Hundreds of protesters, emboldened by the growing national Occupy Wall Street movement, streamed through midtown Manhattan on Tuesday in what they called a "Millionaires March." (Oct. 11)
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
SPANISH REVOLUTION (English) Muse Uprising
They have power because they own the police, once the police see they are being used as well, they will have a choice, support the people or in years to come have to shamefully explain to their grandchildren why they let the rich take away all their rights
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Ex-Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer visit Wall Street Occupy
Former Louisiana Governor and Republican presidential candidate Charles E. "Buddy" Roemer visit Zuccotti Park to lend his support to the peoples at Wall Street Occupy.video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
Roemer says Americans deserve a president who is "free to lead." By that he means a president who isn't beholden to special interests. Roemer is pledging that he'll take no money from political action committees and no donation more than $100.
"Occupy" Movement Gets Settled in NYC, DC
The protests against Wall Street aren't going away soon. New York's mayor says the demonstrators can stay where they are, and protesters in Washington took a four-month extension of their permit to camp out near the White House. (Oct. 11)
Arrests in Boston Protest
Early Tuesday morning, more than 50 members of Occupy Boston were arrested for trespassing after they refused to move from a site across the street from their encampment. (Oct. 11)
Occupy Wall Street:
Congressman Charles Rangel support Wall Street Occupy. Call on the clergy to joint in support of the people at Zuccotti Park. He was there with the Rev. Sharpton and other elected officials.video by Rafael Martínez Alequein
video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
At today an Wall Street Occupoir blend the Civil Rights revolution of the 60s with the Wall Street Occupy. Seating next to him is a 92-years old lady, wit a name tag as he lapel James. This lady have been at Zuccotti Park everyday. She should be the face of the 99% of this nation.
video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
Bellamy Nofsinger spend Colombus Day with his mother, with the Occupy Wall Street patriots. In this video Bellamy is playing along with the musicians at Liberated Zuccoty Park in lower Manhattan.
video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
At today an Wall Street Occupoir blend the Civil Rights revolution of the 60s with the Wall Street Occupy. Seating next to him is a 92-years old lady, wit a name tag as he lapel James. This lady have been at Zuccotti Park everyday. She should be the face of the 99% of this nation.
video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
Monday, October 10, 2011
Bloomberg Softens Stance on Occupy Wall Street, Says They Can Stay
Almost an activist.Photo: Janet Mayer/Splash News
Michael "We'll See" Bloomberg said last week, "The protests that are trying to destroy the jobs of working people in this city aren't productive," and refused to answer definitively whether or not he'd let the demonstrations continue. Today his stance sounded a bit different: "The bottom line is people want to express themselves. And as long as they obey the laws, we'll allow them to," the mayor said before the Columbus Day Parade. But make no mistake: "If they break the laws, then, we're going to do what we're supposed to do: enforce the laws," he added. Asked how long he believed the occupation would continue, Bloomberg said, "I think part of it has probably to do with the weather," indicating that his lack of faith in the cause likely persists. "This is the place where you can protest," Bloomberg did say of New York City, calling it the "most tolerant, open city in the world." He has a little hippie in him yet.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Spirit of Selma reborn in N.Y.: Occupy Wall St. protests echo roots of 1965 civil rights movement
Sunday, October 9th 2011, 4:00 AM
Frederic J. Brown/Getty
Protesters hold banners while shouting slogans during a late afternoon march through downtown Los Angeles on October 3 in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City. First in the morning, I climb the steps out of the subway and onto lower Broadway, whose new history is starting. The outcry today is from the 99% who start this day of work against the 1% whose rich comforts include acceptable theft.
The future of today's Broadway inherits the past that suddenly is living so fully in memory. I am on Broadway, abuzz with buses and cabs and chauffeurs driving people to work. For the unemployed, the jobs are nonexistent.
The contrast comes at a time of rising emotional opposition to Wall Street. The politicians have not recognized that the gathering against the government of the rich and uncaring is only the start of a national outcry.
They all cannot see the start of a future that will make history. The crowds today at a small park on Broadway and Liberty are perhaps the most pleasant, uplifting scene that we've had around this city for so long.
They set up life in a park on Broadway and then had a march of great democratic health. The marchers, so young, were joined by what appears to be the permanent large old-time labor unions that once wanted to kill the young.
They march here because jobs go to China and houses are foreclosed on. The banks keep taking a point here, or another over there, and the public finally lets out the first scream.
The small place where all this started is Selma, Ala., the place historians call the basis for all the rallies and marches that those in New York now have recognized as the same outcry for change.
In Selma, voting once consisted of five or six blacks and more than 1,000 whites. Marches and rallies brought federal authorities to the Selma polls, and in the next election, 7,500 blacks voted and out the whites went.
The white man's most fierce anti-black sheriff, Jim Clark, ran a full attack on March 7, 1965, called "Bloody Sunday," that injured 600 civil-rights marchers in Selma. Clark was not only voted out of office, but was later found selling drugs, and his next bed was in a prison.
I now go to a notepad stored in a closet and take out this half a century later. I get pained thinking of how long I have been out on the streets in this business. But I was there in 1965, and this is something I found. This little Selma woman's past is our future:
Patricia Anne Dossiage, 10, stood in the red dirt and twitched her toes to brush away the ants crawling over her feet. She put her head between the strands of cattle wire and looked at the people walking on the road.
