LOS ANGELES (AP) – Police have arrested three people after ordering Occupy Los Angeles protesters to leave a downtown intersection.

The arrests came after hundreds of people gathered in the street after a deadline passed to vacate a City Hall park encampment.

Water bottles were thrown at officers as officers in riot gear started clearing 1st and Main streets just after 5 a.m. Monday.

The police department has been on tactical alert, meaning the late night watch was held over, since midnight.

At 4:50 a.m., police on loudspeakers declared an unlawful assembly and protesters were told to get out of the street within five minutes.

Commanders corralled demonstrations beck to the City Hall park, telling them they won’t be arrested there.

Many tents were dismantled as the deadline loomed.

Read more here.

Although city officials have told demonstrators they must leave the weeks-old protest site and take their nearly 500 tents with them by 12:01 a.m. Monday, just a handful were seen packing up Sunday.

Instead, some passed out fliers containing the city seal and the words: “By order of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, this notice terminates your tenancy and requires you to attend the Occupy L.A. Eviction Block Party,” which the fliers’ said was scheduled for 12:01 a.m.

“The best way to keep a non-violent movement non-violent is to throw a party, and keep it festive and atmospheric,” said Brian Masterson as he helped a friend break down her tent. “And I’m going to be doing as much as I can to stop violence.”

He said he had turned his own tent into a “non-violent booby trap” by filling it with sandbags to make it tough to tear down.

“We can’t beat the LAPD, but we can make it difficult for them to do their job, and have fun while we’re doing it,” Masterson said.

The atmosphere was already festive Sunday afternoon. A punk-pop band played protest songs on one of the lawns. The protest’s artists were out in great numbers showing their work, and twice the usual number of news trucks surrounded the tent city.

Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart drew a crowd as he stood on the City Hall steps and argued with protesters on topics like Bank of America and Warren Buffett.

Some campers packed up their tents and belongings Sunday to avoid police trouble, but said they intended to return without them in support of their fellow protesters.

“I would prefer not to take the tent down,” said Tiffany Wallace as she packed up her campsite. “But we need to be strategic for this movement to last. This is not just for the occupation of this particular location. This is for mobilizing working class people nationally and internationally.”

Digital fliers were being posted on Facebook and Twitter encouraging people to go to City Hall at midnight in solidarity with occupiers.

City Councilman Bill Rosendahl appeared on the City Hall lawn to issue a late plea for protesters to leave.

Occupy organizers said thanks, but no thanks.

“Until the grievances of the 99 percent are addressed to end corporate control of the system, the government and the media, Occupy LA will be here exercising our 1st Amendment rights,” Julie Levine, one of several Occupy spokespeople, told the Los Angeles Times.

Police, for their part, have said little about what tactic they would take if protesters ignore the deadline.

Chief Charlie Beck has told reporters that officers would not be sweeping through the camp and arresting everyone the minute the clock ticks past midnight.

But in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that was published Sunday, Beck indicated he expects that arrests will become inevitable at some point.

“I have no illusions that everybody is going to leave,” Beck said. “We anticipate that we will have to make arrests.”

When it comes to that, he said, police officers “will not be the first ones to apply force.”

Meanwhile, local clergy and labor leaders implored both sides to ensure that the 2-month-old demonstration remain peaceful.

“We are grateful to the Occupy movement for refocusing the country to the issue of income inequality,” Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary and treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said in a statement issued Sunday.

“We call for nonviolence in all acts of civil disobedience by Occupy LA and in professional procedures by the LAPD. We are committed to a long-term movement from the 99 percent to hold Wall Street and the banks accountable for devastating our economy,” Durazo added.

Villaraigosa has expressed admiration that, at least so far, the Occupy Los Angeles movement has remained peaceful, unlike those in some other cities around the country.

But while the mayor, a former labor organizer himself, has said he sympathizes with the movement, he added it’s time to close the encampment of some 500 tents that dot the lawn in front of City Hall for the sake of public health and safety.

The 2-month-old movement is also at a crossroads, Villaraigosa said, and must “move from holding a particular patch of park to spreading the message of economic justice.”

The march of the moochers stormed the building and marched clockwise in the lobby, rather than their usual counter-clockwise marching. The angry mob then proceeded to the 5th floor and continued their protest at the doors to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office.

