At chaotic town hall, Gingrich sticks to immigration stand
Newt Gingrich planned to hold a town hall for Latinos at a Mexican restaurant here Sunday, an odd enough event in New Hampshire, where Latinos are a tiny sliver of the population holding no sway in Tuesday’s Republican primary. But then: chaos.
Occupy protesters, kicked out of the event, banged drums, rattled the windows and screamed through a bullhorn: “Newt! Newt! Come outside with your hands up and your pants down! We have you surrounded!”
Inside, Gingrich was hammered by a voter incensed by a recent statement he made about blacks and food stamps, and he was questioned about his commitment to immigration reform and his stance on corporate influence in politics. The crowd jammed the Don Quijote restaurant to dangerous levels. Gingrich’s security guards became so concerned they refused to allow him to move from a location next to an exit door and waiting vehicles.
Chris Christie blurts out sexual reference in response to group of women Occupy protesters
EXETER, N.H.-When one of several Occupy protesters who had infiltrated the event to proclaim that “Mitt kills jobs,” a popular refrain among Romey’s detratctors at these sorts of affairs, started up a similar chant to goad the Garden State governor, Christie replied to the woman: “Really? You know, something may go down tonight, but it ain’t gonna be jobs, sweetheart.”
Christie’s dis was met with thundering applause, and the reporters apparently ate it up too-the remark was widely cited in the dispatches that surfaced online shortly thereafter.
http://tinyurl.com/7n5qepw
Record number of Americans identified themselves as independents
A record-high percentage of Americans identified themselves as independents in 2011, according to a survey released Monday. Indeed, 40 percent of voters identified as independent – the highest percentage in at least 60 years, reports Gallup.
Chicago: Welcome to the civil-liberties-free zone
Rahm Emanuel’s clampdown on civil liberties goes beyond his goal of silencing opposition to next May’s gathering of the global 1 percent in Chicago for a G-8 summit.
In December, Emanuel introduced a package of proposed ordinances, to be voted on by the Chicago City Council, that demand dramatically higher fines for anyone arrested during the summits, more surveillance cameras and the daily closure of city parks and playgrounds until 6 a.m.
The ordinances would also increase minimum fines from $25 to $250 for anyone found “resisting arrest”–and the law is careful to specify that “passively” resisting, such as going limp in classic civil-disobedience style, is also included. Maximum fines would increase from $500 to $1,000, and in some cases to $2,000.
The Remarkable Public Sector Depression
It irks me to hear Democratic officials hail “private sector jobs numbers” or the “rebound in the private sector,” as if there are somehow two economies out there, and the amount of jobs up or down in the one where governments happen to sign the paychecks somehow has no bearing on the other. When cops and firefighters and teachers and nurses lose their jobs, they lose purchasing power. They lose the ability to hire private contractors or visit private businesses for the purchase of goods and services. Public employees don’t use a different currency or a different set of businesses. You cannot divorce them from the private sector.
Gingrich, Defending Race-Tinged Food Stamp Comments, Is Dogged by Occupy Protesters
Gingrich took the stage at Don Quixote’s for a town-hall meeting with an immigration theme. His daughter, Kathy Lubbers, introduced him in halting Spanish, after being introduced herself by Carlos Gonzales, who said he was the first Hispanic, as he described himself, to be elected to the New Hampshire legislature. The event smacked of one staged for an audience beyond the boundaries of New Hampshire, whose primary Gingrich is unlikely to win. In Florida, however, he’s said to have a chance.
It almost went according to plan, until an audience member pressed him on his comments about black people and food stamps.
http://tinyurl.com/725mgc4
Sketchy ‘Activist’ Trying To Sex You Is Just an Undercover Cop, Probably
Do you like to protest against the 1% and also rage against the machine and also find sex partners at the various activist actions? WATCH OUT, and not just for the usual reasons of venereal disease and having some dude never leave your couch. Undercover police are increasingly being given orders to have sexytime with young, sexy activists. Totally legal, at least in England, right now! (So Obama probably already made it “legal” in America, with a “signing statement.”)
Through Freedom of Information act, writer confirms UK police communiqués declaring Occupy ‘terrorists’ are real
Indeed, half way down the page, after the updates on terrorist incidents in ‘Colombia’, ‘Pakistan/Al-Qaeda’ and ‘Belarus’, we find a curious segment on ‘Occupy London Stock Exchange’ movement (Occupy LSX). This contained even more curious mentions of people who “fit the anti-capitalist profile” and are alleged to be undertaking “hostile reconnaissance”. I checked what others were tweeting, but there was an uncertainty regarding the document’s authenticity. I decided to give up trying to guess and, instead, to use my second love – The Freedom of Information Act – to ask City Police to confirm whether the communiqué was genuine and, if so, to provide copies of all communiqués issued by it that mentioned Occupy LSX. For good measure, I asked City Police to confirm whether it considered Occupy LSX to be a domestic extremist group.
With the start of the New Year came the much awaited response. Despite the rigmarole of FOI and its somewhat weak make-up, it delivered results on this occasion. The document was genuine. As an afterthought, I immediately called back and asked: how many communiqués have been issued from the day Occupy LSX started until the 04.01.12? A total of nine, answered the helpful officer. Out of these, seven mentioned Occupy LSX.
