Occupy Oakland: Class warfare in America & widespread support for OWS

Moveon.org asks if this is what democracy looks like.  Honestly, sometimes this is exactly what democracy looks like.

A better question: Is this what class warfare in modern America looks like?

Anonymous • OCCUPY OAKLAND: URGENT CALL FOR ASSISTANCE.: 

Last night we faced an absolutely brutal assault by an army of the Oakland Police (with the help of cops from all over Northern California). Tear gas and flash bangs were fired into the camp where children were sleeping, people were beaten and shot with rubber bullets. The assault was also levied against our property in the camp, and the cops tried their best to completely destroy everything we had there. Almost every tent has been destroyed, many slashed with boxcutters, structures smashed, basically this was not an eviction, they came in to destroy everything we had. After they flattened our main camp, they also went to our small camp in Snow Park and repeated the process there.

Though we may be bloodied, we are even more determined to keep going. As we agreed upon in General Assembly, on the evening following any police assault on our camp, we will reconvening at the Oakland Public Library, on the steps. We will discuss our options and pick one, and then take action as a community to respond / rebuild our occupation. This is a big deal, we need everyone and their mother to come out, to help us reestablish and recommit to the occupation. They will not stop us. We will overcome this attack and emerge even stronger.

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In other news...

Daily Kos: Occupy Wall Street already has at least as much support as tea party:
Four polls confirm that Occupy Wall Street has at least equaled, and likely surpassed, the tea party in terms of total number of supporters. No matter how polling firms phrase their questions, the tea party never comes out on top.
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(Humor) The "Man" Fights Back: 'Occupy Main Street': Rich People Protest The 99% (VIDEO)

Occupy Main Street - watch more funny videos      

Obama-mail: Grabbing the executive action reigns

From 2011-10-06 Occupy Portland

Just re-posting from my inbox...



Friend --

Now that each and every Senate Republican has vowed to block measures that would create jobs, President Obama is not going to wait for them to rebuild the economy and bring financial security back to the middle class.

Today, he announced new rules on federal mortgages to prevent more families from losing their homes to foreclosure. And that's just the beginning -- the President said he would continue to make the changes he can by executive action, while continuing to urge Congress to act on legislation to strengthen the economy and create jobs.

If Congress doesn't act, he will -- because millions of Americans can't just wait for Congress to do their jobs. That's why thousands of you have been calling and tweeting your representatives over the past month, joining the President in sending a message to lawmakers in Washington that they need to act now.

We're not just going to continue to wait -- and we'll be keeping up the pressure by making sure they're hearing from folks across the country every day about why they need to act.

Will you share your story -- and join President Obama in telling Congress that we can't and won't wait?

Republicans in Congress have repeatedly filibustered the President's ideas to create jobs now -- ideas that until recently were supported by Republicans.

The President's action today also stands in stark contrast to the positions of the Republicans running for president. Mitt Romney even told a newspaper last week that we actually shouldn't act; we should let the housing crisis "run its course" and "hit the bottom" so that "investors" can come in and buy up these homes at cheap prices. He's saying to homeowners that they are on their own, forcing thousands of families to explain to their kids why they have to give up their homes.

Doing nothing while families struggle: that's the opposite of what this president and this campaign stand for. President Obama isn't going to let Congress' inaction stop him from doing what he can right now.

So here's what the President's announcement means:

    -- More families whose homes are under water will get help and save money on their monthly mortgage payment through the Home Affordable Refinance Programs.

    -- If the value of your mortgage is $100,000 and your house is valued at $75,000, you previously weren't able to refinance to save your home -- forcing many families to pay higher interest rates. As a result of today's announcement, many more responsible homeowners will be able to lower their rates and pay their debts.

    -- And this is just one of the incremental changes to come. Next, the President will announce new steps to help young people manage their federal student loan debt while they look for a job and get on their feet. He'll also take action to help small businesses and entrepreneurs, spur the engines of job growth, create new jobs, and assist veterans in finding them.

These measures alone are not a comprehensive solution to the economic challenges we face. That needs to come out of Congress -- and if they're going to finally put party aside, they're going to need to keep hearing from us. President Obama is stepping up the pressure, and he's counting on us to keep going, too.