"I know why you marchin'," she said. "I know it good."
Who’s A Journalist?
Behind the News
Behind the News — October 7, 2011 12:19 PM
Who’s A Journalist?
Arrest of reporters at Occupy Wall Street protest raise questions about NYPD press credential process
By Erika Fry
John Farley, a reporter with WNET/Thirteen’s MetroFocus, was standing on the sidewalk interviewing two women who had been pepper sprayed during the Occupy Wall Street protest when it happened to him.
For Natasha Lennard, a freelancer for The New York Times’s City Blog, it happened as she live-tweeted events while walking alongside the crowd of protestors “taking” the Brooklyn Bridge.
And for Alternet freelancer Kristen Gwynne, who was among the bridge crowd, it happened while she was talking with protest participants.
Swept up by the NYPD along with Occupy Wall Street protesters, these journalists were kettled, cuffed, and bussed to a police station on where they were charged with disorderly conduct. Farley spent eight hours in jail on September 24; Lennard—who had Times editors working to free her—was in custody for five hours, and Gwynne for twice that long, on October 1.
It seems journalists themselves aren’t the only ones struggling to determine who, exactly, is a journalist. The three reporters are among the hundreds of individuals who have been arrested at the Occupy Wall Street protests in recent weeks. Each was there to cover the event, yet all three were treated in a manner that police tend to avoid with working journalists.
Why did this happen? Part of the answer is simply a byproduct of the everyone’s-a-journalist rhetoric that defines our media these days.
The more proximate answer, though, has to do with how the NYPD has decided to determine who is a journalist. Simply put, without a press credential issued by the NYPD’s Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information (DCPI), you are not a journalist in the eyes of the police.
The press credential permits journalists to cross police and fire lines, although it doesn’t guarantee that the pass-holder can cross those lines—it’s ultimately up to the officers at the scene, but with a pass you have the best chance to do so. To get this credential, you must submit an application and six published clips that prove you have covered breaking or spot news in the past. Peter Bekker, the consulting director of the New York Press Club, says the credential is essentially worthless since it doesn’t guarantee reporters access to anything.
The cases of Farley, Lennard, and Gwynne seem to indicate otherwise.
When Farley was arrested on September 24, he showed the officer his WNET identification. He and his colleague, Sam Lewis, had been using this identification effectively to move about the protest grounds throughout the afternoon. Lewis, who was not caught behind the police net, was with a pack of credentialed journalists, all of whom told the officers that Farley was covering the protest and should be let go. Lewis also called DCPI to see if they could get Farley released. In each instance, Farley and Lewis say they were told by officers that, “We know he’s a journalist, but he doesn’t have a credential. There’s nothing we can do.”
Lennard, who was arrested last Saturday, tells a similar story:
I was on the bridge trapped without a press pass. I only had my New York Times identification and they were just doing a broad sweep. They weren’t particularly interested in the fact that I was with the media; they wanted to sweep the bridge.
When she made it clear to her arresting officer she was with the press and that her editor had already called the NYPD to get her free, the officer told her it would be sorted out when she got to the precinct. While Lennard’s processing was expedited once she was at the precinct, she still was charged with disorderly conduct for her presence on the bridge.
Gwynne, too, raised the issue with an officer on the scene who she says told her, if she was media, she should have been separate from the protesters, standing with other journalists who were in a group on the side of the bridge. Unlike Farley and Lennard, Gwynne says she was there to support the protesters as well as cover them, and felt it was fair that she faced the same consequences; she says she wanted to witness what happened to the protesters after arrest.
Chris Dunn, an attorney with New York Civil Liberties Union, says this pattern that is emerging at the protests, of making the NYPD-issued credential the only way to differentiate reporters from protesters, is problematic:
I’m aware there are circumstances in which the police will release from an arrest situation people that identify as reporters. Where the rub comes is when they are using the DCPI credential as the sole acceptable proof that you’re a reporter. The DCPI credential is hardly the only evidence that someone is a bona fide reporter.
This seems particularly true in cases like Farley, Lennard, and Gwynne’s—reporters who don’t typically cover crime scenes or need to cross police lines in their work. Obtaining press credentials to cover the protests had crossed their minds, they said, but they didn’t expect to need them and couldn’t have obtained them had they tried.
Farley works at a local “multiplatform magazine” launched by WNET/Thirteen (New York’s PBS station) in July; he was at the protest to report “a smart, thinky piece about citizen journalism,” says MetroFocus Executive Producer Laura Van Straaten.
“We don’t have credentials because we don’t qualify,” she said. She explains:
The eligibility requirement is for individual reporters to have six clips to show that you’ve covered similar events. Our entity is two months old, and they are new reporters—they don’t have those kinds of clips, even though we are part of a larger organization that is an established media organization in this town. We don’t qualify and no individual on our team will qualify because we are a magazine. We didn’t go down there to do spot news.
1K Occupy Wall Street: Egyptian Activist Goes 'From Liberation Square To Washington Square'
Thousands of Occupy Wall Street supporters gathered in Washington Square Park on Saturday afternoon for a General Assembly intended to spread the movement's message. After several introductory speakers, the crowd lit up when an Egyptian activist named Mohammed Ezzeldin explained what he saw was the connection between Occupy Wall Street and the protests against Hosni Mubarak.
