Monday night Chicago Teachers Union and Occupy Chicago protesters, along with some local residents, showed up in Chicago’s North Center neighborhood to protest converting 18 public schools into charter schools. While none of the schools considered for conversion are in the north-side neighborhood, these community organizers chose this location specifically because it is where Mayor Rahm Emanuel resides.

We asked several protesters the meaning of their signs and what brought them out to join the protest march. Many were quite pleasant and agreed to respond–despite being completely unaware of both the meaning and the names mentioned on the signs and stickers they held. There was one group in attendance, however, that responded to questioning with both defensiveness and aggression, directing their surprising hostility both at myself and another journalist on the scene.

After explaining who I was, a woman began to follow me through the crowds, interrupting interviews I was conducting and instructing protesters not to participate. One of her companions confronted me as I was attempting to cover the event, and refused to respond when I asked his affiliation or give his name, as well as acknowledge any organizations he is a part of. After further research, we identified him as Dennis Kosuth, a socialist organizer and longtime member of the International Socialist Organization. Both became quite confrontational and continued to harass myself and the other citizen journalist on the scene for the duration of the protest.

Other protest organizers as well as members of Occupy Chicago refused to disclose their affiliation with any organization, and refused to state their reasons for attending the protest. This gives rise to the question, what are the true intentions of the protest organizers? Clearly individuals are being used to convey a message they are not even able to accurately explain themselves, and when questioned, they are shielded by socialist organizers and members of Occupy Chicago from inquisitive journalists.

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Now that the Occupy movement has been coat-tailed and co-opted by big labor and big government forces that should by definition be their targets of dissent, the shuffled miscellany of loose-cannoned conniptions that’s become the movement is conspicuous even to ultra-left-wing social critics.

The protests of last week from Oakland to Portland to the Super Bowl to CPAC were testament to this, but perhaps a rally planned today in Beverly Hills will signal a healthy shift.

During the Ohio fight over Issue 2, which would have curbed collective bargaining “rights” of public sector industries including Ohio police forces, Occupy Columbus protesters took to the streets in defense of cops. Meanwhile in Oakland, Portland, and Washington, D.C., Occupiers last week took to the streets to chant “Fuck the police!” “All cops are bastards!” “No pigs!” and to throw bricks in cops’ faces.

The #OccupyOakland rally dubbed their march the “Fuck the Police Rally,” noting to its attendees: “If you identify as peaceful and are likely to interfere with the actions of your fellow protestors in any way…you may not want to attend this march. It is a militant action. It attracts anti-capitalists, anti-fascists and other comrades of a revolutionary bent. It is not a march intended for people who are not fully comfortable with diversity of tactics.” So apparently Occupy protesters have cops’ backs, that is until they’re reminded that cops are hired by the public specifically to stop people just like them.

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If you want to keep up to date on the Occupy movement, you’ve come to the right place. This is Breitbart.com’s running chronicle of Occupy’s chaos, political machinations and internal power struggles as we head towards the Occupy movement’s planned Spring rebirth.

The Occupy movement is the Obama administration’s shadow campaign; community organized shock troops helping to spread the President’s strategic 2012 campaign message that we need to stop income inequality. With Big Labor calling the tactical shots, Occupy is President Obama’s direct action to bring real radicalism into the mainstream American politics, while another faction of Occupy organizers struggles to extract the movement from the grips of the Democrat Party establishment.

The crowds may have dwindled with the cold weather, but there’s still a tremendous amount of Occupy activity preparing for an “American Spring.”  We’ll be keeping this page updated with links to all of our Occupy coverage.  Catch it all right here, in one place.

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#Occupy goons riot in Oakland. (NY Post)

Obama’s #Occupy army threatened to disrupt and physically assault conservative speakers at the CPAC convention this week in Washington DC. Andrew Breitbart and Newt Gingrich are two conservatives who they will be targeting at the event.

Lachlan Markay at The Foundry reported:

The “Occupy DC” protest group is planning to disrupt the upcoming Conservative Political Action Conference using a range of potentially illegal tactics that could even include violence against participants, Scribe has learned.

