occupy Chicago: Thousands Projected to Protest in Chicago, Much Reacting to Financial Conferences

2011-10-10T14:07:00.000-04:00

Today, Monday, October 10, 2011, thousands of protestors are projected to descend on downtown Chicago. It is anticipated to be one of the largest protests to date. Will it exceed the estimated 20,000 marching in New York City last Wednesday?

Reuters' report: Thousands expected at Chicago Financial Conference Protests

The official schedule of the protests, differing rally locations, according to the official Occupy Chicago website.

The Chicago Teachers Union is among organized labor that will be at the protest.

Day 17 Monday (10/10/2011) Schedule of Events:

10/10/2011
9am-12pm – Peacekeeper/Civil Disobedience Training (37 S. Ashland @Monroe/Ashland)
1:30pm – General Assembly (Jackson/Lasalle)
3:30pm – Student/Activist march departs for Balbo/Michigan (Jackson/Lasalle)
4:00pm – Meeting time for Take Back Chicago marches (See below)
4:45pm – Marches depart for the Art Institute (See below)
5:20pm – Marches converge (Art Institute of Chicago)
6:00pm – Take Back Chicago Rally finishes (Art Institute of Chicago)
7:00pm – General Assembly (Congress/Michigan in front of Horse Statue)
9:00pm – Occupation/Police Legal Training (Congress/Michigan Horse Statue)
10/11/2011
9:45am – March departs from Jackson and Lasalle (Destination to be determined)

see the original Occupy Chicago site for details on what these actions involve.

Occupy Wall Street September 30 General Assembly's Declaration and Resolution

2011-10-10T13:46:00.000-04:00

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.
They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press. They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.
They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.
They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts. *

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

Update 10/1/11 – Minor updates to some wording in the facts.

BREAKING: Washington Square Park Occupied; NYPD Midnight Showdown over 12 AM Curfew

2011-10-08T19:00:00.003-04:00

Occupy Wall Street Protestors have taken Washington Square Park, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York, NY.
The area is adjacent to New York University and is near Cooper Union and the New School, so the area is an attractive magnet for college students.
As NY1 and other minor news outlets point out, a potential showdown looms, as the park is closed for a midnight to 6:00 AM curfew.
Correction: Gothamist gives the curfew as 1:00 AM.
Will the New York City Police Department (NYPD) make this a scene of police brutality against protestors? Make your call: was the violence by night-stick batons, pepper-spray mace, tossing protestors head-first over a metal fence or scaffolding, or charging demonstrators with motorbikes, as shown on the videos on this page? Does the conduct of the officers evince the NYPD's motto of Courtesy, Professionalism and Respect?

Gothamist has live stream video from the protest. As one can see from the Gothamist site, the NYPD wagons are ready.
Excerpt from Gawker.com posting:

Occupy Wall Street Expands to Washington Square Park

Occupy Wall Street is growing! The demonstration, entering its fourth week, has gotten a little too big for Zuccotti Park downtown; today, at around 3 p.m., it founded another encampment in Washington Square Park (they're holding a General Assembly right now).

In most senses it's a smart move: Washington Square Park is a lot bigger than Zuccotti, and it's in a neighborhood dominated by NYU, so they'll have a steady supply of college kids. And the food is much better in the Village, too. (Also: chess boards!) But, as with everything Occupy Wall Street, it's unclear exactly what the plan is; Washington Square Park is a public park (Zuccotti is privately owned but publicly accessible), and theoretically protesters won't be allowed to stay past sunset. One representative told the Post that the group didn't plan on testing the curfew, but another says they "plan to stay... and form a second permanent occupation."

The Whole World is Uploading!: Masked NYPD Charge OWSers with Motorbikes

2011-10-08T17:09:00.000-04:00

The Whole World is Uploading!

The revolution began; the NYPD began the counter-revolution!
Police brutality by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).

See the Youtube video, embedding, uploaded at right:
Posted, Thursday, October 6, 2011, by TrutherTube2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9IK-hSbbi4&feature=related

Al Arabiya: Wall Street protesters fed up with both parties

2011-10-08T15:38:00.001-04:00

Al Arabiya, October 7, 2011, which picked up story from AP and photo from Reuters

Wall Street protesters fed up with both parties

Despite plans by U.S. President Barack Obama to push for a $443 billion jobs plan that would be paid partly through a tax on the wealthy, Americans are protesting the growing disparity between the rich and poor in the country. (Photo by Reuters)
By AP
New York

Their chief target is Wall Street, but many of the demonstrators in New York and across the U.S. also are thoroughly disgusted with Washington, blaming politicians of both major parties for policies they say protect corporate America at the expense of the middle class.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, which began last month with a small number of young people pitching a tent in front of the New York Stock Exchange, has expanded nationally and drawn a wide variety of activists, including union members and laid-off workers. Demonstrators marched Thursday in Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and Anchorage, Alaska, carrying signs with slogans such as “Get money out of politics” and “I can’t afford a lobbyist.”

“At this point I don’t see any difference between George Bush and Obama. The middle class is a lot worse than when Obama was elected,” said John Penley, an unemployed legal worker from Brooklyn.

The protests are in some ways the liberal flip side of the conservative, anti-tax tea party movement, which was launched in 2009 in a populist reaction against the bank and auto bailouts and the $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

But while tea party activists eventually became a crucial part of the Republican coalition, the Occupy Wall Street protesters are cutting President Barack Obama little slack. They say Obama failed to crack down on the banks after the 2008 mortgage meltdown and financial crisis.

“He could have taken a much more populist, aggressive stance at the beginning against Wall Street bonuses, and exacting certain change from bailing out the banks,” said Michael Kazin, a Georgetown University history professor and author of “American Dreamers,” a history of the left. “But ultimately, the economy has not gotten much better, and that's underscored the frustration on both the right and the left.”

Obama on Thursday acknowledged the economic insecurities fueling the nearly 3-week-old Wall Street protests. But he pinned responsibility on the financial industry and on congressional Republicans he says have blocked his efforts to kick-start job growth.

“I think people are frustrated and the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works,” he said at a nationally televised news conference. “The American people understand that not everybody has been following the rules, that Wall Street is an example of that ... and that's going to express itself politically in 2012 and beyond.”

The president has been pushing for a $443 billion jobs plan to be paid for in part through a tax on the wealthy. Republicans have resisted such tax increases.

Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have criticized the anti-Wall Street protests. All the Republican contenders have also pushed back against the demonization of Wall Street. They accuse the Obama administration of setting regulatory policies that have stifled job creation and say his health care overhaul will prevent many businesses from hiring new workers.

In Zuccotti Park, the center of the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, activists expressed deep frustration with the political gridlock in Washington. While some blamed Republicans for blocking reform, others singled out Obama.

“His message is that he’s sticking to the party line, which is “we are taking care of the situation’ But he’s not proposing any solutions,” said Thorin Caristo, an antiques store owner from Connecticut.

But Robert Arnow, a retired real estate worker, said the Republicans need to tell their congressional leaders, “You’re standing in the way of change.”

Quayzy Cayusso, a Web designer, didn’t watch Obama’s news conference even though it was broadcast on TV monitors at the protest site in New York.

“He’s a cool president, but he was given a hard task,” Cayusso said. “He should get some gratitude for what he’s done so far, but he’s been overlooking jobs and not putting much effort into that until now.”

Al Arabiya, October 7, 2011, which picked up story from AP and photo from Reuters

OWS Pop-Up Art Show Set for Sat. 10/8/11, 3-9, at 23 Wall Street, NYC

2011-10-08T11:25:00.002-04:00

From an email:

I am writing to invite you to a remarkable moment. Protest artists from all over the city - and the world - have converged onto #LibertyPlaza. You've seen their vast collage of signs, tshirts, video projections and more. Now it's time to take them to Wall Street:

On Saturday, Oct. 8, for 6 hours only, Wall Street will be occupied with art. Not profiteering or credit default swaps. Not disenfranchising The 99% to prop up an unaccountable elite that peddles in influence over our schools, neighborhoods and public spaces. Just art. #OccupyArt.

The site of this magnificent exhibit couldn't be more symbolic: the historic JP Morgan House, gutted and left for years to decay as our financial system collapsed. Inside 23 Wall Street, steps from the world's largest stock exchange, another exchange is happening. A peaceful, non-destructive exchange of creative ideas.

Please come join us from 3-9pm at 23 Wall St. as we, the occupiers of Wall Street, exhibit #NoComment: a pop-up art show inspired by the #OccupyWallStreet movement.

See also these links:
http://www.nocommentartshow.com/
An art show will appear at 23 Wall Street, opposite the New York Stock Exchange:
http://occupywallst.org/article/no-comment-art-exhibit-inspired-occupy-wall-street/
excerpt from the above:

A fledgling arts community has sprung up in the niche world of Occupy Wall Street, showcasing musicians, dancers, visual artists and spoken word performers, not to mention the thousands of words and pictures that have emerged from the weeks of protest.

“It’s really only a matter of time before a New York Times culture reporter comes down here,” protester Paolo Mastrangelo told Raw Story about the virtual artist’s colony the protest has become. “People show their art, the whole park is a stage, there’s a library, people play music and recite poetry. It’s only a matter of time before there’s a feature on the front page of the Times art section.”

Indeed, a pop-up gallery hosting art inspired by Occupy Wall Street, called “No Comment,” will open across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. Twelve removable, graffiti-covered walls will surround the gallery and then will be displayed near the protest’s heart at Zuccotti Park.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/10/06/occupy-wall-street-fights-vampire-squid-bankers-with-art/

Occupy Wall Street Spreads to Nationally (Other Cities): Over 850 Cities

2011-10-08T07:17:00.001-04:00

Occupy Wall Street movement spreads, to 847 cities: Democracy Now: U.S. "Occupy" Movement Grows as Protests Reported in 847 Cities; Obama Notes "Frustration": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEVxmTfoLU4

Alternet placed the movement in 853 cities: "99% vs. 1% -- The Latest on Occupy Wall St. Movement: 853 Cities Across the World Shoring Up for the Long Haul": http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/676648/99_vs._1_--_the_latest_on_occupy_wall_st._movement:_853_cities,_report_from_the_ground_in_nyc,_occupy_providence_plans_set/

Comprehensive list follows: NOTE scheduled for for upcoming protests.

Occupy Ashland, OR continues: http://www.dailytidings.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20111007/NEWS/110070314/-1/NEWSMAP

Ongoing Occupy Portland, OR continues, (Friday, 10/7 report) through weekend, with protestors camping in Lownsdale Park; apparent schedule conflicts with Portland marathon being worked out: http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/occupy-wall-street-hartford-protest-131346368.html
Thousands marched on Thursday, 10/6, photos and video: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/10/occupy_portland_holds_massive.html

Occupy Seattle, WA, marched Friday, 10/7, despite mayor's directive: http://www.kirotv.com/news/29418238/detail.html
police violence video: Police Turn Violent At Occupy Seattle Protest!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfnVgK5Q4_o&feature=related

Occupy San Francisco, CA, protest march: Wednesday, 10/5, drew 800: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/06/MN121LDU5B.DTL
camp broken up in midnight hours, very early Thursday, 10/6: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/07/BAFA1LECD5.DTL
video of force used by police: Police Brutality at Occupy SF encampment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g-XMxKTiww

Occupy Los Angeles, CA, ongoing, growing, This weekend, Occupy Los Angeles could gain even more traction. A music festival is scheduled to take place on Saturday at noon at City Hall, and additional actions are expected., scheduled for Saturday, 10/8: http://santamonica.patch.com/articles/smc-students-helping-occupy-los-angeles

Occupy San Diego, CA, marched Friday, 10/7: http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/131294549.html

Occupy Tucson, AZ, scheduled for Saturday, 10/15: http://www.kvoa.com/news/occupy-tucson-rally-scheduled/

Occupy Denver, CO, Friday, 10/7, rapper Lupe Fiasco stopped Occ Denver: http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2011/10/lupe_fiasco_occupy_denver.php

Occupy Dallas, TX (10/6): Occupy Dallas Day One Part 1 of 2 - UNN Newsroom with Alex Ansary:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq225MN7uvU&feature=related

Occupy Houston, TX (10/6): Civil Rights era protestor leads spiritual song: Occupy Houston spiritual: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UufJlQZTqz4

Occupy Chicago, IL (10/7): Two weeks in, Occupy Chicago Is Gaining Momentum: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-williams/two-weeks-in-occupy-chica_b_1000574.html
Occupy Chicago protest march scheduled for Saturday 10/8: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/143f1ee3c080446a963411da09a47431/IL--Occupy-Chicago-Anti-War-Rally/

Occupy Detroit: organizational meeting scheduled for Monday, 10/10, occupation to begin, 10/21: http://www.heritage.com/articles/2011/10/07/ann_arbor_journal/news/doc4e8f557205c1c526554023.txt

Occupy Cincinatti, scheduled for Saturday, 10/8, to rally at 11:00 AM at Lytle Park and march to Fountain Square: http://communitypress.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20111007/NEWS0108/110080321/At-least-500-expected-Occupy-Cincinnati-?odyssey=nav|head

Occupy Cleveland, OH Friday, 10/7: http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2011/10/occupy_cleveland_supporters_se.html

Occupy DC (Washington, DC), Thursday, 10/6: rally at Freedom Plaza: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/occupy-dc-protesters-rally-in-freedom-plaza/2011/10/06/gIQATeeLQL_story.html

Occupy Nashville, TN, Friday, 10/7, with VIDEO: http://www.insidevandy.com/drupal/node/18045
Occupy Nashville, Knoxville, Memphis, Wednesday, 10/5: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2011/oct/05/occupy-wall-street-spinoffs-coming-knoxville-nashv/

Occupy Atlanta, GA: Woodruff Park, Friday, 10/7: http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/occupy-atlanta-draws-newcomers-1196718.html

Occupy Miami, FL: protest scheduled for Saturday, 10/8, at the Torch of Friendship, in Downtown Miami's Bayfront Park, at 1:30 p.m: http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/21005570127679/occupy-wall-street-movement-expands-to-so-fla/

Occupy Ft. Meyers, FL, organizational meeting scheduled for Saturday, 10/9: http://www.winknews.com/Local-Florida/2011-10-07/Occupy-Ft-Myers-Holds-Meeting-Sat-Night

Occupy Boca Raton, FL and Occupy Lake Worth, FL: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/occupy-groups-emerge-on-south-floridas-political-left-1897449.html

Occupy Philadelphia, PA, scheduled for Saturday, 10/8: "The "Let Freedom Ring" march will start off from Dilworth Plaza, next to city hall, at 2:30 p.m. and end at the Liberty Bell site on historic Independence Mall.": http://www.myfoxphilly.com/dpp/news/local_news/Occupy_Philly_Plans_March_To_Liberty_Bell_100711

Occupy Atlantic City, NJ, at the Bank of America branch on New Road and Bethel Road in Somers Point, scheduled for Sunday, 10/9, 3 PM: http://www.atlanticcityweekly.com/news-and-views/Occupy-Wall-Street-Comes-to-South-Jersey-131350508.html Contact: 609 442 2407 or 609-675 6322, occupysouthjersey@yahoo.com

Occupy Hartford, CT, Friday, 10/7: http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/occupy-wall-street-hartford-protest-131346368.html

Occupy Boston, MA and Occupy Wall Street, New York, NY, Friday 10/7: Ivy League professors speak to anti-Wall Street protesters: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/07/us-usa-wallstreet-protests-idUSTRE7966BO20111007

Occupy Maine (Portland): in two different location bases: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2011/10/occupy_portland_holds_massive.html

"The New York Times" began its reportage with a series of derisive articles. It is beginning to tone down the contempt: Occupy Anytown, U.S.A., Thursday, 10/6: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/06/occupy-anytown-u-s-a/

Contrary to what some in the corporate media are saying (illustrated by Noami Klein on Democracy Now, 10/6, regarding debut of Erin Burnett's glib dismissal of the movement), the protests do have objectives, see this post at the Washington Post: What Occupy DC wants: Less corporate money in politics: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-occupy-dc-wants-less-corporate-money-in-politics/2011/10/03/gIQAgUj4IL_blog.html

New Videos: 10/5, 9/24 NYPD Violence vs. Protestors

2011-10-07T04:50:00.002-04:00

At right I have posted some of the best (? --maybe, most blatant) examples of New York Police Department violence against protestors in the Wall Street area on the evening of October 5 and Union Square on September 24.