Thayer’s demands included being granted permits to protest the G-8 and NATO Summit being held in Chicago this coming May as well as dropping the charges against fellow “occupiers.” He was followed by Iosbaker with statements on an SEIU resolution to support their demands and comments on his current investigation by the FBI.

Iosbaker also noted that they were notified that Northwestern University Law School has changed their graduation so that the students will not be downtown during the G-8 and NATO protests next may. They were reportedly warned by the FBI that it would be too dangerous.

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We caught up with one protester, Roger Fraser, a retired Palatine, Illinois school teacher. Fraser is a proud member of the “99%” who earns a modest $7,792.75 a month from his pension.

Fraser is also known as a militant gay rights activist and a member of the Gay Liberation Network–the same organization founded by Chicago G-8 and NATO protest organizer–and militant, anti-war, social-justice radical–Andy Thayer.

You may remember a previous interview from earlier this year, released by Andrew Breitbart, filmed at a Code Pink-led protest against the Koch brothers in Palm Springs, California–where Fraser called for “Revolution now,” and exclaimed, “Just like in Egypt!“

In the following interview, conducted yesterday inside City Hall, we asked Fraser if “this” was the kind of revolution he was talking about. Fraser told us, “This is the beginning.”

When asked what he thought it would take to achieve the activists’ goals, he remarked: “This kind of thing on a massive scale.“ He also answered in the affirmative as to whether or not the revolution would require collapsing the American government, and explained: ”Because….the resistance against this will be overwhelming…very strong….and relentless.”

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They were lead by radical anti-war activists Joe Iosbaker and Andy Thayer, who we have reported on in the past for their ongoing investigations by the FBI. In September of 2010 they were targeted for suspicion of providing material support to Hamas, the F.A.R.C. and other terrorist organizations.

Photo H/T: FoundingBloggers

Here is footage of Thayer last spring addressing a Chicago crowd and calling for “action” like we saw in Egypt.

Thayer and Iosbaker have played a key roll in organizing massive demonstrations in Chicago this coming May for the G-8 and NATO summits. The recent anti-war and Occupy protests have served as a clear rally cry to build momentum and support for these demonstrations next spring. The tandem duo worked their message and demands for G-8 and NATO protest permits into todays Occupy City Hall protest.

Stay tuned for continuing coverage and video footage from today’s march and “occupation” of City Hall.

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Bypassing public finance, Trump can leverage his wealth to outspend his opponents in the early states, gaining a significant strategic advantage. Sadly, Trump advisor Michael Cohen, a vice president of the Trump organization, doesn’t seem to understand this. City Hall newspaper recently reported “Cohen said that Trump would raise money from average citizens, rather than just funnel his own money into a campaign.”He wants citizens in the country to have skin in the game,” he said.

While there is little doubt that Trump could raise maximum $2,600 contributions from many of his wealthy friends and supporters, it is truly questionable how many low-dollar donors he could muster. Who gives money to a billionaire?

To the extent that Trump’s wealthy friends wish to support him, they would be best off putting their money into a 527 organization, where they can give without limitation, rather than donating the lousy $2,600 they are limited to if they donate to an official Trump For President organization.

The spending limits on each state are set by the Federal Election Commission based on a formula. Under all circumstances, these limits are fundamentally inadequate, given the advertising and communication costs in each state, causing candidates to “cheat” by, for example, crossing the New Hampshire state border to sleep in Massachusetts and return to the Granite State in the morning so as not to incur the lodging costs for the candidate and his entourage in the calculation of the New Hampshire state spending limit.

By forgoing public finance and completely funding his own campaign, Trump would not have to play these games. He could sink $3 million into Iowa and $5 million into New Hampshire to prevail in those contests. Early victories mean he could spend far less than the state limits in the states that choose their delegates later in the process after his opponents have dropped out.

Trump could still write an unlimited check to his own campaign if he chooses not to bypass public finance and matching funds, but would be giving up the single most significant advantage his mega-wealth affords him; the ability to outspend Mitt Romney and the rest of the field in the early contests, where a Trump candidacy must flourish or die.

