Wall St Journal Reveals #Occupy Wall Street Likes Pizza, Israeli Position Slipping, Economy Sliding More

September 29th, 2011 - by: danny

Tomorrow, Friday, 1-2 PM, Tune in/Call in to News Dissector Radio on Progressive Radio Network.com

Guests: Chuck Slatkin on the crisis in the Post Office and Davd Degraw, editor of Amped Status.com, on #OccupyWallStreet”

Quote of the day:

Former Senator Russ Feingold writes: “A favorite and related concept of these same sages is that of bipartisanship, but for them bipartisanship is not so much members of different parties’ hammering out meaningful solutions as it is a group of middle-grounders who can be relied upon to embrace impotent proposals. To many in the Beltway, bipartisanship itself has become its own hollow ideology.”

Military Resistance: Quote Of The Day From Afghanistan:

“Cole Said His Platoon Suffered Close To 30 Percent Casualties, Mostly From Bombs Hidden Around Its Patrol Base”

“The Only Shred Of Sanity That Keeps Us Going Out Here Is That I Have To Protect His Ass And He Has To Protect My Ass”

“They Can Fire At Us All Night If They Want, As Long As Nobody Gets Hurt”

“‘Thank You For Listening,’ He said”

AP: Violence Up 39 Percent in Afghanistan

Headline of the Day from The Wall Street Journal: Down With Wall Street, But Keep The Pizza Coming

And so, on the llth day of #OccupyWallStreet, covered around the world has finally been recognized by the official newspaper of American finance. The WSJ deigned to cover an event taking place under their very noses but that the were apparently too busy to cover.

It made page 8 as a feature story with the pizza connection thrown in for good measure. It ends with “protesters hope they’ll be able to hold out for a while, some say forever.” Ha Ha Ha. The New York Times focused on protests around the world as a sign of a global rejection of electoral politics, but @OccupyWallStreet here in the homeland was not included.

NPR was holier than thou and defends its lack of coverage, as is typical of the tepid masters of public broadcasting: (RSN): Schumacher-Matos writes: “We asked the newsroom to explain their editorial decision. Executive editor for news Dick Meyer came back: ‘The recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective.’

Reverend Billy to Hold Prayer Service Tomorrow at 6

“DAY THIRTEEN of LIBERTY PLAZA. And so tomorrow, Thursday, is the two week anniversary of this new culture. We’ll be there singing at 6PM to show our gratitude for this brave occupation.
Let’s get up from our computer, get out of our cars, come down from whatever fundamentalism keeps our America old and violent and profit-taking – and go down to the public square that sits there covered with pigeon shit and the shadow of a soldier on a horse – and sing the 1st Amendment! Start our culture over! REVOLUJAH!”

RSN: With the Occupation of Wall Street in its second week, solidarity actions are popping up around the country and the world. Cities currently supporting Occupy Wall Street are: Madrid, Spain; San Francisco, California; Los Angeles, California; Toronto, Canada; London, England; Athens, Greece; Sydney, Australia; Stuttgart, Germany; Tokyo, Japan; Milan, Italy; Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Algiers, Algeria; Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel; Portland, Oregon; and Chicago, Illinois.

Cities in the process of joining Occupy Wall Street are: Phoenix, Arizona; Montreal, Canada; Cleveland, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; Kansas City, Missouri; Seattle, Washington; and Orlando, Florida.

Wall Street Blues: Judges Rule Rich Rule

Judge makes it harder for Madoff victims to collect, rules for owners of Mets

Bloomberg: Goldman Sachs Wins Dismissal of Lawsuit Over CDO Loss

U.S. District Judge William Pauley III in Manhattan ruled today that the bank didn’t sufficiently back up its claims against Goldman Sachs, which underwrote Davis Square, a CDO collateralized by residential mortgage-backed securities in 2006, and against Los Angeles-based TCW Asset Management Co., which manages collateral for asset-backed securities….

Pauley said about 79 percent of the mortgages underlying Davis Square were below prime and at an increased risk of default. He ruled that LBBW failed to allege specific facts to support its claims for fraud and unjust enrichment. He also said the bank was a sophisticated investor that accepted the risks of its investment.

