On November 4, 2011, Occupy DC flocked outside of AFP’s Defending the Dream Summit held at the Washington Convention Center and began protesting. During the course of the events, the situation turned violent. One instance involved a mother using her kids to blockade the door in which MRCTV’s Stephen Gutowski caught on tape.

By sheer luck, just days before on October 31, MRCTV’s Dan Joseph asked the lady why she believes the cops haven’t broken up their living headquarters at McPherson Square. She responded by saying it was politically expedient for the cops to let them continue.

On November 8, MRCTV’s Joe Schoffstall caught up with the lady as they were protesting downtown in retaliation to what happened at the AFP summit. She told us that her and her children ‘protest together’ and that she doesn’t regret placing her kids in front of the door and will continue to do so. She also said it was the police who put her children in danger.

Here’s what she had to say:

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From the San Francisco Examiner:

Ferry Building merchants and managers are fed up with the mayhem that has come with the nearby Occupy SF encampment.

A spike in shoplifting, break-ins and reports of abandoned human waste — and a reported drop in foot traffic — has management fuming about the Justin Herman Plaza encampment. There even are reports of occupiers using the building’s restrooms as washrooms — with folks taking sponge baths from toilets.

And last Monday, eight men were allegedly escorted out of the building after they attempted to use the bathrooms wearing nothing but their boxer shorts.

Property manager Jane Connors has written two letters to The City, one sent Nov. 1 and the other sent Monday. In both, she highlighted merchant complaints and asked police to increase their presence at the building.

But that hasn’t happened.

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Reuters recently offered an apologetic profile on Solyndra figurehead, RockPort Capital Managing Partner, and Solyndra Board Member David Prend.

The article, a fawning exhibition of non-investigative journalism, referred to Prend as the “Guru of Green.” Reuters neglected to question whether Prend’s close government connections had created conflicts of interest as he secured multi-million dollar government loans and grants for his investments.

Prend lobbied the Director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, Carol Browner, for Solyndra’s doomed $535 million DOE loan and presidential endorsement. Prend also visited the White House at least twice and discussed two companies with Browner while lobbying for Solyndra. (The White House refuses to release the second company’s name.)

Prend’s other investments suggest that he is benefiting from taxpayer support for far more than just two companies.

Prend is a board member for scandal-plagued concrete sealant manufacturer Hycrete. Around 2008, Hycrete received a $2 million Corps of Engineers earmark from Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN) shortly before company executives donated $20,000 to his campaign and the DCCC. In July 2009, former Hycrete CEO David Rosenberg was invited to a WH Summit on Energy Innovation and Jobs where Obama praised Hycrete as a job creation leader.

Prend was apparently involved in another RockPort Capital investment, Soliant Energy. Soliant went bankrupt even after receiving a $4 million DOE grant. Prend also apparently sits on the board of SustainX, which recently secured a $5.39 million DOE grant. (more…)

Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

I’m baffled by stupid Republicans (sorry to be redundant). Some GOPers have agreed to put taxes on the table. Not surprisingly, Democrats are praising them for this preemptive surrender, patting these Republicans on the head for being good little lapdogs. The Democrats are also high-fiving each other since they openly admit that tricking Republicans into a tax hike has been their top political goal, but that’s an issue for another day.

And what are Republicans getting in exchange for violating their no-tax promises? As you might suspect, they’re getting nothing. For all intents and purposes, the left is saying “that’s a good start” and waiting for GOPers to make further concessions. Needless to say, this is very irritating. And I’m not the only person who is upset. Here is a column that I co-authored along with Grover Norquist, Mike Needham, Phil Kerpen, Al Cardenas, and Duane Parde. We explain why higher taxes are a bad idea:

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Today, in 1918, World War One ended.

Today, in 1775, the United States Marine Corps was founded. It has proven itself among the best of the best. Happy Birthday.

UPDATE 4 (5:35 am PST): Oakland mayor Jean Quan has announced that the Occupy Oakland protest will be removed once again, as the city council plans a no-confidence vote in response to her failure to uphold law and order.

UPDATE 3 (7:42 pm PST): According to this new video, released by an Occupy Oakland activist who witnessed the incident, the shooting occurred during a fight over “a bag of weed.” He concludes: “It’s gotten real nasty down here, real fast.”