The planned disruptions at CPAC come only days after U.S. Park Police raided Occupiers’ tent cities at McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., confiscating a number of tents, and prohibiting Occupiers from camping out there any longer.

During a Thursday meeting at McPherson Square, until Saturday the epicenter of the protests, Occupiers brainstormed tactics for shutting down or disrupting the conference, according to a source who was present at the meeting.

The protesters suggested pulling fire alarms in the hotel where the conference will take place, screaming “fire” during conference activities, “glitter-bombing” participants, cutting electrical power, and barricading entrances to the hotel, according to the source, who requested anonymity.

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As an American flag burns at Occupy Oakland, the man capturing the videos recites the following:

“I pledge allegiance to a flag of the imperialistic, capitalistic dictatorship. And to the plutocracy for which it stands, privately owned central bank, under the Jews. With inequality and injustice for the 99.” (h/t Moonbat Tracker)

In late October, we at MRCTV went to Zuccotti Park in New York City and ran into this guy.

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As the boss says, Nancy “1%-er” Pelosi has clearly read the internal polls on the #Occupy “movement.” On the same day that a few dozen #Occupiers descended and Capitol Hill, one of whom was arrested for assaulting a cop, Dame Pelosi tries her best to distance herself from the leftist temper tantrum:

Of course, when the #Occupy movement first arose, Pelosi and and other members of the Leftist Elite gushed with enthusiasm about the protests:

House Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she supports the growing nationwide Occupy Wall Street movement, which began on the streets of downtown New York City in mid-September.

“I support the message to the establishment, whether it’s Wall Street or the political establishment and the rest, that change has to happen,” said Pelosi in an exclusive interview with ABC News “This Week” anchor Christiane Amanpour. “We cannot continue in a way this is not relevant to their lives.”

For good measure, President Obama added:

The most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side.

So, what happened?

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OLYMPIA — State government stores money at Bank of America, buys goods with U.S. Bank cards and distributes welfare aid through JP Morgan Chase ATMs.

Supporters of cutting such ties to big banks say the first step is to create a state-owned bank.

The idea of a state bank — a favorite of the Occupy movement that sees it as an alternative to Wall Street — has strong support among the Democrats who control the state House. Speaker Frank Chopp called it a top priority last week in a speech opening this year’s session of the Legislature.

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An e-mail exchange detailing a conference call between members of the Occupy Wall Street media team exposes the level of coordination happening to attempt to save face over a recent New York Post story that exposed how Occupy had taken over a foreclosed home despite the owner’s wishes. Almost concurrently with Big Government’s report on the story yesterday, the #Occupy media team was having a confab in crisis management that would make any Fortune 500 company blush.

The media team takes a smart strategy and realizes that attacking the owner of the house directly is probably a bad move. However, behind the scenes they can’t help trashing him and calling him dishonest…

“Post story, owner made several claims, most of them false.  Says OWS won’t let him into his house.”

Despite this insult, the back-and-forth reveals that there are actually negotiations going on back-and-forth between Wide’s attorney and Occupy Wall Street.

1.  Premo: one question – meghan hasn’t been able to get in touch with Wise’s lawyer since the new year?  El: don’t think she’s been trying actively to get in touch with him.  Now that the article has come out that changes the negotiation.

2. [ed note: this line blank in original email]

3.  El: the last meeting did go well, Wise wasn’t there but his lawyer was.  Lawyer agreed to speak with Wise about working with us, agreed that the best solution would be to work with us to transition it to a community land trust, and fight the banks to reduce his debt so that he can become a home owner again.

Will the public and the lenders be made aware that there is a behind the scenes shakedown via media exposure being worked out here? The homeowner is trying to play on sympathy to get back his foreclosed property and Occupy Wall Street wants to gain positive media exposure, even though they were squatting in someone else’s private property.

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It is more common everyday. A man buys a house, the market collapses and suddenly his house is worth less than the mortgage, then he loses his job until, as a single father, he finds himself in foreclosure with no place to raise his two preteen daughters. It’s a case made for the Occupy Wall Street movement to swoop in and right wrongs, right? Maybe not because the OWSers in New York stole this poor guy’s home away from him in order to give it to one of their own members. Confused? Read on.