Meanwhile in the economy:

Portside: Eurozone: Mark Weisbrot, Guardian, A Crisis of Policy, Not Debt

The European authorities’ doctrinaire decision to use debt issues to force austerity on Greece made the situation so much worse

LBN: AUGUST DURABLE GOODS ORDERS FALL

The economy is giving mixed messages. Orders for durable goods like cars and appliances fell .1 percent last month after a 4.1 increase in July. The decline is mostly due to an 8.5 percent drop in the orders of cars. But another indicator shows that businesses are continuing to invest, unfazed by the recent market upheaval. Nondefense capital goods increased 1.1 percent last month after falling 0.2 percent in July.

Dylan Ratigan: There will be no criminal investigations of Wall Street because Wall Street told the President and Eric Holder that it won’t happen. Here is why our country is dying (or already dead.)

(go to the 2:00 minute mark of the video)

NakedCapitalism.com: Protestors Disrupting Foreclosure Auctions in California

On Monday afternoon at 12:00 p.m., a group of protesters organized under the umbrella of the “Make Banks Pay California” campaign picketed a foreclosure sale at the Alameda County Courthouse located at 1225 Fallon Street, Oakland California.

I had heard about the protest from a contact in the real estate industry, and so I resolved to go down and see what it was about. I went specifically as an observer and not as a protester.
When I arrived around noon, I saw a group of roughly 10 to 15 people protesting. Some had yellow shirts marked “ACCE” picketing on the courthouse steps. Many of them had signs, like “Stop Foreclosures/End Bankster Fraud” and pictures of various Wall Street Executives tagged as “Wall Street Robber Banker.” One woman held up a sign that said “Chase and LPS Crime Scene.”

After chatting with a few of the protesters I found out that some of them were part of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and others were part of the local teachers union, SEIU Local 21. This being Alameda County, both the bystanders, protesters, auctioneers and bidders were a broad spectrum of ages and ethnicities.

Over the next 2 weeks, the Make Banks Pay California group plans to have a variety of actions in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles to “make Wall Street banks pay for destroying jobs and neighborhoods with their greedy, irresponsible and predatory business practices.”

Marvin Kitman: The Sun Never Sets on Solyndra

“I am a hearings junkie. My favorite entertainment channel is C-Span3. This past Friday morning, it had a real showstopper. The two chief executives of Solyndra appeared before the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The interrogators were examining how the solar energy company went bankrupt after getting $535 million in federal loans.

My favorite part is when citizens take the Fifth. I’ve seen some classic performances of citizens exercising their Constitutional rights. When in knee pants, sitting at my mother’s varicose knee, I still remember Frank Costello and other mobsters and racketeers. Then there were the dangerous possible 10 Communists in Hollywood… the Watergate hearings… Oliver North working in the basement of the Whitehouse in Iran-Contra. They either took the constitutional way out or came up with circumlocutions I don’t recall at this point in time.

But Brian Harrison, Solyndra CEO, and Wilbur G. Stover, the CFO, were masterful. They respectfully declined to answer questions 25 times out of 25 in the roughly hour of tough grilling by the Torquemadas of the House. The Solyndra sphinxes were so stony-faced as they read their rights from the single piece of paper on the table, it was as if they were auditioning for the Mount Rushmore of Corporate America.

What the Founding fathers had in mind was protecting citizens against self-incrimination. What a concept.

VIa Undernews: Study finds $11 in parts and a 8th grade science education can hack voting machines used by one quarter of American electorate

Brad Friedman, Salon – Voting machines used by as many as a quarter of American voters heading to the polls in 2012 can be hacked with just $10.50 in parts and an 8th grade science education, according to computer science and security experts at the Vulnerability Assessment Team at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The experts say the newly developed hack could change voting results while leaving absolutely no trace of the manipulation behind.

“We believe these man-in-the-middle attacks are potentially possible on a wide variety of electronic voting machines,” said Roger Johnston, leader of the assessment team “We think we can do similar things on pretty much every electronic voting machine.”

