Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning, with Brad Friedman
In the wake of a violent, night-time confrontation with Occupy Oakland demonstrators last week by the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and some 15 other law enforcement agencies, questions have arisen about the legality of the tactics used by the agency during mass arrests which led to serious injuries, including the fractured skull of a two-tour Iraq vet.
Oakland's Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan has maintained that the use of chemical agents and other so-called "less than lethal" weapons were required in order to defend law enforcement officials from demonstrators.
However, a forensic analysis by The BRAD BLOG of video taken immediately prior to and during last week's raid and confrontation with Occupy Oakland demonstrators, creates doubt about the legality of the OPD decision to declare the demonstration to be an "unlawful assembly," and, in particular, raises serious questions about the veracity of the Interim Oakland Police Chief's claim that police "had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks." Full Article Here
NOTE: This is a guest post from Siena Chrisman, Manager of Strategic Partnerships & Alliances at WhyHunger.
On Saturday, Occupy Against Big Food will converge on Zuccotti Park, home base of Occupy Wall Street. It’s an exciting step, coming after several weeks of discussion among food justice advocates about our common cause with the Occupy movement. Back in the second week of protests, I joined a march to Wall Street as part of a food justice delegation. The baskets of local vegetables we carried attracted a lot of attention, but we were surprised by all of the puzzled looks. “What’s the connection here with food?” people kept asking us.
Senators on the committee are Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), Sen. Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend), Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin), Sen. Bob Wirch (D-Pleasant Prairie), and Sen. Jessica King (D-Oshkosh).
Rough AcresHe shoulda brought his gun... IT is permitted in the gallery, on the Assembly floor, ANYWHERE in the Capitol in Madison. Instead, he brought his camera.Guess once a vet defending freedom, ALWAYS a vet defending freedom.
"What Walker and these Republicans are doing to this state is astonishingly brazen. They are like a pack of Cheneys. They do not respect democracy. The people are a nuisance to them. So are the laws. All they care about is power, and grabbing everything they can—for themselves, and their corporate cronies—while they still have it.
Every day that it’s in session, the Republican-dominated legislature has been pushing through one retrograde bill after another.
This, on top of the vicious assault on workers’ rights that we saw this spring, and the illegal way they did it, without proper notice, and the sham of a state supreme court ruling that validated the bill, and the illegal shutting down of the capitol to the public, and the attack on public education, Medicaid, racial justice, and the environment, to name just a few." Read Full Article Here
I met this great group of people from Occupy Milwaukee today! Many of them testified against SB 207. Video of their testimony is being posted on youtube @ ladyforward1.
Civil Rights activist Angela Davis spoke to a crowd of more than 1,000 people at Occupy Philly in People’s Plaza at City Hall on Friday night, Oct. 28. Her speech inspired the crowd to continue working for a “better political universe.” She read a message from Occupy Oakland calling for a General Strike on Nov. 2. The crowd cheered continuously throughout her speech.
On November 5, black social justice activists will be joined by peace groups, environmentalists, artists and students in a national “Occupy Philadelphia” march entitled “Stop the Wars and Build the Resistance.”
Called by the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, the November 5 mobilization will demand an end to the wars throughout the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and against oppressed communities inside the U.S., which they say are driven by Wall Street interests.
Protesters will rally at noon at Broad and Susquehanna, march down Broad to Thompson, and then go inside for an afternoon conference at 1310 N. Broad Street.
Participants include a diverse list of groups and individuals such as the Green Party of Philadelphia, the Brandywine Peace Community, the ANSWER Coalition Philly Branch, Philly Against the War, Philadelphia independent mayoral candidate Wali “Diop” Rahman, Black and Nobel Bookstore, Attorney Leon Williams, Askia Coalition Against Police Brutality, African American Freedom and Reconstruction League, the Hip Hop Party for the People, Pam Africa of International Friends and Family of Mumia, DC Troy Davis Alliance, New Black Panther Party for Self Defense Chairman Malik Zulu Shabazz, Malcolm X Center for Self Determination Director Efia Nwangaza, and the United National Antiwar Coalition.
This rare cooperation amongst diverse groups may signal a new day for social change movements in the U.S. with the new predominately white middle class victims of Wall Street excesses joining hands with the long-time victims of economic exploitation and police abuse in the black community.
Philadelphia was chosen as the site for this national convergence because “Philadelphia is prototypical of the war being waged against the internal colonies of the U.S. It is the city where police, under the leadership of the first African mayor, dropped a bomb in 1985 that incinerated an entire African community, killing 11 men, women and children. We will draw the connection between the neo-colonial bombing of 1985 in Philadelphia by the city’s black mayor and the neo-colonial bombing of Libya in Africa by the first black U.S. president.” Read Full Article Here
Civil Rights activist Angela Davis spoke to a crowd of more than 1,000 people at Occupy Philly in People’s Plaza at City Hall on Friday night, Oct. 28. Her speech inspired the crowd to continue working for a “better political universe.” She read a message from Occupy Oakland calling for a General Strike on Nov. 2. The crowd cheered continuously throughout her View Original Article Here
Before dropping a bomb on race-based scholarships, Wis. Republicans in the state assembly debated and voted on several other contentious bills late into the evening of Nov. 1. These included a “landlords’ rights” bill that prohibits local units of governments from establishing their own fair housing...Read Full Article Here
They marched down Kenwood Ave. to Maryland Ave., where they held up traffic behind them. They turned on Locust St. to Oakland Ave., where protester Hannah Engber, a UWM senior from Onalaska, said she first noticed police were following them.