A Brooklyn man living in an apartment with his two daughters was alerted to the fact that his in-foreclosure-home had been broken into and occupied by Occupiers, as in Occupy Wall Street activists. When he rushed to his home he found a group of strangers that had broken into his home claiming to have “reclaimed” the house and given it to another family.

“They’re trying to take a house and say the bank is robbing the people because the mortgage is too high — so contact the owner!” fumed Wise Ahadzi, 28, who owns the home at 702 Vermont St. in East New York.

Apparently Ahadzi had bought the house in 2007 for the princely sum of $424,500 but during the housing bubble of 2009 the house ended up being worth only half that. Then, when he lost his job and got behind on the mortgage, the bank foreclosed on the property.

Enter — illegally, mind you — Occupy Wall Streeters who discovered the home in foreclosure and decided that they’d steal it away from “the bank” with the ostensible goal of helping the needy.

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The U.S. Coast Guard will escort the first ship coming to the EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview this month, and the Occupy movement and local labor groups say they are planning to greet the vessel with a massive protest.

EGT officials say they have not scheduled a date for the ship’s arrival. The freighter is expected to haul thousands of tons of grain to Asia, but opposition groups are already marshaling their forces to support the lengthy protest by union dock workers at the grain terminal.

“We just want to swell the population of the city to show there are people behind us,” said Jeff Washburn, president of the Cowlitz Wahkiakum Central Labor Council, which passed a resolution calling for a protest this week.

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An infant’s cries rang through the Occupy DC encampment in McPherson Square Wednesday morning, and when a group went to investigate they found only a baby girl alone in a tent, wearing a onesie and mittens.

Soon after, authorities said, a man had been arrested and the girl — who was unharmed — was in the city’s care.

The campers notified U.S. Park Police officers and then cared for the girl until help arrived, according to Kelly Canavan, 36, a retired Prince George’s County school teacher who has been living at the camp.

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I have a long history with ACORN, going back years before the O’Keefe/Giles video reports. While they were mostly on the periphery of my political life, starting in 2005 they became something I had to deal with regularly,  and for an extended period even daily. This post isn’t about any of that. I mention to put in context my long-standing fascination with Wade Rathke, co-founder of ACORN. The man is simply the best at what he does.

Don’t get me wrong; there is much to dislike about him. His method of ‘community organizing’ preys on people’s fears and anxieties. They exacerbate and prolong racial tensions. And, his ultimate aim is a utopian marxist state. All that said, he is very good at what he does and understands progressive movements and how to create and maintain them better than just about anyone.

So, I was curious to read his recent take on the Occupy Movement:

Nonetheless, listening closely to the whole meeting, it was hard to escape the conclusion that as committed as many were, they were groping for a plan for the future. There was no consensus on that question, and really very little debate or discussion. Several people raised the issue during the “soapbox” session, which allows open mic griping that everyone can easily ignore. In fact most people left the room during that section to visit elsewhere in the coffeehouse.

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From CBS News:

(CBS/AP) DES MOINES, Iowa – With several attention-grabbing protests before Iowa’s caucuses, Occupy Wall Street activists proved their movement did not end when its encampments in big cities dispersed. But they also showed the group hasn’t matured into a political force, and it’s not clear whether it will become a liberal counterweight to the tea party this election year.

Following Tuesday’s vote in Iowa, on which the movement had little impact, Occupy organizers are pledging to stage more protests in New Hampshire and South Carolina as the presidential nomination process moves east. But the smaller-than-expected crowds, a muddled message that was mostly ignored by candidates, and tactics that seem to limit their appeal raised questions about its long-term viability.

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From the New York Post:

Does getting pepper-sprayed count as extra credit?

Columbia University is offering a new course on Occupy Wall Street next semester — sending upperclassmen and grad students into the field for full course credit.

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From The Charlotte Observer:

An Occupy Charlotte member who was jailed after helping burn two U.S. flags told other members late Friday that while he’s sorry for the trouble it may have caused the movement, he’s not sorry for what he did.