Many of these videos were from a late October 5, 2011 post by Jason Cherkis, "Occupy Wall Street: Video Allegedly Shows NYPD Officer Striking Protesters With Baton (Photos)"

MEDIA CROWD ESTIMATES GROSSLY UNDERESTIMATED
I was at this demonstration/ march. Media estimates Wednesday (10/5) night put the crowd size at 5,000 people. I would say that 20,000 was more likely the number of protestors on the march route from Foley Square to Zuccotti Park (renamed Liberty Plaza). The march sponsored by several New York City unions (ATU, CWA, SEIU, TWU, NNU and at late, the UFT) was scheduled for 4:30 from Tweed Courthouse (the City Education Department headquarters). It actually began moving south from the Square at about 5:30. Crowds did not finish reaching Zuccotti Park until around 8:00 PM.

Here is the link for an excellent report by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez at Democracy Now, "Occupy Wall Street March Gets Massive Turnout; 28 Arrested in Police Crackdown"

The lede to the story includes reports of protests across the United States, including Seattle and San Francisco.

Occupy Wall Street actions beyond NYC

2011-10-02T23:52:00.000-04:00

Occupy SF, 10/1.

Occupy Chicago --Fed Reserve, 10/2.

Los Angeles City Hall, 10/2.

Occupy Albuqerque, 10/1.

Occupy Miami, Bayfront Park, 10/1.

Occupy Boston, Dewey Square, 10/2. and http://www.tuftsdaily.com/occupy-boston-gathers-crowd-pushes-for-grassroots-social-change-1.2642350

Arrests of 700 Occupy Wall Streeters on Bridge; NYC Mayor Bloomberg Says Protestors Victimize Bankers; Implies Protest Will End Soon

2011-10-02T17:20:00.003-04:00

(Soylent Green days coming? See bottom half of this post.)
The Guardian of Manchester, of the United Kingdom, Saturday night (10/1/11) wrote of the arrest that day of more than 700 protestors in New York City. They were arrested while blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge is about six-tenths of a mile north of the Occupy Wall Street staging ground of Zuccotti Park/Liberty Plaza.
"Occupy Wall Street protesters arrested on Brooklyn Bridge
Hundreds held by NYPD – including New York Times journalist – after attempted march across bridge ends in chaos"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/02/occupy-wall-street-protesters-brooklyn-bridge?newsfeed=true
OWS protester gave an account of the arrest procedure . . . ENTRAPMENT INVOLVED? DAILY KOS VIDEO LINK FOLLOWS THIS OWS PROTESTER ACCOUNT.
{First hand account of this blogger speaking with OWS protester: the white shirt New York City Police Department (NYPD) higher officials were the main ones doing the arresting. [UPDATE: New York Times report on White Shirts' role.] The protester said that the many of the blue shirt police officers, particularly at the Manhattan side of the protest, were in support of the protesters . . . . The arrest was accomplished by closing off the crowd from both the Manhattan and the Brooklyn ends of the bridge. Then the enclosed or detained protesters were place under arrest. The arresting officers walked the line to arrest all of the protesters detained. Did the NYPD entrap the protesters? There were reports that some NYPD officers split the crowd that was approaching the bridge from the Manhattan end. By this account, the NYPD steered some protesters onto the main pedestrian walk, and they steered some others onto the traffic causeway. If this is so, the protesters' walk-on-the-causeway action was a case of entrapment.}
Daily Kos on October 2 offered this video, making case for entrapment interpretation of Brooklyn Bridge 700 arrest: "Best Video Yet: Brooklyn Bridge NYPD Entrapment!"

Think Progress: "Mayor Bloomberg Claims ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Protesters Are Targeting Bankers Who ‘Are Struggling To Make Ends Meet’" http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/09/30/333038/mayor-bloomberg-wall-street-make-ends-meet/

Bloomberg Implies Occupy Wall Street Protest's Days Are Numbered
http://gothamist.com/2011/09/30/bloomberg_implies_wall_street_prote.php

Mayor Bloomberg made some ominous comments today about the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests that have been going on for nearly two weeks in Zuccotti Park. When he was asked on his weekly radio show whether he'll let the anti-corporate protesters stay as long as they want, he responded cryptically: "We'll see. People have a right to protest, but we also have to make sure that people who don't want to protest can go down the streets unmolested."
"We have to make sure that while you have the right to say what you want to say, people who want to say something very different have a right to say that as well," the mayor told WOR radio host John Gambling. Zuccotti Park is privately owned, but Bloomberg said the park must remain open to the public because of an agreement the owners struck with the city years ago to win zoning code changes. And there's also sanitation to worry about: "The right to protest is part of our culture. It's also true that there are other societal concerns. You're worried about sanitation and you're worried about lots of different laws on the books."
In general, Bloomberg has not had much sympathy for the protesters since they took over the square, despite the fact he predicted something like this would happen. The billionaire criticized them today for a lack of nuance in their arguments, and accused them of targeting the wrong people: "The protesters are protesting against people who make $40,000, $50,000 year and are struggling to make ends meet." He also added, "Those are the people that work on Wall Street in the finance sector...If the banks don't go out and make loans, we will not come out of our economic problems. We will not have jobs."

===============================================

Here we have a clip from the 1970s film "Soylent Green." Protestors are being scooped to be put in the body of a dumpster garbage truck. Is that the plan New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has for the Occupy Wall Street protestors at Zuccotti Park?

Wall Street protests spread to other cities - Americas - Al Jazeera English

2011-10-01T18:41:00.001-04:00

Wall Street protests spread to other cities - Americas - Al Jazeera English --Saturday, October 1, 2011.

Friday, September 30, 2011:
And here is yesterday's Al Jazeera English story "U.S. anti-corporate movement expands: The Occupy Wall Street protest movement spreads to other cities and gains big-name supporters" on the spread of the protests to other United States cities. Article includes photos and video of other personalities, such as Cornell West, to have joined the protests.

Unions Rally to Wall Street Occupation | Labor Notes

2011-10-01T08:00:00.000-04:00

Unions Rally to Wall Street Occupation | Labor Notes.
It is great to see that labor is supporting the Occupy Wall Street protestors. The struggles are one.

Demo 9/30 at NYPD (NYC) Police Plaza HQ, Against Brutality, In Solidarity with Wall Street Protestors

2011-09-29T13:15:00.000-04:00

Demonstrate Friday, September 30, 5:30 to 7:00 PM, at One Police Plaza Headquarters of the New York Police Department (NYPD of New York City) (pass through the Municipal Building arches, opposite City Hall which is on the other side of Park Row. Take 4, 5, 6, J or Z trains.) (Need examples of the brutality? Just see the videos I uploaded or linked here earlier this week.)
Against Police Brutality and in Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street Protestors
From protest announcement:

We the undersigned condemn recent police attacks against the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations underway in Lower Manhattan. The NYPD has:

- pepper sprayed people in custody
- violently arrested non violent demonstrators
- curtailed the expressive activities of demonstrators in Liberty Square [renamed from Zuccotti Park --Ed.]

All of this is part of a long standing practice of the NYPD to make public protest extremely difficult, unpleasant, and even dangerous.

Join us in calling for an end to police repression of protests in New York, and to support the ongoing Occupy Wall Street demonstration.

Bring signs and soapboxes/milkcrates

NYPD Investigates 9/24 Mace Cop Bologna

2011-09-29T11:00:00.006-04:00

Scroll to bottom for pepper-spray health hazards and human rights organizations' condemnation of pepper-spray.
The New York Police Department (New York City Police) has announced on Wednesday, September 28, 2011 that its Internal Affairs office is investigating the activities of a high-ranking, white collar officer, Anthony Bologna. (UK Guardian story, posted late Wednesday afternoon, "Occupy Wall Street: inquiries launched as new pepper-spray video emerges".) The photo identifying Captain Bologna has him with his arm extended for a second pepper spray attack. (In a VIDEO of the second attack we do not see whether the woman in grey to his immediate left gets sprayed.)

This is FOUR days after Captain Anthony Bologna's pepper spray (macing) attack on Saturday September 24 in Union Square on peaceful unarmed protestors, some trapped inside an orange plastic net, was captured on cellphone cameras, videocams and digital cameras, and uploaded the same day on the Internet. After netting the women in the plastic-netted area, Captain walked into a small crowd on one section of sidewalk, and rotated and pepper-sprayed a swath of protestors in a second pepper spray attack.
The Activism site at Suite 101 added: "New York women had been corralled into a mesh pen, when a senior police officer gassed them with capsicum spray. Human rights groups decry the practice.
Read more at Suite101: Occupy Wall Street: Pepper Spray Used on Protesting US Women | Suite101.com

That night, some corporate media news outlets, including WABC-TV (channel 7), broadcast claims of police attacks.

How do they need an investigation? His acts are right there on video.

UPDATE:
Guardian UK reported 9/26: "Occupy Wall Street: 'Pepper-spray' officer named in Bush protest claim: Anthony Bologna, NYPD [captain rank] officer named in pepper-spray incident, is accused of civil rights violations at the time of the 2004 Republican national convention protests".

* * *
Pepper-spray dangers and human rights organizations' condemnation of pepper-spray, from American Suite 101:

What is Pepper Spray?

Pepper spray is a common term for a chemical agent based around Oleoresin Capsicum. The components explain its other names of OC gas or OC spray. Others know it as Mace, by the trademark of its main manufacturer, Mace Security International. Some versions may also contain tear gas.

As a lachrymatory agent, pepper spray attacks the corneal nerves in the victim's eyes. This causes pain and temporary blindness, lasting up to thirty minutes. Where it touches the skin, a burning sensation can be felt for up to an hour. It is impossible not to inhale it, which results in upper body spasms and coughing. In a healthy person, there can be difficulty breathing for around a quarter of an hour.
Pepper Spray Can Kill in Certain Situations

Click for original document for pepper spray fatalities discussion.

"Occupy Together" Takes Occupation Wall Street National; Find YOUR Local Big City

2011-09-29T10:12:00.001-04:00

Occupy Together (http://occupytogether.org/) is a hub for people taking the Occupy Wall Street national,
to a range of big cities across the continental United States.

Here are cities with protests developing:

MIDWEST
Occupy Chicago
Occupy Cincinnati
Occupy Cleveland
Occupy Columbus
Occupy Indiana
Occupy Indianapolis
Occupy Kansas City
Occupy Michigan
Occupy Minnesota
Occupy OKC
Occupy Omaha
Occupy OSU (Stillwater)
Occupy St. Louis
Occupy Tulsa
Occupy Wisconsin
Occupy Yougstown

NORTHEAST
Occupy Binghamton
Occupy Boston
Occupy D.C.
Occupy Hartford, CT
Occupy Maine
Occupy New Haven
Occupy New Jersey
Occupy Philadelphia
Occupy Pittsburgh
Occupy Providence, RI
Occupy Rochester
Occupy Vermont

SOUTHEAST
Occupy Arkansas
Occupy Birmingham, AL
Occupy Charlotte
Occupy Clarksville, TN
Occupy Columbus, GA
Occupy Daytona Beach
Occupy Durham
Occupy Florence, SC
Occupy Greensboro, GA
Occupy Jacksonville, FL
Occupy Knoxville
Occupy Lexington, KY
Occupy Louisville
Occupy Memphis
Occupy Miami
Occupy Mississippi
Occupy Nashville
Occupy New Orleans
Occupy Orlando
Occupy Richmond, VA
Occupy Tallahassee
Occupy Tampa
Occupy Winston Salem

SOUTHWEST
Occupy Albuquerque
Occupy Austin
Occupy Dallas
Occupy Houston
Occupy Phoenix
Occupy San Antonio
Occupy Tucson

WEST
Occupy Boise
Occupy Colorado Springs
Occupy Denver
Occupy Eugene
Occupy Las Vegas
Occupy Los Angeles
Occupy Olympia
Occupy Portland
Occupy Sacramento
Occupy Salt Lake City
Occupy San Diego
Occupy San Francisco
Occupy San Jose
Occupy Santa Cruz
Occupy Seattle
Occupy Spokane

Unconfirmed: 100 NYPD Officers Refusing to Work, in Support of Occupy Wall Street Protestors

2011-09-29T10:10:00.000-04:00

There are unconfirmed reports (from http://www.in5d.com/over-100-nypd-officers-refuse-to-work-in-support-of-occupy-wall-street.html) that:

a growing movement of New York City Police Department officers are banding together with the Occupy Wall Street movement, while the main stream media continues to relatively ignore this escalating event.

The Occupy Wall Street movement issued the following statement on their website:
"Today we received unconfirmed reports that over one hundred blue collar police refused to come into work in solidarity with our movement. These numbers will grow. We are the 99 percent. You will not silence us."

At this point this is an Internet rumor. We need corroborating details, confirmation.

This could be a matter of police not wanting to be identified on cellphone cameras, doing any mischief.

Occupy Wall Street Resources; Russell Simmons, Susan Sarandon Join Protests

2011-09-29T00:26:00.004-04:00

(SCROLL DOWN for directory of Wall Street protests resources)
From Mogulite, also the source for the above photo; Simmons is sitting on right, eyes closed or gazing down.
(Scroll below Simmons for Susan Sarandon story.)

Who’s that sitting right there with the determined Occupy Wall Street protesters (or meditators, rather)? It’s Russell Simmons.

Just a quick question. Do these very non-violent protesters have any idea what Simmons is worth? $340 million. Do they know that he wrote a book about how to get rich? Really, it’s called Super Rich: A Guide to Having It All.

Apparently Simmons forgot a bunch of these facts too, as he’s suddenly decided to join the Occupy Wall Street protesters, who are protesting the uneven distribution of wealth (or something like that, they’re not quite sure either). Though we thought at first that the devoted yogi just wanted to get his zen on, he actually (strangely enough) seems committed to the cause. He wrote the following explanation on his website Global Grind:

“Today I will join in solidarity the peaceful protesters at Liberty Plaza in New York City who are “Occupying Wall Street.”

For far too long in this country we have allowed the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.

