Steve understands that while we’re trying to work our way out of this economic crisis, we have to hold the financial industry accountable to prevent the next one. That’s why Steve wrote a bill that would have taken back the bonuses paid to top executives at Wall Street firms – like AIG – that received federal bailout funds. (Source: Steve Israel For Congress Website)

Did you ever wonder where a self-proclaimed corporate raider and Occupy Wall Street supporter such as Congressman Steve Israel gets his campaign donations from?

According to Open Secrets, Israel has raised $1,581,081 for this election cycle (2011-2012), of which $15,790 comes from small donors, the “average Joe” like you and me.

Another $965,850 was raised from his top 100 donors, an all-star team of big labor and big business; many of those businesses from industries, which based on his committee assignments, Israel is supposed to be overseeing (including those Wall Street firms he talks about on his campaign site). The following takes a look at the donations to his reelection campaign and political action committee (PAC).

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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 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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A recent article in the Wall Street Journal on how the Occupy Wall Street movement has begun to camp out in New York City churches confirms what we’ve been reporting here on BigGovernment.com; #Occupy organizers allowed an alleged rapist who’d already been arrested by the police to camp out with other Occupiers.

Alleged OWS Rapist Tonye Iketubosin

The Wall Street Journal buries the lede by putting this detail at the very bottom of the article. Most of the piece takes a neutral/positive tone about how nice these churches are by expanding their social justice mission by welcoming the occupiers and how respectful the occupiers are by contributing to the church’s electricity bills. No actual explanation is given as to why it even makes sense for the Occupiers to be sleeping in a church as opposed to an apartment or hotel. If you think that the camping out indoors is done for the benefit of the homeless, you’ll see in a moment that the Wall Street Journal article actually makes a distinction between “the homeless” and rank-and-file occupiers. Apparently, the whole “occupy” premise of group camping is beyond any rational examination at this point.

If diligent readers (who get past the paywall) make it to the end of the Wall Street Journal article, they will learn that all is not tranquil in the collectivist paradise.

There have been petty fights and disagreements about who can stay and who must go. The housing committee has set up a hot-line for protesters to register for one of about 150 spots at the churches, and the person must be on the list when they check in each evening.

But the homeless and criminals have managed to slip in.

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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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You may recall when Hillary Clinton said the presidency is no place for on-the-job training. Three years into his term, Barack Obama seems to still be struggling to get up to speed, now having to replace his Chief of Staff, Bill Daley, to the surprise of most. Daley is deemed to have been the wrong man for the job. Also, Daley was not a first year choice, he replaced Rahm Emanuel only a year ago, suggesting that Obama was still making bad staff decision two years in.

The Washington Post’s Jena McGregor brings the bad news.

The revolving door at the White House is swinging again, and this time, Chief of Staff William Daley is on his way out. Many seemed to be taken off guard: Obama says it wasn’t easy news to hear. Others said official Washington was surprised by the news.

They shouldn’t have been. It seems painfully obvious that Daley was wrong in the role….

His departure calls into question Obama’s judgment when picking one of the key posts for his administration. While addressing the relationship with the business community and Republicans may have been an important task in late 2010, it wasn’t necessarily the right one for the president’s chief of staff. That post is, in effect, the White House’s chief operating officer—the person responsible for being the president’s most senior adviser and the person in charge of all West Wing administrative and operational matters.

Daley, considered of the moderate, Clinton-wing of the Democrat Party, was heralded as the right man for the job by Obama and the Democrats when he brought him in. Or, perhaps he felt he needed him to curry favor with Wall Street to raise cash for his coming re-election campaign. Whatever the reason, Daley never caught on and, for his job of governing America, Obama simply picked the wrong man. He couldn’t even get along with Harry Reid, let alone Republicans.

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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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According to a recent Harvard Poll, the majority of young voters do not support the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.

An overwhelming 66% of young voters say they are not following the recent uproar of protests, and a mere 33% say that they do. With approximately 21% who are supportive, it is obvious the left has made this movement much bigger than it really is.