"I am coming from there -- from the Arab Spring. From the Arab Spring to the fall of Wall Street," Ezzeldin said, his voice echoed by the crowd of thousands. "From Liberation Square to Washington Square, to the fall of Wall Street and market domination, and capitalist domination."
His passionate speech, which even included a reference to Karl Marx, made a startling comparison between what happened in Egypt earlier this year and what is now happening in the United States.
"Many things separate us," he said. "National borders. Homeland insecurities. Armies, corporations and police. They have their laws. They have their debts. And we have our revolution. We are the 99 percent."
Ezzeldin, a 28-year-old self-described "leftist activist" who is currently living in Jackson Heights and studying at the City University of New York's Graduate Center, told HuffPost he was camped out in Tahrir Square just a few months ago and is now spending days in Zuccotti Park.
"There are some differences," he said, but he believes "any success for the struggle in the United States is helpful for the rest of the world."
Ezzeldin argued that making the protests more confrontational and bringing in labor unions will be critical for the success of the movement in the United States.
"There is an illusion about freedom -- about freedom of speech and freedom of organization in this country," he observed, pointing to New York's laws against tents and megaphones. "What I thought the image exported to the rest of the world... Well, it's not completely false but there are many obstacles."
As for the NYPD's response to demonstrations so far, Ezzeldin was philosophical. "Police is the police, in Egypt, in the United States. Police is the police. There is no good cops and bad cops, they are all cops," he said.
Relations between police and demonstrators at Saturday afternoon's gathering were cordial.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Keith Olbermann: Occupy Wall Street Confusing 'Corrupt' And 'Dense' Media
First Posted: 10/6/11 10:19 AM ET Updated: 10/6/11 11:08 AM ET
Before reading the statement, Olbermann -- who has focused nearly all of his show to the movement for weeks -- tore into the media, which he said was "too corrupt or too dense to understand anything more complicated than whether the blonde is missing or the verdict is guilty." He criticized what has become a kind of mantra in some quarters of the media: the desire to know what it is the protesters "want." Luckily, Olbermann had an answer for those people, in the form of a declaration from Occupy Wall Street. He said that, since it did not list any specific laws the protesters wanted to change, it might "confuse the precocious ninth graders now passing for TV anchor newsmen these days."
Watch Olbermann read the statement, and see the full text of the declaration below.
WATCH:
The full text:
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 nonhuman 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 supposed to be 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 in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive 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!
Occupy Wall Street: A historical perspective
Saturday, Oct 8, 2011 9:00 AM EDT 
How do the protests measure up to past movements in American history?
(Credit: Library of Congress)
Topics:Occupy Wall Street, History
Is Occupy Wall Street, with its decentralized structure, lack of strong leaders and no concrete demands, a fundamentally new form of protest?
Or does the current movement have antecedents or analogues in American history? If so, what does the past tell us about where this might be headed?
For a dose of historical context on Occupy Wall Street, I spoke with Gary Gerstle, professor of American history at Vanderbilt and a scholar of social movements.
You’ve spent a lot of time studying social movements in America. What are your first impressions about what’s going on here?
I think what’s going on is very interesting precisely because this kind of protest has been so absent for the last 25 or 30 years. We are well advanced in what ought to be called the second Gilded Age, resembling the first Gilded Age of the late 19th century when capitalism developed very quickly and powerfully and the extremes between rich and poor became very great. There was a lot of downward pressure on wages and a lot of hardship; we have seen something similar in the past few decades when it comes to growing inequality. The major difference between this Gilded Age and the last one is the relative absence of protest. In the first Gilded Age, the streets were flooded with protest movements; questions regarding economic inequality and the very viability of capitalism were the defining issues of American politics.
What sort of mass movements occurred in that era?
All sorts. It’s when the modern labor movement began. But it didn’t begin in offices in Washington or New York; it began at sites of work. There was a national railways strike of 1877. There were confrontations in many cities. There was a populist campaign for mayor of New York by Henry George in 1886 that focused on ending poverty. He did not win, but he did much better than anyone thought he would, and convulsed New York City politics in the process. In 1894 there was another national railroad strike, known as the Pullman strike. Troops were called out and confrontations were intense. And this was the same moment that the farmers were mobilizing in the Farmers Alliance and the People’s Party, the original populist movements. The ground shook in America in the 1880s and 1890s over these very issues.
What’s been so significant about the last 25 years has been the absence of this kind of action. The question now, with Occupy Wall Street and the labor protests in Wisconsin this year, is whether the United States is beginning to emerge from that quiet period and whether there will be protests on the left that in some ways match what occurred 125 years ago.
There’s been a lot made about the leaderless structure of Occupy Wall Street. Are there analogues in American history for this sort of radically decentralized movement, or does this seem new?
One can find precedents for decentralized movements in the New Left of the 1960s, which promoted participatory democracy and critiqued bureaucracy and centralization. But in developing a historical perspective, it may be useful to alter the frame we use to analyze the present moment by asking these questions: Did past insurgent movements happen in unexpected ways and at unexpected moments? Did they take established structures by surprise? And were those established structures slow to adapt, resist or incorporate these insurgent movements? I think the answer to those questions is yes.
For example?