Trump himself told ABC News he could spend up to $600 million of his own money if he runs. I’ve made it clear that I neither represent or speak for Trump, but I hope he runs and believe his ability to self-fund a campaign without federal matching funds and outspend his opponents in the early primaries and caucuses is one of the keys to victory.

In August, City Hall published an investigative report explaining the operations of the Working Families Party’s for-profit company, Data & Field Services. In early September, after conducting its own review, the New York City Campaign Finance Board officially declared that “DFS exists as an arm of the Working Families Party.” Over the last three months, City Hall has continued the investigation, relying on dozens of interviews with people within and outside the organization, in addition to a review of tax, lobbying and campaign finance records, as well as confidential internal documents.

Following weeks of in-depth inquiries from City Hall, the Working Families Party announced on Nov. 6 that it was hiring the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to conduct a review of its practices, with the effort to be led by Judith Kaye, the former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals.

“It has always been our intent to engage in a thorough post-election analysis of our structure,” read an open memo from the Party’s executive director, Dan Cantor, and two of the co-chairs of the executive committee which contained several paragraphs previously provided in answers to City Hall inquiries. “Now that Election Day is behind us, the firm will begin that review and recommend any necessary changes, improvements or modifications that Judge Kaye and her colleagues believe necessary to ensure maximum transparency and continued adherence to the highest legal and ethical standards.”

What follows are the findings of City Hall’s investigation into what few seem to realize: the political party and Data & Field Services are not the only two arms of the Working Families. There are, in fact, four arms: a political party, a for-profit and two different kinds of non-profits, each of which is separate and distinct under the law.

This five-part examination by City Hall into the Working Families Party’s accounting methods and finances has shown that together through these four arms, the Working Families has the benefits of a political party (legitimacy in voters’ minds, ballot line), a non-profit (tax-exemptions, uncapped donation limits and tax deductions) and a for-profit (no disclosure requirements, ability to collect fees backed by taxpayer-supported matching funds from candidates).

Over the last decade, the Working Families Party has become a dominating force in New York politics by using the state’s fusion voting law (one of only a few in the nation) to give candidates a second line to run on and, more importantly, by throwing its weight behind candidates in Democratic primaries all over the state at a time when the state Democratic Party has been suffering.

And never was the Party stronger than in this year’s elections: come inauguration day on Jan. 1, New York City will have a public advocate, city comptroller and almost a fifth of the City Council who owe their seats and their control over city finances and legislation in large part to its efforts.

This has led to a new reality in New York politics: winning the support of the Working Families Party is now arguably the most important step to getting elected, because it has become the key to winning Democratic primaries. The Party offers what many fans call the “progressive Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” a certification in the minds of voters that they are the stand-out candidates, good people who are out to do good.

But in interviews with dozens of politicians, political operatives and seasoned observers of New York politics (most of them Democrats whose political views align largely with the Working Families’), about what has been discovered over the past three months—by way of the City Hall stories, the Campaign Finance Board ruling and the recent lawsuit against Data & Field Services—City Hall has found concerns raised about the Working Families. And, they say, after being presented with the information on tax, lobbying and campaign finance records that were part of this investigation, more concerns were raised.

While standing for ethics in government and campaign finance reform, Working Families has non-profits groups and a for-profit entity that lack donation caps, disclosure requirements (in terms of frequency and detail) and other regulations that political parties face. Leading politicians, political operatives and other experts complain that Party-supported candidates are as a result given an unfair advantage over their rivals. These people, who asked not to be identified for fear of alienating the increasingly powerful party and who were wary of speaking on the record about legal issues, believe that what they know of the novel Working Families way of doing business contradicts the reforms the Party and its candidates tend to support.

City Hall has also obtained the organizational rules, a confidential explanatory memo and other materials about the internal Working Families voting process which detail a system of weighting votes based on money for endorsements and nominations. These indicate that the more money a union contributes to the legally separate, non-profit (the Working Families Organization), the more votes the union gets in the Working Families Organization’s New York City Coordinating Council—which multiple interviews, emails from a top party staffer and the Working Families Party’s own press releases identify as the decision making body for the Working Families Party in deciding which candidates to back.