Homeland Security wants right to abuse environment as well as air travelers

USA Today – A controversial bill would give the Department of Homeland Security sweeping authority over federal lands within 100 miles of the U.S. border. The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act would give the secretary of Homeland Security authority over federal lands within 100 miles of the U.S. international and maritime borders for “activities that assist in securing the border (including access to maintain and construct roads, construct a fence, use vehicles to patrol and set up monitoring equipment).” The measure also waives the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Park Service Organic Act, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Clean Air Act.

News By Press Release: “Terror Suspect Arrested In Commonwealth of Massachusetts

According to a press release from the FBI’s Boston Division, a Massachusetts man was arrested and charged on Wednesday for allegedly plotting to attack the US Capitol and the Pentagon with explosive RC airplanes. Rezwan Ferdaus planned on filling the RC airplanes with C-4 plastic explosives.

In addition to the charges related to his DC terror plot, Ferdaus was also charged with aiding a foreign terrorist organization in order to kill US soldiers abroad.

U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz confirmed that Ferdaus planned to attack the US Capitol and the Pentagon. “Our top priority is to protect our nation from terrorism and national security threats. The conduct alleged today shows that Mr. Ferdaus had long planned to commit violent acts against our country, including attacks on the Pentagon and our nation’s Capitol,” Ortiz said in the statement.

The FBI’s statement also confirms that the public was never in danger as Ferdaus was wrapped up in an FBI sting. The FBI’s undercover agents were used to communicated with Ferdaus as he plotted his attack. Richard DesLauriers, the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Division, said that Ferdaus’ “arrest was the culmination of an investigation forged through strong relationships among various Massachusetts law enforcement agencies to detect, deter, and prevent terrorism.”

According to the press release, Ferdaus is a graduate student at Northwestern University with a degree in physics. Ferdaus began plotting to harm US soldiers as early as 2010 when he supplied electrical switches for explosive devices to undercover agents.

In January 2011, Ferdaus expressed his desire to attack the Pentagon with RC airplanes. In April 2011, Ferdaus added the US Capitol to his target list. According to the affidavit, Ferdaus’ desire to attack the US was very strong. “I just can’t stop; there is no other choice for me,” Ferdaus said.

The Hill: Apology From Rick Perry

Perry apologies for ‘heartless’ immigration comment, pushes border bona fides

Rick Perry said Wednesday that he was sorry for saying at last week’s Republican debate that those opposed to providing an in-state tuition break to the children of illegal immigrants “did not have a heart.”

“I was probably a bit over-passionate by using that word and it was inappropriate,” Perry said in a interview with Newsmax. “In Texas in 2001 we had 181 members of the legislature – only four voted against this piece of legislation – because it wasn’t about immigration it was about education.”

LBN: LIBYAN MISSILES GO MISSING:

Thousands of surface-to-air missiles are unaccounted for in Libya weapons that could be used to knock down airplanes if they fall into the wrong hands. Libya was estimated to have 20,000 surface-to-air missiles before the revolution began in February, but the U.S. and its allies are still figuring out exactly how many missiles they need to track down. The White House said Wednesday it will boost efforts to find and destroy the weapons stockpiles.’

From National Security Experts Blog: Michael Brenner writes, DIM THE LIGHTS, THE PARTY’S OVER

The United States’ strategic position in the greater Middle East is disintegrating. The repercussions of the Arab Spring have undercut the tacit alliance among Washington, Cairo, Riyadh, Amman and Jerusalem with auxiliary members in Yemen and Tunisia among other peripheral states. Mubarak is gone while his former military cohorts sap the revolution’s zeal through symbolic acts that include untying their bonds to Israel while cultivating an alliance with Turkey. Both pillars of the regional sub-system are animated by deepening anti-American feelings among their populace that are spreading across the Islamic world. In Ankara, moreover, the Erdogan government now has its own calculated view of a diplomatic field that no longer has the United States as its hub. The House of Saud is so badly rattled that it is turning on Washington as the cause of its new-found sense of vulnerability. Iraq’s sectarian Shi’ite leadership spurns the idea of a special relationship with us while incrementally building structures of cooperation with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran will not bend the knee in response to our relentless campaign of shunning and sanctioning it – leaving Washington with the bleak choice of war or an indefinite period of tense onfrontation – in the absence of any readiness to speak seriously with its leaders about the terms of a modus vivendi.