I believe in a nation where everyone gets a fair share of the fruits of our labor and where everyone pays a fair share for what they receive.

I am asking the United States government to raise my taxes and not allow the Republicans to use this economic recession as an opportunity to strip the basic programs that protect our most vulnerable.

Lastly, I am demanding that the big banks and corporations stop unduly influencing our government to make decisions that are not in the best interest of the majority of our citizens.

We need to re-examine our whole American political system that allows corporations and their lobbyists to rule over the people.”

Susan Sarandon at Occupy Wall Street, Christian Sci. Monitor, 9/28/11, "Susan Sarandon lends star power to Wall Street protests: Susan Sarandon joins Wall Street protests to 'educate' herself. Visits by Sarandon and other high-profile activists are helping 'Occupy Wall Street' gain attention"

OCCUPY WALL STREET RESOURCES
From DemocraticUnderground.com:
"Occupy Wall Street resources. With list of states & cities."
(Keep updating this notice for new organizing notices for this weekend and next week: http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2015441

Daily updates, links for donations, and an agenda calender. Also, chat, forum, photos & conference.
OccupyWallSt.org
https://occupywallst.org /
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=144937025580428
Twitter
http://twitter.com/#!/search?q=%23occupywallstreet

Adbusters, the group that originally called this action.
http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/occupywallstreet
Twitter
https://twitter.com/#!/OccupyWallStNYC

OccupyTogether.org
A Great Resource For Finding Info About Sister Occupations And Protests
With a caveat... Please scroll down the page to see links to ongoing and organizing cities When you open the site a few actions are highlighted on the right but a comprehensive list is down a bit further. Links on the list take you to your local organizing committee sites.
http://occupytogether.org /

The Dissenter live blogging every day at Fire Dog Lake
http://dissenter.firedoglake.com /

Roar Magazine, Reflections of a Revolution
Commentary, links and updates from actions around the world.
http://roarmag.org /
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/roarmag

US Day of Rage: http://www.usdayofrage.org/help-us-organize-or-participate.html

Twitpic sharing photos of the revolution
http://twitpic.com/tag/occupywallst?page=1

Live streams
http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

Video: Michael Moore (in Fin'l Dist.) joins Barr and Olbermann as Major Figures for Occupy Wall Street Protestors; 2 Days After Police Violence

2011-09-27T00:11:00.004-04:00

ZUCCOTTI PARK AND UNION SQUARE SHAPE UP AS NEW YORK'S TAHRIR SQUARE!

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore joined Occupy Wall Street Protestors at Zuccotti Park, just blocks north of Wall Street, on the evening of Monday, September 26, 2011.
Go to lower half of article for coverage of Saturday, Sept. 24 protests and New York Police Department violence against protestors.

Video is available in this link. The audio is frustrating, owing to the ban on megaphones. The audience responds with a repeated response, akin to that of a religious congregation repeating a prayer.
The key parts of Moore's statement:

"100 years from now people will remember that you came down to this plaza and started this movement." He said, surrounded by protesters echoing it all. "Thank you very much. I am honoured to be in your presence."

At another point he said,

"I'm so impressed by what I see here. You have done something very historic and very important. It had to happen somewhere, it might as well be here."
"I want to see the people responsible for destroying the lives of millions of people in handcuffs; and led away to justice."

Transcription from Suite101.

Earlier in the week Roseanne Barr gave a rousing supportive speech on September 17, Day 1 of the protests. (See previous blog post on this blog.)

And Keith Olbermann on September 21 criticized the mainstream media for blacking out the hot story of the intense street protests of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

* * * *

Desperate late capitalism unraveling: NYPD brutality against peaceful Free Speech protestors on Day 8 of Occupy Wall Street Protests

Saturday, September 24, 2011 New York Police Department officers got brutal against protestors in New York City's Union Square, which is just north of Greenwich Village.

Highlights, or low-lights, are
*police dragging people in connection to arrests (especially see 3:28 on the video): See "Sharpest 11:41."
*WABC-TV news coverage of the brutality
*NYPD macing or pepper-spraying women protestors. Note how the positions of woman keeled over, screaming (at 1:01), is reminiscent of the 1970 Kent State University protests over the Vietnam War.

Health Facts on Five Milk Alternatives

2011-09-25T18:22:00.000-04:00

Brittany Risher, "Milk, Minus the Cow" August 25, 2011

Are those new alternatives better than old-fashioned cow's milk?

Compare the alternatives:
Almond
Coconut
Hemp, that's right, hemp
Rice
Soy

What happened? They left out Oat milk.

The full story at Yahoo News.

Researchers Link Deaths to Social Ills

2011-09-23T16:36:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reported this summer,
social ills, such as poverty and discrimination can be as dangerous to a person's health as smoking and obesity.

Read on, the Times story by Nicholas Bakalar, from July 4, 2011

He cites an article from The American Journal of Public Health.

NYC Cop Muzzles Free Speech at Day 4 of Wall Street Protest

2011-09-21T00:17:00.000-04:00

On Tuesday, September 20, Day 4 of street protests at Wall Street turned tense as New York Police Department police arrested man with megaphone on Broadway, adjacent to Wall Street, near the Lexington Avenue 4 and 5 line Wall Street Station. Click to this link or watch the video at the right.

NYC radical political economists meeting: Oct. 1, 2011

2011-09-21T00:12:00.001-04:00

Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) 2011 Conference:
The War on the Working Class, meeting at St. Francis College, in Brooklyn Heights

October 1, 2011, Sat.: Conference sessions
October 2, 2011, Sun.: URPE Organizational meeting

Brooklyn location, time and conference panel schedule, click here.

Advance registration and payment at this link.

Republicans Call Obama's Tax, Program Cuts Program: Class Warfare

2011-09-19T01:34:00.000-04:00

Obama Plan to Cut Deficit Will Trim Spending by $3 Trillion
By HELENE COOPER, New York Times, published: September 18, 2011

First half of the article reads as follows. (Click here for complete New York Times article including Republican claims of class warfare.)

(I would argue from the left that Pres. Barack Obama's Medicare, Medicaid cuts are class warfare; the Republican right call Obama's tax policies class warfare. The problem is that we have no left third party to challenge him.)

WASHINGTON — President Obama will unveil a deficit-reduction plan on Monday that uses entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce government spending by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years, administration officials said.

The plan, which Mr. Obama will lay out Monday morning at the White House, is the administration’s opening move in sweeping negotiations on deficit reduction to be taken up by a joint House-Senate committee over the next two months. If a deal is not struck by Dec. 23, cuts could take effect automatically across government agencies.

Mr. Obama will call for $1.5 trillion in tax increases, primarily on the wealthy, through a combination of closing loopholes and limiting the amount that high earners can deduct. The proposal also includes $580 billion in adjustments to health and entitlement programs, including $248 billion to Medicare and $72 billion to Medicaid. Administration officials said that the Medicare cuts would not come from an increase in the Medicare eligibility age.

Senior administration officials who briefed reporters on some of the details of Mr. Obama’s proposal said that the plan also counts a savings of $1.1 trillion from the ending of the American combat mission in Iraq and the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan.

In laying out his proposal, aides said, Mr. Obama will expressly promise to veto any legislation that seeks to cut the deficit through spending cuts alone and does not include revenue increases in the form of tax increases on the wealthy.

That veto threat will put the president on a direct collision course with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, who said last week that he would not support any legislation that included revenue increases in the form of higher taxes.

Mr. Obama’s proposal is certain to receive sharp criticism from Congressional Republicans, who on Sunday were already taking apart one element of the proposal that the administration let out early: the so-called Buffett Rule. The rule — named for the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett, who has complained that he is taxed at a lower rate than his employees — calls for a new minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year to ensure that they pay at least the same percentage of their earnings as middle-income taxpayers.

That proposal, which was disclosed on Saturday, was met with derision Sunday by Republican lawmakers, who said it amounted to “class warfare” and a political tactic intended to portray his opponents as indifferent to the hardships facing middle-class Americans.

Richard D. Wolff: Austerity Politics Descends on US States

2011-09-19T01:24:00.001-04:00

Austerity Politics Descends on US States
Monday 22 August 2011
by: Richard D. Wolff, rdwolff.com | News Analysis -From Truthout.org site.

Last week, Democratic Governors in New York and Connecticut repeated the austerity politics of Greece’s Prime Minister Pappandreou and Portugal’s Socrates. In doing so, they likewise imitated the austerity politics of their Republican and Democratic counterparts across virtually all 50 states. Austerity for labor and the public is everywhere capitalism’s Plan B. Even capitalists now see that capitalism’s Plan A failed.

You will recall that Plan A entailed a crisis-response program of bailing out the banks, insurance companies, large corporations, and stock markets to achieve “recovery.” The theory behind Plan A – we used to call it “trickle down economics” – was that recovery would spread from financial markets and financiers to everyone else. It never did. So now the same servants of capitalism who imposed Plan A are dishing out Plan B.

Governors Cuomo in New York and Malloy in Connecticut had very similar Plan B’s. They threatened the public employee unions and the people of their states in nearly identical ways. Either the unions accept new contracts with wage freezes and raised contributions to their health insurance plans (and other declines in their basic remuneration) or the governors would fire tens of thousands of unionized state workers. In Connecticut the state workers first voted to reject and then re-voted to accept that contract. In New York the state workers accepted on the first vote.

Let’s be really clear on what the two governors were doing. They were forcing a very painful either/or onto the mass of people who elected them. Each governor said: I will either fire many thousands of state workers and thereby impose drastic cuts in public services on the entire citizenry or I will subject tens of thousands of state employees to significant cuts in their wages and benefits.

Each Governor spoke and acted as if those were the only two choices even though that is blatantly untrue. Each Governor refused to even consider an obvious alternative Plan C: increasing taxes on corporations and the rich enough to avoid either public service or wage cuts. Instead each governor snubbed his nose at the public by forcing unions to choose between two awful options.

The public employees unions voted to accept serious cuts in pay and benefits. That was in the face of the latest government figures showing US consumer price inflation now running at between 3.5 and 4 % per year. The contracts that state employees accepted in New York and Connecticut give them 0% wage increases in the first two years and less than 2 % per year increases in the last years of their contracts. In addition, New York workers accepted unpaid furlough days while both states’ contracts involved higher health insurance premiums and copays to be charged to state workers. These are serious reductions in state workers’ standards of living. They will thus reduce their expenditures, thereby hurting communities, businesses and other workers.

The states will thus learn the same lessons learned in Greece and Portugal and wherever austerities are governments’ Plan B’s. Austerities make difficult, painful, and unjust capitalist crises more so.

Corporations and the rich bankroll the parties and governors who design and impose Plans A and B while avoiding Plan C.

And so matters will remain unless and until corporations’ profits are no longer available to their boards of directors to enrich themselves and major shareholders and to buy politicians’ servitude. The best response to capitalism’s crisis, to its failed Plan A and to its unjust Plan B would be Plan D: to change how we organize productive enterprises in our society. Profits should be distributed by the democratic decision-making of all those who produce and depend on them, the workers and affected communities.

The twists and turns of this global capitalism system, painful as they are to endure, nonetheless also move it toward a confrontation with alternative D. The real question is whether the advocates and supporters of Plan D can be organized, mobilized and focused on achieving their goals in that confrontation.

141
Email
RICHARD D. WOLFF
Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan

Click to original Truthout site for Wolff's bio.

Trumka's Statement on Congress and Obama's Jobs Program

2011-09-19T01:16:00.000-04:00

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO president's statement on Pres. Barack Obama's jobs proposal.

Did you watch President Obama’s speech last night? He showed working people he is willing to go to the mat to create new jobs on a substantial scale. His speech should energize the nation to come together and get serious about jobs.

We call on Congress to act and look forward to working with the president and Congress on all elements of this proposal. As the president explained, we no longer can delay putting Americans back to work rebuilding our nation’s schools, roads, bridges, transit, ports, rail, communications and energy systems. And we need to help state and local governments avoid layoffs that are dragging down the economy—rejecting the myth that the only way to end a crisis Wall Street started is to punish firefighters, teachers and others who perform critical public services.

Tell Congress: It’s time to get moving on jobs. Start with President Obama’s proposals and then keep going.

The plan announced by President Obama to create jobs is only the opening bid in a national conversation we’ve needed to have for a long time. In the coming weeks and months, we expect to see more proposals from the president and Congress to put America back to work.

President Obama understands this economic crisis was not created overnight, and it will not be solved overnight. The middle class has been under attack for decades. He understands we need to rebuild our economy for the 21st century and rebuild our middle class.

But doing this will require a revolution in the way Washington takes on these questions. Republicans are going to have to stop blocking bills that sustain or create millions of jobs and start offering and accepting credible solutions. As the president explained last night, we can delay no longer.

Tell Congress America wants to work. Add your name, then spread the word to your friends and family.

America isn’t broke—we’re the richest country in the world. We will only go broke if our leaders fail year after year to create jobs and turn our economy around. We can’t let that happen.

Politicians need to recognize that America’s best days are still before us. We cannot accept the disappearance of the American middle class or several more years of crisis-level joblessness. We can and must solve the jobs crisis—and we must start now. Please take action to help us make this happen.

In Solidarity,

Richard L. Trumka
President, AFL-CIO

P.S. Some politicians claim cuts to our social safety net, deregulation and lower taxes for the rich will fix our problems. But they’re flat wrong. If we continue down this road, it only will destroy more jobs and send us into a vicious downward spiral. Our country is too good and too rich to weaken our commitment to safety net protections such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and unemployment insurance.

We don’t have time to waste on the same old failed policies that drove our economy off a cliff in the first place. Tell Congress: Working families will judge our elected leaders by whether they act with integrity and energy to create good jobs now.
To find out more about the AFL-CIO, please visit our website at www.aflcio.org.

Drew Westen Invitation to Take America Back Conference (Washington, 10/3-5)

2011-09-19T01:04:00.003-04:00

From Oct. 3 to 5, I will be at the Take Back the American Dream conference — along with thousands of people who have joined the growing American Dream movement so that together, we can tackle those questions.

Will you join me?

Click here to register for the Oct. 3-5 Take Back the American Dream conference, in Washington, DC.

With Van Jones, Robert Reich, Richard Trumka, Robert Borosage, Rep. Barney Frank, Rep. Keith Ellison, Katrina vanden Heuvel, Lizz Winstead and many more progressive leaders set to come, the Take Back the American Dream conference is sure to be a historic event you don't want to miss.

Right now, too many staffers from the so-called "Super Committee" are meeting in back rooms finalizing plans to cut the pillars of our retirement security while they ignore the worsening jobs crisis.

But if thousands of us come to Washington and speak with one voice — the voice of the American people, who are tired of “grand bargains” designed to cut when we should be rebuilding — we can turn the debate around.

I know with the right vision, the right ideas, and the right language — and some backbone — we can do it. But only if we come together.
Drew Westen

[The conference is a project of the Campaign for America's Future. Robert L. Borosage & Roger Hickey, Co-directors, Campaign for America's Future]

Video: 9/17/11 March on Wall Street Protestors Jeer Luxury Restaurant Patrons

2011-09-18T20:56:00.000-04:00

View the video at the right on to see the best September 17, 2011 (9/17/11) march on Wall Street that I have found on Youtube. Other videos are just dull shots of protesters standing about on streetcorners.
Or input this URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rfuvDr2wJQ

A linefeed across the bottom of the screen asserts that Twitter had censored the protest.
The revolution won't be on the mainstjavascript:void(0)ream media or Twitter; it will be live.

