A newly-discovered video–filmed by Occupy Wall Street supporters themselves–reveals that New York Times reporter Natasha Lennard is not merely covering the protests, but is also apparently taking part in planning and executing them.

In the video, Lennard is seen participating as a featured speaker in a discussion among anarchists, communists, and other radicals as they examine the theory, strategy and tactics of the Occupy protests.

The discussion was held at the left-wing Bluestockings book store in New York on Friday, Oct. 14, and filmed and promoted by the radical magazine Jacobin. The audience included participants in, and apparent organizers of, the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in lower Manhattan.

Lennard, who has also written for Politico and Salon, is identified in the video by the panel’s moderator as a freelancer for the Times, and also as the Times reporter who was arrested along with seven hundred activists on the Brooklyn Bridge on Oct. 1.

When Lennard reported on her arrest at the time, she appears to have concealed her own apparent role in the Occupy protests, implying that her arrest was an abuse of press freedom. She used her affiliation with the Times to win her early release.

Sympathetic media expressed shock that a reporter had been taken into custody by allegedly overzealous police. Only sources like Newsbusters questioned that narrative at the time. The video suggests that the skeptics were correct in their suspicions.

In the video of the panel discussion, Lennard reveals herself to be a passionate Occupy supporter, and appears to have personal knowledge of its planned future activities, including illegal occupations of banks in New York City.

We have decided to post the entire video of the panel discussion–below, in full, as first posted by Jacobin magazine. We have made no edits; the jump cuts are apparently caused by the videographer.

Lennard, the woman at far-left (coincidentally), speaks as a “comrade” of the panelists and the audience–one actively part of the far-left intellectual theorizing and organizing behind Occupy, and also as someone with deep knowledge of its plans.

For example, at roughly 1:15:15, an audience member asks a question about how to manage the growing ideological divisions among anarchists and communists as they form “a new society” through the Occupy movement.

Lennard’s answer suggests that she identifies with the anarchist faction holed up at Zuccotti Park–and that she identifies with efforts by Occupy activists to conceal their true beliefs and goals:

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The radicals at “Occupy Dayton” were not too happy when one of their activists was caught on video shouting: “F*ck the military, f*ck your flag, f*ck the police!”

The video aired at Breitbart.tv and was subsequently picked up across the blogosphere.

In response, the “Media Committee” of Occupy Dayton issued the press release below, in which organizers threaten to sue… someone… for libel:

OccupyDayton1

Occupy Dayton Threat to Sue –

The case that Occupy Dayton relies on, Becker v. Toulmin, 165 Ohio St. 549 (1956), does not have any relevance here. The video merely publishes the activist’s own words, which he stated volubly and in public.

Furthermore, the activist depicted is involved in a matter of public concern, and therefore is a public figure for the purpose of Occupy Dayton. He would therefore have to meet a higher–in this case, impossible–standard of proof.

Neither he, nor Occupy Dayton, has a case.

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Earlier this week we sent some of the MRCTV staff up to Occupy Wall Street in New York to see what they could see. Now they’re back and, trust me, they’ve got some very interesting video. Our first taste of what they found comes in the form of this raging anti-semite OWS supporter.

Check out Joe Schoffstall’s interview with this raving lunatic.

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From the Associated Press:

Obama won 67 percent of Hispanic voters in 2008 but many of those voters have become disillusioned during the past three years. Unemployment among Hispanics tops 11 percent and many Latinos are losing their homes. Others criticize the number of deportations under Obama’s presidency and the lack of progress on a comprehensive immigration plan.

“I am willing to support him, but I would like him to keep his word on all the promises he made,” said Marcos Mata, 17, a Las Vegas high school senior who will vote for the first time next year. “Not just on immigration. But I don’t know if I see any improvement. The jobs act, it’s a good idea but he should have been doing that a long time ago.”

Recent Gallup polling showed Obama with a 49 percent job approval rating among Hispanics, compared with about 60 percent in the beginning of 2011. Hispanic voters could prove pivotal next year, especially in fast-growing and contested states such as Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado.

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From The New York Post:

Even in Zuccotti Park, greed is good.

Occupy Wall Street’s Finance Committee has nearly $500,000 in the bank, and donations continue to pour in — but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protestErs is fraying tempers.

Some drummers — incensed they got no money to replace or safeguard their drums after a midnight vandal destroyed their instruments Wednesday — are threatening to splinter off.