Farther afield, Afghanistan is an endless slog with the vain hope of turning that ill-starred land into a Western oriented, pro-American country fading like the swirls of smoke from a lost pipe dream. Pakistan is now pronounced our enemy condemned routinely by our belligerent leaders as the source of all that stymies us in both places. Levels of anti-Americanism are so high as to leave those with favorable views of America within a statistical margin of error that reaches to 00.0. The country’s political elite is unifying around the hard position of giving a blunt ‘no’ in response to bellicose demands from Washington that it do our bidding. Everywhere we look, never has America’s standing been so weak, its authority so low, it credibility in such tatters, and its judgment so suspect.

Little of this registers in official Washington, or in the ante-chambers of power that is unofficial Washington….”

Your Letters

Jared writes: ” just wanted to say I was thrilled to see your piece on Occupy Wallstreet on Al Jazeera. As a student who has many friends who’ve went down and is planning on heading down this weekend, I am grateful that at least some news outlets are picking this up. Seeing as Al Jazeera appeals to an audience who actually have a clue of what’s happening in the US, I am hopeful to think your article will bolster support for this burgeoning movement!

Adam McConnel offers this update from Istanbul:

Hi Danny, there was an article in Zaman last night expalining that the Turkish FM had been at the UN for 10 days and had been in something like 80 different meetings with officials from around the world. Things are really getting interesting at the moment. The Turkish stock market to?ok off again this week after jack-knifing last week. The Turkish FM also contradicted the article in the NYT yesterday (?) on Turkey’s foreign policy, saying that Turkey was NOT trying to sell itself as a model for the entire region, but he had said that before the article even appeared… the Kurdish political party has finally decided to join the parliament…

Daily Beast: Amazon Declares War On Apple

It’s on! With the $199 Kindle Fire taking on the iPad, the two giants of digital media go head-to-head in the tablet-computer market. The Daily Beast’s Dan Lyons reports.

Happy Birthday to the UE (Union Electrical Union)

UE is celebrating our 75th anniversary this year. We are proud that for eight decades UE has stayed true to our mission of aggressive struggle to improve our conditions. In honor of this milestone, we’d like to share with members and supporters stories of UE’s fight for human rights at work and a just world as well as innovations that have helped build the movement. Help us celebrate our birthday and get some inspiration along the way.

I met Joost Smiers in Istanbul. He is working on challenging the power of copyright and cultural conglomerates. Read his argument in this essay.

Protest in India against the expulsion of US radio journalist David Barsamian

EVENT IN NEW YORK FOR TROY DAVIS

MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR
TROY DAVIS

Please join other New Yorkers in a memorial for Troy Davis
Saturday, October 1st, 2011
11:30 am to 12:30 pm (doors open at 11:00 am)
Riverside Church, South Hall
490 Riverside Drive, NY NY
(Enter at 93 Claremont Avenue near 121st Street)

On Wednesday, September 21, the state of Georgia executed Troy Davis. Troy’s case, marked by strong doubts about his guilt, touched people around the world. On Saturday, October 1, he will be buried in Savannah, his home.

Thousands of New Yorkers fought for and cared about Troy Davis’s battle against the death penalty. Join us to mark his passing, to stand together against the system that murdered him, and to celebrate the struggle that brought so many people together to say, “I Am Troy Davis.”

In Troy’s words: “The struggle for justice doesn’t end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davis’s who came before me and all the ones who will come after me.”

The memorial will be followed by an organizing meeting of the
Campaign to End the New Jim Crow, from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm, in the same location.

Share your comments on the blog and how we can attract more readers. Write: dissector@mediachannel.org

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