Hours after Big Journalism reported on a death threat made against an ABC reporter covering the Occupy Oakland protest and following a week’s worth of videos at Breitbart.TV chronicling the demonstration’s descent into lawless disorder, City Hall has said that the tent city will not continue. Last night an eviction notice was issued that cited the “increasing frequency of violence, assaults, threats and intimidation.” [VIEW THE EVICTION NOTICE BELOW.]

“Hopefully there’s not a riot…”

From the San Jose Mercury News:

A letter posted on the city’s web site at 8 p.m. expresses concerns about a wide range of public health and security issues surrounding the 10-day old camp in Frank Ogawa Plaza. No moves have been made by police or other officials to dismantle the camp since the notice went up.

[...]

Citing a rat infestation, numerous fire hazards, threats of intimidation and open displays of violence, Thursday’s letter from city officials appears to be a first step toward moving the residents out of the camp.

“We believe that after 10 days, the City can no longer uphold public health and safety. In recent days, camp conditions and occupants’ behavior have significantly deteriorated, and it is no longer manageable to maintain a public health and safety plan,” reads the notice posted on the city’s web site.

A pro-Occupy blogger for the San Francisco Chronicle attributes the eviction notice
to the footage of Occupy Oakland posted at the Breitbart sites:

The whole move toward eviction seems to have been started by the selfishness of certain specific San Francisco Bay Area Media types, and perhaps with a healthy assist from Breitbart TV.

What began nationwide as a run-of-the-mill gathering of various socialists and Communists plunged quickly into bedlam: squalor, violence, public urination, fire hazards, and public sex at Occupy Oakland.  The Occupy protesters eventually banned media from the tent city and threatened the life of KGO-TV’s Amy Hollyfield, who was allegedly accosted by a man who said, “We shoot white bitches like you around here.” (more…)

There has been a lot of talk comparing and contrasting the Tea Partiers and these Occupy-Whatever people. In Georgia, though, we can see a stark difference. Tea Partiers are law-abiding citizens, while the Occupy Atlantans are law breakers. Sadly, Capitol Police in Atlanta have sided with the Occupiers and against Tea Partiers.

At the very least, the Capitol Police in Atlanta have definitely been treating these two groups unequally. These officers of the law have turned a blind eye to law breaking by the Occupy folks, allowing them to do anything they want, but did not extend that courtesy to those Tea Party groups that also protested at the Georgia Capitol House.

Notice in the video that the Tea Party group the Capitol Police were harassing was made up of both blacks and whites? And the young man in the video being forced to take down his flag was Matthew Perdie, who was known for his momentous freedom walk in 2010.

Now, as you can see, the Occupy people have been allowed to break nearly every law on the books governing protests in Atlanta. They’ve not been required to take out permits, have not been required to observe vagrancy laws, have not been forced to observe the time limits put on protests and have also not been required to follow the law on how long poles for signs and flags are supposed to be. (more…)

In his interview Tuesday evening with ABC’s Jake Tapper, President Obama was asked to reflect on the economy and his overall performance as president. Asked by Mr. Tapper how he would grade himself thus far, the president declined to give himself a grade, preferring, instead, to redirect viewers to all the work that still needs to be done, presumably by him. That is why Americans should re-elect him in 2012, in order to allow him to complete his work.

In his now classically narcissistic style, Mr. Obama refuses any self-criticism during the interview. He appears to expect that his authoritative statements about the issues that face our nation are sufficient for mere mortal Americans. When Mr. Tapper nudges the president to determine, we can only assume, whether Mr. Obama’s concept of his disastrous poll ratings is based in reality, the president responds, “I believe all the choices we’ve made have been the right ones.”

Many of us would have all to do to keep our mouths from dropping open as we sat, incredulous, at this response, but perhaps Jake Tapper’s professional journalistic training was seeing him through.

We are now at a point, with this president, when every speech, every interview, every press conference, every bus tour, is nothing but a series of distorted statements, meant to pull unthinking Americans into a shared delusion. The president is part illusionist, part hypnotist, hoping to lure the most ignorant Americans among us into his realm of unreality. He feels empowered to do this because, as he so often reminds us, “I’m the president!”