Founded in 1998 by activists and union leaders eager to give labor and left-wing politics a greater voice, the Working Families Party has long advocated for the kind of agenda liberal New Yorkers tend to support: responsible development, worker protections, greening the economy and tax laws that hit the wealthy more than the middle class. Aiming to pull the Democratic Party away from the center, the Party has developed into a political home for many who believe in bettering society and a new kind of politics. Its support has become so desirable that candidates are willing to fill out extensive questionnaires which ask for their stances on nearly every issue, request that the Party gets consultation power on all local development deals and that campaigns pay for mailers promoting the Party.

Then there is the Working Families Organization, founded in 2006 by the top leadership of the Working Families Party. A non-profit with a 501(c)4 designation that gives it tax exemptions usually reserved for social welfare groups, the Working Families Organization is also the lobbyist with the eighth-highest ranking of expenditures last year in the state—and the only one of those that can offer an increasingly powerful ballot line as an incentive for promoting its agenda on specific issues.

Then there is Data & Field Services, the political consulting company founded in 2007 by the Working Families Party. With the results of the 2009 elections, Data & Field Services has one of the best win records in New York among local political consulting companies and, aside from the consulting companies contracted by the Bloomberg campaign, it was also one of the highest billing. The company sells its canvassing, polling, database, voter file and get-out-the-vote services only to the Working Families Party and its favored candidates.

Then there is the Progressive America Fund, a non-profit that has 501(c)3 tax-exempt designation that bars it from any partisan or overtly political activity. The Fund predates the other Working Families entities. One of the Fund’s two main arms is the Center for Working Families, a think tank. The Center provides many of the position papers that are given to candidates looking to get the Working Families Party endorsements. These are also the policy papers which form the foundation of the Working Families Organization’s lobbying efforts. The other main Progressive America Fund project is the National Open Ballot Project, which is geared toward supporting efforts to get cross-endorsement fusion voting legalized elsewhere across the country, and has helped foster nascent Working Families parties in up to 10 other states.

According to tax, campaign finance and other records, all four arms have been based in one office on the third floor of 2-4 Nevins Street in Brooklyn. The three co-chairs of the Working Families Party—Bob Master, Sam Williams and Bertha Lewis—were, along with now-White House political director Patrick Gaspard (a founding board member of the Party), the initial directors of the Working Families Organization, and their ongoing positions give them control over Data & Field Services. They were also, as of 2005, the respective president, secretary and treasurer of the Progressive America Fund. Dan Cantor, the executive director of the Party and of the Organization, oversees Data & Field Services, and is a former board member of the Progressive America Fund. According to records, they are not alone: nearly every person listed as an employee of one of these entities is also listed as an employee of at least one of the others. People who have visited the offices say they see no clear distinctions between desks, resources, staff and leadership.

When asked about this structure, the Working Families Party denies that there is anything wrong with what it is doing, or that its operations are at all unusual.

“It is extremely common that different organizations organized pursuant to different sets of laws co-exist—often in the same space with overlapping staff working closely together in advancing their various missions,” said Party spokesman Dan Levitan.

Among those entities Levitan cited as a prime example of similar overlaps are the environmental groups under the umbrella of the Sierra Club classified as 501 (c)3, 501 (c)4, Political Action Committee and for-profit. But the Sierra Club cannot give anyone a spot on the ballot, as the Working Families Party can. This is what makes the Working Families different from all the other examples Levitan and other Working Families staff presented, which include NARAL and the Brennan Center.

Tax, election law and campaign finance experts in New York, Albany and Washington, though, say the finances and personnel of the Working Families family appear so intertwined as to raise questions about this structure.

Allen Bromberger, a New York City attorney at Perlman Perlman who has spent 20 years specializing in “hybrid” legal structures that incorporate non-profits with other entities, was struck by the details of the Working Families structure.

“I’ve never seen this kind of a set-up before,” he said.

“In order to pass muster at IRS, as far as I’m concerned, all the accounting and the bookkeeping and the allocation of costs would have to be done in a very diligent manner. Even then I think it could still be problematic,” he added. “It may be okay—they may have designed it carefully and put enough safeguards in place—but the primary purpose of the 501(c)4 cannot be to engage in political activities. So if they’re not able to show some substantial non-political activity by the 501(c)4, I think they’ve got a pretty significant problem.”

City Hall’s entire Part I of the series can be read here.