9/21/11 7 PM - GPNYC Presents Rick Wolff Major Speech: "Why We Need A Powerful Left Party - Now"

2011-09-12T23:02:00.009-04:00

Why We Need A New Left Party - Now

Hosted by the Green Party New York City
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - 7:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M.
Location: Laura Parsons Pratt Conference Center,
The Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies building, ground floor,
291 Park Ave. South, at the southeast corner of 22 Street, New York, New York
(1 block from 6 train -23rd St. Station, near N, R trains -23rd St. Station)

Has Capitalism finally hit the fan? And, if so, why do we need a powerful Left third party to deal with the mess?
Professor Rick Wolff will discuss some of the reasons why we need a new left party in the United States, including the Democratic Party’s dependence on Wall Street and other big business interests; how this dependence has silenced the voices of the poor and middle class in our current political debates; and how left parties in Europe have contributed both to a stronger safety net and more egalitarian society, and to more widespread and militant resistance to corporate power.

(Prof. Wolff has written a book, Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It (Olive Branch Press, 2009)
and a DVD, Capitalism Hits the Fan: Richard Wolff on the Economic Meltdown (Media Education Foundation, 2009).)

(Review of Wolff's DVD.)

This event is sponsored by Green Party New York City, consisting of members of the Green Party of the United States.

Map: Fire Saturation of East Texas; Approaching neighboring states

2011-09-07T06:35:00.001-04:00

Map of the concentration of wildfires in East Texas.
National map with fires in Texas and other areas cluster fo fires now approaching southeastern Oklahoma, southwestern Arkansas (Texarkana vicinity) and Louisiana (Shreveport vicinity):
"Active Fire Mapping Program" with "Current Large Incidents," as of September 6, 2011:
http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/

Guide to terms used, e.g., Incident Management Team:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_management_team

Here we go again (Latest Maps): Projected 5 day Hurricane Katia storm path & times - Storm upgraded

2011-09-05T03:43:00.004-04:00

Just on the last weekend of August, 2011 much of the United States east coast was struck by the strongest hurricane since perhaps 1960 with Hurricane Donna.

Another hurricane, Hurricane Katia, is set to strike the continental United States in this coming week. Scroll to bottom for NOAA satellite maps and 5-day Hurricane Katia path forecast

Click to this site, IrishWeatherOnline, for illustrated maps and satellite maps of the storm's presnet location and its projected path. (Mark Dunphy, "Hurricane Katia Monday Update – Satellite Imagery And Projected Track", September 5, 2011.)
Maps at the site indicate a projected are of the hurricane's striking the U.S. as being from South Carolina, north to North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.
Several more MAPS at the bottom of this post, including map with hurricane path timeline.
It is projected to reach a Saffir-Simpson Category 2 hurricane.

Maximum sustained winds of Katia have increased to 105 miles (165 kilometers) per hour, with higher gusts, making it a category two hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity. Further strengthening is expected on Monday.

Yet, Hurricane Katia is projected to moderate once it reaches landfall:

Meanwhile, there is a small risk that the remnants of Hurricane Katia could threaten parts of the eastern Atlantic in 8-9 days time.

The following satellite maps are Sept. 4, 20:15 UTC-Greenwich Mean Time (5:15 PM EST), and Sept. 4, 20:45 UTC-Greenwich Mean Time (5:45 PM EST)

Obama calls out GOP for Holding FEMA Funds Hostage

2011-08-31T12:29:00.002-04:00

The House Republicans are refusing to give more money to the Federal Emergency Management Agency or FEMA.
(This is a particularly big issue right now, since the money could be of great used for helping the people that are suffering from the effects of Hurricane Irene, and FEMA has run out of money. Of course it has run out of money: this year has seen so much extreme weather, and we have four months to go in the remainder of 2011.)

So, it was quite proper when President Barack Obama criticized the GOP for holding FEMA funds hostage.
Los Angeles Times: White House blasts GOP over FEMA funding".

Now, one wonders whether some middle of the road voters in flood besieged New Jersey will reconsider support for Republican congressional or presidential candidates. Just consider how the supposedly moderate N.J. Governor Chris Christie has taken the state out of the Northeast carbon cap compact.
Will weather disaster-plagued districts flip from Republican to Democratic in the Presidential and Congressional votes in the 2012 general election? Just note (on the 2010 Congressional elections map below) the red district from northeastern North Carolina to New Jersey. Will voters see the light about global warming (as opposed to deniers Rick Perry and Chris Christie?

Well, maybe it will take more 100 degree days and destructive hurricanes. Click on this link for "Natural disaster risk assessment reveals most and least dangerous cities" at AgentGenius.com for natural disaster risk. The very Republican red Southeast has the most cities that are indicated to be the riskiest in which to live.

8/30, PM UPDATES: Airlifts to Vermont; Irene Deaths: 41; 2.85 Million People w/o Power; In NJ: Flooding Remains

2011-08-30T18:05:00.008-04:00

TUESDAY, 8/30/11 UPDATES:
Isolated flood-besieged Vermont towns are receiving supplies by way of National Guard airlifts: Newport News Daily Press: "National Guard airlifts take food, water to Vt. towns cut off by Irene's flooding."

(There's the helpful hand of the national government. Think about that one, Tea-Partiers. Army Corp of Engineers, FEMA, those are federal agency helping the public, tax dollars at work.)

CNN reports that the death toll from Hurricane Irene now stands at 41: "Irene update: Death toll at 41; 2.85 million still without power."

Flooding of rivers in the Passaic River Basin is affecting towns throughout northern New Jersey, covering streets, flooding homes. (Reuters)

Most of eastern Connecticut remains without power. (Wall Street Journal)

Big Tar Sands Sit-in Protests at White House -Will Obama Listen?

2011-08-30T17:35:00.001-04:00

Interesting timing that global warming protests at the White House were scheduled for a week right after Hurricane Irene, the largest Mid-Atlantic and New England --very convenient, and pertinent.

140 protesters were outside the White House on August 29, 2011, submitting to arrest. (Today is day 10 of a two-week protest.) They were protesting against Keystone's Tar Sands pipeline from Alberta, Canada to Texas, U.S. As an opponent of the pipeline noted, we have seen an increasing number of episodes of extreme weather.

Now, albeit, a single incident of extreme weather does not always indicate an effect of global warming. Take for example, the cycle of large hurricanes hitting the New York City/ Long Island region in recent decades, 1938, 1960, 1985, 2011. In the cycle we have hurricanes coming about every 25 years. And, the scientific consensus is that we cannot we identify a causal relationship of global warming upon tornadoes.

But, in aggregate, we are seeing more days of very high temperatures, weeks of 90s, 100s degree temperatures from Texas to Florida. And we are seeing severity of weather patterns in certain parts of the country: in the Southwest and Mountain West: drought and wildfires; and in much of the rest of the continental U.S.: record rainfalls.

WHAT IS THE TAR SANDS PIPELINE PROJECT?
There is much oil in Alberta, Canada. The United States has a high appetite for fossil fuels. Transcanada, is building the Keystone Pipeline to carry diluted bitumen, a crude oil, from there to the Gulf of Mexico in Texas. Proponents of the project say that the oil from the project will help ween the United States off its dependence on foreign oil (often pundits mention the Middle East, but they omit Nigeria, Mexico and Venezuela).

You can watch a short debate between an opponent and a proponent of the pipeline on the PBS News Hour show of August 29. Here, below, is a map of the pipeline's projected route. (Note its path through several red states and to Rick Perry's Texas. Watch Governor Perry gloat over the money that it brings through the state and ignore Obama's role in the pipeline.)

Read more background on the Keystone Project at PBS News Hour's Rundown blog, "Proposed Tar Sands Oil Pipeline Elicits Protests."

Then again, consider the above mentioned signs of worsening weather, the melting of glaciers, and the international scientific consensus: we are experiencing global warming, and humans ARE causing this.
We should be investing in renewable energies: wind, solar, corn-based ethanol. We should be shifting from investments in roads and airports to inter-city trains, and for regional population clusters, high speed rail. We should be developing residential and work communities in compact arrangements, similar to the patterns that we see in the older cities of the Mid-West and the Northeast. The judgment behind this pipeline proposal is questionable.
Protesters were calling on President Barack Obama to take action to stop the project. Specifically, they want Obama to deny a permit to the project. Details, see "NW environmental news: Oil sand pipeline in the crosshairs of activists", at OregonLive.com, August 29, 2011.

The organized opposition has been going for two years now. The current protest has given the story more legs. At earlier this month, Daily Kos ran this post with an online petition to Obama to stop the pipeline.

NASA'S JAMES HANSEN'S CRITICISMS
Number 112 of the 140 arrested today at the White House was James Hansen, the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, New York. Elizabeth McGowan in "Amid Cheers, NASA Chief Is Arrested at Oil Sands Pipeline Protests: James Hansen, the 70-year-old renowned climate scientist, was the 112th of 140 arrested on day 10 of the Keystone XL pipeline sit-ins", wrote:

Hansen—who has been arrested a couple of times before for protesting the harvesting of fossil fuels—regularly criticizes the Keystone XL pipeline as the "fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the planet." The Obama administration is expected to issue a decision on the international project by the end of the year.

WILL PRESIDENT OBAMA BE MOVED?
Given that President Obama is heeding the prerogatives of the Corporate Occupied Political System, the odds are very slim that he would to anything to oppose this project. His record in the past two years has shown that he attends to the interests of corporations. Plus, he's got the Tea-Party Republicans, such as Rep. Michele Bachmann breathing down his neck to keep oil prices down. My prediction, despite any protests, Obama will be more concerned with satisfying vehicle drivers that want low gas prices. Despite the protests, Obama will not deny the pipeline project a permit. He will play to the middle and show himself to be the centrist that he is.

SUN. 1130 AM IRENE UPDATES: Flood Waters Breach onto New York City Streets

2011-08-28T09:46:00.002-04:00

Hurricane Irene has been downgraded from Saffir-Simpson Category 1 to a tropical storm.

The eye of the storm has reached lower parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens. The winds are moderate, reduced from level it had been off lower New Jersey.

WABC-TV has shown East River flood waters breaching through concrete barriers, onto South Street, in the vicinity of Wall Street.

UPDATES
Time-Warner's NY1 has shown the Hudson River lapping over the edge, in the Tribeca area and the boardwalk of Battery Park City (cresting at 9:45 AM).

In Brooklyn, flood waters are covering Manhattan Beach streets.

UPDATES
In Staten Island, the Bulls Head section had flooding rising from the Fresh Kills and the Arthur Kills channel between New Jersey and Staten Island. (remaining flooded at 11:30 AM)

LATEST Hurricane Irene Storm Surge, Flood Zone Maps -BREAKING NEWS: New Moon Effects

2011-08-27T15:58:00.001-04:00

(NOTE: the above map is for illustration purposes only, is a photo of Miami, during a previous storm.)

MAPS FOR EVACUATION / PREPARATION -IN ANTICIPATION OF HURRICANE IRENE:

Weather Underground Georgia, Carolinas Storm Surge Model Maps, for the four Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scales

Weather Underground Middle Atlantic (VA, MD, DE, NJ, NY) Storm Surge Model Maps

Weather Underground New England (CT, RI, MA, NH, ME) Storm Surge Model Maps

NORTH CAROLINA
North Carolina evacuation, storm surge, inundation maps

VIRGINIA:

Virginia DOT Evacuation Guide portal

Virginia evacuation shelters list (WTVR TV).
Evacuations:

Accomack County – Voluntary evacuation order upgraded to mandatory.
Bayside evacuation areas include all homes generally west of
Craddockville Road, Boston Road, Greenbush Road (Rt. 316), Mears
Road and Neil Parker Road .

Seaside evacuation areas include all homes generally east of Seaside Road, Atlantic Road and Fleming Road.

Chesapeake, City of – Voluntary evacuation for low-lying areas and mobile homes. The VDBHDS Training Center has evacuated 120 residents to Petersburg.
Chincoteague, town of – Voluntary evacuation for residents. Mandatory evacuation for all non-residents.
Gloucester County – Voluntary evacuation for low-lying areas and mobile homes.
Officials recommend residents in flood prone areas evacuate by Saturday morning.

Hampton, City of – Mandatory evacuation for category 1 surge and low-lying areas as of 0800 Friday, August 26. Voluntary evacuation for entire city.
James City County – Voluntary evacuation on low-lying areas.
King and Queen County – Voluntary evacuation
Lancaster County – Voluntary evacuation for low-lying areas.
Mathews County – Voluntary evacuations.
Middlesex County – Mandatory evacuation in low-lying areas and manufactured homes. Voluntary evacuation in effect as of 1200 hours on Friday, August 26.
Newport News, City of – Mandatory evacuation for category 1 surge areas and flood prone sections of the city. Voluntary evacuation for low-lying areas.
Norfolk, City of – Mandatory evacuation for low-lying areas by 0800 Saturday, August 27.
Northampton County – Voluntary evacuation for all coastal and low-lying areas and mobile homes. Mandatory evacuation issued for three campgrounds and the YMCA camp. All visitors required to be out by 1600 hours Friday, August 26
Northumberland County – Voluntary evacuation for low-lying areas and mobile homes.
Poquoson, City of – Voluntary evacuation.
Portsmouth, City of – Mandatory evacuation of low-lying areas as of 1300 hours Friday, August 26
Richmond County – Voluntary evacuation for low-lying areas and mobile homes.
Suffolk, City of – Evacuation recommended for low-lying areas and mobile homes.
Virginia Beach, City of – Mandatory for Sandbridge, Knotts Island (in concert with NC) effective immediately and to be completed by 0600 on Saturday, August 27. Voluntary mobile homes and special needs populations.
Westmoreland County – Recommended evacuation for low-lying areas and mobile homes
Virginia evacuation shelters list (WTVR TV).

Virginia Emergency Management Storm Surge Inundation Maps, with county-, region- city-specific maps
Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Virginia Beach

DELAWARE
Jersey City satellite image maps with color coding for mandatory evacuation of first floor residences for specific areas.

BREAKING NEWS --for night hour impacts, Jersey, NYC, Long Island, lower New England:
New Moon to Make Irene Deadlier: Extreme Tides, Storm Surge Floods Likely --International Business Times

The new moon, which occurs Sunday, is likely to bring severe tidal fluctuations are likely as the sun, Earth, and the moon come in a straight line and the gravitational pull on Earth exerted by the sun and moon intensify. This should aggravate Irene's effects.

Heckova Job, Bloomie: NYC's Bloomberg's Flawed Evacuation Plans -Brace for Katrina #2

2011-08-27T07:31:00.005-04:00

Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City said that he was concerned with the city's most vulnerable. In his emergency evacuation plans for Hurricane Irene he has not entirely attended to their welfare.

He should take a page from Hurricane Katrina this time in 2005. While most of the New Orleans residents fled in that city's evacuation, a thousand or so for whatever reasons remained in their homes. Civic leaders should be prepared for the contingencies that some people might not heed warnings or might not be able to heed them in proper time.