Police warned students to get out of the street, or they would be arrested. Engber said the first person arrested was a male student in front of her.
"He was moving toward the sidewalk," she said. "I was right behind him, and they didn't arrest me."
Wentz-Graff was in the street, photographing the arrest when police grabbed her and arrested her, Engber said.
"They had no regard for her (photography) equipment," she said.
Another male student was arrested when he walked from the sidewalk to the street to find out why police made the arrests, Engber said.
"It was clear they were planning arrests because they brought a van," she said. "Our intentions are not violent, and they know that." Read Full Article Here JSOnline
It turns out that JP Morgan also provides child support debit cards in 15 U.S. states and they also provide unemployment insurance benefit debit cards in seven states.
theeconomiccollapseblog.com | JP Morgan is the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States. JP Morgan has contracted to provide food stamp debit cards in 26 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. JP Morgan is paid for each case that it handles, so that means that the more Americans that go on food stamps, the more profits JP Morgan makes. Yes, you read that correctly. When the number of Americans on food stamps goes up, JP Morgan makes more money. In the video posted below, JP Morgan executive Christopher Paton admits that this is "a very important business to JP Morgan" and that it is doing very well. Considering the fact that the number of Americans on food stamps has exploded from 26 million in 2007 to 43 million today, one can only imagine how much JP Morgan's profits in this area have soared. But doesn't this give JP Morgan an incentive to keep the number of Americans enrolled in the food stamp program as high as possible?
Even as financial ministers and central bank governors from around the world prepare to attend the G20 France 2011 Summit, a panel at Yale on Tuesday, Nov. 1, will consider the question: Are we on the
The WI Assembly Dems are hardcore! I had to go to sleep but they didn't. They're STILL going. Fighting for Affirmative Action & exposing the GOP for their open racism. As of 6:49am they're soldiering on. It's still live. And just like in the 61 hour marathon it's a crazy experiment in sleep deprivation. Also on Charter 995. And my friend & reporter from The Progressive, Rebecca Kemble, has also been there for the entire session. Her report's going to be epic!
I love Gordon Hintz's status from earlier this am/late last night. "Lets say that you had a Governor who called for a second special session on jobs, except that the bills considered would do little to nothing to help with unemployment, ret...raining, and the safety net to keep people afloat. And lets say the public was sick of the divisiveness and lack of transparency that accompanies every extreme decision for the past 10 months. What would you do? How about rush through a spontaneous amendment that eliminates race as one of many considerations for incentive grants for disadvantaged students to afford college. Really? The Assembly Republicans have no shame. Tonight marks another low point in the worst legislative session in Wisconsin's history. Where is the leadership? Where are the statesmen/women?"
"A total of eighteen people were arrested and ticketed for offenses that will likely be thrown out in court.
People feel so strongly about protecting and defending their ability to record and document the goings-on in the Assembly because corporate media is doing such a poor job of it. If you’re not at the Capitol on a regular basis, you would find it difficult to believe the impunity with which the rightwing is shoving their racist, sexist, corporatist agenda down the throats of the people of this state.
At 11:00 pm., an amendment to a non-controversial, bipartisan bill that was unanimously voted out of committee was moved that would eliminate affirmative action for African American, Hispanic, American Indian and Hmong students in higher education grants. That sparked more than two hours of outraged filibustering by Democrats, followed by a break for caucus. By 4:00 a.m., Republicans were trying to flush the Dems out of caucus by asking for a quorum call."
Here's part 1 of what went down in yesterday's 20+ hour assembly session. What began as concealed camera day, along with 18 arrests, turned into a surprise GOP attack on minorities. Rebecca Kemble was there for the entire thing. Here's her 1st report, now get some sleep!!
When I showed up at the Capitol at 10 am Tuesday to cover the Wisconsin state assembly floor session, I knew I was in for a long day. On the agenda were four joint resolutions, thirty-eight regular session bills and three special session bills. There was also an action planned for the Assembly gal...
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court may treat corporations like people who can spend whatever they want on elections, but the American people don't have to accept it, said Democratic senators who proposed a constitutional amendment Tuesday to retake control of campaign spending. The amendment, introduce...
Today, Occupy Oakland may just pull off a feat that appeared all but impossible a few days ago. If they do, it will represent a dramatic escalation of the movement's tactics.
In the wake of a violent, night-time confrontation with Occupy Oakland demonstrators last week by the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and some 15 other law enforcement agencies, questions have arisen about the legality of the tactics used by the agency during mass arrests which led to serious injuries, including the fractured skull of a two-tour Iraq vet.
Posts
"Lets say that you had a Governor who called for a second special session on jobs, except that the bills considered would do little to nothing to help with unemployment, ret...raining, and the safety net to keep people afloat. And lets say the public was sick of the divisiveness and lack of transparency that accompanies every extreme decision for the past 10 months. What would you do? How about rush through a spontaneous amendment that eliminates race as one of many considerations for incentive grants for disadvantaged students to afford college. Really? The Assembly Republicans have no shame. Tonight marks another low point in the worst legislative session in Wisconsin's history. Where is the leadership? Where are the statesmen/women?"