UPDATE (7:30 pm PST): Breitbart.tv has just released video of Occupy Oakland activists assaulting a local ABC news crew as it reported on the fatal shooting:

UPDATE (7:14 pm PST): The victim is dead, according to the San Francisco Chronicle and KTVU.

***

A shooting has been reported near the site of Occupy Oakland–the second fatal shooting today at an Occupy demonstration, after an incident at Occupy Vermont this morning.

Our source on the ground at the Occupy Oakland protests sent this video of police and EMTs administering CPR to the victim:

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

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Social liberals are extremely frustrated that the “worker’s paradise” that seemed so near three years ago, is fast slipping away due to voter rejection. With the huge borrowing and spending stimulus failing to revitalize the economy, social liberals took to the streets in Occupy Wall Street movements around the country. But the movement is rapidly being taken over by vicious Marxist elements bent on over-throwing capitalism with violent revolution, called “Black Bloc”.

In 2008, candidate Barack Obama campaigned in Germany and France to trumpet that America would soon bond with Europe and “Together, we must forge trade that truly rewards the work that creates wealth.” These are code words for America is embracing Europe’s collectivist march. Over the next two years, the President and his veto proof Congress legislated for the collectivization of healthcare, socialization of financial services, bail-out the unionized auto industry, and unbounded arrays of new regulatory constraints to fundamentally transform the U.S. economy. In solidarity: the United Nations designated October, 31, 2011 as the beginning of the International Year of the Cooperative to celebrate “the beginnings of a genuine discussion and debate about different economic models —models that value fairness at their core”.

The breadth of socialist ambition and the failure of massive borrow and spend initiatives to deliver economic recovery led to spontaneous rise of the Tea Part movement in America and an epic rejection of social liberal policies at the polls in 2010. Following that electoral shellacking, a broad spectrum of pundits urged President Obama in the words of Politico to: “move to the center to find common ground with the GOP and adopt the “triangulation” strategy employed by Bill Clinton” after his 1994 midterm losses.”

Social liberals have howled this year at what they see as the President lurch to the political center as selling out their core values. Bent on creating their own spontaneous movement; social liberals quickly latched onto the Occupy Wall Street movement. Over $500,000 in donations poured in as labor unions and elected officials embraced the movement. Marches and occupations sprung up nationwide to serve as a national microphone for the cause.

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“A smoking ban in bars is saying that adult citizens are not allowed to use a legal substance even though they’re very highly taxed for doing so in a place that is private property,” explains Joe Jackson, the hitmeister behind indelible tunes such as ”Look Sharp!,” “Is She Really Going Out With Him?,” and, yes, “(Everything Gives You) Cancer.”

Jackson’s not a smoker himself but he insists that smoking bans and other for-your-own-good restrictions infantalize us all and challenge basic concepts of freedom. “You’re throwing out the window the property right of the owner of that establishment, freedom of choice, a lot of things, compared to a health risk [from second- and third-hand smoke] that is really unproven.”

Jackson’s antipathy for the creeping nanny state in his native England and his longtime home of New York City led him to write a meticulously researched essay called “Smoking, Lies and The Nanny State.” It also led him to finally flee New York and London, setting up residence in Berlin because there he at least feels like he is relatively “free” and “treated like an adult.”

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When the Occupy movement launched a few weeks ago, they immediately got a boost from Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream.

We, the Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors, compelled by our personal convictions and our Company’s mission and values, wish to express our deepest admiration to all of you who have initiated the non-violent Occupy Wall Street Movement and to those around the country who have joined in solidarity.

And now, in Ben and Jerry’s home state of Vermont, another senseless #Occupy-related tragedy has occurred.

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A 35-year-old man was shot and gravely wounded Thursday in an Occupy Wall Street encampment in Vermont’s largest city, police said.

(snip)

“He was my buddy,” Joe Edwards, of Burlington, said of the victim, who had been at the encampment for about a week. Edwards, sitting on a bench in the park about two hours after the shooting, said he did not know the victim’s full name.

The encampment has been in the park since Oct. 28. The city had threatened to evict the protesters because the park is closed from midnight until 6 a.m., but city officials made special accommodation for the protesters.