MTA SUBWAYS SHUT DOWN 22 HOURS AHEAD OF WHEN IT REACHES NEW YORK?!
First off in this critique, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) shut down time of 12 PM (noon) on Saturday, August 27 is too early. Weather.com only gives 60% chance of precipitation at 3:00 PM, and most warnings now say that Hurricane Irene will not reach New York until 10:00AM Sunday morning.

Next, check out the city's map. Click to the projected flood areas map at NY1.com. Notice how far the evacuation centers are from the big flood areas, e.g. from Coney Island or Far Rockaway (the far southeastern edge of the city --how does the city plan to get the folks of the Redfern Houses out of there?).

(UPDATE: EVACUATION DEADLINE FOR NYC AREA A NEIGHBORHOODS: 5:00 PM)

Why did the NYCHA ever build waterfront / hurricane-target housing projects???

The city needs to draw on the lessons of Katrina -mainly, the difficulty or the unwillingness of some people to evacuate. Oh, we can see Mayor Bloomberg with his arrogant I told you so tone, saying people were warned with ample warning.
This may sound like a stretch, but there are many poor people for whom the $2.25 fare is a burden. (Many of the underclass rarely leave their neighborhoods.) Transit head Jay Walder should made the system free for the last four hours, to give those for whom the fare is a problem, a chance to leave the neighborhood for an evacuation center.
Aside from the transit system option, the city should commandeer transit buses and school buses to get people out of the threatened Area A neighborhoods.
[UPDATE: Compliments to the mayor: latest news reports on Hurricane Irene evacuation of Hurricane Irene Area A plans, buses are being sent to housing projects in places such as Far Rockaway, to shuttle people out to evacuation shelters.
And what about the National Guard? We have heard nothing of National Guard or Red Cross preparations. Ohh, we can see another Katrina a coming. Brownie, Nagan ... the criticisms against them will pale in contrast to the short-sighted limited preparation for this one.
CHECK BACK FOR EXPANSION OF THIS BLOG POST.

Hurricane Irene tracking map and NYC projected flood risk map

2011-08-26T10:30:00.004-04:00
PBS News Hour's color coded map of Hurricane Irene's East Coast / Atlantic Ocean path. Drag the second map to reach your section of the Atlantic coast. The first map is for use with Google Earth. It pulls from NOAA and similar agencies.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) NOAA Family Disaster Plan tips:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/prepare/family_plan.shtml

IN NEW YORK CITY:

The MTA Transit and Bus system will shut down at 12PM (noon) Saturday, August 27.

MAPS:
NY1's zoom-capable and downloadable PDF map of New York City Area A, Area B, Area C flood zones and the five boroughs' evacuation centers.

Here is WNYC.org's map of New York City with Area A, Area B, Area C, indicating which areas fall into these flood risk categories. A: area deeply affected by Category 1 storm, B: by Category 2 or 3 storm, C: by 3 or 4 and beyond.

* * *
The last big hurricanes in the New York City area:
Hurricane Gloria, 1985 (Initially Category 4, but it weakened by the time that it reached the Mid-Atlantic states)
Hurricane Donna, 1960 (Category 3 for the period that it was in the Atlantic Basin, off the Atlantic coast; longest storm to retain hurricane status --nine days)

* * *
"Why Animals Sense Natural Disasters Ahead of Time.

Hydrofracking May Be Leading to Increased Seismic Activity

2011-08-24T10:28:00.004-04:00

(The above map is of locations of shale gas resources in the continental United States. I have not found a comprehensive map of active drilling sites.)

With the Virginia earthquake of August 23, 2011, people have wondered whether increased hydrofracking could be leading to increased seismic activity.

NPR's affiliate WNYC ran a story today which reported:
Research has found links between hydrofracking and increased seismic activity. The United States Geological Survey said it's possible for humans to cause earthquakes through such activities. The USGS wrote in its "Earthquakes, Faults, Plate Tectonics, Earth Structure" FAQ that "Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada. The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies."

A member of the British Geological Survey has offered a similar opinion about the possible link between hydrofracking and earthquakes in Lancashire: Brian Baptie of the United Kingdom survey said, "It seems quite likely that they are related."

See also the blogpost "Is Fracking In The UK Causing Earthquakes?" at DeSmogBlog.com.

Could hydrofracking in the nearby Marcellus Shale and the Utica Shale Regions be the cause of the up-tick in earthquake activity in the Virginia Seismic Zone? This matter deserves scrutiny. I am not holding my breath. We are living in an era of a COPS (corporate-owned political system).

Search for 8/23 earthquake intensity for your ZIP Code; ramifications for nuclear plant considerations

2011-08-23T21:03:00.005-04:00
PBS News Hour "The Rundown Blog" has a link to a U.S. Geological Survey search engine for the August 23, 2011 earthquake (now reported as 5.8) intensity at various East Coast locations.

Enter a zip code to see how intense the earthquake was for particular locations.
The search engine returns a figure to indicate quake intensity.

(One problem: the intensity numbers are given in Arabic numerals. Yet the cited magnitude scale on the page is not the Richter Scale, but the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale, which is given in Roman numerals. The USGS site says that it is not giving quake intensity in Richter measurements, yet it is not saying which scale the indicated numbers match to.)

QUAKE PATTERN RELEVANCE FOR DISCUSSIONS OF NUCLEAR PLANT VULNERABILITY
One might argue that the quake could not harm distant locations if it did not affect closer locations. Yet if one looks at the map of the intensity readings for the quake one sees that the clusters of earthquake strength are not clustered in a continuous pattern next to the Mineral, Virginia epicenter. Some places have light or negligible vibrations from the earthquake tremors. Yet, a distance further away did record strong quake readings.
See for your self from the map immediately below. (The trajectory of the quake from Mineral, Virginia, northeast-ward toward lower New England appears to follow along the Ramapo Fault.
Other references to the Ramapo Fault:
http://www.wnyc.org/blogs/wnyc-news-blog/2011/mar/14/look-tri-states-active-fault-line/
http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/08/23/east_coast_fault_lines_virginia_earthquake_highlights_significan.html

Here is a closer view of the map of the Mineral, Louisa County, Virginia area of the earthquake.

Did we almost lose Charlottesville?

2011-08-23T16:11:00.003-04:00
Has any of the promoters or defenders of nuclear power considered how the nuclear plants in the United states are on or close to seismic (earthquake) zones or fault lines?

With the 2011 Virginia earthquake today one might argue that we came close to losing Charlottesville.

Consider the nuclear power plants and the earthquake activity in the area, just in the years since these plants were operational in the 1970s. As I blogged earlier today in part of a post:
NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS IN THE REGION, ALONG WITH SEISMIC ACTIVITY
Wonder how people in the Maryland/DC/Virginia area feel about the relatively old nuclear power plants in eastern Virginia and southern Maryland: Calvert Cliffs (operative since 1975) in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay, North Anna Nuclear Generating Station (just 11 miles from the earthquake epicenter, and operative since 1978), near Charlottesville, Virginia and Surry Nuclear Power Plant (operative since 1972) in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach, Virginia vicinity.

The wikipedia article for the Virginia Seismic Zone reports that there have been several quakes in the past decade in the area, albeit with mild readings, around 3.6. Just over the Potomac River lies the site of the 2010 Germantown, Maryland earthquake (the Potomac-Shenandoah Earthquake, as labeled by Wikipedia), 3.6 on the Richter Scale. The North Anna plant is sited precisely in the Virginia Seismic Zone.

Another site to note: Andrew Schenkel, "Nuclear power and earthquake zones overlap in the U.S.: Earthquake in Japan raises concerns about what could happen in the U.S." in Mother Nature News, March 11, 2011.

Moderate earthquakes hit Virginia AND Colorado

2011-08-23T15:24:00.002-04:00
Monday night an earthquake of 5.8 Richter scale strength hit southern Colorado in the area of the border with New Mexico, Monday, August 22, 2011, evening. It was the largest quake to hit Colorado in more than a century.

Receiving much more media attention was the earthquake to hit Mineral, Virginia today, August 23, at about 1:00 PM in the center of the state. Mineral, the epicenter town, is midway between Charlottesville and Fredericksburg, fifty miles from Richmond. In media reports it has been identified as the Washington, D.C. earthquake. It was reported as being a 5.9 scale earthquake. This would be the strongest earthquake in the Mid-Atlantic region in decades. It exceeds a 2003 central Virginia earthquake of 4.5, and the 1998 Pymatuning earthquake in northeast Pennsylvania, with a 5.2 reading.

This second earthquake has been reported felt as far as Toronto, Ontario; Detroit, Michigan; North Carolina and Massachusetts. Source: "5.9 earthquake in Virginia shakes East Coast, rattles Michigan office buildings," "Detroit Free Press."

NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS IN THE REGION, ALONG WITH SEISMIC ACTIVITY
Wonder how people in the Maryland/DC/Virginia area feel about the relatively old nuclear power plants in eastern Virginia and southern Maryland: Calvert Cliffs (operative since 1975) in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay, North Anna Nuclear Generating Station (operative since 1978), near Charlottesville, Virginia and Surry Nuclear Power Plant (operative since 1972) in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach, Virginia vicinity.

The wikipedia article for the Virginia Seismic Zone reports that there have been several quakes in the past decade in the area, albeit with mild readings, around 3.6. Just over the Potomac River lies the site of the 2010 Germantown, Maryland earthquake (the Potomac-Shenandoah Earthquake, as labeled by Wikipedia), 3.6 on the Richter Scale. The North Anna plant is sited precisely in the Virginia Seismic Zone.

Chris Christie Joins Global Warming Denying Flat Earthists; Bias By Millionaire TV Anchors

2011-08-22T11:07:00.000-04:00
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Republican, of course) has left the northeastern political consensus that policies should be pursued to reduce carbon emissions. (Reduction of carbon pollution emissions is aimed at tackling global warming.)
Since May he has opposed the Northeast agreement (Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, RGGI) to cap carbon emissions.
(Christopher Baker in NJ.com, "Gov. Christie announces N.J. pulling out of regional environmental initiative", May 26, 2011.)

Christie vetoed state legislature law last Friday that committed to supporting carbon emission controls by 2018.
Democrats will try to engineer an override of Christie's veto.

As a moderate blogger said, Christie has just nixed his chance to become presidential nominee in 2012.

* * *

Wonder why television anchors and other news personalities are so bent on pursuing the center-right pro-corporate consensus (notice how some of them pushed Christie to run for president)?
Perhaps their big salaries have something to do with it. The multi-millionaire anchors have it in their interest to oppose President Barack Obama's talk about taxing millionaires.

See this report from August 9, 2011 in MediaBistro: Alex Weprin, "Who Makes What in TV News?"

The highest paid news anchor is NBC “Today” anchor Matt Lauer, who brings in around $17 million a year.
. . .
Among the evening news anchors, “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams leads the way with a $13 million a year contract, followed by Diane Sawyer at $12 million. “CBS Evening News” anchor Scott Pelley makes less than $5 million a year, or less than a third of what Katie Couric was making on the program.

On cable, Anderson Cooper‘s CNN/Warner Bros. syndicated show deal brings in $11 million a year, followed by Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, who makes $10 million a year.

NBC's "Meet the Press"' David Gregory's salary is publicly unknown, but FAIR has suspected that he is earning something in the neighborhood of the $5 million that Chris Matthews is making.
David Gregory, Fat Cat in Denial
02/23/2009 by Jim Naureckas

David Gregory sticking up for bank stockholders on Meet the Press (2/22/09):

There's a larger point here, which is, first of all, the more...the shares of...these banks gets talked down...the closer you get to wiping out the shareholder completely. And it's, it's not clear to me that everybody understands that the investor in this country, who is not just a fat cat, the investor is us.... It is the taxpayer, it's the teacher, it's someone who's invested in a 401(k). The investors on the sidelines, scared to death about taking any risk. And unless that changes, this economy really can't turn around.

Matthew Yglesias writes today (2/23/09) on the oddity of Gregory making a distinction between fat cats and people like himself. I can't find a published estimate of Gregory's salary, but his NBC colleague Chris Matthews reportedly makes $5 million a year (Washington Post, 1/8/09), as did his Meet the Press predecessor Tim Russert (Washington Post, 5/23/04), so Gregory's salary is probably in that neighborhood, give or take a few million. This is a hundred times the median family income in the U.S.--not counting Gregory's spouse's income; she used to be a vice president at Fannie Mae, making an estimated $3 million a year.

FDA according to Monsanto?: OBAMA APPOINTS MONSANTO'S VICE PRESIDENT AS SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE COMMISSIONER AT THE FDA

2011-08-20T02:07:00.000-04:00
Well, it's looking a lot like the U.S. food policy will once again be according to the interests of Monsanto:

From the democraticunderground.com:
OBAMA APPOINTS MONSANTO'S VICE PRESIDENT AS SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE COMMISSIONER AT THE FDA
Michael Taylor was just appointed senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. This is the same man that was in charge of FDA policy when GMO's were allowed into the US food supply without undergoing a single test to determine their safety. He "had been Monsanto's attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA he became Monsanto's Vice President and chief lobbyist. This month became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America's food safety czar. This is no joke."

Here's the full story:
You're Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It's Not So!
- - - -

Jeffrey Smith
The leading consumer advocate promoting healthier, non-GMO choices
Posted on 9:40 pm July 23, 2009
You’re Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It’s Not So!
The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke.

Here’s the back story.

When FDA scientists were asked to weigh in on what was to become the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply—the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods—secret documents now reveal that the experts were very concerned. Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried “serious health hazards,” and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply.

But the biotech industry had rigged the game so that neither science nor scientists would stand in their way. They had placed their own man in charge of FDA policy and he wasn’t going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety. No, he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie.

Dangerous Food Safety Lies

When the FDA was constructing their GMO policy in 1991-2, their scientists were clear that gene-sliced foods were significantly different and could lead to “different risks” than conventional foods. But official policy declared the opposite, claiming that the FDA knew nothing of significant differences, and declared GMOs substantially equivalent.

This fiction became the rationale for allowing GM foods on the market without any required safety studies whatsoever! The determination of whether GM foods were safe to eat was placed entirely in the hands of the companies that made them—companies like Monsanto, which told us that the PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange were safe.

GMOs were rushed onto our plates in 1996. Over the next nine years, multiple chronic illnesses in the US nearly doubled—from 7% to 13%. Allergy-related emergency room visits doubled between 1997 and 2002 while food allergies, especially among children, skyrocketed. We also witnessed a dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity, diabetes, digestive disorders, and certain cancers.

In January of this year, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, one of the world’s top biologists, told me that after reviewing 600 scientific journals, he concluded that the GM foods in the US are largely responsible for the increase in many serious diseases.

In May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine concluded that animal studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between GM foods and infertility, accelerated aging, dysfunctional insulin regulation, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system, and immune problems such as asthma, allergies, and inflammation

In July, a report by eight international experts determined that the flimsy and superficial evaluations of GMOs by both regulators and GM companies “systematically overlook the side effects” and significantly underestimate “the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others.”

