Tag: #OccupyWallStreet

More Lies from Breitbart: Charges of Rape by Occupiers Debunked

Jon Ponder

Countdown:

Keith Olbermann condemns right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart for promoting an inaccurate roundup of 17 alleged rapes at Occupy protests on his websites. The list, which fails to mention that the legitimate rape victims were Occupy supporters, comes on the heels of Breitbart screaming, “Stop raping people!” to a group of Occupy protestors at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference last weekend. “What Mr. Breitbart and his fellow propagandists have done, in fact, is to take at least eight women — eight members of Occupy who were raped or otherwise assaulted — and blame them for being raped,” says Keith.

The Photo the Mainstream Media Doesn’t Want to Show

Trish

PoliceArrest

Rumor has it that pictures and video of the arrest of retired Philadelphia police chief Ray Lewis at the Nov. 17 Occupy Wall Street protest are being ignored by the corporate media.

Indeed, when I did a Google search to verify the details before posting about it here, the main coverage I could find was from Britain’s Daily Mail. This photo, and others posted at the Daily Mail, are mainly available on Tumblr, Facebook and YouTube.

Lewis, who retired as a captain in the Philadelphia police in 2004, went to New York in full dress uniform and a sign that read, “NYPD – Don’t be Wall Street mercenaries” in solidarity with the protesters.

[…]

Balanced Budget Amendment Fails

Trish

When I – along with 86 of my Freshmen colleagues – were elected a little more than a year ago, we pledged to change the conversation in our Nation’s Capital. Despite today’s failed resolution, I believe we have changed that conversation.

Rep. Allen West (R/Tea – Fla.), expressing his disappointment that the balanced budget amendment failed in the House, and co-opting the term, “change the conversation.” Tea partiers weren’t sent to Congress to change the conversation, they were sent to take action. Changing the conversation is the aim of the Occupy movement, which has successfully changed it from the made-up deficit crisis to income inequality and socializing risk.

Perry’s Texas, Hunstman’s Family Company Taking Taxpayer Millions

Trish

hypocriteIf there’s anything Republicans enjoy, it’s deriding the Affordable Health Care Act, or as they sneer, “Obamacare.” So who do you think was first in line to scarf AHCA funds that help early retirees?

That would be Gov. Rick Perry’s own Texans, followed by employees of Huntsman International, owned by the family of Jon Huntsman. Both men, of course, are running for president against Obama.

If you’ve ever wondered how wealth travels upward from the 99% to the top, here’s a vivid illustration.

“Some people have described this program as ‘Cash for Clunkers,’ in the sense that if you want it, you have to get in line first,” said Paul Fronstin, an economist with [nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute]. “There was a lot of advice given to be first in line.”

…Texas, it seems, heeded the advice. So did Huntsman International.

[…]

The Line: October 27, 2011

Jon Ponder
  • photo-paul-ryan-150Jonathan Chait dissects Republican pols’ facility at papering over facts they find to be inconvenient. They all do it but Chait fricassees the GOP’s Big Thimker, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, whose big speech at the Heritage Foundation yesterday on income equality (or whatever) turned out to be nothing more than a retread of the same manure Ryan has been spreading for years.
  • In a piece titled “John Galt Clutches His Pearls,” Digby marvels at Ryan’s speech, too: “One of my favorite right wing quirks is their ability to shape-shift from Rambo to Aunt Pittypat in the blink of an eye.”
  • Elizabeth Warren did not take credit for #OccupyWallStreet, despite the right-wing propaganda ministry’s claims. Dave Weigel uses the right’s “dogpiling” on Warren as a case study in how they twist Democrats’ words to bolster their narrative that liberals are elitists, vain and out of touch. (Similarly, Al Gore never said he invented the Internet.)
  • photo-rick-perryIf your candidate’s fumbling, befuddled debate performances are killing his campaign, what do you do? If you’re Rick Perry’s campaign team, you quietly announce that the candidate won’t be participating in any more debates. Kevin Drum reacts: “So there you have it. Perry’s not hiding from anything. He’s just choosing to stay off national TV because it makes his dimness a little too painfully obvious to voters who are trying to choose a leader of the free world. Better to focus instead on what he’s best at: attack ads and laughably flimsy policy proposals.”
  • New polls out in the congressional districts find 12 seats that are ripe for Democratic pickups, including five in California: Dan Lungren (CA-7), Jeff Denham (CA-10), Elton Gallegly (CA-26), Mary Bono Mack (CA-36), Brian Bilbray (CA-52). Relatedly, the district of GOP House Rules Committee Chair David Dreier (CLOSET-1) was disappeared by California’s new nonpartisan redistricting committee. Democrats need to win 25 seats to win control of the House next year.
  • Via Pork News (seriously): The GOP’s drive to install racist Arizona-style “papers please” anti-immigrant laws in the Old Confederate states could result in losses in the tens of millions in agricultural production next year. Turns out, farmers can’t find “legal” Southerners who’ll take jobs doing back-breaking farm work in the fields.
  • For the tenth anniversary of the USA PATRIOT Act, I have a piece up at Gore Vidal Now tracking some of Vidal’s writing about the act, which he described as being “as despotic as anything Hitler came up with — even using much of the same language.”