(more…)

The war on business by the #Occupy movement is stepping up to a new level, and local authorities don’t appear to be ready to deal with it. Separate and seemingly related incidents are breaking out across the country and represent a possible first wave of attacks designed to “stress test” law enforcement response and try out tactics in order to see what works. Further, these incidents may be related to the recently disclosed connections between the unions and the Occupy movement.

Take two recent attacks on Wal-Mart – one in Washington D.C. and one in Texas but with the same target and similar tactics.

In Washington, D.C. last night:

“Occupy DC,” an offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, swarmed Union Station Thursday night to protest a speech by Wal-Mart Chairman Rob Walton at an event hosted by the non-profit advocacy group Conservation International. Union Station is Washington, D.C.’s train terminal, located just blocks from the Capitol.

Protesters chanted, “We are the 99 percent” while letting balloons loose. Station security attempted to stop the balloons from reaching the train terminal’s iconic high ceiling.

(more…)

From Investors Business Daily:

While not blameless, Wall Street is an easy scapegoat. And investment houses that made billions slicing and dicing mortgages into CDOs, derivatives, credit default swaps and other exotic paper are easy to demonize. But the problem wasn’t these financial instruments. Or even the obscene profits they generated. Mortgage-backed securities were nothing new, and we’ve always had speculation in the market.

The problem was the underlying assets: low-quality mortgages. We’ve never had so many junk home-loans poisoning the financial well before. And who poisoned the well? Washington and its affordable-housing policies.

It was Washington that declared prudent home-lending standards racist and gutted traditional underwriting rules in the name of diversity. It was government that created the risk on Main Street.

(more…)

I spent a few hours with the “occupiers” in Los Angeles. Most of them were dirty, confused, and spent a lot of time fighting with one another. Right before we left, someone offered $150 of “emergency” taxpayer funded food stamps to all the “occupy” vagrants. Newsflash: your poor planning doesn’t constitute an emergency. Again we have the 53% who do pay taxes paying for the poor choices of the members of the 47% who don’t pay taxes.

Typical Marxist thinking in action, right before your very eyes. To them, this is what “democracy” looks like.

(more…)

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama on Friday declared an end to the Iraq war, one of the longest and most divisive conflicts in U.S. history, announcing that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the country by year’s end.

Obama’s statement put an end to months of wrangling over whether the U.S. would maintain a force in Iraq beyond 2011.

“After nearly nine years,” the president, “America’s war in Iraq will be over.”

He spoke at the White House after a private video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and he offered assurances that the two leaders agreed on the decision. (more…)

Sometimes it seems as if every time someone in the Tea Party breathes, the mainstream press finds a way to label it as racist or promoting violence. Yet all of the anti-Semitic posters, chants and comments, as well as the ones demonizing Israel made by the Occupy Wall Street protesters, are virtually ignored my the media. Making matters worse, the media has been negligent in performing its investigative duties, because with just a little research they would discover that the anti-semitism may be a symptom of the fact that there are virulent Jew haters and Israel bashers in the ranks of OWS’s founding “fathers.”

Take Adbusters, for example.  In a post dated June 9, 2011 Adbusters issued the original Occupy Wall Street “call to arms”:

When it comes time to discuss Israel, Adbusters finds a way to describe the Jewish State in the most offensive of terms. While not specifically mentioning Jews, Adbusters substitutes other terms to make false and border-line anti-Semitic comments and tries to set up the Jews/Israel as the scapegoat for America’s problems. (more…)

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss why an unprecedented 26 million Americans are underemployed, Rick Perry’s flat tax, and Steve Jobs’ appeal to Barack Obama to free our education system from the teacher unions.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

An Unprecedented 26 Million Americans Are Now Underemployed
A long, steep drop for Americans’ standard of living
US ‘Misery Index’ Rises to Highest Since 1983
Second Miracle in 15 Years Needed for U.S. as Productivity Wanes
Texas Gov. Rick Perry calls for a flat tax
Steve Jobs Biography Reveals He Told Obama, ‘You’re Headed For A One-Term Presidency’
What if the NFL Played by Teachers’ Rules?
Will Charter Schools Cure America’s Blues?