“F–k Finance. I hope Mayor Bloomberg gets an injunction and demands to see the movement’s books. We need to know how much money we really have and where it’s going,” said a frustrated Bryan Smith, 45, who joined OWS in Lower Manhattan nearly three weeks ago from Los Angeles, where he works in TV production.

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CHICAGO (AP) – Anti-Wall Street demonstrators of the Occupy Chicago movement stood their ground in a downtown park in noisy but peaceful defiance of police orders to clear out, prompting 130 arrests early Sunday, authorities said.

Occupy Chicago spokesman Joshua Kaunert vowed after the arrests that protests would continue in the Midwest city.

“We’re not going anywhere. There are still plenty of us,” Kaunert told The Associated Press after the arrests, which took police more than an hour to complete.

Elsewhere in the nation, police reported 11 arrests overnight in the Occupy Cincinnati protests. Police said those arrested had stayed in that city’s Fountain Square after Sunday’s 3 a.m. closing time and each was charged with criminal trespass.

In Chicago, police began taking people into custody just before 1 a.m. Sunday. Those arrested were led in groups to vans and two large white buses as others clamored to be arrested.

“Take me next! Take me next!” some shouted as police began the arrests. Others chanted as they were led away: “We’ll be back!”

Officers had begun placing metal barricades around the area of Chicago’s Grant Park known as Congress Plaza about 11:10 p.m. Saturday, minutes after the park had closed. Afterward, police then went through the crowd and warned people to leave or risk arrest for remaining in the closed park in violation of a city ordinance.

Read more here.

BigGovernment.com founder Andrew Breitbart received another taste of SEIU thuggery this past week at “Occupy L.A.,” his second public run-in with the SEIU thugs.  Mr. Breitbart’s first exposure was memorialized in Unholy Alliance?, The Devil at Breitbart’s Doorstep and SEIU’s Unholy Alliance. In that experience, Mr. Breitbart and Mr. Glenn Beck were confronted by, Reverend C.J. Hawkins, one of the multitude of characters that attacked EMS during the SEIU’s corporate campaign to force the unionization of my business, EMS, as chronicled inThe Devil at My Doorstep. It is obvious that the SEIU is willing to attack anyone or any entity to achieve its goals, using intimidation as its calling card!

In the latest incident, a union thug followed Mr. Breitbart throughout the “Occupy L.A.”event in an obvious attempt to intimidate him (see SEIU Thug Follows Andrew Breitbart Around at Occupy L.A. and Andrew Breitbart Hits Occupy L.A. Protest, Brings Eric Bolling the Video Evidence). This act of outright intimidation is similar to what I experienced during the SEIU’s corporate campaign against EMS, when two SEIU thugs fell in shoulder to shoulder with me for two blocks in downtown Indianapolis (see blog Corporate Campaigns: Vehicle to Forced Unionism and Political Payback).

It appears the SEIU is ramping up a corporate campaign against Mr. Breitbart. In this instance, the goal is not to force unionization his employees but rather to silence him much as they have done with their own members, small and large businesses, banks, government officials, and the mainstream media. See SEIU Thugs Beat Up State Worker Ken Hamidi in Sacramento,  A Story of Our Future(use of a corporate campaign against small business), California Hospital Alleges SEIU Extortion (use of a corporate campaign against large business), A Smear Campaign (use of a corporate campaign against a city council president), SEIU Plan to Destroy JP Morgan (a plan for the use of corporate campaign against banks) and many mainstream media sources, including Fox News as seen in the SEIU’s website post Glenn Beck and Republican Violence (the use of corporate campaigns against Glenn Beck). (more…)

More than 50 years after Sam Cooke first sang about his educational deficiencies, many American teens “don’t know much about history.”  Or so their latest test scores suggest.

Only 12 percent of all 12^th graders are “proficient” or “advanced” in U.S. History according to the 2010 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP).  And less than half of all high school seniors display even a “basic” knowledge about American History.

The latest NAEP scores for civics are almost as bad:  Less than two-thirds of all seniors show a “basic” understanding of our system of government.  And a 2010 study commissioned by the American Enterprise Institute concluded that “civics, once the cornerstone of public education, has fallen off the radar” as teachers have felt increasing pressure to show progress in other areas.

That many educators today give considerable attention to other subjects would not disturb America’s founders.  While we tend to think of them largely as political figures, America’s founders recognized that there are many higher and grander pursuits in life than those in the political realm.