Almost two dozen tents have remained in the park, and the number of protesters has varied.

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There were three winners in the CNBC debate: Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich. Gov. Rick Perry was the obvious loser because of his memory lapse.

The guy with the toughest job on Wednesday night was Herman Cain, who has been hammered by sexual-harassment charges. He needed a strong performance to put him back on message with his 9-9-9 tax plan and pro-business, free-enterprise views. I give him first prize, simply because he performed so well. He had the most to gain and the most to lose. He gained.

How these sex-harassment charges play out remains to be seen. And how much damage they will do to the Cain campaign is an unknown. But it’s noteworthy that a new Rasmussen poll for the Florida Republican primary shows Cain at 30 percent, Romney at 24 percent, and Gingrich at 19 percent. At the moment, Cain is still at or near the top of the pack. So far, it’s hard to find any Republican-voter migration away from Cain.

But the more interesting story might be Newt Gingrich, who has surged into third place. When I interviewed him on Tuesday, the night before the debate, I asked him about 1 percent versus 99 percent, the class-warfare argument being propagated by President Obama and the Wall Street protesters. Gingrich replied, “I am for 100 percent. I think this idea of 99 percent and 1 percent is grotesque European-socialist class-warfare bologna.” (Italics mine.) No one puts it that well.

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Just hours after a concert by “gypsy punk” band Gogol Bordello at Occupy Vermont in Burlington, tragedy appears to have struck the encampment.

From the Burlington Free Press:

Police say a 35-year-old man in in grave condition after an apparent shooting in City Hall Park, the scene of the Occupy Burlington encampment…

A motionless man was removed from a green tent where blood was evident. About a half dozen police cars were at the scene at about 2:20 p.m.

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As I write this commentary, Joe Paterno has been fired as Penn State football coach — effective immediately. Thousands of Penn State college students are in the streets, angry, sad, disillusioned, emotionally wrecked, overturning cars, and chanting Joe Paterno’s name. The riot police are in place to prevent the situation from getting out of hand. Those aren’t hoodlums with no hope and no future. They are educated, middle class, salt-of-the-earth Pennsylvania college kids attending a well-respected university. What is wrong with this picture? What does it say about America?

Let’s start with the obvious. Why aren’t those educated college kids out protesting on behalf of the little boys who were allegedly sexually assaulted by a longtime Penn State assistant coach? Has America so lost its compass? These kids are in love with a coach because…he’s a celebrity? Because he wins football games? Because he wins football games all else is forgiven? If someone is a celebrity, nothing else matters? We are lucky this isn’t Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton involved in child rape. We’d almost certainly witness mobs burn Los Angeles to the ground to show their support for their favorite celeb-turned-child-rapist. A sad commentary on all that is wrong with America.

Then there’s the actual conduct of Coach Joe Paterno. Here is a good moral man who has spent a lifetime molding the lives of young men at Penn State. Yet back in 2002 he heard from a graduate assistant that his longtime assistant coach was having sex in the shower with a 10 year old boy. Paterno reported the incident to his superiors, then never mentioned it again? How strange is that? He never thought to protect the 10-year old boy? Never thought the boy’s life (or certainly mental state) might be in danger? Never thought to find out who the boy was and talk to him? Never thought that stopping this sexual deviant might possibly save other boys? Never thought to confront his friend of 30 years and ask him what happened? Never thought to follow up with his superiors to ask about the young boys? Never even considered going to the police?

How could this happen in my America? Is everyone truly mad? Is winning football games more important than a 10-year old boy’s safety? How about dozens of innocent little boys? Is protecting a respected institution more important than stopping a child rapist? Why would educated responsible administrators with 6-figure and 7-figure salaries make the same decision to cover-up a heinous crime as priests and bishops and cardinals for the Catholic Church?

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Liberal pundits are scrambling for explanations as to why Herman Cain’s poll numbers haven’t been dented by the sexual harassment allegations. With apparently more coming, they are secretly hoping that something, anything, will make drop the poll numbers of a candidate who could plausibly defuse any knee-jerk accusations of racism by the Obama campaign.

