October 16, 2011 archive

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The Stars Hollow Gazette

‘Paid Detail Unit’ Wall Streets’ Cops

Counterpunch has an excellent piece up on the New York City police and wall street’s  cozy relationship / revolving door.

Especially regarding ‘white shirts’.

And, especially something called the “PDU” – the Paid Detail Unit.


The corporations pay an average of $37 an hour (no medical, no pension benefit, no overtime pay) for a member of the NYPD, with gun, handcuffs and the ability to arrest.  The officer is indemnified by the taxpayer, not the corporation.

New York City gets a 10 percent administrative fee on top of the $37 per hour paid to the police.  The City’s 2011 budget called for $1,184,000 in Paid Detail fees, meaning private corporations were paying  wages of $11.8 million to police participating in the Paid Detail Unit.  The program has more than doubled in revenue to the city since 2002.

Read the whole thing here:

http://www.counterpunch.org/20…

It’s an amazing piece.  Note also the bio of the author: she worked on wall street for more than 2 decades.  

Occupy Wall Street Sunday 10.16.11

***DemocraticUnderground:

Cornel West was just arrested in front of the Supreme Court!
***

*Live Stream october2011 recorded live on 10/16/11 at 3:50

*Live Stream october2011 recorded live on 10/16/11 at 3:52 CORNEL WEST ARRESTED

*October2011: Margaret Flowers: Dr. Cornel West and 14 others Arrested Protesting Corporate Power at U.S. Supreme Court (10.16.11)

Occupy Wall St. Livestream: Day 30

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Watch live streaming video from globalrevolution at livestream.com

OccupyWallStreet

The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza 😉

“I don’t know how to fix this but I know it’s wrong.” ~ Unknown Author

Click here for Livestreams from around the world

We Don’t Need No Permits To March

October 15 Times Sq.


Photobucket

Occupy Wall Street Protest Culminates With 6,000 in Times Square

Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) — Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York City today culminated with a Times Square rally that drew thousands opposed to economic inequality, echoed by protests from London to Tokyo.

Participants in the month-old movement marched past a JPMorgan Chase & Co. branch early in the day to urge clients to close accounts. Twenty-four were arrested later at a Citigroup Inc. office, the police said, and about 6,000 gathered in Times Square, the organizers estimated.

Hong Kong, Sydney, Toronto and other cities also saw protests, which turned violent in Rome, in what organizers called a “global day of action against Wall Street greed.” Backers say they represent “the 99 percent,” a nod to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz’s study showing the top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of U.S. wealth.

“The world will rise up as one and say, ‘We have had enough,'” Patrick Bruner, an Occupy Wall Street spokesman, said in an e-mail. A news release from the organization said there were demonstrations in 1,500 cities worldwide, including 100 in the U.S.

NYC Live Updates:

   8:50 p.m. 700 reported in Washington Square Park. Music and food there.

   8:30 p.m. Scanner says riot cops in full gear, nets out, headed to the crowd, 47th and 6th.

   8:11 p.m. White shirt just ordered #NYPD line AWAY from barricades. Crowd ROARS

   8:08 p.m. Tension escalating, police ordering protesters to step away from barricades.

   8:02 p.m. Mario: 4 paddy wagons and arrests at 46 and 6th ave.

   8:00 p.m. Police are arresting occupiers at 46th and 6th.

   7:30 p.m. Unconfirmed estimates ranging as high as 50,000 people in Times Square.

   6:45 p.m. Police have trapped people in times square with barricades.

   6:35 p.m. A horse just went down. Crowd is going wild. NYPD says anyone near barricade is going to jail. This is is inexcusable. (Source)

   6:22 p.m. Police on horseback arrive. Police pulling people out of crowd and attacking them. Protesters are rushing barricades.

   6:10 p.m. Police in riot gear retreat.

   6:05 p.m. Police are in riot gear.

   6:00 p.m. Backup has arrived. Estimated 15,000 in Times Square

   5:49 p.m. Orange nets along Broadway.