If we think about the major labor insurgency of the 1930s, there are a couple things that are interesting in terms of today’s events. First, the Great Depression began in 1929, and it was not until 1933 that serious labor protest began. That four-year interval tracks the interval between the crash of 2008 and today. This moment, like the previous moment, was characterized by a kind of quiescence on the left. And then worker protests began in ways that took people by surprise. The government passed a modest law giving workers an nominally enhanced right to form unions. Workers began forming unions and employers resisted. The workers began to think that the employers were flouting the law and they began to go on strike, hold marches, and ultimately general strikes were called in a variety of cities. It was locally based and locally focused. It was unexpected as much by the existing labor movement as by anyone else. This became the spark that created the enormous labor insurgency of the mid-1930s.
What were the achievements of that insurgency?
The turbulence that this movement created in 1933 and 1934 led to a landslide election for left-leaning congressmen in 1934. It created an opportunity for the left that resembles the opportunity generated by the Tea Party for the right in 2010. Suddenly Franklin Roosevelt had a much more militant Congress to deal with, and, for the sake of his reelection, he moved left. Out of that move came a reorientation of American politics: major national legislation giving workers the right to organize, generating jobs programs that put millions of Americans to work, establishing Social Security and the welfare state, and raising tax rates on the wealthiest Americans.
If Obama is going to be the president to leave a similarly lasting mark, he’s going to need a popular movement that impels him to pivot more to the left. We don’t know yet whether Occupy Wall Street — in conjunction with what happened in Wisconsin and drawing energy from events abroad and from a deepening capitalist crisis — will be that movement. But we do know that past insurgencies that became very important and transformative began in very fragmented, unexpected and surprising ways.
The NYPD, now sponsored by Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street
Friday, Oct 7, 2011 1:02 PM EDTThe NYPD, now sponsored by Wall Street
Financial firms have given millions of dollars to the department, raising the ire of Occupy Wall St. protesters
(Credit: AP/Shannon Stapleton/Salon)
Topics:Occupy Wall Street, New York City
“NYPD! NYPD! JP Morgan doesn’t give a f*ck about you!”
That was the chant of a crowd of protesters during one of the tenser moments Wednesday evening as police tried to corral the occupiers of Wall Street and force them to stay in the confines of Liberty Square. It is a reference to one of the rumors I’ve heard again and again at the protests: That JPMorgan Chase gave a multi-million dollar donation to the NYPD as the protests were starting in mid-September as a kind of incentive for the police to aggressively crack down on the occupiers.
As it turns out, that version of the rumor isn’t quite correct. But Wall Street finance firms have funnelled millions of dollars into the police department, in an arrangement that critics say compromises the NYPD.
Here’s what we know:
JPMorgan gave a massive gift of $4.6 million to the New York City Police Foundation in the form of money, patrol car laptops, “security monitoring software,” and other tech resources. But the donation was given starting late last year and was completed by spring 2011, so it was obviously not made in response to the Occupy Wall Street protests. At the time, Commissioner Ray Kelly sent JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon a note expressing his “profound gratitude” for the donation, and a company-written news item about the gift described it as “unprecedented” in size.
The police foundation is the private fundraising arm of the NYPD. It allows donors to make tax-exempt gifts to the department and in turn the foundation funds a wide-range of specialized NYPD units, international counterterrorism work, and high-tech gadgetry.
“This gift is especially disturbing to us because it creates the appearance that there is an entrenched dynamic of the police protecting corporate interests rather than protecting the First Amendment rights of the people,” says Heidi Boghosian of the National Lawyers Guild, which has had legal observers posted at the major Occupy Wall Street marches. “They’ve essentially turned the financial district into a militarized zone.”
As I reported this week, the police presence at the union solidarity march in support of Occupy Wall St included many hundreds of officers, scores of cruisers, vans, and buses, at least one mobile surveillance tower, and at least three helicopters. Kelly said this week the department has spent $2 million on overtime for officers since Occupy Wall Street began in mid-September.
As it turns out, JPMorgan is not the only financial institution that has been generous to the police foundation. In the 2009-10 year, Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital, investment bank Jeffries and Co., investor Carl Icahn, and investment firm The Renco Group each gave over $100,000 to the foundation, putting them in the top-tier of donors, according to the foundation’s website. Bank of America also gave over $75,000 that year. (Another $100,000+ donor was Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.)
Keep in mind that’s just a single year’s worth of donations. As a private non-profit, the New York City Police Foundation does not have to release detailed donor information, so we don’t know of the the full scope of Wall Street money flowing into the NYPD.
The foundation has previously received scrutiny from the press for, among other things, spending tens of thousands of dollars for food and liquor for Commissioner Ray Kelly at the posh Harvard Club, as well as hiring a pricey publicist to promote Kelly in the press.
The NYPD and the police foundation did not return calls for comment. A JPMorgan spokeswoman declined to comment.
Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustin More Justin Elliott
Friday, October 7, 2011
Obama: Occupy Wall Street Protests Show Americans' Frustration
President Obama speaks during a news conference in the East Room of the White House, 10/06/11. (photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
By Michael A. Memoli, Los Angeles Times
06 October 11
resident Obama said Thursday that the Occupy Wall Street protests show a "broad-based frustration" among Americans about how the US financial system works.
Speaking at an East Room news conference, Obama said he has monitored the movement, which has spread to dozens of cities nationwide.
"I think it expresses the frustrations the American people feel, that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country ... and yet you're still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on the abusive practices that got us into this in the first place," he said.