What they may not realize is that there are in a Catch-22 situation of their own making. The timing of Anita Hill’s accusations made the public suspicious from the start and aware that she was being brought forward because liberals could not win in the marketplace of ideas. The same reaction may be happening now, since all of these women were brought forward when Cain rose in the polls.

So far polls show that the public doesn’t buy into the accusations, but consider if they do.

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From KGW News:

Gresham Mayor Shane Bemis delivered an invoice to Occupy Portland for $1,546.52 on Wednesday morning. That’s the estimated amount of damage done to two Gresham police cars parked near the Occupy Portland encampment in downtown Portland on Tuesday.

The patrol cars were reportedly vandalized by a person affiliated with the movement who was building a shelter at the site while the Gresham officers were inside the Multnomah County Courthouse testifying on a case.

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It occurs to me this isn’t the first time the word orgasm has come up when discussing a Democrat administration. But Joe Biden?

Emails among George Kaiser, head of the George Kaiser Family Foundation; Ken Levit, the executive director of the Foundation; and Steve Mitchell, who manages Argonaut Private Equity and was a member of Solyndra’s board; show that Vice President Joe Biden’s office were very gung-ho. “They about had an orgasm in Biden’s office when we mentioned Solyndra,” reads a Feb. 27, 2010, email from Levit to Mitchell. A follow-up email from Mitchell to Levit later that day responds with: “That’s awesome! Get us a (Department of Energy) loan.”

Down and out, or not?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he will not quit the presidential race, following a major gaffe at a debate in which he could not remember the name of a federal agency he’d like to cut. Perry, smiling throughout a round of TV interviews this morning, said he intends to continue campaigning and will be at the next debate Saturday in South Carolina.

Penn State found itself situated in a bizarre and most unhappy valley last night in the wake of Coach Joe Paterno’s firing.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State trustees fired football coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier amid the growing furor over how the school handled sex abuse allegations against a former assistant coach. The massive shakeup Wednesday night came hours after Paterno announced that he planned to retire at the end of his 46th season.

To the extent education is meant to instill one with a sense of values, some of the kids at Penn State don’t seem to have gotten with the program.

Violence erupted on the campus of Penn State Wednesday night after the school’s board of trustees ousted its legendary football coach and university president in the wake of a widening child sex abuse scandal.

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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Josh Zerkle to discuss the tragic sexual abuse scandal at Penn State, the departure of the legendary Joe Paterno, and the future of a consolidating college football landscape.

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:

Grand Jury Findings in Jerry Sandusky Case
Joe Paterno, Graham Spanier removed
Scandal sullies Joe Paterno’s legacy
Riots Erupt at Penn State After Legendary Coach Paterno Fired
Katherine Miller: About Paterno
Josh Zerkle at Bleacher Report

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The #OccupyWhatever protest has an eerie feeling of déjà vu surrounding it.  Back in 1985, when I was attending Cornell University, the movement du jour was encouraging universities to divest from companies that did business in then-apartheid South Africa.  At the time, my addled mind convinced me this was a great idea — despite the logical arguments from my Texan Conservative floormates that this would have zero impact on changing the government there.  It did, however, give me my first opportunity to try my hand at photojournalism — as all the accompanying photos demonstrate.

For several weeks, the university was littered in red ribbons and armbands, signifying support for divestment.

Eventually, a shantytown appeared directly behind the administration building of Day Hall,  conveniently placed in a location surrounded by structures, making it relatively easy for tours to pass by without horrified parents seeing what was going on.  The center of the protests, where one could pick up literature about divestment, eventually became capitalized — Shantytown — and an easily recognizable landmark where one could meet a fellow student.

The protests led to sit-ins inside Day Hall, and all it accomplished was to irritate other students who had to conduct business there.

Eventually, the protesters refused to leave the building at the 5 PM closing time. Students were warned to do so or risk arrest, some left and some didn’t. Those who didn’t were arrested.  They were carted downtown but were not prosecuted.

It soon became apparent that many of those involved had no clue what was being protested but simply wanted to belong.  This included a friend, who said exactly that to me, and was closely involved with the protest. He said the administration was pissed, but tolerant.  They didn’t want to look like they were shutting down free speech.  Then two things happened that chopped away at that patience:

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