   5:45 p.m. Five thousand more on their way from Liberty Square and other locations.

   5:30 p.m. Thousands arrive in Time Square. Now livestreaming: http://www.livestream.com/occu…

Live Feed of Occupy Wall Street from The Guardian

Greg Mitchel at The Nation has a great running account of the event in Times Square and from around the world with links: The OccupyUSA Blog: Special Weekend Edition!

On This Day In History October 16

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

This Day in History: October 16 October 16 is the 289th day of the year (290th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 76 days remaining until the end of the year.

On this day in 1916, Margaret Sanger opened a family planning and birth control clinic at 46 Amboy St. in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, the first of its kind in the United States.

It was raided 9 days later by the police. She served 30 days in prison. An initial appeal was rejected but in 1918 an opinion written by Judge Frederick E. Crane of the New York Court of Appeals allowed doctors to prescribe contraception.

This was the beginning of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Sanger founded the American Birth Control League in 1921,  which changed its name to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. in 1942. Since then, it has grown to 850 clinic locations in the United States, with a total budget of approximately US$1 billion, and provides an array of services to over three million people.

Dealing with sexuality, the organization is often a center of controversy in the United States. The organization’s status as the country’s leading provider of surgical abortions has put it in the forefront of national debate over the issue. Planned Parenthood has also been a party in numerous Supreme Court cases.

In scanning through the articles on Margaret Sanger, I found this bit of trivia quite amusing

In 1926, Sanger gave a lecture on birth control to the women’s auxiliary of the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey. She described it as “one of the weirdest experiences I had in lecturing,” and added that she had to use only “the most elementary terms, as though I were trying to make children understand.” Sanger’s talk was well-received by the group and as a result “a dozen invitations to similar groups were proffered.”

Six In The Morning

On Sunday

Protests go global, rampage, tear gas in Rome

Minority of violent demonstrators stretch into evening, hours after tens of thousands of people join global ‘day of rage’ against bankers, politicians

msnbc.com staff and news service reports

 Hundreds of hooded, masked protesters rampaged through Rome in some of the worst violence in the Italian capital for years Saturday, torching cars and breaking windows during a larger peaceful protest against elites blamed for economic downturn.

Police repeatedly fired tear gas and water cannon in attempts to disperse them but the clashes with a minority of violent demonstrators stretched into the evening, hours after tens of thousands of people in Rome joined a global “day of rage” against bankers and politicians.




Sunday’s Headlines:

Israel names prisoners to be freed in swap deal

Trees ‘boost African crop yields and food security’

The world can feed itself without ruining the planet, study says

Science in anthrax letter case comes under attack

Banned list: the war on words

Instant Karma: mark-to-market

Yale economists stress need for more US govt. spending.  

Why?

They talk about “stimulus,” “infrastructure,” “shovel-ready jobs,” spurring inflation,” “loan forgiveness,” tax cuts, and so on.  

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Do they even know what the problem is that they are trying to address?   Or are they just yammering out of habit?

For example:

Have the banks’ assets been valued through mark-to-market accounting?  No.

Do the economists know if the banks are even solvent?  No.

Do they know the counterparty risk between banks worldwide?  No.

Considering everyone may be insolvent, do they know if the govt has any money to spend?  No.

And yet, they make strenuous recommendations, many less-than-strenuous based on potential possibilities.  I am neither Austrian nor Keynesian, whoever the fuck they are.  If I were an economist, I’d want the facts, up front, before I delivered opinions or made recommendations.  

Many heedless, antero-grade amnesiacs say, “More better Democrats are needed!”

Woof.

Cartnoon

Hooray For Hollywood Planet Episode 19, Season 1, Part 2

Hooray For Hollywood Planet Episode 19, Season 1, Part 3

Occupy The World: Ode to Joy

Occupy The World: Madrid, Spain

They’re holding their empty palms in the air, chanting “These are our weapons!”

It’s to show their peaceful resistance movement.