Get the President's back and keep the heat on Congress -- tell your story of why we can't wait any longer:

http://my.barackobama.com/We-Cant-Wait

Thanks,

James

James Kvaal
Policy Director
Obama for America

GOP & 2012: A grab bag of headlines from everyone's favorite dysfunctional family

Does Mitt Romney have the GOP presidential nomination wrapped up? - CSMonitor.com: 

Douthat acknowledges what he calls counterexamples: Very conservative Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964 and very liberal Democrat George McGovern in 1972.

“Goldwater and McGovern, for all their weaknesses, were far more credible nominees than a Perry, a Herman Cain, a Michele Bachmann, a Newt Gingrich,” Douthat writes. “They were too extreme to win the general election, but they were not political novices or washed-up self-promoters, and they had a mix of eloquence and experience that’s largely absent from the current Republican field.”

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Mitt Romney GOP front-runner but wouldn't beat Obama, says poll - CSMonitor.com: 

A strong Republican nominee would be seen as having a reasonable chance of defeating Obama. The AP-GfK poll released Wednesday indicates that half of all Americans now believe Obama does not deserve to be re-elected.

But none of the Republicans vying to challenge him in 2012 has yet been able to outpoll him in a hypothetical head-to-head match up. And the Republican race remains in flux.

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Rick Santorum tries to watch football while Newt Gingrich talks | The Ticket - Yahoo! News: 

Don't feel too bad for Gingrich. All the candidates seem pretty tired of listening to one another.

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What Rick Perry told Parade, exactly, about Obama birth certificate - CSMonitor.com:
In general, his remarks are a bit odd.

In the interest of letting readers decide for themselves, we present the entirety of that portion of the interview, which Governor Perry gave to Parade contributing writer Lynn Sherr:

Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?

I have no reason to think otherwise.

That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”—
Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.

But you’ve seen his.
I don’t know. Have I?

You don’t believe what’s been released?
I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night.

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Washington Post Social Reader on Facebook: 

The birthers eat their own

The people who brought you the Barack Obama birth-certificate hullabaloo now have a new target: Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a man often speculated to be the next Republican vice presidential nominee. While they're at it, they also have Bobby Jindal, the Republican governor of Louisiana and perhaps a future presidential candidate, in their sights.

Each man, the birthers say, is ineligible to be president because he runs afoul of the constitutional requirement that a president must be a "natural born citizen" of the United States. Rubio's parents were Cuban nationals at the time of his birth, and Jindal's parents were citizens of India.

The good news for the birthers is that this suggests they were going after Obama, whose father was a Kenyan national, not because of the president's political party. The bad news is that this supports the suspicion that they were going after Obama because of his race.

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Really now... How many websites does one fellow need? (Rubblebase)

Originally posted on A. F. Litt:

Really now... How many websites does one fellow need? (Rubblebase):

So, there are two "new" Rubble Sites. Jeez, I mean, come on man? How many websites does one fellow need?

Well, it looks like about six. Let's break it down...

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Not loving the new header...

There, I said it.  It just looks rough and the image is pixelated.  But since I stole the font on the old header for Retrovirus Lab, I felt like I needed to change it..

Today, working on this header was a toss off project.  I think I will return to this soon and, maybe, come up with something completely new.  The old layout was designed around that font, so it is not surprising that it does not look right to me with the old font gone...

Definitely time to hit the drawing board and to come up with something completely new.  Soon.


UPDATE: February 10, 2012

Just want to clarify...

I liked this header...

I hated this header...

So I replaced it with the current header, which I like a lot...

The Real Big Brother: The 147 Companies That Control Everything - Forbes

Visualizing the "super entity." From: New Scientist

The 147 Companies That Control Everything - Forbes:

When the team further untangled the web of ownership, it found much of it tracked back to a “super-entity” of 147 even more tightly knit companies – all of their ownership was held by other members of the super-entity – that controlled 40 per cent of the total wealth in the network. “In effect, less than 1 per cent of the companies were able to control 40 per cent of the entire network,” says Glattfelder. Most were financial institutions.

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