BALTIMORE (AP) – Occupy Baltimore demonstrators who spent 10 weeks protesting economic disparity were removed peacefully from a downtown plaza near the Inner Harbor tourist district during a pre-dawn raid Tuesday.

Baltimore City police in full riot gear moved into McKeldin Square about 3:30 a.m. to remove the protesters, who had been camped out at the site since Oct. 4. City police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told WBAL-AM the scene was “extremely peaceful, very, very civil.”

Demonstrators said about 30 people were camped out in the plaza at the time. A spokesman for the city’s mayor, Ryan O’Doherty, said 23 people were taken to a city shelter and that no arrests were made. O’Doherty said “the city made it very clear that they were allowed to protest all day and into the night, but that camping is prohibited.”

Protester Mike Gibb, a 21-year-old from Bel Air who participated in a march with Occupy Wall Street protesters from New York to Washington, said the eviction from the square marks “Phase 2″ for the movement. Gibb said demonstrators will begin squatting in vacant housing all over the city.

“Occupy Baltimore will be coming to a neighborhood near you,” Gibb said. He added that the mayor had “opened a can of worms.”

Twenty-three-year-old protester Leo Zimmerman, a freelance copywriter, said he awoke to find the area “encircled by a group of officers in face masks, helmets and batons.” He said the group had dealt with the same officers in the past and that they seemed apologetic during the raid.

Zimmerman said demonstrators were given about 15 minutes to leave the plaza and that it appeared police chose to raid the square at a time when there were fewer people there.

By 9 a.m., the demonstrators were gone and only an American flag remained at the plaza. Workers were power-washing the bricks on the plaza and raking leaves. Demonstrators said they planned to return to the plaza at 10 a.m. for a meeting on whether to continue occupying the site. The city allows people to be in the park from 8 a.m. to midnight.

City officials recently denied Occupy Baltimore’s request for a permit to continue their protest in the plaza and cut off their power supply. Demonstrators have been at the site since Oct. 4 and had hoped to extend their protest into April. The number of people at the site had fluctuated depending on the time of day and the weather, but participants had said more than 20 people slept there most nights.

Authorities said a woman was charged with assault in a stabbing at the site earlier this month.

Read more here.

City Councilwoman Belinda Conaway filed a lawsuit demanding an idiotic $21 million in damages for Meister’s expose of her true primary residence. But this week Conaway abruptly dropped her suit against the blogger.

Through public records, blogger Meister discovered that Conaway lives in Randallstown and not Baltimore, the city she was elected to represent. Conaway has, though, claimed she lives in an extended-family household in Baltimore.

Meister disputed Councilwoman Conaway’s claim and he posted tax information where Conaway claimed for tax purposes that Randallstown, not Baltimore, was her primary residence.

After the suit was filed Meister called for it to be dismissed based on the information he had uncovered. At the hearing for dismissal Conaway’s attorney, Thomas J. Maronick, admitted that Conaway did sign the paper stating that her primary residence was Randallstown and then said that he was dropping the lawsuit.

Meister notes that there are plenty of sources to find out the facts through public records. Councilwoman Conaway was simply not telling the truth about her residency.

Meister said he obtained a paper copy of the deed and posted an image of it online. But other property records were available straight from government websites. Baltimore County property tax records are online and indicate that Conaway and her husband received a county homestead tax credit for the property last year that amounted to $708.71.

Naturally, Councilwoman Conaway refused to comment to the Baltimore Sun after the case was dropped.

This is a great example of citizen journalism and the impact it can have. Mr. Meister deserves a lot of credit for exposing Councilwoman Conaway for the dissembler she truly is.

This incident also shows the arrogance of many of our elected officials, too. She knew she was not telling the truth, but she likely figured that her bluff, threats, and misuse of the legal system with the lawsuit would have been enough to stifle Meister’s blogging. Conaway also likely thought that she would be successful in throwing the race card against Meister, a white man.

One thing this shows is an errant politician arrogantly attempting to use the threat of law to stifle free speech. Meister had to hire an attorney to defend himself against her frivolous lawsuit and this is a cost that many bloggers simply could not afford. Many another blogger would have just disappeared and/or stopped writing the truth for fear of the sort of deep financial debt incurred by extensive lawsuits.

As Meister told the Sun, “I’m a pretty frugal guy. A penny spent on defending myself against something so bogus is too much.”

As bloggers and Internet journalism continues, powermad pols are scrambling for ways to quash their free speech. This time the attempt failed. Kudos to Mr. Meister for his bravery under fire.

Savor that bit of irony for a moment.

The Left is seeking to employ sexism as a way to take down yet another young woman. A rationale after Ike Turner’s own heart! Leftist ideology replaces “barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen” as the modern-day female prison; step out of line and you will be virtually and emotionally abused by the burdensome patriarchal undercurrent that powers this political rationale. They’re only for choice if that “choice” is the genocide of the female sex; they’re only for female empowerment if it doesn’t disrupt the fragile liberal status quo – and Giles is the most recent example.

As a young woman, I can say that sexist behavior so often perpetrated by the left is a major reason why I and many other women left the Democratic party. It’s gross to know that a bunch of crusty, old, pee-paw Democratic operatives are, at this second, scouring the web for nudie Giles shots as a way to discredit her and O’Keefe’s work.