The Fox Guarding the Chickens

If GMOs are indeed responsible for massive sickness and death, then the individual who oversaw the FDA policy that facilitated their introduction holds a uniquely infamous role in human history. That person is Michael Taylor. He had been Monsanto’s attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA. Soon after, he became Monsanto’s vice president and chief lobbyist.

This month Michael Taylor became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America’s food safety czar. What have we done?

The Milk Man Cometh

While Taylor was at the FDA in the early 90′s, he also oversaw the policy regarding Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH/rbST)—injected into cows to increase milk supply.

The milk from injected cows has more pus, more antibiotics, more bovine growth hormone, and most importantly, more insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is a huge risk factor for common cancers and its high levels in this drugged milk is why so many medical organizations and hospitals have taken stands against rbGH. A former Monsanto scientist told me that when three of his Monsanto colleagues evaluated rbGH safety and discovered the elevated IGF-1 levels, even they refused to drink any more milk—unless it was organic and therefore untreated.

Government scientists from Canada evaluated the FDA’s approval of rbGH and concluded that it was a dangerous facade. The drug was banned in Canada, as well as Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. But it was approved in the US while Michael Taylor was in charge. His drugged milk might have caused a significant rise in US cancer rates. Additional published evidence also implicates rbGH in the high rate of fraternal twins in the US.

Taylor also determined that milk from injected cows did not require any special labeling. And as a gift to his future employer Monsanto, he wrote a white paper suggesting that if companies ever had the audacity to label their products as not using rbGH, they should also include a disclaimer stating that according to the FDA, there is no difference between milk from treated and untreated cows.

Taylor’s disclaimer was also a lie. Monsanto’s own studies and FDA scientists officially acknowledged differences in the drugged milk. No matter. Monsanto used Taylor’s white paper as the basis to successfully sue dairies that labeled their products as rbGH-free.

Will Monsanto’s Wolff Also Guard the Chickens?

As consumers learned that rbGH was dangerous, they refused to buy the milk. To keep their customers, a tidal wave of companies has publicly committed to not use the drug and to label their products as such. Monsanto tried unsuccessfully to convince the FDA and FTC to make it illegal for dairies to make rbGH-free claims, so they went to their special friend in Pennsylvania—Dennis Wolff. As state secretary of agriculture, Wolff unilaterally declared that labeling products rbGH-free was illegal, and that all such labels must be removed from shelves statewide. This would, of course, eliminate the label from all national brands, as they couldn’t afford to create separate packaging for just one state.

Fortunately, consumer demand forced Pennsylvania’s Governor Ed Rendell to step in and stop Wolff’s madness. But Rendell allowed Wolff to take a compromised position that now requires rbGH-free claims to also be accompanied by Taylor’s FDA disclaimer on the package.

President Obama is considering Dennis Wolff for the top food safety post at the USDA. Yikes!

Rumor has it that the reason why Pennsylvania’s governor is supporting Wolff’s appointment is to get him out of the state—after he “screwed up so badly” with the rbGH decision. Oh great, governor. Thanks.

Ohio Governor Gets Taylor-itus

Ohio not only followed Pennsylvania’s lead by requiring Taylor’s FDA disclaimer on packaging, they went a step further. They declared that dairies must place that disclaimer on the same panel where rbGH-free claims are made, and even dictated the font size. This would force national brands to re-design their labels and may ultimately dissuade them from making rbGH-free claims at all. The Organic Trade Association and the International Dairy Foods Association filed a lawsuit against Ohio. Although they lost the first court battle, upon appeal, the judge ordered a mediation session that takes place today. Thousands of Ohio citizens have flooded Governor Strickland’s office with urgent requests to withdraw the states anti-consumer labeling requirements.

Perhaps the governor has an ulterior motive for pushing his new rules. If he goes ahead with his labeling plans, he might end up with a top appointment in the Obama administration.

To hear what America is saying about GMOs and to add your voice, go to our new non-GMO Facebook Group.

Tags: accelerated aging, allergies, American Academy of Environmental Medicine, asthma, bovine growth hormone, cancer, Dennis Wolff, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, FDA, FDA policy, Food and Drug Administration, food labels, food related illness, food safety, food safety czar, food supply, gastrointestinal disorder, GE foods, genetically engineered, genetically engineered foods, genetically modified foods, genetically modified organisms, GM foods, GMO labels, GMOs, Governor Ed Rendell, igf-1, immune problems, infertility, inflammation, insulin regulation, insulin-like growth factor 1, International Dairy Foods Association, Michael Taylor. Safety testing, milk, milk supply, Monsanto, multiple chronic illness, Ohio Governor Strickland, organic, Organic Trade Association, Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture, president obama, rbGH, rbST, revolving door, substantially equivalent

Gang of Twelve Congressional Super Committee Named

2011-08-12T10:35:00.000-04:00
The Daily Herald, of Utah, picking up from "The Washington Post", reported the final choices hours ago.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday filled out the final three slots on the joint deficit committee by selecting three members of her leadership team to the panel.
Pelosi, D-Calif., chose Reps. James Clyburn, D-S.C., Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., giving the panel the highest-ranking African-American and Latino lawmakers in Congress with Clyburn and Becerra, respectively. Pelosi reiterated her call for Congress to consider "the grand bargain" of major entitlement cuts matched with increased taxes.
"We must achieve a 'grand bargain' that reduces the deficit by addressing our entire budget, while strengthening Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Our entire Caucus will work closely with these three appointees toward this goal, which is the goal of the American people," Pelosi said. "Because the work of this committee will affect all Americans, I called last week for its deliberations to be transparent; the committee should conduct its proceedings in the open."

. . .
The three House Democrats complete the 12-member panel, which must turn in its recommendations for $1.2 trillion in additional spending cuts by Thanksgiving or risk pulling an automatic trigger for deep cuts to federal agencies and defense programs.
Of the 12, ten voted for the debt-ceiling deal that rescued the country from the brink of default, which suggests at least the possibility that the 12-member panel will be able to reach a bipartisan agreement on future spending cuts. The two panel members to oppose the debt compromise are Becerra and Sen. Patrick Toomey, R-Pa.
The other eight members of the panel are Republican Sens. Jon Kyl, Ariz., and Rob Portman, Ohio, Republican Reps. Jeb Hensarling, Texas, Dave Camp, Mich., and Fred Upton, Mich., and Democratic Sens. Patty Murray, Wash., Max Baucus, Mont., and John Kerry, Mass. Murray and Hensarling are co-chairs.
On Wednesday, following the lead of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced their picks for the new panel.

Read more at the original Daily Herald article posting: http://www.heraldextra.com/news/national/govt-and-politics/article_3e2379c1-7f6b-538a-ae41-97114af086c1.html#ixzz1UoccJgX5

As Amanda Terkel noted at "Huffington Post," the Super Committee has only one woman

SIZING UP THE SUPER COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
GO TO PROJECT VOTE SMART.ORG TO GET INFORMATION ON RATINGS ON Gang of THE 12 COMMITTEE MEMBERS.

Long term impact of the London riots

2011-08-08T19:54:00.000-04:00
Many hours of riots in more and more areas of London, England, I prefer to say, over UK.

Of course, there are the usual reasons to condemn the riots: the property damage, the property damage.

Of self-interest to the people in the riot-affected areas:
have they considered the long-term impact of the riots on the low-income neighborhoods that they live in?

Here in cities of the United States, one can see in areas that had rioting in the 1960s it took a generation to get businesses to come back to the neighborhoods.
The neighborhoods are often bereft of banks, movie theaters and nice restaurants.
What is left in the low-income areas of Brooklyn or the Bronx of New York City or in downtown Newark, New Jersey? Just cheap delicatessens (cornershops or snack shops in British parlance), hair salons/ barber shops, and fast food. Not fun places to visit or to move to.

Maybe the rioters/ hooligans/ ruffians/ gangs would want to consider whether they want their neighborhoods to have decent commerce in them for the next twenty years.

Dean Baker of CEEP: Gang of Six is Blind to Information, Such as Elderly Spending Increases Exceed Rate of Inflation

2011-07-26T03:20:00.000-04:00
July 21st, 2011 6:48 PM
The Drive to Cut Social Security: Why Are the Gang of Six Scared of Information?

By Dean Baker

Read the full opinion piece at OpenMike at MichaelMoore.com.

Jeff Cohen: Obama is not Caving into Corporate Interests; He already has Caved in

2011-07-26T03:09:00.001-04:00
Jeff Cohen of Ithaca College makes a compelling argument at MichaelMoore.com against the corporate bias that President Barack Obama has demonstrated from the start of his presidency.

He wraps up by suggesting that a progressive candidate challenge him in the 2012 Democratic primaries for president.

July 25th, 2011 8:24 AM
Obama is NOT “Caving” to Corporate Interests

By Jeff Cohen

In a campaign almost as frenzied as the effort to get Barack Obama into the White House, liberal groups are now mobilizing against the White House and reported deals that would cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits. They accuse President Obama of being weak and willing to “cave” to corporate and conservative forces bent on cutting the social safety net while protecting the wealthy.

Those accusations are wrong.

The accusations imply that Obama is on our side. Or was on our side. And that the right wing is pushing him around.

But the evidence is clear that Obama is an often-willing servant of corporate interests -- not someone reluctantly doing their bidding, or serving their interests only because Republicans forced him to.

Since coming to Washington, Obama has allied himself with Wall Street Democrats who put corporate deregulation and greed ahead of the needs of most Americans:

In 2006, a relatively new Senator Obama was the only senator to speak at the inaugural gathering of the Alexander Hamilton Project launched by Wall Street Democrats like Robert Rubin and Roger Altman, Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary and deputy secretary. Obama praised them as “innovative, thoughtful policymakers.” (It was Rubin’s crusade to deregulate Wall Street in the late ‘90s that led directly to the economic meltdown of 2008 and our current crisis.)
In early 2007, way before he was a presidential frontrunner, candidate Obama was raising more money from Wall Street interests than all other candidates, including New York presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.
In June 2008, as soon as Hillary ended her campaign, Obama went on CNBC, shunned the “populist” label and announced: “Look: I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market.” He packed his economic team with Wall Street friends -- choosing one of Bill Clinton’s Wall Street deregulators, Larry Summers, as his top economic advisor.
A year into his presidency, in a bizarre but revealing interview with Business Week, Obama was asked about huge bonuses just received by two CEOs of Wall Street firms bailed out by taxpayers. He responded that he didn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus to J.P. Mogan’s CEO or the $9 million to Goldman Sachs’ CEO: “I know both those guys, they are very savvy businessmen,” said Obama. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.”

After any review of Obama’s corporatist ties and positions, the kneejerk response is: “Yes, but Obama was a community organizer!”

He WAS a community organizer. . .decades before he became president. Back when Nelson Mandela was in prison and the U.S. government declared him the leader of a “terrorist organization” while our government funded and armed Bin Laden and his allies to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. That’s a long time ago.

It’s worth remembering that decades before Reagan became president, the great communicator was a leftwing Democrat and advocate for the working class and big federal social programs.

The sad truth, as shown by Glenn Greenwald, is that Obama had arrived at the White House looking to make cuts in benefits to the elderly. Two weeks before his inauguration, Obama echoed conservative scares about Social Security and Medicare by talking of “red ink as far as the eye can see.” He opened his doors to Social Security/Medicare cutters -- first trying to get Republican Senator Judd Gregg (“a leading voice for reining in entitlement spending,” wrote Politico) into his cabinet, and later appointing entitlement-foe Alan Simpson to co-chair his “Deficit Commission.” Obama’s top economic advisor, Larry Summers, came to the White House publicly telling Time magazine of needed Social Security cuts.

At this late date, informed activists and voters who care about economic justice realize that President Obama is NOT “on our side.”

Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont -- widely seen as “America’s Senator” -- is so disgusted by recent White House actions that he called Friday for a challenge to Obama in Democratic primaries: “I think it would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.”

Although Sanders has said clearly that he’s running for reelection to the senate in 2012 – not for president -- his comment led instantly to a Draft Sanders for President website.

Imagine if a credible candidate immediately threatened a primary challenge unless Obama rejects any deal cutting the safety net while maintaining tax breaks for the rich. Team Obama knows that a serious primary challenger would cost the Obama campaign millions of dollars. And it may well be a powerful movement-building opportunity for activists tired of feeling hopeless with Obama.

It’s time for progressives to talk seriously about a challenge to Obama’s corporatism. Polls show most Americans support economic justice issues, and that goes double for Democratic primary voters.

If not Bernie, who? If not now, when?

GOP Further Burns its Bridges to the Latino Community

2011-07-26T02:58:00.001-04:00
Republican Party or "Grand Old Party" (GOP) leaders have been alienating themselves from Latinos since the mid-1990s by supporting state and national legislation that is hostile to Latinos.

None of the top five GOP presidential candidates for the 2012 nomination for president have committed to appear at a La Raza conference.

"Republican Presidential Candidates Skip Latino Group Conference", by Elise Foley and Sam Stein in Huffington Post, July 25, 2011.

GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich and Jon Huntsman were invited to the annual conference of National Council of La Raza, the largest Latino organization in the nation.

All five chose to skip the affair.

The absence isn't highly unexpected considering the crowded schedules that presidential aspirants often face. But in the context of an increasingly frayed relationship between Latino voters and the Republican party, it has provided another clear hint that the GOP sees this ever-expanding constituency group as a lost cause.

"To me, that sets a signal that we're not a priority," said National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia. "And quite frankly, when you look at the actions that have been occurring by the leaders of the Republican party, it is, I think, alarming for us in the Latino community."

The National Council of La Raza's annual conference is in progress, from July 23 to July 25, in Washington, DC.

ALEC -bolder than shadow government, Blatantly pull strings

2011-07-25T04:43:00.000-04:00
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), after a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request, has been exposed by John Nichols in the nation, in "ALEC Exposed".

One contributor at democraticunderground.com
Who are your state ALEC members? Maybe you have Billionaires that can thank them.

Find a list of who has been exposed so far.
http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

What is ALEC ?
ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills.

More than 98% of ALEC's revenues come from sources other than legislative dues, such as corporations, corporate trade groups, and corporate foundations. Each corporate member pays an annual fee of between $7,000 and $25,000 a year, and if a corporation participates in any of the nine task forces, additional fees apply, from $2,500 to $10,000 each year. ALEC also receives direct grants from corporations, such as $1.4 million from ExxonMobil from 1998-2009.

Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called "model bills" reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. Through ALEC, corporations have "a VOICE and a VOTE" on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state. DO YOU?
Thanks to annm4peace at democraticunderground.com.

7.1 Richter scale earthquake hits NE Japan; tsunami alert called off

2011-07-09T23:49:00.000-04:00
A 7.1 earthquake has struck northeast Japan. This comes just months after the quake in the same region a few months ago.

A tsunami alert was called. But authorities have called it off, TVNZ (New Zealand television) reports.

Area nuclear plants are on alert.

Avoid terrible Verizon service --online payment site sends user in a circular loop

2011-07-08T14:52:00.000-04:00
Verizon, similar to many companies, has made their websites profoundly user-hostile.