Obama said he used "a lot of political capital" to prevent a financial meltdown and ensure banks remained solvent after he took office. He also touted the financial reform legislation he and Democrats in Congress moved through in 2010.
He criticized Republican presidential candidates whose economic plans, he claimed, gut those reforms.
"Not only did the financial sector, with the Republican Party in Congress, fight us every step in the way. But now you've got these same folks arguing we should roll back all those reforms and go back to the way it was," Obama said. "That does not make sense to the American people. They are frustrated by it and they will continue to be frustrated by it until they get the sense that everyone is playing by the same rules."
Obama used the opportunity to call on Congress to support his nominee to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, former Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray. The Senate Banking Committee approved his nomination Thursday, but his confirmation by the full Senate is in doubt because of a possible Republican filibuster.
One Person Arrested in the NYC HPD Bribe Scheme A Lawyer is Part of NYS Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs Political Machine 
Lawyer Michael Freeman arrested yesterday as part of the NYC HPD pay to play corruption was the lawyer for Jay Jacobs Long Island machine last year when they tried to remove independent democratic Francesca Carlow who was running against Jacobs' candidate David Mejias. Carlow lawyers were able to beat back Freeman and Jacobs and remain on the ballot. Mejias who was arrested during the primary for stalking and menacing his girlfriend lost the primary to Carlow. In fact Jacobs lost almost all the democratic races on Long Island in recent years. That is why True News wrote back in December NYS Democratic Leader Jay Jacobs Will Have To Go Part IINYCLU with the Occupy Wall Street movement
View this email online.
 An Advocacy Department representative talks to protesters about their rights with the police. We're also engaging the protestors on Faceboook and Twitter as well. |
Dear friend,
As the Occupy Wall Street movement gains steam, the NYCLU is standing beside the demonstrators and defending their right to speak their minds.
Teams of NYCLU staff and volunteers regularly visit the movement's headquarters at Zuccotti Park to distribute our Know Your Rights information and engage the demonstrators' on their experiences with the NYPD.
The park's makeshift library is well-stocked with our Demonstrating in New York City and What to Do if You're Stopped by Police guides.
And perhaps most importantly, our royal blue-clad legal observers are on hand monitoring police activity and recording any instances of police misconduct.
We will hold the police accountable for any misconduct. You can help us.
If you or somebody you know has been the victim of police misconduct associated with the protests, if you've seen the police engaging in intimidating behavior or using video cameras in a way that chills the right to protest, or if you'v seen the police doing something right, please tell us about it. Email protest@nyclu.org and tell your story. We've collecting your videos and photos, too.
We all know how powerful it was to see the video of an NYPD "white shirt" using pepper spray on protesters. Your story, pictures and videos can help us hold the NYPD accountable and strengthen the protest rights of all New Yorkers.
Please take a minute to drop us a line at protest@nyclu.org and tell us what you see.
Thank you for all that you do,
 |  Donna Lieberman NYCLU Executive Director |
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Defiant Obama Challenges GOP on Jobs Bill
Defiant and frustrated, President Barack Obama aggressively challenged Republicans Thursday to get behind his jobs plan or explain why not. (Oct. 6)
Taxi Driver: Passenger Choked Me, Bit My Ear
A taxi driver claims a passenger attacked him earlier this week, leaving him with several bruises and more than 10 stitches. He says instead of helping him police threatened to arrest him. The NYPD didn't respond to an email seeking comment. (Oct. 6)
A proposed demand
A proposed demand for Occupy Wall Street
Let's tackle the debt that actually matters VIDEO
(Credit: iStockphoto/kryczka/Salon)
The establishment press’s primary “problem” with the Occupy Wall Street protest is that those silly kids don’t have a concrete demand. Or they have too many demands. Or their demands aren’t realistic.
This is silly. The movement’s “demand” is economic justice. Its goal is plainly to remind everyone that the bloated, obscenely profitable financial industry is sitting on vast piles of money while everyone else struggles, and to focus outrage about that situation where it belongs. Groups aligned either directly or in spirit with Occupy Wall Street have spent years issuing tons of demands (a financial transaction tax!) that the elites dismiss as unreasonable and the objective press ignores as unrealistic.
Some people have tried to step back from those demands already made and coded as “liberal” in order to find some sort of great middle ground. Matt Langer proposed two simple demands that focus on “process,” and not “politics”: Publicly financed elections and the elimination of paid lobbying. Noble causes, but only indirectly related to the economic injustices being highlighted and protested. (And “paid lobbying” means not just big money industry groups, but also labor, environmental and civil rights groups, and low-income advocacy organizations.)
We are probably not ever going to see the wholesale nationalization or forcible breaking up of the world’s mega-banks, and whatever strict regulations we place on their actions will be weakened by future Congresses or faulty regulators.
The solution, if I may take a page from the official Washington Grown-Ups’ Handbook, is tackling the national debt. Not the federal debt, though. The people’s debt.
Household debt is at 90 percent of GDP. Any stimulus proposal — even “dropping money from helicopters” — would result in a massive transfer of money from indebted Americans to cash-engorged banks, rather than the spending spree that would theoretically put us back to work.
The original progressive movement kicked off when a bunch of very indebted people got pissed off at Wall Street. Those populists were largely farmers (and they hated the gold standard, which artificially limited the money supply) but today Americans of all stripes and occupations and backgrounds are swimming in debt of all kinds — most of it owed to hugely profitable financial institutions that are, on the whole, better off than most of us.
