( @westseattleblog/Twitpic ) For the occupation makes us strong: Laura Clawson breaks down how various unions are supporting The Occupy Oakland mass day of action/general strike on Wednesday. Perhaps the biggest action to follow the general strike will be Bank Transfer Day on Nov. 5. The goal of the action is to have as many people as possible move their money out of the large financial institutions that caused our current economic woes, and into community banks and credit unions. So far, the action has over 30,000 “likes” on Facebook. Occupy Nashville joins Occupy Albany as the second encampment where local law enforcement prevented mass arrests despite pressure from local politicians. Additionally, a federal judge has ordered the state of Tennessee to stop arresting protesters at Occupy Nashville. Protesters allege that police in New York City are starting to direct drunks and the homeless to the main Occupy Wall Street encampment in Zuccotti Park. After at several Occupy encampments were evicted over the weekend , there have now been nearly 3,000 arrests related to Occupy Wall Street since the movement began six weeks ago. Occupy Fresno is facing eviction tonight: After being given a 72-hour eviction notice last Thursday, Occupy Providence will not be forcibly evicted . Thank you to everyone who joined with Netroots Nation and Daily Kos by signing our petition to the mayor of Providence . Even though they were evicted this morning, Occupy Richmond isn’t giving up . After watching events on the other side of the bay, San Francisco supervisors have passed a resolution urging that force not be used against Occupy San Francisco. Scott Olsen, the Iraq veteran who was seriously injured at Occupy Oakland, gave a “thumbs up” when he heard about the outpouring of support he has received. A second major cleric at St. Paul’s in London has resigned in protest of the church taking legal action to have Occupy London evicted from the cathedral grounds. Sean Hannity calls Occupy Wall Street un-American. Marines at Occupy Wall Street tell Hannity to fuck off: Our list of local Occupy Wall Street solidarity groups had over 300,000 page views in October. For over 6,000 posts on everything related to Occupy Wall Street, follow the Occupy Wall Street group and Occupy Wall Street tag right here at Daily Kos.
Oct 31 2011 | Posted in
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Tonight is Halloween, but you already knew that. Conservatives have a, well, strange relationship with Halloween, but you probably already knew that as well. So now all we have to do is wait to see what side Fox News will take, because Fox News is the be-all, end-all of deciding what conservatives should think, a thought which is especially funny when you take a look at the cast of Fox & Friends and wonder when the “thinking” part is going to start happening. No matter: let’s hear the verdict, courtesy of Fox’s dumbest show : But now Fox & Friends is defending Halloween as a force for all-American good. Because the real demons, F&F has decided, are immigrants and the politically correct elementary schools doing their bidding by cutting back on Halloween festivities. “It’s an all-out assault on Halloween!” Brian Kilmeade opened the segment last week. “Schools across the country are doing everything from banning costumes to even removing the holiday because it may offend immigrants.” “I’m just sad,” said Gretchen Carlson, “because I have two little kids, and I’m wondering if they’re not going to ever see the American traditions that all of us had.” All right, fine. Now Halloween is good . Frankly, I’m a little relieved. It seems like ever since I was a child, Halloween was under attack. It was un-Christian , you see. It was pagan ; Christmas has pagan origins too, of course, but it has been more properly assimilated, as has Easter, because Santa and bunnies make perfect sense if you just stop to think about it. Halloween celebrates “evil,” the good Christians vow, and really, once you’ve seen the 232nd Disney princess show up at your door, I’m not sure how to dispute that one. There is a certain segment of Christianity that is deeply superstitious, in all the general pagan ways; for them, the list of things that are devil-infused or have evil magic powers or the like is robust, and Timmy, the little neighbor boy, is just one plastic zombie mask away from unleashing all the forces of the undead upon you and your family, turning your entire block into some sort of supernatural superfund cleanup site. This has been the refrain against Halloween, that wonderful night of celebrating all that is scary and/or bad for your health, ever since I can personally remember. T hose attacks on Halloween, however, were trivial. No, Fox & Friends has determined the true danger facing us, and kudos to them to managing to link it squarely to immigrants. Halloween is under attack from immigrants , who might be offended by little children dressing up as Batman, or vampires, or vampire Batman, or Iron Man with vampire sidekick, or Disney’s Little Mermaid if she was a vampire and hung out with Batman or Iron Man. All of this was gleaned apparently from one school principal somewhere in America mentioning “cultural differences,” and since we know that crazy anti-Halloween