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From the Associated Press:

Protesters who have camped outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in central London for six days have forced the venerable cathedral to close to visitors for the first time since World War II, church officials said Friday.

The Dean of St. Paul’s, Rev. Graeme Knowles, said the decision to shut the doors of the iconic London church to visitors and tourists following the afternoon service was made with “heavy hearts” because of health and safety concerns.

He urged the protesters—numbering roughly 500, according to organizers, allied with the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations—to leave now that they have made their point.

(more…)

From the Associated Press:

A federal investigation found that at least $7 million in federal stimulus money intended to provide jobs for unemployed Oregonians instead paid wages to 254 foreign workers.

The Oregonian reports the money went for forest cleanup jobs in central Oregon in 2009 when unemployment was over 11 percent.

Contractors told federal regulators they could not find enough local workers for the jobs and brought in foreign workers.

(more…)

Several reports of late reveal that new regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency will cause utility providers to shut down a number of coal-fired power plants. It is time to expose the history of the thuggish tactics utilized by the EPA in promoting a “green” energy agenda, specifically during the Clinton/Gore administration.

A press release from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dated November 3, 1999 reported:

“U.S. SUES ELECTRIC UTILITIES IN UNPRECEDENTED ACTION TO ENFORCE THE CLEAN AIR ACT”.  The release states that “seven separate suits allege that the electric utility companies — American Electric Power, Cinergy, FirstEnergy, Illinois Power, Southern Indiana Gas & Electric Company, Southern Company, Tampa Electric Company — or their subsidiaries, and the TVA, violated the Clean Air Act by making major modifications to many of their plants without installing the equipment required to control smog, acid rain and soot.”

In Florida, Tampa Electric Company (TECO) was the first utility in the country to reach a settlement agreement with the EPA and the Department of Justice.  Under the terms of the settlement agreement, as outlined in a statement from then EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner, Tampa Electric Company agreed to pay $3.5 million in civil penalties, along with another “$10 million for environmentally beneficial projects designed to mitigate the impact of their pollution.”  The entire Consent Decree can be viewed here.  A visit to Tampa Electric Company’s website contains a declaration that in 1999 they were the “first utility in the nation to develop a plan with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address its coal-fired utility initiative.” When questioned about the connection between Tampa Electric Company’s website statement regarding their cooperation with the EPA and the announced settlement with the EPA and DOJ, a source inside the industry replied “Do you mean did they hold a gun to their head?  Absolutely!”

(more…)

On Tuesday, October 18^th, President Obama told ABC News’ Jake Tapper that those who were responsible for Fast and Furious “will be held accountable.” Obama Added: “It’s very upsetting to me to think that somebody showed such bad judgment that they would allow something like that to happen. And we will find out who and what happened in this situation and make sure it gets corrected.”

However, this statement only comes after months of obfuscation by Obama, where both he and Attorney General Eric Holder have basically tried to convince us they didn’t know anything about Fast and Furious until CBS News started reporting on it. Thus the House members investigating Fast and Furious are asking Obama to put his money where his mouth is on this one.

For example, Congressmen Jason Chaffetz  (R-UT) and Trey Gowdy (R-SC) sent a letter to Obama asking him to clarify his own knowledge of Fast and Furious . They want to know when the President learned about the operation and when he learned about the investigation into the operation. Chaffetz and Gowdy also asked Obama to lean a bit on Holder, to ensure that the Attorney General appears before Congress to give further testimony on Fast and Furious. Thus, after referencing the apparent timeline conflict we’ve all detected in Holder’s Fast and Furious alibi, Congressman Chaffetz wrote: “We’re looking for answers.  I hope Mr. Holder will come before the Congress and clear up this glaring discrepancy.  We have a number of questions for Mr. Holder to answer.”

(more…)

From the Associated Press:

President Barack Obama and his allies in the Senate promise to press ahead with separate votes on pieces of his failed $447 billion jobs measure despite unanimous opposition from Republicans. But there also are signs of slippage among Democrats and evidence the strategy isn’t working with voters.