The big fix then was bimetallism, leading to inflation. Inflation would probably be helpful now. But a “MORE INFLATION” demand will probably not inspire a a mass movement, especially those on a fixed income. It doesn’t help that we’ve been trained for years to consider “inflation” a great, unmitigated evil.
So my immodest proposal is simply this: Individuals and households in the bottom 99 percent who owe debt to any large financial institution that received federal government support during and after the 2008 crisis should see their debt forgiven. That would certainly stimulate the economy, as most people would suddenly find themselves with a great deal more money to spend on iPads (and food, and clothing, and housing, and healthcare). The debt can be forgiven by decree or if the government really wants to it can step in to pay it itself; I don’t much care either way. (Though it’d be nice to see it just wiped off the books, to enrage the banks.)
Let’s wipe the debt of the 99 percent off the books, tell the financial sector to eat it, and get on with our lives.
I’m by no means the first person to come up with this demand. David Graeber, author of “Debt: The First 5,000 Years,” proposed the idea on “Democracy Now” last month.
Even some economists have begun calling for mass debt relief. I think it’s perfectly suited to both the Occupy Wall Street demonstration and the “We Are the 99 Percent” movement that’s arisen from it.
Debt forgiveness has the primary benefit of uniting the members of “the 99 percent” who have been mocked by the elite press for being young college graduates (it’s their own fault, we’re told, for not getting business degrees or going into Wall Street themselves!) with the shrinking middle class and struggling lower classes who may have never participated in a protest in their lives, but who are largely furious with the state of the nation and the influence of the rich on the government. The “Tea Parties” may have been a conservative movement-sponsored right-wing phenomenon, but when the Tea Parties polled well for a time it was simply because plenty of non-right wing people were pissed that banks were “bailed out” and regular people weren’t. So let’s get on with this long overdue bailout.
A demand for mass debt forgiveness for 99 percenters is simple enough to explain in a sound bite and radical enough to appeal to the majority of Occupy Wall Street participants, from the anarchists to the liberal arts school graduates to the union workers to even the drum circle drummers. If the demand picked up mass popular support (and why wouldn’t it?) to the point that that radical-sounding idea became less radical-sounding, then the movement will have accomplished more than simply shutting up and voting would have on its own. (The conservative movement didn’t reorient the modern Republican Party by politely voting for whatever Republican had the best shot at winning any given election, after all.)
The problem with the proposal — basically “moral hazard” — is precisely the problem with the government’s de facto policy of not allowing the financial industry to collapse under the weight of its colossal greed. If you believe Americans should be taught “the hard way” not to live “beyond their means,” forcing credit card companies to take a haircut on the money they’re owed would certainly lead them to limit consumer debt-spending in the future. Banks would rather receive regular payments from fixed-rate mortgages than trick people into ARMs if they thought the government was likely to step in on behalf of borrowers rather than lenders. In other words, forcing the financial sector to feel the pain of the rest of us would help align our interests. It would no longer be profitable to rip us off if the government stepped in to halt the Great Rip-Off.
I don’t pretend to speak for Occupy Wall Street. This is simply my suggestion. But if the elites want a demand, I say give ‘em a demand.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene
NYPD eyes Muslim leaders close to Mayor Bloomberg for 'threat potential'
Thursday, October 6th 2011, 4:00 AM
Mel Evans/AP
Sheikh Reda Shata, a prominent anti-terrorism Muslim leader, is under NYPD surveillance. 
Mayita Mendez for News
Mohammad Shamsi Ali is also under surveillance. An undercover NYPD officer secretly monitored a prominent Brooklyn Muslim leader known for speaking out against terrorism after cops labeled him a threat, a new report shows.
Sheikh Reda Shata, who often dined with Mayor Bloomberg and police officers during his time at the Islamic Center of Bay Ridge, was placed under surveillance by cops because of his "threat potential," police documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
In 2006, The New York Times profiled Shata, who emigrated from Egypt to the U.S. in 2002, and described his efforts to reconcile Muslim traditions with American life. The story won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing the following year.
The AP said Mohammad Shamsi Ali, an imam who regularly appears at Bloomberg's side when the mayor speaks about Muslim issues, was also under surveillance. Two mosques where he holds leadership roles were infiltrated by the NYPD, the report shows.
The news came as a group of state senators called on Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate the NYPD's reported surveillance of Muslim communities.
"I am greatly troubled that the NYPD seeks to criminalize an entire faith tradition," said state Sen. Kevin Parker (D-Brooklyn).
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
Uploaded by StanfordUniversity on Mar 7, 2008
Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks -- including death itself -- at the university's 114th Commencement on June 12, 2005.Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Why "Occupy Wall Street"
It has been more than two weeks since demonstrations erupted against banks and corporations across the US, and protesters in New York's financial district are vowing to continue their action after hundreds of them were arrested.
The group called Occupy Wall Street is planning a major rally to continues its protests against corporate greed, wealth inequality, high unemployment and home foreclosures.
See the Following Videos:
Wall Street Protestors (Patriots) on their 23 days camping at Zuccotti Park, own by Brookfield Financial Properties. "They have created a unique opportunity to peacefully shift the tides of history like the sit-down strikes of the 1930s, the civil rigth movement of the 1960s and the democratic uprisings across the Arab world and Europe today." From THE OCCUPIED WALL SITE
(1) Video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
(2)Video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
Wall Street Protestors confronted by antagonist
(3) video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
(4) Video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
WTC-Inspired Motorcycle Designed by Paul Teutul Jr.