This no doubt explains why the scientifically-curious Ben Franklin went outside in a thunderstorm with his kite – and why the educationally-minded Thomas Jefferson had his gravestone identify him as the founder of the University of Virginia, but not as the third president of the United States.

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Today, in 1944, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle in history, begins…

In this YouTube video posted by TheRightScoop here, an unnamed individual said to be a professor at New York University can be seen encouraging protesters to bring down Capitalism.

“If we get rid  of the board of directors, if we get  rid of the major  shareholders, the machines will still be there. The factory will not move. The workers will have all  the skills.  We will produce just fine.”

A bit later in the short video, he  goes on, ”We have the people. We have the plan. And the obstacle is a tiny minority.”

While making a point of naming “Capitalism” as the enemy, he encourages the confiscation of wealth and the taking of private property in the cause of a system he, curiously enough, does not seem to name.

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When most people think about the Yellow Pages… well, do most people even think about the Yellow Pages anymore? Actually, you’d be surprised. Nearly 75% of Americans referred to the Yellow Pages for a phone number or business recommendation last year. Even given all of the Internet resources that are available right at hand, most adults chose to look up essential information in that gigantic book that most people born after 1995 remember only as a makeshift booster seat. Even in the face of rampant technology, the Yellow Pages soldiers on as one of the most used local resources and one of the most effective means of direct marketing to consumers.

But learning that about the Yellow Pages takes a bit of research–research that liberal city councils across the country aren’t doing as they undertake a massive war on what they deem not only an irrepressible nuisance but an environmental disaster as well. That’s right, of all of the societal ills local governments could address, they’re looking to take on the Yellow Pages. San Francisco, of course, has already led the way, and Berkeley, Alameda, Cleveland and other cities would like to follow suit. According to BanthePhoneBook.org, a site set up by those who seek to see the Yellow Pages (radical environmentalists among them) banished from existence, nearly five million trees are murdered per year just to bring you reliable information about plumbers and personal injury lawyers.

But is banning the phone book really the best way to save trees? A quick rundown of some key statistics puts two very key holes in the “ban the phone book” theory of environmental reclamation. First, as it turns out, the Yellow Pages aren’t actually made from five million fresh trees, cut down in their peak to bring the phone book to your door. They’re actually made from mostly recycled material or the byproducts of other paper manufacturing, non-toxic dyes, and inks, and unused directories are “upcycled” into other things. You know that coffee cup that your non-fat soy latte with non-dairy whip comes in every morning, that says it comes from “90% recycled materials?” It’s likely made out of your old phone books. (more…)

Mitt Romney is always quick to lambast other Republicans for being career politicians, as if this is his first rodeo and he is a political newcomer. However, the truth is he’s been in politics for over seventeen years, many of which have been spent appealing to liberals and moderates and fighting to keep from being identified with Ronald Reagan.

Yet the more one goes back and listens to the things Romney’s been saying during his nearly two decades of public service, the more one has to wonder why he thought someone would link him to Reagan in the first place.

For example, while trying to unseat Senator Ted Kennedy in 1994, Romney said:

“I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country. I have since the time that my mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a U.S. Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years, that we should sustain and support it. And I sustain and support that law.”

Someone needs to corner Romney on this statement and force him to explain whether he still holds to it in part or in whole. (more…)

From New York Magazine:

As the protest has grown, some of the occupiers have spontaneously taken charge on projects large and small. But many of the people in Zuccotti Park aren’t taking direction well, leading to a tense Thursday of political disagreements, the occasional shouting match, and at least one fistfight.

It began, as it so often does, with a drum circle. The ten-hour groove marathons weren’t sitting well with the neighborhood’s community board, the ironically situated High School of Economics and Finance that sits on the corner of Zuccotti Park, or many of the sleep-deprived protesters.

“[The high school] couldn’t teach,” explained Josh Nelson, a 27-year-old occupier from Nebraska. “And we’ve had issues with the drummers too. They drum incessantly all day, and really loud.” Facilitators spearheaded a General Assembly proposal to limit the drumming to two hours a day. “The drumming is a major issue which has the potential to get us kicked out,” said Lauren Digion, a leader on the sanitation working group.

But the drums were fun. They brought in publicity and money. Many non-facilitators were infuriated by the decision and claimed that it had been forced through the General Assembly.

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The latest Gallup poll pegs President Obama’s approval at a new low of 41 percent. That adds to the thought that the winner of the GOP presidential-primary sweepstakes is going to be the next president.

