Occupy Boston protesters stage April Fool’s rally
Waving signs with ironic slogans like “Tax the Poor” and “Bigger Cages, Longer Chains,” protesters chanted and cheered during an hour-long march around the financial district. Others stayed in Dewey Square to socialize and to distribute free food and clothes.
Occupy Boston holds April Fool’s Day protest
UPDATE: Occupy Boston protesters vacated Dewey Square around 7 p.m. due to weather conditions. Occupy Boston protesters held a day-long rally on Sunday to take back Dewey Square which they were evicted from back in December.
The local Occupy chapter began their protest around 12 p.m. and planned to end the event, which included live music and lunch, at 11 p.m. on Sunday. The group also scheduled an “April’s Fools March” for 1 p.m. which is designed to “sarcastically invoke ideas and thought that Occupy Boston are fighting against,” reports the Boston Herald.
Occupy Boston Returns to Dewey Square for an April Fools’ Day Rally
It may be April Fools’ Day, but Occupy Boston protesters aren’t fooling around. Despite a mock press release that said Occupy Boston disbanded (haha!), the group was back in full force today for a special April Fools’ Day rally, which took protesters through the streets of downtown Boston and back to their old stomping grounds at Dewey Square in the Financial District.
According to the “Take Back Dewey” Facebook event, about 400 people were signed up to participate in the march. In the spirit of today’s holiday, the protesters carried ironic signs like “Jesus Hates the Poor,” “Profits Before People,” and “Pick Rick!”, a sign pretending to favor Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
Push to End Too-Big-To-Fail Goes Mainstream
Wall Street is buzzing about the annual report just put out by the Dallas Federal Reserve. In the paper, Harvey Rosenblum, the head of the Dallas Fed’s research department, bluntly calls for the breakup of Too-Big-To-Fail banks like Bank of America, Chase, and Citigroup.
The government’s bottomless sponsorship of these TBTF institutions, Rosenblum writes, has created a “residue of distrust for government, the banking system, the Fed and capitalism itself.”
http://tinyurl.com/7n2kf6y
Beyond Robo-Signing: 3 Other Ways Bank of America Is Screwing Americans
The bank is screwing Americans is so many ways that robo-signing, awful as it is, is but a drop in the bucket. Below are several examples (among many) of how Bank of America is hurting consumers while continuing to dole out plenty of dough in executive bonuses and compensation.
http://tinyurl.com/72yhjk8
Rahm Emanuel travels to Milwaukee to fundraise for Democratic Party privatizer, met by combined Il and WI Occupy protest
Milwaukee, WI- 100 people protested Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Milwaukee as he spoke at a $400 dollar-a-plate fundraiser for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett’s run for governor. Community members drove from Chicago and across Wisconsin for a chance to bring their anger over Rahm Emanuel’s policies to him directly.
Laid off Chicago nurse Timothy Hudson spoke out against Mayor Emanuel’s privatization attacks on Chicago’s mental health clinics. Also representing the Chicago Mental Health Movement was Diane Adams, a patient of Auburn-Gresham Mental Health Center on the Southside of Chicago, one of the six mental health clinics scheduled to be closed by Emanuel’s administration on April 30. Members of dozens of community groups planning to protest the NATO convention in May joined the protest to demand Emanuel fund healthcare, not a crackdown on civil liberties during the NATO convention.
Many Wisconsinites at the protest were also protesting Barrett’s anticipated run for governor. Like Emanuel, Barrett has stood with the 1% business owners in Milwaukee to privatize community infrastructure. Barrett is extremely unpopular amongst progressive voters for crushing the Paid Sick Days ordinance that passed by voter referendum with a 69% majority. Since Governor Scott Walker destroyed collective bargaining for public employees, Barrett has done nothing but continue the attack on public workers, using Walker’s legislation to his advantage.
http://tinyurl.com/7s522hd
Republicans crash in polls nationwide as women recoil from sustained attacks on birth control, health programs
President Obama has emerged with an impressive lead in swing states around the country – thanks to women voters abandoning the GOP in droves, according to a new USA Today/Gallup poll showing President Obama leading among women voters in the top dozen battleground states by a whopping 18 points – greater than the 12-point gender gap he won with in 2008.