Christian television ministers can’t possibly count as “cultural,” the fellow must have been referring to brown folk. In my day (cue Andy Rooney voice, here, and perhaps a lovely sepia filter on the lens just to emphasize the point), threats to Halloween consisted mainly of razor blades, which apparently were in every single apple every child ever got. This was followed closely by the fear of houses that gave out pennies , like that was a damn thing a child would want to have, after they had mustered up the considerable courage required to walk up to a perfect stranger’s house and beg them for food. The biggest and most giddily fun danger was, however, dangerous, dangerous costumes. I’m talking about plastic masks that would either suffocate you or block your view of traffic (because the best thing to do during Halloween, as every child knows, is cover your face and wander around in traffic) or store-bought plastic costumes so flammable that even thinking about fire would send you up like a Roman candle right where you stood. Oh, and anyone standing nearby would also drop dead from the toxic fumes. No, those were the days. Survive all that, and you might live long enough to be lectured by an old woman handing out pennies who didn’t approve of your costume because Vampire Batman looks suspiciously like you are not a good boy, but are openly rooting for evil, and/or bats. Halloween survived all of that, and was never considered under attack . The Christian right has been up in arms about it for years and have gotten nowhere with it. Now that the elite conservative minds have heard that some schools might not be allowing your child to dress up, however, it has suddenly become a cause worth rallying to. It wasn’t until someone thought about how it could be connected to immigrants that the threat became, apparently, a perceived “all-out assault.” Yes. Yes, that is it. Halloween is being canceled because of the immigrants. Ah well, it could be worse. Conservatives could be up in arms over the First Lady of the United States handing out fruit for Halloween, instead of good old fashioned American sugar bombs—wait, what’s that? Oh, damn it.
Oct 31 2011 | Posted in
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(Think Progress/ yfrog ) Need evidence that Occupy Wall Street is affecting the national dialogue? Here you go . Two-thirds of likely voters say the American middle class is shrinking, and 55 percent believe income inequality has become a big problem for the country, according to this week’s The Hill Poll. Majorities across practically all income levels, and all political, philosophical and racial lines agreed that the middle class is being reduced, while the bulk of respondents in each category thought income inequality was at least a moderate concern. Perhaps not surprisingly, 94 percent of liberal respondents to The Hill Poll saw income inequality as either a big problem or somewhat of one. But 55 percent of conservatives and 81 percent of centrists came to that conclusion as well. At least 40 percent of each income group saw income inequality as a big problem as well, and 65 percent of respondents making at least $100,000 a year viewed it as a big or somewhat big issue. Occupy Wall Street created those numbers, that’s likely how a majority of Americans have felt for quite a while. That message had a hard time getting through all the din from deficit hysteria. But what Occupy Wall Street has achieved is to get The Hill Poll, and every other polling outfit, asking the question. Since this was The Hill Poll, the news might even trickle up to elected types on Capitol Hill soon.
Oct 31 2011 | Posted in
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Poor Rick Perry. He says his new flat tax plan is so simple you can fill out your taxes on a postcard. But he can’t even hold the postcard right side up. Some ideas are so bad they literally mock themselves.
Oct 31 2011 | Posted in
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No, nobody could possibly accuse House Republicans of being backwards-looking : If Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young has his way, all regulations from the past 20 years would vanish — just like that. Young said Tuesday he plans to introduce legislation this fall to repeal every federal regulation installed since 1991, the Anchorage Daily News reports. “My bill is very simple, I just null and void any regulations passed in the last 20 years,” Young said at a speech at the Anchorage Downtown Rotary Club. “I picked 20 years ago because it crossed party lines and also we were prosperous at that time. And no new regulations until they can justify them.” Top Comments for today are here .
Oct 31 2011 | Posted in
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You asked the questions. The Republican candidates answered in the Fox News/Google Debate on September 22, 2012.
The 2012 presidential race is shaping up as the campaign that foreign policy forgot. Which is a shame, writes Gerald Seib, because there’s room for a real debate on three national-security fronts: defense spending, China and Iran.
Injuries from overtraining and fear of undertraining can lead to 15,000 no-shows at the ING New York City Marathon.
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