9/11 Memorial Chair and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg joined 9/11 President Joe Daniel and Paul Teutul Jr. of Discovery Channel today to unveil a custom-built motorcycle commissioned by 9/11 Memorial board member. The motorcycle will be raffle. Ticket are available online at 911memorial.org. Also available at the Memorial Visitor Center at 90 West Street.
Awesome rant to the US gov't
Balance yo budget, B!
I do not own this video, it is not original to me. Credit goes to FmunkMOC, check out his channel! This guy is awesome!
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
The New York Times
Chen & Taylor report: “Michael R. Bloomberg could not recall when he had decided to pursue a third term as mayor. He could not remember an opponent’s accusation, in 2005, that he had tried to suppress voter turnout in minority areas. And he said that he did not know how much money he paid his closest aides, including Patricia E. Harris, the first deputy mayor; he was not sure what Ms. Harris’s title was at his philanthropic foundation, which she runs. Many high-profile witnesses in criminal trials repeatedly assert forgetfulness, rather than risk making a mistake by being too precise on the stand. But the two and a half hours of testimony by Mr. Bloomberg on Monday was striking in the number of times he said he was not aware of details in his own political operation.”
“Gotham” columnist Michael Powell writes: “In the end, Mayor Unflappable walked away unflapped.”
Willie Rashbaum notes: “Lawyers in a federal lawsuit that has governed how the New York Police Department investigates political and religious groups for more than 25 years asked a judge on Monday to let them collect information to see if the department had violated his orders in how they monitor Muslim communities.”
Bloomberg aide can be questioned about affair with John Haggerty in consultant's theft trial
Tuesday, October 4th 2011, 10:31 AM
Jefferson Siegel for News
Fiona Reid, a Bloomberg campaign aide, leaves Manhattan Supreme Court at the end of the Monday session. Political consultant John Haggerty's love life will be under scrutiny Tuesday when his ex-mistress takes the stand in his theft trial.
A judge ruled that Fiona Reid, an accountant for Mayor Bloomberg's 2009 re-election campaign, can be questioned about her affair with Haggerty.
Haggerty is charged with pocketing most of a $1.1 million donation Bloomberg made to the Independence Party for a ballot-security operation.
Reid oversaw the budget, but defense lawyers argued prosecutors should stick to the spreadsheets - not the bedsheets - in their questioning.
A lawyer for Haggerty's wife, Noreen Healey, also tried to convince a judge the affair between her husband and Reid should be off-limits.
"She doesn't particularly enjoy having to read an account of what this woman may or may not have been engaged in," said Healey's lawyer, Michael Ambrecht.
Prosecutors contend the shenanigans are relevant since they could explain why Reid signed off on Haggerty's expenses.
"Having a romantic relationship, that is a reason she might not ask those questions," Assistant District Attorney Vanessa Richards argued Monday.
Reid was set to take the stand a day after Bloomberg was called to testify in the closely watched trial.
Bloomberg coolly told the court he's certain Haggerty ripped him off, but was hazy on other details of his campaign operation.
Attorney Dennis Vacco spoke to reporters outside the court, during a court reset of the John Haggerty Trial
Mayor Bloomberg's credibility was attacked by defense attorneys for John Haggerty, Raymond Costello and Former Staten Attorney General Dennis Vacco, Monday, when he (Bloomberg) testified at the trial of John Haggerty a political consultant accused of a stealing a $1.1 million campaign donation. During a reset attorney Vacco spoke to reporters outside the court.
video by Rafael Martínez Alequín
Monday, October 3, 2011
Anti-Wall Street Protests Spread Nationwide
Protests against Wall Street spread across the country Monday as demonstrators marched on Federal Reserve banks and camped out in parks from California to Maine in a show of anger over the wobbly economy and what they see as corporate greed. (Oct. 3)
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Obama Hits GOP Candidates on Gay Rights
President Barack Obama says anyone running for president must support the entire U.S. military, including gay service members. He spoke Saturday at the annual dinner for the Human Rights Campaign. (Oct. 1)
Davis Mourned As a Martyr During Ga. Funeral
More than a thousand people packed a Georgia church for the funeral of Troy Davis, whose execution for murder sparked worldwide protests and renewed the push to abolish the death penalty in the U.S. (Oct. 1)
700 Protesters Arrested on Brooklyn Bridge
More than 700 protesters demonstrating against corporate greed, inequality and other issues, were arrested Saturday after they swarmed the Brooklyn Bridge and shut down a lane of traffic. (Oct. 1)
Wall Street Protests: Which Side Are You On?
Protesters mark where marches are springing up on a map of the US.
(photo: James Fassinger/Guardian UK)
all Street has long been the home of the biggest threat to American Democracy. Now it has become home to what may be our best hope for rescuing it.
For everyone who loves this country, for everyone whose heart is breaking for the growing ranks of the poor, for everyone who is seething at the unopposed demolition of America's working and middle class: the time has come to get off the fence.
A new generation has gone to the scene of the crimes committed against our future. The time has come for all people of good will to give our full-throated backing to the young people of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The young heroes on Wall Street today baffle the world because they have issued no demands. The villains of Wall Street had their demands - insisting upon a massive bailout for themselves in 2008, while they pocketed million dollar bonuses. The Wall Street protesters are not seeking a bailout for themselves; they are working to bail out democracy.