Try to pay a bill? Pay online --they've closed down their brick and mortar offices, throwing thousands out of work. Time was that you could pay easily at the site. Now, they want you to merge your phone account with the Verizon email.
Of course, as you haven't used that Verizon mail, you have forgotten the password for that. So, you cannot pay your bill at their online payment site.

Circular loop with the web page that is ostensibly for online Verizon telephone bill payment:
https://signin.verizon.com/sso/STIDServlet?choice=continue

Verizon phone support loop: 2:13 spoke with some one and then put on hold. That was at 2:14 Verizon phone support loop: 2:13 spoke with some one and they’ve put me on hold.

Finally, someone picked up at 2:21. On hold at 2:22, :24, :25. And again at 2:23, 24.
Now onto a different recording.
and on and on 'til 2:33. Significant other came on the other line, so I interrupted the Verizon. They picked up at 2:35, back on hold at 2:38, because they were the FIOS department.
Giving up on them at 2:46. Paying a king's ransom of 30 cents per minute at Kinko's.
People, consider your other telephone and Internet options. You don't have to stay with Verizon. Look at the lousy service I got!

They are definitely going to be the subject of a complaint with the New York State Attorney General.
http://www3.dps.state.ny.us/ocs/itgate.nsf/%28webDPS_welcome%29?OpenForm

New York State Public Service Commission
Office of Consumer Services
Three Empire State Plaza
Albany, NY 12223-1350
Toll Free: 800-342-3377 Fax: 518-472-8502
www.dps.state.ny.us

Please contact your service provider before filing your complaint with the New York State Public Service Commission.

Issues pertaining to Cellular Telephone, Satellite Television, Internet, Home Heating Oil, and Propane should be directed to the NYS Attorney General.

If you have a complaint concerning long distance telephone calls made to locations outside New York State you should contact the Federal Communications Commission.

TSA workers citing body scans for rash of cancers

2011-07-02T17:24:00.000-04:00
NOW CHECK THIS ON TSA BODY SCANNERS AND CANCERS AFFLICTING TSA WORKERS.

And you wondered why it might be a good idea to have unions representing TSA workers?

Hmm: Russian & Pakistani Media are Needed for Us to Know of News Blackout on (Nearly) Flooded Nuclear Plant

2011-06-22T03:41:00.002-04:00
Something is dead wrong when the nuclear-promoting Barack Obama presidency is succeeding in making us rely first and foremost on media reports from Russia and Pakistan to learn about the near-flooding of Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant in Nebraska.
Another case showing that we need a Green Party to advocate clean, renewable energy, instead of risky nuclear plants as the corporate president Obama does.

Here's the news thumbnail from Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" on the near-disastrous nuke plant flooding:
Massive flooding along the Missouri River has put two nuclear plants in Nebraska on alert. On Sunday, the Cooper Nuclear Station declared a low-level emergency as the Missouri River threatened to flood the nuclear power facility. Authorities say the plant, which is about 70 miles south of Omaha, will have to close down if the river rises another three inches. Meanwhile, the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant, located about 20 miles north of Omaha, has been shut down since April 9, in part due to flooding.

Here's the lead material from the Huntington, WV story, itself relying on Russian sources:
US Accused of News Blackout on Nebraska Nuke Plant

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - 20:53 Special to HuntingtonNews.Net

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers (from a Russian Agency Report)

A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant [photo top left] located in Nebraska.

According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire causing the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to issue a “no-fly ban” over the area.

Located about 20 minutes outside downtown Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant is owned by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) who on their website denies their plant is at a “Level 4” emergency by stating: “This terminology is not accurate, and is not how emergencies at nuclear power plants are classified.”

Russian atomic scientists in this FAAE report, however, say that this OPPD statement is an “outright falsehood” as all nuclear plants in the world operate under the guidelines of the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) which clearly states the “events” occurring at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant do, indeed, put it in the “Level 4” emergency category of an “accident with local consequences” thus making this one of the worst nuclear accidents in US history.

Though this report confirms independent readings in the United States of “negligible release of nuclear gasses” related to this accident it warns that by the Obama regimes censoring of this event for “political purposes” it risks a “serious blowback” from the American public should they gain knowledge of this being hidden from them.

Interesting to note about this event was the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chief, Gregory B. Jaczko, blasting the Obama regime just days before the near meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant by declaring that “the policy of not enforcing most fire code violations at dozens of nuclear plants is “unacceptable” and has tied the hands of NRC inspectors.”
Read more at the Huntington News source page:
http://www.huntingtonnews.net/5415

And watch Thom Hartmann's report on his "The Big Picture" TV show at Russia Today at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NidxieeUl4&feature=player_embedded#at=208
(Evoking Gil Scott-Heron ["We Almost Lost Detroit"], someone linked this video at DemocraticUnderground.com with the phrase, "We Almost Lost Nebraska." The plant is near the borders of Missouri and Kansas as well.)

Pakistan's "The Nation" first broke this story, June 18, last Saturday, at
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/International/18-Jun-2011/US-orders-news-blackout-over-crippled-Nebraska-Nuclear-Plant-report.

Thank you, Pakistani and Russian media, for leading us out of the dark.

In Democratic-Republican Obama's America: nearly all of Las Vegas' school-children are homeless

2011-06-09T19:06:00.002-04:00
An East Las Vegas, Nevada elementary school, Whitney Elementary School (where majority of students are homeless) --and a valiant principal's (Sherrie Gahn) efforts to feed and clothe the children: Byron Pitts, "Homeless students find hope in their principal" CBS Evening News, June 9, 2011.

And at a high school:
Homeless Student Population Jumps at Vegas High School, Jan 28, 2010:
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/11898474/homeless-student-population-jumps-at-vegas-high-school?redirected=truejavascript:void(0)

In election turmoil in Spain red-green left nearly doubles its vote

2011-05-22T21:36:00.000-04:00
In Spanish local and regional elections of May 22, 2011, the Popular Party (PP) trounced the Socialists (PSOE):
37,56 percent of the vote for PP to 27,81 of the vote for the PSOE.
The red-green alliance of Greens, Communists and other leftists took 6,32 percent of the vote, a higher percentage than the alliance received in national elections since 2000.
(You can see additional details in this wikipedia article (English)).

And this was leaving out the traditional bases of strongest voter support in Spain for the left, Andalusia and Catalonia, which will have their elections later due to a different election cycle.

Strauss Kahn accuser at HIV/AIDS building, "Manh. Madam" Davis: Strauss Kahn a client

2011-05-21T23:08:00.002-04:00
DSK HOTEL ASSAULT ACCUSER IN HIV / AIDS HOUSE
In some lesser-known developments about Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the (now-former) head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who is accused sexually assaulting a maid at the Sofitel Hotel in New York, New York (Manhattan), his accuser has been living in a building exclusively for survivors of HIV or AIDS.
See this article in the Telegraph of the UK (United Kingdom), "Dominique Strauss-Kahn maid lives in apartment block for HIV sufferers: The hotel chambermaid who alleges she was sexually attacked by Dominique Strauss-Kahn lives in an apartment block used exclusively for people with HIV or Aids, it emerged on Wednesday." John Swain, May 18, 2011.
On the other hand, as reported the same day in "New York Daily News," her lawyer publicly denied that she has tested positive for HIV.

MORE ACCUSERS AT THE HOTEL
David Randall in the UK Independent reports that on Friday (May 20) two additional staff at the Manhattan Sofitel have come forward to claim that they were also propositioned with sexual advances, "Strauss-Kahn: More hotel staff 'propositioned': The former IMF chief leaves prison amid a storm of sexual allegations."

"MANHATTAN MADAM" DAVIS, OF GOV. ELIOT SPITZER CASE, CLAIMS STRAUSS KAHN A CLIENT; CLAIMS A MEAN CLIENT
Kristin Davis, who served jail time in connection with the case of procuring a prostitute, claimed that Strauss Kahn was a client of her business.
She spoke to the press because (as reported by CBS TV News, "'Manhattan Madam' Kristin Davis claims IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn mistreated escort, reports say"):
Davis, 35, said she decided to speak out against Strauss-Kahn because of the allegations against him. She said she doesn't feel the need to protect her clients that are abusive, reports The Daily Mail.

"The girl said he was pushy, overly grabby and forceful. He did not rape anyone. However, at $1,000 or more an hour, we expected the clients to behave like gentlemen, not animals," said Davis to The Daily Mail.

Founder of MadeinUSAForever.com Lipscomb's book on importance of buying American

2011-05-17T16:00:00.000-04:00
As told on the Thom Hartmann radio show,
you can read the first chapter of Todd Lipscomb's book, "Re-Made in The USA," online at:
MadeinUSAForever.com's page "Preview of Todd's Book

Protestors pay $5,000 and sing Pvt. Bradley Manning song at Obama fundraiser

2011-04-22T17:06:00.000-04:00
Barack Obama fundraiser party guests surprise Obama with song in sympathy for Pvt. Bradley Manning of wiki-leaks fame.
(They paid $5,000 a piece for privilege of being close to Obama and raising a mild ruckus.)
Lyrics of ditty that they sang [from Atlantic Wire and Yahoo News:
Dear Mr. President we honor you today sir
Each of us brought you $5,000
It takes a lot of Benjamins to run a campaign
I paid my dues, where's our change?
We'll vote for you in 2012, yes that's true
Look at the Republicans - what else can we do
Even though we don't know if we'll retain our liberties
In what you seem content to call a free society
Yes it's true that Terry Jones is legally free
To burn a people's holy book in shameful effigy
But at another location in this country
Alone in a 6x12 cell sits Bradley
23 hours a day is night
The 5th and 8th Amendments say this kind of thing ain't right
We paid our dues, where's our change?

Why rude Trump is actually right on China, tariffs and trade

2011-04-21T14:56:00.001-04:00
Sure, billionaire real estate tycoon Donald Trump is an obnoxious silly birther.

But we should take Trump's suggestion of a 25 percent tariff on Chinese imports as a welcome opportunity to side-step the hysterical Smoot-Hawley invoking and trade war invoking reactions. We should welcome an open public discussion and debate that questions our nation's unusual hewing to free trade orthodoxy in a market that East Asian and European successes do not follow free trade.

First off, America's dynamic time of growth, 1890 to 1920 was in a period of high tariffs.

Calling attention to the Smoot-Haley trade act is deceptive. As one blogger at Market Oracle notes in "Why Donald Turmp is right on trade," reputable economists, even free traders, from liberal Paul Krugman to conservative Milton Friedman, dispute Smoot-Hawley's role in the Great Depression.
Read further, this important blog post. (Of course, I am not endorsing Trump or all opinions in the politics of the referenced site.), Ian Fletcher, "Why Donald Trump is Right on Trade" at marketoracle.co.uk.
The usual suspects are racing to debunk Donald Trump’s foray into the most serious protectionism—a 25% tariff on China—proposed by a major presidential candidate since Patrick Buchanan ran in 1992.

They know this is big. Our long-delayed national trade debate has begun.
I have expressed reservations about getting obsessed with just China before. But broadly speaking, Trump is right on the money here. Nothing less than an actual tariff or the equivalent is ever going to get Beijing to stop gaming the international trading system to America’s disadvantage.

This matters, big-time. Because until we sort out America’s trade mess—which must start by zeroing out, or close to it, our $600 billion-a-year trade deficit—our economy will never truly be healthy again.

Jobs are the aspect of this everyone understands. But what a lot of people miss is that the current budget fight, and the angst over our mounting national debt, are also intimately connected to trade.

So Trump is onto something even bigger than people realize.

The budget fight ultimately comes down to the fact that we don’t have an economy large enough to generate tax revenue commensurate with the spending we have voted for. But why isn’t our economy big enough? Start with the fact that, as economist William Bahr has estimated, America’s accumulated trade deficits since 1991 alone have caused our economy to be 13 percent smaller than it otherwise would be. The trade deficit costs us about one percent in GDP growth every year, and that compounds over time.

As for our national debt, or, more properly, our bloating public and private indebtedness? As I explained at length in another article, borrowing money (and selling off existing wealth, which has the same net effect) is a mathematically inevitable result of running trade deficits. The only way this can not happen is if a) the aforementioned $600 billion isn’t real money, or b) America is trading with Santa’s elves.

So, Mr. Trump… How do we rebalance America’s trade, starting with China?

Forget about doing it by playing nice. China will only give up one-way free trade (free for America, protectionist for them) when they are coerced into doing so. They are making far too much money to ever give up this sweet racket voluntarily.

We are constantly warned that imposing a tariff on China would trigger a trade war. But the curious thing about the concept of trade war is that, unlike actual shooting war, it has no actual historical precedent. In fact, the reality is that there has never been a significant trade war.

Anyone who knows otherwise, please name one.

The usual example free traders give is America's Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which supposedly either caused the Great Depression or caused it to spread around the world. But this canard does not survive serious examination, and has actually been denied by almost every economist who has actually researched the question in depth—including many free traders and ranging from Paul Krugman on the left to Milton Friedman on the right. (I debunked this myth at length in this article.)

There is, in fact, a basic unresolved paradox at the bottom of the very concept of trade war. If, as free traders insist, free trade is beneficial whether or not one's trading partners reciprocate, then why would any rational nation start one, no matter how provoked? Wouldn’t they just keep lapping up the benefits of one-way free trade, if it’s so good for them?

Furthermore, if the moneymen in Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin, and the other nations currently running trade surpluses against the U.S. start to ponder exaggerated retaliation against the U.S., they will soon discover the advantage is with us, not them. Because they are the ones with the trade surpluses to lose, not us. What exactly does the U.S. have to lose in a trade war? The only way a deficit nation can “lose” a trade war is by having its trade balance get even worse. Given that the U.S. trade balance is already outlandish, it is hard to see how this could happen.

Supposedly, China could suddenly stop buying our Treasury Debt.

Indeed they could, but this would immediately reduce the value of the $1.15 trillion or so they already hold. Furthermore, this would depress the value of the dollar—exactly the opposite of their currency manipulation strategy.

Then there is the awkward problem of what China would do with all the money it would get by selling off its dollars. There just aren't that many good alternatives for parking that much money. Japan doesn't want its currency used as an international reserve currency, and the Euro has huge problems. Assets like gold and minor currencies are volatile or in limited supply. Others, like real estate or corporate stocks, are still denominated in those pesky dollars and euros.

We are still a nuclear power, so at the end of the day, China cannot force us to do anything that we don't want to. We could—a grossly irresponsible but not impossible hypothetical—repudiate our debt to them (or stop paying the interest) as the ultimate countermove.

More plausibly, we might simply restore the tax on the interest on foreign-held bonds that was repealed in 1984 thanks to Treasury Secretary Donald Regan. We have lots of little cards like that up our sleeve.

So an understanding will, most likely, be reached. A deal (one of Mr. Trump’s favorite words!) will be struck. I think Mr. Trump understands this better than anyone else. That’s one of the things I like about him.

The reality is that the United States is already in a trade war with China. Kowtowing to China today is economic appeasement, with the same result as political appeasement in the 1930s: a few more years of relative quiet with a bigger explosion at the end.

At some point, America's ability to run gigantic deficits must end, due to a prolonged slide or sudden crash in the value of the dollar. The longer we wait, the greater the likelihood that it will come as a sudden and destabilizing shock, rather than a managed, more gradual adjustment.