Accompanying Occupy LSX on this ‘Terrorism/Extremism’ rogues gallery is a series of other peaceful protest groups and organisations: a list that includes “UKUNCUT”, “Climate Justice Collective” and, most dangerous of all, a “Mass healing ritual performed as a silent march”.
http://tinyurl.com/6rdg3w3
How Wall Street Turned a Crisis Into a Cartel
Following the destruction of Bear Stearns Cos., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Merrill Lynch and countless smaller and foreign competitors during the financial crisis that began in 2007, the investment-banking business is an even more powerful and threatening cartel than it was in 1947.
http://tinyurl.com/7xdhpas
A 1% candidate will be President
The reason 2012 feels so empty now is that voters on both sides of the aisle are not just tired of this state of affairs, they are disgusted by it. They want a chance to choose their own leaders and they want full control over policy, not just a partial say. There are a few challenges to this state of affairs within the electoral process – as much as I disagree with [Ron] Paul about many things, I do think his campaign is a real outlet for these complaints – but everyone knows that in the end, once the primaries are finished, we’re going to be left with one 1%-approved stooge taking on another.
http://tinyurl.com/7pcvxwp
America’s Unlevel Field
Americans are much more likely than citizens of other nations to believe that they live in a meritocracy. But this self-image is a fantasy: as a report in The Times last week pointed out, America actually stands out as the advanced country in which it matters most who your parents were, the country in which those born on one of society’s lower rungs have the least chance of climbing to the top or even to the middle.
More tech companies complicit with government snooping: Leaked memo suggests India sought backdoor access from mobile device firms to spy on U.S.
An internal memo from India’s Military Intelligence that hackers have posted online suggests that manufacturers of mobile devices have provided “backdoor” access to the Indian government in exchange for access to the Indian market. The manufacturers, referred to collectively in the memo as “RINOA,” include RIM, Nokia, and Apple.
http://tinyurl.com/6qbr9vm
Gingrich group marshals hatred of Wall Street for new anti-Romney film
A pro-Gingrich Super PAC released a trailer late last night for a project former Mass. Gov. Mitt Romney cannot be pleased about: a half-hour documentary about Romney’s time running Bain Capital, a venture company that bankrupted nearly a quarter of the businesses it bought-up.
Produced by a former top Romney strategist, the film “When Mitt Romney Came to Town” focuses on people turned out of their jobs at four of the many companies Bain Capital essentially looted, tapping into the popular discontentment with Wall Street to label Romney a “corporate raider.”
http://tinyurl.com/7wzmgy4
What Occupy can learn from the Hunger Games
The Occupy movement, as a loosely affiliated band of concerned people – Marxists, anarchists, environmentalists, survivalists, and more – has on the whole avoided ideology and embraced diversity and democracy. Some would say its lack of specific goals has undermined it, but the adoption of a V-style oppositional stance surely wouldn’t help. Occupy has done much to cast the U.S. and U.K. as dystopias, as pictures of police in riot gear confronting protestors have proliferated in the media; nonetheless, it needn’t cast itself as the kind of rebel movement that uses repressive strategies similar to those of the ruling elite.
http://tinyurl.com/6mm37kk
The political power of being naïve: Cynicism is a ‘sucker’s bet’
My resolution for 2012 is to be naïve — dangerously naïve.
I’m aware that the usual recipe for political effectiveness is just the opposite: to be cynical, calculating, an insider. But if you think, as I do, that we need deep change in this country, then cynicism is a sucker’s bet. Try as hard as you can, you’re never going to be as cynical as the corporations and the harem of politicians they pay for. It’s like trying to outchant a Buddhist monastery.
http://tinyurl.com/7ut4o5y
Wall Street Employees Threaten To Quit If Bonuses Aren’t Up To Snuff
Wall Street bankers are fuming about the prospect of paltry payouts come bonus time – and plan to go nuclear. They’re taking their cues from their disgruntled brethren in London, who are eyeing lawsuits to regain their over-the-top pay. Here at Jefferies Group, a group of brokerage executives reportedly threatened management that they would walk away from the firm if their year-end compensation was not up to par with The Street.
This hubris is just the beginning of much more to come as the downtrodden banking industry gets ready to dole out the most meager bonuses since the 2008 financial crisis.
CA becomes 7th state to adopt law allowing corporations to attain a special status protecting them from shareholder lawsuits for not ‘maximizing value’
A dozen companies committed to maximizing social good while turning a profit have filed papers with the state to become California’s first “benefit corporations.”
Chief executives, led by Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia Inc., a maker and seller of outdoor apparel and equipment, marched into the secretary of state’s office in Sacramento shortly after it opened Tuesday morning. It was the first business day they could register under a recently approved state law that gives companies a way to legally structure their businesses to consider social and environmental efforts as part of their missions.