The reasoning of these ACORN supporters is that the message is only as valid as the messenger is pure. By that “logic,” nothing is reasonable, including that statement.

Thankfully, fellow conservative bloggers like RS McCain, Little Miss Attila and others recognized early on and by way of SEO made sure that their mentions of search terms involving Giles and bikinis brought searchers to their blogs, effectively lampooning those of ill will.

The heat on James O’Keefe and Giles has been such that now ACORN is targeting them for allegedly violating the state’s two-party consent laws in regard to recorded conversation; however the law appears to be murky with differentiating between audio and video recordings. Two citizen journalists exposed a taxpayer-funded group who gave advice on how to skirt the IRS and enslave children in a sex trade and the Baltimore’s city state’s attorney may target the journalists – and not those all-too-willing to facilitate the sexual abuse of minors. I’ve a feeling that if “Dateline NBC” taped their “To Catch a Predator” in Maryland, the pedophiles would be exalted as victims and the show’s producers as bad people for exposing the criminality.

No one on the Left has remarked how awful it was that not a single ACORN worker reached out to Giles and offered to help get her out of a life of prostitution instead of helping to place her into a brothel; or how her “pimp” wasn’t reprimanded for the sexist way in which he used his girlfriend to further his political agenda. The ACORN women have filed suit against O’Keefe and Giles for the “extreme emotional distress” caused when these women were forced to face the their own corrupt characters on tape. Were I Giles, I’d counter-sue for the “extreme emotional distress” brought on by the realization that taxpayer-supported, systematic sexism (by way of facilitating the sexual slavery of women) is considered less of an infarction in this country than two-way consent.

That tells you where women lie in ACORN’s priorities; we’ll see where they lie with the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office.

That is was an investigation and not an ACTUAL “pimp and ho” who walked in to these offices is a weak defense at best and completely irrelevant to the conclusion. The end would remain unchanged regardless whether or not the means were known as subterfuge or real; the sad part is that were this an actual prostitution duo wanting to import children in for a brothel, that brothel would likely exist by now.

A defense fund was established for Giles; she’ll need all the help she can get. I love how they’re calling ACORN’s bluff and willing to drag them into a full-on trial where ACORN’s every misdeed since their inception will be scrutinized.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is regularly in the news, usually in stories where persons working for them are charged or even convicted of voter fraud or other election-related crimes. ACORN’s corporate leadership always disavows any knowledge of such criminal wrongdoing.

ACORN is also quick to point out the public service work that the organizations engages in, mostly related to housing for low-income people. And over the years ACORN has received vast sums of federal money in connection with this housing work.

But now a video recording and transcript have surfaced that—if genuine—could show persons allegedly affiliated with ACORN involved in a host of state and federal crimes, even aiding and abetting underage prostitution and exploitation.

According to the tape and transcript, two individuals posing as young people involved in prostitution, under the false names of Kenya and James, go to an ACORN-identified office in Baltimore, Maryland. They tell the worker, identified as Shira, that they are trying to get a house, and slowly leak details until the worker understands that the girl is saying she’s involved in prostitution. At that point, since Kenya’s “job” is a cash-only business for which Kenya doesn’t file a tax return, Shira says, “let me get someone here from taxes,” and brings in another woman calling herself Tonja.

The undercover couple continues to weave their story of criminal activity, and finally say that one reason they need a house is because they have thirteen El Salvadoran girls, all around age fifteen, that are in this country illegally and that they are pimping out as prostitutes. In short, they need a house to serve as a brothel for these girls.

At this point, the woman identified as Tonja reacts to this appalling information by telling them that Kenya should list three of these underage foreign prostitutes as dependents so that Kenya can receive a tax benefit (but not all thirteen because that could attract government scrutiny). Tonja goes on to advise Kenya to falsify the appropriate forms to say that they are family members.

The bottom line is this: Both state and federal law enforcement should immediately launch a full investigation of this matter. They should determine if this two-hour recording is legitimate (there is no reason to believe it’s a hoax, but obviously the first step is to confirm that it’s authentic). If so, then depending o the governing law in that jurisdiction, those on the video tape could possibly be indicted and charged with numerous crimes, including prostitution, tax fraud, housing fraud, conspiracy to commit each of the above, and even charges related to underage prostitution.

While James and Kenya know that there are no underage El Salvadoran girls and no prostitution, the people identified on the tape as being affiliated with ACORN evidently believe these statements were true, making them conspirators in all of the relevant crimes depending on the applicable laws regarding conspiracy in that jurisdiction.

Crimes involving the exploitation of children are among the most heinous that human beings are capable of committing. They are especially toxic to the rule of law because they devastate young lives, and undermine the victims’ confidence in a just society. If this video recording is confirmed as authentic, then what happened in Baltimore is utterly reprehensible, and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent permitted under the law.

What is all the more troubling here is that ACORN is involved in administering housing programs for the federal government, is involved in voter registration, and in jockeying to be a major part of the national census next year, going door-to-door and getting information from people in their homes.

There have now been criminal convictions of ACORN personnel in various states around the country, usually involving voting and elections. Should this video recording turn out to be legitimate, it raises grave concerns as to whether this is an isolated incident in Baltimore. It also raises a question of how high up the ACORN organizational ladder this information goes.

The truth needs to be sought out in this situation. And not a single dollar of taxpayer money should go to ACORN until it has been exonerated of all these incriminating allegations.