One month ago, the same poll showed Mitt Romney leading the president by 2 percentage points; but Sunday, the newest poll gave Obama a 9-point lead, 51 percent to 42 percent. The change, the poll indicates, comes from women:
“The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney’s support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.”
http://tinyurl.com/ccm98te
Occupy protesters move into vacant San Francisco building
Occupy San Francisco protesters have taken over a vacant building at the intersection of Gough and Turk streets, according to police and live video streams from the scene.
Around 5:40 p.m., protesters entered the vacant building after marching from Union Square, said San Francisco police Sgt. Michael Andraychak. No arrests had been made as of about 6:30 p.m., he said.
Any arrests for occupying the building would require the property owner to sign a complaint, he said. He said he did not know if that had happened, adding that the protesters arrived less than an hour ago.
http://tinyurl.com/6snaa6n
Occupy activists march across Brooklyn Bridge
Occupy Wall Street protesters marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on Sunday to mark the six months that have passed since hundreds of them were arrested walking the same route. This time, their numbers were far less.
A couple of hundred activists marched from Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, where they first camped out last September to start a movement that has spread around the world. They were flanked by police officers on scooters and on foot.
http://tinyurl.com/6wellue
NYPD seek suspects in free subway rides protest
Police are now looking for a group of vandals that worked Wednesday morning to let subway riders at thee stations across Manhattan and Brooklyn ride free. The group — wearing masks, hoods and gloves — chained open emergency gates, taped over the MetroCard readers and posted signs that read, “customers ride for free.”
According to the New York Times investigators are still trying to determine whether the group acted “as part — or in sympathy with –” Occupy Wall Street or another protest group. “We don’t know who is behind the incidents or what the motivation is,” an NYPD spokesman said Saturday. On Thursday, reports emerged that about 20 stations across the city saw gates opened to protest MTA cutbacks.
http://tinyurl.com/bw7de3q
In Madison, Occupy Camp Cares For Homeless While Seeking New Focus
On an unseasonably warm day in March, Dave Peters cleaned out his tent, removing old newspapers he had been using for insulation. The papers are gone now, but Peters and about 40 other people are still holding their ground.
“We’re part of an ongoing movement,” said Peters, one of the organizers of Occupy Madison. “This thing is going to ebb and flow, that’s to be expected. But the movement itself will continue.”
Logan Square Residents ‘Occupy Palm Sunday’ To Call For Immigration Reform
On this Palm Sunday, Christians in the Logan Square neighborhood called for improvements in housing, healthcare, hunger and immigration reform.
Members of four churches got together at the park where Kedzie, Logan and Milwaukee meet around 12:30 p.m. Sunday for an outdoor event that they called “Occupy Palm Sunday.”
Cops break up Occupy Toronto rally
Two protesters face charges after police broke up an Occupy Toronto rally outside a downtown police station early on Sunday. A police spokesman said that the two protesters were charged with public mischief and interfering with property after officers shut down the rally outside 52 Division around 2:30 a.m.
As many as 40 people gathered on Dundas St. – between University Ave. and McCaul St. – to denounce the earlier arrests of fellow protesters.
The group’s demands included a call that earlier charges against five protesters be dropped and there be a public investigation into an alleged incident of police brutality, involving Angela Turvey, 36.
Anti-capitalist battles injure 15 cops in Frankfurt
At least 15 German police officers were injured, one seriously, during rioting that lasted into Sunday morning, following an anti-capitalist protest in Frankfurt, police said.
Saturday’s clashes mark one of the first significant outbreaks of violence in Germany connected to recent anti-capitalist demonstrations inspired by the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement. Police said they arrested 465 people during the “anti-capitalist day” march.
http://tinyurl.com/7lu8s93
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