While that may sound like marketing hype, it’s important from a legal standpoint because it helps shield benefit corporations from lawsuits brought by shareholders who say that company do-gooding has diluted the value of their stock.
http://tinyurl.com/7qen36l
Consider worker co-operatives
Improving the financial position of the majority will always remain problematic when we acquiesce to the need for profit above all else. It is time Canadians adopted a more holistic perspective on economic inequality, and examined the potential of an alternative business model – the worker co-operative.
Though worker co-operatives are relatively well-developed elsewhere (Spain’s famous Mondragon Cooperative has been rated by Forbes magazine as one of the 10 best places to work in Europe), they remain marginal here, in no small part because they do not mesh well with North American corporate law.
http://tinyurl.com/7j9khaz
Accidentally deported 14-year-old girl returns to the US, case highlights ‘state-sanctioned kidnapping’ in the name of immigration control
“Clearly, U.S.-born citizens can’t be detained by immigration officials, much less deported by the Department of Homeland Security,” writes the Los Angeles Times in an editorial about Jakadrien’s journey. “But it seems to be happening with greater frequency.”
People who are indigent, mentally disturbed, ex-convicts, or those who were born in the US but can’t easily prove it are usually the most susceptible to mistaken deportations, which in the most egregious cases critics liken to state-sanctioned kidnapping. One study published last year looking at cases in which deported Americans have later been able to prove they’re US citizens contends that about 1 percent of those detained and deported in any given year are, in fact, Americans. That’s about 20,000 people since 2003, it concludes.
Any country that routinely incarcerates and deports it’s most vulnerable and poor, purely because they can’t prove their citizenship, is a sick country. You almost have to wonder if some of them aren’t doing it on purpose.
Mainstream media’ mute in SOPA piracy debate: Self-censorship or edicts from corporate masters?
An analysis of US television coverage has found a deafening silence among members of the pejoratively tagged “mainstream media” when it comes to coverage of SOPA, the online intellectual property legislation now under consideration in Congress.
An analysis of the Lexis-Nexis database since 1 October 2011, carried out by the monitoring group Media Matters, found that MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, and NBC have not carried a single story on the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) currently under debate. CNN did cover the issue – but only once.
The Future of Boycotts
This [image at link] is a screenshot from the Boycott SOPA Android app that lets you scan the barcode of a product to determine whether the manufacturer supports the Stop Online Piracy Act, which is an awful bill for a number of reasons detailed here, and therefore will be passed with a bipartisan majority despite a threatened blackout from some of the biggest sites in the world. Thanks to this app, I discovered that Cheerios are linked to a SOPA supporter, while Softsoap and Aveeno are not. I will be clean but hungry this morning.
http://tinyurl.com/7d9j9rg
Money in politics: Did Gingrich get $5 million for saying Palestinians are ‘invented people?’
A week or so after Newt Gingrich said that the Palestinians are an invented people, his Super PAC has received $5 million from Sheldon Adelson, whose central cause is Israel.
And lo, the Associated Press fails to mention Adelson’s cause in its coverage. The Washington Post broke the story but included just one sentence about Israel, buried in paragraph 8, and ungrammatically: “Adelson is a strong supporter of Israel and his views dovetail with Gingrich on Israel and the Palestinian conflicts.”
http://tinyurl.com/7sfwwpp
Occupy Santa Cruz Occupies Home in Foreclosure, Continues Bank Demonstrations
Continuing its focus on the major banking institutions and their relationship to the 99%, Occupy Santa Cruz has been conducting a variety of bank related actions. On Saturday, January 7, the group held a ‘Move Your Money’ demonstration outside of Chase bank at the corner of Ocean and Water streets, and currently a home in foreclosure is being occupied by the group with its owner on the Westside of Santa Cruz.
On Saturday, the home in foreclosure was used by Occupy Santa Cruz as the meeting location for its foreclosure working group, and occupiers have been cleaning up the home’s backyard, preparing it for tents and more occupiers. The home’s kitchen will soon be available for those wishing to cook for Occupy Santa Cruz, and the home’s living room will be available to host Occupy Santa Cruz working group meetings. The location of the home will be announced publicly soon.
Homeless woman helped by Occupy Chicago arrested on drug charge
Just two weeks after Occupy Chicago activists celebrated helping a young homeless woman’s family into a Northwest Side squat, she was arrested and charged with felony drug possession Saturday.
Destiny Cummings, 17, was found with 32 grams of marijuana during a traffic stop in the 3900 block of West Armitage Saturday evening, according to a police report. She and her family started squatting in a vacant home in the 2100 block of North Mulligan in November.
http://tinyurl.com/7oznxm6
Fuel strikes grip nervous Nigeria
[Radio bias: If you get your international news from BBC radio on NPR, it has not mentioned the Occupy movement once in its reports on Nigeria, though it does occasionally associate protests there with Islamic extremists. Numerous print outlets have reported on Occupy’s role in Nigeria.]
Nigeria groups inspired in part by the Occupy movement in New York and elsewhere waged strikes to protest an end to fuel subsidies in the country.
Protest organizers and labor unions called for peaceful protests Monday. Riot police were deployed, though they were largely outnumbered and violence was reported in some parts of the country, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reports.