“Those were actions taken on my own behalf,” Alex Tyler said at a camp meeting. “I did it to display my utter contempt for American greed, not (the military).”

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Big Government has obtained a photograph of House Minority Leader and Occupy Wall Street enthusiast Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) with her husband Paul at an exclusive, $10,000-per-night Hawaiian resort.

In her day job, Leader Pelosi spends a lot of time worrying about ‘income inequality.’ She was one of the first national Democrat leaders to embrace the increasingly embarrassing “Occupy” movement:

We have work to do. We think that important to that is enhanced by what’s happening in the Occupy [movement], which is the 99 and one. They really emblazoned that in the minds of the American people. That’s what we dedicated our lives to, but they gave it that clarity. People say they didn’t have a message. They may not have a message, but they have a statement. And the statement is the status quo is unacceptable — 99 and one.

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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – Already they have interrupted Michele Bachmannand drawn a withering putdown from Newt Gingrich as “all noise, no thought.”

Now, to the dismay of Iowa Republicans, Occupy activists in Des Moines are vowing to expand their protests as GOP presidential hopefuls converge on the state that speaks first in the race for the party’s presidential nomination.

“The 99 percent have woken up and we’re not going to take it anymore,” Occupy activist Stephen Toothman, of Des Moines, said as an advance guard met Tuesday to decide which candidates to target in the coming week.

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The Occupy Movement has sworn to fight for the poor, underprivileged, needy and exploited at the hands of the 1 Percent right? Well, not if you actually want to feed, job train and counsel those needing the hand up.  Accuracy in Media’s Benjamin Johnson found that the Occupiers aren’t too friendly with competition.

Following a tip from a reader, Big Government has discovered that a radical immigration group, Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), has infiltrated the public school system in Racine, Wisconsin by working with an approved student group.

School Officials in the Racine Unified School District tell Big Government that they had no idea that the approved group, Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES), had become the youth arm of Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), a well-financed leftist movement with a membership of several thousand, headquartered in Milwaukee with two satellite offices in Racine and Kenosha.

According to sources within the school district, several hundred students have joined YES and affiliated themselves with VDLF, an organization that has also recruited some of the teachers–who apparently promote the group’s agenda in their classrooms.

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With the GOP debates mercifully coming to an end, the nation is getting ready for the 2012 elections starting with the Iowa caucuses in January.  At this point, President Obama appears likely to face Mitt Romney (seemingly no one’s first choice within his own party), former Speaker Newt Gingrich who miraculously resurrected his once moribund campaign or Ron Paul whose libertarian views we highlighted in a prior essay.

Has either party been faithful to a consistent set of principles?  The Republican frontrunners have fallen all over themselves in internecine warfare accusing each other (not without good reason) of flip‑flopping.  Meanwhile, the President has escaped the spotlight on the issue of his own constancy of principle.  In point of fact, as the incumbent, he should be closely monitored on this subject, since his principles can translate quickly into active government policy.

The criteria used for making appointments to Administration jobs might be a pretty good measure of presidential principle.  Given that Congress is totally dysfunctional, and that the single-digit approval rating our federal legislature has earned from the American people is overly generous, we might have expected the President to be particularly judicious in his appointments to the various executive branch positions that wield such influence in both domestic and foreign affairs.

While it is not unusual for Presidents to reward campaign donors with prestigious federal appointments, many Obama supporters expected better of this President. They were confident that Obama would be as repulsed as they were by the approximately 200 federal appointments of donors and bundlers Bush had made during his eight years in office. Not so.

According to I-Watch, the on-line publication of the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity, President Obama had, at the mid point of his first term, matched Bush’s eight-year record of doling out Administration jobs to donors and bundlers. Overall, 184 of 556, or about one-third of Obama bundlers or their spouses joined the administration in some role. But the percentages are much higher for the big-dollar bundlers. Nearly 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took “key administration posts,” as defined by the White House. More than half the 24 ambassador nominees who were bundlers raised $500,000.

The big bundlers had broad access to the White House.  In all, during Obama’s first two years in office, campaign bundlers and their family members account for more than 3,000 White House meetings and visits. Half of them raised $200,000 or more.

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