The American experiment in self-governance is at a moment of crisis. The political system thus far has proven itself incapable of responding to a once in a lifetime economic calamity. With income inequality and unemployment at the highest rates since the Great Depression, it's no wonder that almost 80 percent of the country thinks we're on the wrong track.
But the crisis of American Democracy did not start with the financial collapse. For at least 30 years, the system has been rigged by the wealthy and privileged to acquire more wealth and privilege. At this point, 400 families control more wealth than 180 million Americans.
This great wealth divergence has resulted in an unjust and dangerous concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the few. It has pushed millions - especially the rising generation and communities of color - into the shadows of our society. The middle class continues to shrink, and the ranks of the poor have swelled. The political elite has failed to take the necessary steps to provide opportunity to the majority of Americans.
A movement was born after Madison, Wisconsin, to oppose these injustices. It has now spread to every Congressional District. We call ourselves the American Dream Movement. We engaged 130,000 people to crowd-source our own jobs agenda - the Contract for the American Dream. In August, tens of thousands demonstrated for jobs in rallies across the nation. Next week in DC, we host our first national gathering: the Take Back The American Dream conference.
The Occupation of Wall Street - and the occupations throughout the country - are expressions of the same spirit and dynamic. And these particular demonstrations, perhaps uniquely, contain the spark to grow into a movement that can be transformative. They are the first, small step in the creation of a movement that can restore American Democracy, and renew the American Dream.
The hundreds of young people from all five boroughs that camp out every night, in the heart of the financial district, in the rain and the cold, at risk of arrest, are providing the inspiration to draw more and more out of the shadows and into the bright light of the public square. The occupation grows larger and more diverse every day. Young people, the majority of whom are under 25 and have never before engaged in activism, are managing the arduous task of a consensus rules meeting with no sound system. The nightly general assemblies are attracting crowds in the thousands to stand amongst a group of their peers and debate our path forward as a people.
The occupation is a revival of a proud tradition of authentic, people-powered movements that have been dormant - and that we need now more than ever. It is building into the kind of massive public demonstrations - like those in Egypt, Madison, and Santiago - that can shake the foundation of a system of power that has lost sight of the public good.
Now is our time to choose. Will we keep rewarding those whose financial manipulations have brought us to ruin? Or will we stand with those whose democratic innovations are breathing life into our finest ideals? Both groups are within blocks of each other in downtown Manhattan.
For the past 30 years, the country has stood behind the titans on Wall Street and their values. We listened when they said that their banks were too big too fail. Today, there is only one thing that's too big to fail: the dreams of this new generation, finding its voice in Liberty Park. All of America should now stand with them.
Van Jones, President of Rebuild the Dream, is the founder and former president of Green for All and author of "The Green Collar Economy." In 2009, he served as the green jobs advisor in the Obama White House. Van is currently a senior fellow at the Center For American Progress, and also holds a joint appointment at Princeton University, as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Judge rules FDNY systematically discriminated against minority applicants, cites racist practices
BY John Marzulli
Saturday, October 1st 2011, 4:00 AM
Enid Alvarez/News
FDNY electrician Gregory said he found a noose outside his work locker after he complained about discrimination in the company. The FDNY systematically discriminated against minorities in recruiting, applicant screening and the investigation of discrimination complaints, a federal judge ruled Friday.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis' conclusion that the Vulcan Society of black firefighters had proven its claims set the stage for the appointment of a court-ordered monitor to oversee changes in the Fire Department.
Garaufis' findings came after a three-week civil trial in Brooklyn Federal Court during which it became increasingly clear that the FDNY remains 93% white largely due to what the judge termed "an informal friends-and-family recruitment network."
"The underrepresentation of black firefighters in the FDNY - a direct result and vestige of the city's pattern and practice of discrimination against black firefighter candidates - is responsible for making blacks significantly less likely to apply to become New York City firefighters in the absence of a formal recruitment program," Garaufis wrote.
The judge credited the city's recent efforts to sign up record numbers of minority applicants for the upcoming firefighter exam. Fire officials said 48% of those who registered for the next test are people of color - almost double the 26% who took the last test in 2007.
But Garaufis strongly suggested that a permanent remedy is necessary and it must come from outside the department.
"We respectfully disagree with some of the court's findings and are continuing to study this lengthy 81-page decision," Georgia Pestana, a top city lawyer, said last night.
Since the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division filed suit against the city in 2007, Garaufis has ruled that the FDNY intentionally discriminated against minority candidates, and he threw out the results of two exams he found were illegal.
Perhaps the most controversial testimony came from the deposition of Sherry Kavaler, former assistant commissioner for human resources, about how white candidates with troubled pasts benefit from the influence of family connections in the screening process.
"You would have lieutenants and captains [contacting] the chief of department: This is the son of so and so ... He's a good guy," Kavaler said. "He beat his wife but his wife took him back so he shouldn't be considered a wife beater.
"You're dealing with a lot of Irishmen who are drunks and they get into bar fights ... This is boys being boys, that type of thing."
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First Posted: 10/8/11 07:29 PM ET Updated: 10/8/11 08:27 PM ET
Egyptian activist also camped out in Tahrir Square during Egyptian revolution.