This issue is bigger than China alone. How America deals with China will set the precedent, and establish or destroy America's credibility, for dealing with a long list of other nations.

Believe me, they’re watching Trump now in Tokyo, Berlin, and Brussels.
Ian Fletcher is the author of the new book Free Trade Doesn’t Work: What Should Replace It and Why (USBIC, $24.95) He is an Adjunct Fellow at the San Francisco office of the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a Washington think tank founded in 1933. He was previously an economist in private practice, mostly serving hedge funds and private equity firms. He may be contacted at ian.fletcher@usbic.net.

Secure your hard drive Before you donate / dispose electronics

2011-04-16T13:45:00.000-04:00
Eventually your $500 computer will go kaput; your $200 copier/ printer will do the same.

The green / politically green / politically correct / verdantally correct thing to do is to recycle your electronics.
DON'T PUT THEM IN THE SIDEWALK FOR TRASH. THERE ARE SENSITIVE METALS IN THERE!!!
A N D ! ! ! :
DON'T PUT THEM ON THE SIDEWALK WITH THE GARBAGE, SINCE IDENTITY THIEVES CAN EXPLOIT YOUR HARD DRIVE (which is on any printer, as well).

From the New York City government website on proper disposal ... the following is for SECURE disposal:
BEFORE I RECYCLE OR DONATE MY COMPUTER, HOW CAN I SAFEGUARD MY PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Before disposing, recycling, or donating your computer, it is a good idea to remove all personal information from your hard drive to protect yourself from identity theft. At past DSNY e-waste events, our electronics recycling vendor was required to follow a Department of Defense standard to wipe everything from the hard drive three times to ensure that all data is fully erased. Other programs may have different requirements. Contact programs individually to inquire about their data destruction techniques.

Data wiping software is also available to help you erase your hard drive prior to recycling it. Another option is to remove the hard drive before recycling your computer. This way, you can still recycle the computer without having concerns about the data on the drive.
The problem for printers is that there are hard drives for data, and these are not as easy to clean data from as they are for computers. So REMOVE them.

Towns in close proximity to Indian Point nuclear complex, Buchanan, New York

2011-03-20T15:25:00.001-04:00
In this period of attention to the evacuation from the area of the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant, in Okuma, in Fukushima Prefecture in northeast Japan,

It is instructive to look at cities in the radius of lower Hudson Valley New York State's Indian Point nuclear plant (whose name obscures things: Indian Point energy center):

Distance from Buchanan (where the plant lies; the town is immediately south of Peekskill, New York, in Westchester County; the plant is between the Hudson River eastern shore rail line and the Hudson River itselt):

within 12 miles: small villages:
Jefferson Valley; Ossining, and city of Peekskill.

within 25 miles:
Tarrytown; Yonkers,White Plains, Port Chester, in the lower half of Westchester County, New York
Greenwich, Connecticut
all the population centers of Rockland County, New York: New City, Spring Valley;
Ridgewood, New Jersey

Just beyond 25 mile mark:
Poughkeepsie, New York
Danbury, Norwalk, Stamford, Connecticut
northern stretches of the Bronx,
Teaneck, Hackensack, Garfield, Paterson, New Jersey
Middletown, New York

Three other nuclear plants are operating in New York State, all of them on Lake Ontario: Ginna Nuclear Power Generating Station, James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear and Nine Mile Point.

N. Klein on Democ Now: “My Fear is that Climate Change is the Biggest Crisis of All”: Naomi Klein Warns Global Warming Could Be Exploited by Capitalism and Militarism

2011-03-10T18:19:00.000-05:00
Naomi Klein yesterday on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now:
“My Fear is that Climate Change is the Biggest Crisis of All”: Naomi Klein Warns Global Warming Could Be Exploited by Capitalism and Militarism

Lisa Dodson on pushing back against the Immoral Economy

2011-03-06T10:25:00.000-05:00
The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy:
Sociologist Lisa Dodson investigates the growing grassroots movement against unethical standards within the workplace.
March 4, 2011

TAKE ACTION
Petitions by Change.org|Get Widget|Start a Petition �

The following is an excerpt from The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy, by Lisa Dodson (Copyright © 2009 by Lisa Dodson), publisher, New Press.
Roots of Disobedience

On the surface, the people I met who practiced economic disobedience would seem quite diverse. They included middle-aged, white Bea, managing that big-box store in rural New England and thinking that after years of hard work, you should be able to buy a prom dress for your daughter. They included Ned, white and in his thirties, the chain grocery store manager who thought working families should have enough to eat. And also Ray, in his fifties and the son of immigrants, a community-center director for a small city, who doesn’t ask for a “pedigree” before signing people up for desperately needed services. They included Aida, a Latina in her thirties, the director of a child care center, who misplaced paperwork so that children wouldn’t lose child care and parents wouldn’t lose jobs. And they included urban teacher Lenora, in her twenties and African American, who broke school rules all the time to help out a student in her class.
Read more at the original article on alternet.org.

EPA & Fracking / EPA documents show decades-long concealment of dangers

2011-03-05T05:57:00.000-05:00
This is quite an important story in states such as New York and Pennsylvania, especially as fracking (hydraulic fracturing) is being promoted by energy entrepreneurs and politicians, and resisted by residents and people concerned about health.

From Democracy Now --with video, as published in CommonDreams, March 4, 2011:
Leaked EPA Documents Expose Decades-Old Effort To Hide Dangers of Natural Gas Extraction
Efforts by lawmakers and regulators to force the federal government to better police the natural gas drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" have been thwarted for the past 25 years, according to an expose in the New York Times. Studies by scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on fracking have been repeatedly narrowed in scope by superiors and important findings have been removed under pressure from the industry. The news comes as the EPA is conducting a broad study of the risks of natural gas drilling with preliminary results scheduled to be delivered next year.

Merle Hazard "Feelin Lousy" wins PBS competition

2011-03-03T20:14:00.000-05:00
Story in PBS News Hour tonight, Paul Solman:
EDITOR'S NOTE: Last month, we featured a week-long series of songs by our country crooning friend Merle Hazard about the Euro-debt crisis: Spain, Ireland, Italy and Germany, and an encore of the infamous Greek Debt song. We invited you to submit your own lyrics about countries facing economic woe. The promised prize was a rendition of the winning song by Mr. Hazard himself.

Without further ado, here's Merle's interpretation of the winning entry: "Feelin' Lousy," by Davidthewriter about the financial crisis here in the U.S. It's sung to the Simon and Garfunkel tune, "Feelin' Groovy."

Go to Solman's post at PBS News Hour site, with a Merle Hazard (that's right, not Merle Haggard).

Sanctions not enough; Obama must get Navy to accompany Free Libya flotilla

2011-02-26T14:24:00.000-05:00
Here are the bloody, menacing headlines again,
Armed pro-Gadhafi gangs roll in Libyan capital

We read in the New York Times today that armed men are shooting from ambulances. This echoes news that we have been reading in recent days. (It has been tough getting news from Muammar Gaddifi (Qaddifi)-controlled-western Libya. Wikileaks won't get us the key news. We rely on tweets. See the tweet side-bar on the Al-Jazeera English website.)

SANCTIONS NOT ENOUGH
President Barack Obama needs to stop seeking the favor of despotic Russian or Chinese regime leaders. He needs to think about doing what is right. He and the U.S. would get much mileage of support from the Arab Street if aids the opposition in Free Libya (the former Gaddafi officers and other ad hoc freedom fighters), the greater Benghazi region.

WHAT IS TO BE DONE
Obama needs to dispatch a warship. along with aerial cover from one of the U.S. stations in the Mediterranean to Benghazi, to accompany the rebel freedom fighter forces, and support them in a sea journey to Libyan capital Tripoli.
From a small amount of effort, the U.S. would gain great Arab support, in the support of democratic-republican freedom in the Arab world, rather than trying not to offend a handful of Moscow or Beijing despots and accompanying acolytes.

SEPARATED AT BIRTH; OR SAME PERSON?
On a silly aside, has anyone noticed that in the last decade, Qaddafi looks like pioneering Latin-rock guitarist Carlos Santana? Both wear kufi caps. Both have an uneven goatee moustache and beard. You never see both in the same place... I'm just saying.

Union busting bill passes Wisconsin assembly; multiplier effect forgotten

2011-02-25T04:38:00.000-05:00
The famous legislation to strip public employee unions of collective bargaining rights has passed the Wisconsin state assembly, the lower legislative house.

Now, the question is how long the Democratic Senators can hold out, staying aout of state, with state trooers braying down their necks.

The recent local headlines say, "Will lower wages aid Wisconsin’s economy?," for example the area HeraldNet.

With the excited push, by Republican politicians (and growing numbers of Democrats) and some media allies, to eliminate jobs or drive down wages, people have forgotten their basic economics courses and the multiplier effect that they learned about.

Since the 1980s we have watched the evisceration of industrial jobs. Now we are seeing a trend in a similar trend with the downsizing of public sector work. But the policy shapers are forgetting the bad effects of reducing money circulation. in the idea of money circulation, When money is introduced to the economy, the circulating effect is a mushrooming of money everywhere as money is spent and the money will circulated broadly.
(For more detailed explanation of the idea, see this wikipedia summary or this summary.

In short, watch America slip in the direction of Russia, a large land, a large population, a declining standard of living.

Speaking of Koch, Walker: CMD report shows money chain from wealthy interests to Republican Governors

2011-02-24T14:26:00.002-05:00
According to Common Dreams and the Center for Media and Democracy report that they cite,
(NSFW PUN IN SPOOF POSTER AT END OF THIS POST)
The key beginnings of the article, February 23, 2011, at commondreams.org:
A new investigation by the Center for Media and Democracy documents the big money funneled by one of the richest men in America and one of the richest corporations in the world to put controversial Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in office.

The Republican Governors Association and the Kochs' Investment in Scott Walker
Walker was elected just over three months ago on the heels of an exceptionally expensive gubernatorial race in the Badger State, fueled by groups funded by the Koch brothers, David and Charles. David Koch, the son of a radical founding member of the John Birch Society, which has long been obsessed with claims about socialism and advocated the repeal of civil rights laws, personally donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association (RGA) in June of last year. This was the most he had ever personally given to that group. (Fellow billionaire Rupert Murdoch matched Koch's donation to the RGA with a $1 million donation from his company News Corporation, parent company of FOX "News" Channel.)

A PICTURE, WITH A VULGAR PUN, FITTING A VULGAR PAR, RUINING AMERICAN POLITICS:

International community must blockade Libya, to prevent massive massacres in seceded Banghazi province

2011-02-24T02:57:00.001-05:00
Libya's demographic spread across the country is an odd pattern. On the west there is a concentration of population, in the center of the nation's Mediterranean Sea coastline there is a dipping down of the land, as the the coastline pushes further south, and here the population's presence is much sparser. In the east, the concentration picks up. In the Benghazi province, there are concentrations of cities, Al Bayda, Benghazi (Libya's second-largest city), and Tobruq (or Tobruk). This eastern province has broken away, as the national government has lost control of the land. The foreign minister of Italy's Berlusconi government has tried to assert that there is a nascent Benghazi Emirate developing in the eastern province. But as a simple Google search will indicate, there is no rationale for that claim.

As a representative with Human Rights Watch said Tuesday night on PBS' News Hour, the Muammar Gaddafi regime has shown, the government is showing tremendous brutality upon its civilian population. The army is firing on peaceful protesters; then, it is firing on the funeral mourners. The desperate government, realizing that the commitment of the army to aggressively its nation's own people, is resorting to importing mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa.

Some of the latest: "Tripoli a ghost town as Libyan mercenaries roam" --Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the evening of February 23, 2011; Libyan mercenaries using ambulances to murder ...‎" --Building.co.uk, February 23, 2011.

This is truly barbaric. As the people of the area say, it is a travesty for the government to kill its own people. The HRW representative argued that it is a strong likelihood that the government will slaughter people by the thousands, lining people along walls and shooting them, when it tries to retake control of the east.

RATIONALE FOR INTERNATIONAL ARMED ACTION
For the protection of innocent civilians, international armed forces should take action to halt the actions by the government against the populace. No oil or any other products should be allowed to leave western Libyan ports. No incoming boats of mercenaries should be allowed to enter Libya. International forces should prevent, even at the risk of attack, the entry of planes into the interior of the country, so as to block the entry of any more sub-Saharan mercenaries. The Swiss government should freeze Libyan assets in Swiss banks.

ON THE BAFFLING SPELLING OF HIS NAME:
Gadhafi Says He Won't Resign Unless Rebels Figure Out Correct Spelling of His Name
Huffington Post (blog) (satire) - ‎10 hours ago‎
Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi tightened his grip on power today, saying he would step down only if protesters guessed the correct spelling of his name. "Oh man, we're doomed," one rebel said. "Is it Moammar or Muamar? Kadafi or Qaddafi? ...

IRONY IN GADDAFI SON'S DISSERTATION
Gaddafi's second son, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, completed a PhD from the London School of Economics. It calls for international authority over nations. I'd have to read more, but it might advocate positions for international authority over regimes in the way that I have in this blog. Pertinent aspects from the "Financial Times" article:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/37c54914-3fa2-11e0-a1ba-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1EriI2tfv

The thesis makes a case for “a more democratic, morally justified system of global governance”. He seeks “to realise a practical system of international governance”.

He calls for a global “collective management” system, involving successive tiers of elected officials. This is, in large part, to restrain the damage caused by the “New Leviathan” US, which “perpetuates many of the problems as it asserts its power, such as the oppression of the small and weak nations by the stronger”.
See the Financial Times article for the full article. At the very least, I would say that the authority that Gaddafi the younger advocates would thwart the military adventures in Chad that his father took in the 1980s.

Revelations from Fake Koch Call: Gov. Walker Plans Extra-Legal Moves Against Wisc. Democrats

2011-02-23T14:55:00.001-05:00
On several points, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has harbored secretive ambitions, far beyond what he had initially divulged to the public, in the course of the showdown with public employee unions in Wisconsin.

A blogger a ''The Buffalo Beast" made a prank call in late February to Gov. Walker. When he made the call he successfully convinced the governor that he was David Koch, one of the Koch Brothers, billionaire oil tycoons from Texas.

Click to this Huffington Post report on the call for further details from this call: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-berney/walker-koch_b_827129.html

The call made by a Buffalo blogger pretending to be billionaire right-wing activist David Koch to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is quickly making an impact on the news cycle. (You can listen to the call on YouTube: Part 1 | Part 2.)

Walker is extremely frank with the man he believes to be an important financial supporter, both of his own campaign and right-wing causes. Below are the six most important revelations we learn from listening to the Governor speak his mind.

A summary of the revelations from the call [Click to the Huffington Post link above and below these excerpts for details of these six points:

1. Walker and the Senate Republicans are conspiring to withhold Democratic lawmakers' paychecks.

2. Walker sees billionaire David Koch as "one of us."

3. Walker is planning to threaten state workers with layoffs.

4. Walker has a plan to lie to Senate Democrats and pass the bill while they are not aware of the vote.

5. Walker considered planting fake protesters to cause trouble among the real protesters.

6. Walker is corrupt.

Click to this Huffington Post report on the call for further details from this call: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jesse-berney/walker-koch_b_827129.html