And inside that Republican contest, the policy pendulum is swinging toward pro-growth, flat-tax reform. A new agenda. With Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan and the announcement of a Steve Forbes-type flat tax from Gov. Rick Perry, the GOP flat-tax-reform competition is dominating the headline news.

While President Obama stumps for huge tax hikes — on incomes of $200,000 to the millionaire and billionaire level — and demoralizes businesses and entrepreneurs with his populist attacks on success and risk-taking, the GOP is fast coming up with a much better idea.

The handwriting is now on the wall. A huge part of the 2012 campaign will be pro-growth tax reform versus “fairness,” redistribution, and soak-the-rich. In a stalled-out economy, I’ll take the supply-side bet anytime. Pro-growth, flat-tax reform is going to win.

The stock market gets this. The flat tax is bullish. In late September, Herman Cain trumpeted his 9-9-9 flat-tax/fair-tax hybrid reform plan at the Orlando, Fla., debate. Since early October, stocks have come out of their funk, rising 12 percent.

Coincidence?

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Uncle Joe is at it again. He is, once again, using the tried and true Democrat tactic of trying to scare people into letting the government spend more money. It is time to pass yet another failed stimulus bill, and if you don’t pass it, oh, you don’t even want to know the horrors the country will face.

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Across the country, utility companies are in the process of installing digital AMR (Automatic Meter Reading) “smart meters”.  This will allow for remote meter reading instead of having to send a meter reader out to your home.  What appears to be a great advancement in electric meter technology will allow for your home to ultimately be connected to the “smart grid.”

Mission Point Capital Partners, “a private investment firm established by Mark Schwartz, former President and Chief Executive Officer of Soros Fund Management and former Chairman of Goldman Sachs (Asia); Jesse M. Fink, co-founder and former Chief Operating Officer of priceline.com; and Mark J. Cirilli, former Chief Investment Officer of Marshall Street Management,” explains:

The Smart Grid is a collection of energy control and monitoring devices, software, networking and communications infrastructure that are installed in homes, businesses, and throughout the electricity distribution grid. This collective system provides a “nervous system” for the grid and for customers that provides the ability to monitor and control energy consumption comprehensively in real time. Think of it as the Internet for Energy… Smart meters and other smart grid technologies… are designed with this ability, and they can provide the infrastructure that will support the implementation of responsible climate change policy. [emphasis added]

Smart thermostats, smart meters and the smart grid will provide the utility with information and the ability to monitor energy consumption throughout the country. These devices will enable them to regulate your use of electricity and turn it on and off at their discretion.  According to SmartGrid.gov, “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act) provided the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) with about $4.5 billion to modernize the electric power grid and to implement Title XIII of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), which focused on the Smart Grid.”  This site shows the government’s progress  in implementing smart grid technology through the country.  The money put into this is staggering! The Solyndra scandal is only the tip of the iceberg of this Administration’s green radicalism. (more…)

Unsafe streets are unsafer almost entirely due to restrictions on the freedoms of the citizen to act in an emergency involving violence. Though states affirm the armed citizen, major cities refuse. All gun control interferes with the average reasonable person and it escalates crisis to the gain of the State. But some states do not want to preside over crises when they can preside over prosperity, “prosperity” meaning some of the greatest wealth: freedom. Everyone prospers under freedom better than under any other system. The word takes on new meaning under freedom.

I often receive letters for my position — the repeal of all gun laws. I answer every one of these. The idea is not to do without laws, but to erase all of the adversity gun control has caused and to start over. I am reasonably certain that America would write a few gun laws, but only a handful, having now lived with the disaster that is the political punishment of freedom. And punishing freedom is what gun control is about. Limiting one’s latitude to act in time of emergency aggravates adverse social conditions. This then cultivates an attitude of need or political remedy. The safeguard of freedom is undermined in mandates, such as gun control, and the crisis grows.

But not all public servants agree with this sort of governance. When it comes to the armed citizen, forty-eight states affirm their constituents’ right to carry a loaded sidearm, they don’t fight it or feel any mandate against it. Do these people like guns? No, not likely. What these people do like is propriety and integrity. In affirming the concept of the armed citizen throughout their state, these legislators do not believe in the gun, they believe in the citizen.

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City officials in far-left Oakland have issued an eviction notice to #OccupyOakland. Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg in NYC continues to allow #OccupyWallSt protesters to squat on private property, amidst growing anger from actual residents. He now owns this protest.