Future votes on individual pieces of the measure, however, aren’t likely to fare better than a pared-back jobs measure designed to boost hiring of teachers and first responders that Republicans and a handful of Democrats scuttled on Thursday.

Obama’s revised plan failed on a 50-50 test vote that fell well short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster. Three Democrats abandoned Obama on the vote and two more who voted with the president said they couldn’t support the underlying Obama plan unless it’s changed.

(more…)

From BusinessInsider:

Steve Jobs told President Obama he probably would not be re-elected, Walter Isaacson wrote in Jobs’ soon-to-be-released biography.

That’s because regulations and unions in the United States were crippling its ability to remain competitive with emerging powerhouses like China.

The biography was picked up by the Huffington Post, which published excerpts earlier today.

Jobs met with Obama in fall 2010 and said it was too difficult to build a factory in the U.S., which led the company to build manufacturing plants in countries like China.

(more…)

The current administration’s controversial federal regulatory policies (the US Treasury Department’s stunningly bad bet on Solyndra, the NLRB’s tone death sanction against Boeing, the EPA’s onerous new rules imposed on, well, everything) place heavy-handed bureaucrats in Washington squarely behind the wheel on the road to America’s economic future.  In each of these cases, the White House has empowered federal regulators to decide outcomes best left to the free market.  Washington, it seems, knows best. Against this backdrop of regulatory overreach, we await another major decision – the approval by the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission of the potential merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.

Of economic concern, however, is not the Federal government’s decision to approve or reject the deal, but whether the FCC will use its responsibility and power to approve the deal to also impose new regulations on the entire telecom industry. Doug Holtz-Eakin warns, “already we are seeing calls for a presumptive regulatory response.” He worries that “the U.S. will continue down an overly regulatory, prescriptive approach to competition that is doomed to fail.”

The greatest risk to a free, wide-open Internet is that overreaching regulators are using the merger review process to mandate new policy – circumventing the congressional review process to impose regulatory restrictions such as the controversial “net-neutrality” rules. “The job of regulators should not be to choose the best market strategy,” wrote James Gattuso, a Senior Research Fellow with The Heritage Foundation in a May report.  “It should be simply to make sure that the marketplace itself is working. In wireless, it’s working remarkably well, and there is every reason to believe it will continue to do so after the acquisition is completed.”

(more…)

From Politico:

Downtown New Yorkers furious with the continued presence of the Occupy Wall Street protesters vented angrily at a community board meeting Thursday, according to reports.

The desire to complain about the demonstrators was so widespread that the line to speak at the meeting wound its way outside the board’s office and into the street, the New York Post said. At least several hundred people showed up to the board meeting.

The major complaints from residents in the area around the Occupy Wall Street protests in Lower Manhattan were issues of hygiene, garbage, noise and respectfulness.

(more…)

Yesterday on Third Base Politics, we shared with you how the anti-Issue 2 group “We Are Ohio” is made up of organizations that have given their full endorsement to a movement that seeks to overthrow the entire American economy, by violent means, if necessary.  In fact, 74% of the money behind We Are Ohio comes from the unions who have publicly praised a movement that consists of radical Marxists.

Occupy Wall Street and its various offshoots in other cities seems not to be satisfied until the society that has produced the most mass prosperity, the most advancements in technology and freedom, in human history, is replaced by the model more like the failed and deadly Soviet model.  And We Are Ohio is fully on board with that!

But not only do they support the socialists behind the Occupy movement, they even employ one.

Meet Will Klatt. He is a self-described “community organizer” and claims on his Facebook page to be the “Statewide Youth Outreach Coordinator” for We Are Ohio.

Since it appears often on his Facebook wall, and he is officially the Youth Outreach Coordinator, he is presumably the brains behind the Facebook group “We Are Ohio Students.” So, how is young Will reaching out to Ohio’s youth? By organizing and attending “Occupy” protests around Ohio, of course! Here is a part of his wall highlighting that We Are Ohio Students is directly endorsing, attending and organizing the Occupy Columbus protests.

(more…)