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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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President Barack Obama’s campaign manager Jim Messina sent out an official reelection campaign video wherein he said talk of Mr. Obama having a billion dollar campaign war chest is “bullsh*t” because “we don’t take PAC money unlike our opponents. We fund this campaign in contributions of $3 or $5 or whatever you can do to help us.

Mr. Messina’s plea for Obama supporters to chip in “$3 or $5″ leaves the impression of a presidential campaign divorced from big money donors. Furthermore, the claim that Mr. Obama will not accept PAC money leaves the impression that his fundraising efforts are removed from the influence of lobbyists or Wall Street. Nothing could be further from the truth.

From the New York Times:

Despite a pledge not to take money from lobbyists, President Obama has relied on prominent supporters who are active in the lobbying industry to raise millions of dollars for his re-election bid.At least 15 of Mr. Obama’s “bundlers” — supporters who contribute their own money to his campaign and solicit it from others — are involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies. They have raised more than $5 million so far for the campaign.

Because the bundlers are not registered as lobbyists with the Senate, the Obama campaign has managed to avoid running afoul of its self-imposed ban on taking money from lobbyists.

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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.

I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for many of the people working on Wall Street these days, but the Occupy movement’s decision to solely target the private sector for financial corruption only distracted Americans from the real financial crisis – white collar crime.

According to recent Securities Exchange enforcement actions and news reports, financial corruption is also coming from government sponsored agencies and even Congress

As of Sept. 30, the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a record 735 enforcement actions for the fiscal year, and of those 146 were related to investment advisers and companies – a 30 percent increase from last year. Broker-dealers also made up 112 of the actions, a 60 percent increase from before.

The SEC has also filed a lawsuit against executives with Fannie and Freddie Mae, saying that the two government-sponsored agencies played a significant role in creating the demand for sub-prime mortgages contributing to the 2008 financial crisis.

The fact of the matter is that white-collar crime, insider trading and unethical financial practices are rampant not only on Wall Street, but in government sponsored agencies and even Congress (check out Peter Schweizer’s new book, ‘Throw Them All Out’ which was recently featured by CBS’ 60 Minutes).

The word ‘greed’ doesn’t even come close to what corrupt brokers, financiers and politicians have done to this country. Criminal is more appropriate.

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Ever wonder why the Occupy protester became the Occupy protester?

“….upon waking each morning in the Tent City, he was struck by an overwhelming feeling of being part of a family.”

If you see their signs and hear their chants, you might conclude that they are more than displeased with corporate fascism, bank bailouts, and special-interest favors paid by politicians in return for hefty political contributions. However, The Frontier Lab, a marketing research nonprofit in Chicago, has just completed a study that applies science to that question. Their report, “Short-Selling America,” finds that while the messages on their signs might convey an anger with cronyism in the financial sector, this isn’t the whole story and, in fact, is only true at the surface level. There are deeper values, ones The Frontier Lab mapped through a series of research in-depth interviews, that must be examined for a more comprehensive understanding of their movement.

“While their rhetoric might decry crony capitalism or bank bailouts, their values reveal self-centered and fear-based motivations.”

The SEIU’s Insidious Tentacles continue to infiltrate government and politics at the expense of its own rank and file without attracting national media attention. Interestingly enough the mainstream media will not peek beneath the covers and investigate reports by employees and employers, such as those detailed in The Devil at My Doorstep, who have been abused by the SEIU’s ruthless tactics and/or the reports of corrupt political connections , government infiltration and pay-to-play ties to the current administration. Several interesting stories have surfaced during the past month, yet not one has received the national attention it deserves through investigative journalism by the national mainstream media.

Among the events:

1. )  On November 10, 2011 a Washington Examiner article reported on SEIU activities in Michigan, a state desperately attempting to pass a RTW bill to stop big labor from usurping employee rights and money, involving the SEIU’s infiltration of state government and how the SEIU Siphons ‘Dues’ from Mich. Medicaid Payments.

2. )  On November 16, Michelle Malkin revealed that  former SEIU President Andy Stern utilized his membership on the board for a California pharmaceutical company to facilitate a half billion dollar drug deal for the company.  See the article: Obama’s Half-Million-Dollar Crony Drug Deal; Related non-shocker: SEIU endorses Obama.

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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.”

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