PAUL: In many ways, it’s a very healthy movement. I’m not one to say, “why don’t you get a bath and go get a job and quit crybabying.” I don’t like that at all. I think that’s a misunderstanding of where the unemployment comes from. The unemployment comes from policy, government policy, and it’s the federal reserve and the business cycle is not a consequence of free markets. That doesn’t mean I think they’re all perfect out there. […]
When spontaneous movements occur in a country, the johnny-come-latelys like to join and redirect the original intent of the Tea Party Movement and the original intent of the Occupiers, so for that reason the political people get involved and they try to grab hold of the message, and I think that’s been the case on both sides.
Tag Archives: Protests & Civil Unrest
Occupy Wall Street Marxists
Kremlin sets up thousands of fake Twitter accounts to drown out protests
Thousands of fake Twitter accounts are being used to drown out activists and bloggers protesting the recent presidential elections in Russia. 


Widespread reports of ballot stuffing and voting irregularities prompted thousands of Russians to demonstrate in Moscow’s wintry Triumfalnaya Square. Hundreds were subsequently arrested by Russian security forces, including well-known anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny.
Kremlin Twitter ‘bots target Russian oppositionProtestors began tweeting anti-Kremlin sentiments using the hashtag #Ñ‚Ñ€Ð¸ÑƒÐ¼Ñ„Ð°Ð»ÑŒÐ½Ð°Ñ (Triumfalnaya), which quickly became one of the most-used hashtags on Twitter. 


But as Maxim Goncharov, a senior threat researcher at Trend Micro notes, it wasn’t long before #Triumfalnaya messages were drowned out by loud, pro-Kremlin tweets trumpeted by countless Twitter bots. 


“If you check this hash tag on twitter you’ll see a flood of 5-7 identical tweets from accounts that have been inactive for month and that only had 10-20 tweets before this day,” said Goncharov.


“To this point those hacked accounts have already posted 10-20 more tweets in just one hour. Whether the attack was supported officially or not is not relevant, but we can now see how social media has become the battlefield of a new war for freedom of speech.”
(Read more)
Netanyahu blasts Arab Spring
But time has proved him right, Netanyahu said. His forecast that the Arab Spring would turn into an “Islamic, anti-Western, anti-liberal, anti-Israeli and anti-democratic wave” turned out to be true, he said.
Netanyahu also slammed Western leaders, and especially U.S. President Barak Obama, who had pushed Mubarak to resign from power. At the time this was happening Netanyahu said in closed talks that the American administration and many European leaders don’t understand reality. On Wednesday, he called them “naive.”
“I ask today, who here didn’t understand reality? Who here didn’t understand history?” he called from the Knesset podium. “Israel is facing a period of instability and uncertainty in the region. This is certainly not the time to listen to those who say follow your heart.”
Netanyahu used the upheaval in the Arab world to justify his government’s inaction vis-a-vis the peace process with the Palestinians. (Read more)
Maybe The 99% Are Right
Maybe the “99%” are right. Maybe we should take all the money from the richest 1%.
Perhaps, however, the protesters don’t go far enough. We should then find the most beautiful 1% and scar their faces with box cutters. Then we should find the smartest 1% and damage their brains. We should find the most athletic 1% and break their legs. We should find the healthiest 1% and feed them poison. (Read more)
Academics vs. State Power — “Polysyllabic, masturbatory wack-jobbery!”
I love the beginning of this video. Favorite moment at @ 5:45 – “Polysyllabic, masturbatory wack-jobbery!”
Big labor is real enemy of the 99 percent
Since the class-warfare message of the Occupy Wall Street protests started nearly two months ago, the two largest teachers unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have taken every chance possible to stand in solidarity with the group of mostly underemployed college students and left-leaning activists. With AFT President Randi Weingarten joining in protests and state affiliates taking part and organizing protests of their own, the teachers unions are quick to point out that “public education, teachers and unions have increasingly come under attack from the one percent,” as Leo Casey, spokesman for the AFT’s New York City local put it.
The union support is pouring in state after state. For example, in the union stronghold of California, California NEA affiliate President Dean Vogel called on the rich to pay more taxes. “It’s time to put Main Street before Wall Street, and for corporations to pay their fair share of taxes,” he said. Meanwhile, the union rank and file are resorting to taking the fight into the classroom with lesson plans titled “Who are the 99 percent? Ways to teach about Occupy Wall Street.”
As the protests continue and the union rhetoric becomes more radical, one can’t help but find the situation ironic. While the teachers unions claim they are being persecuted by the wealthiest Americans, clearly it is the unions and union bosses themselves that have benefited from a system that takes advantage of taxpayers at the expense of our students.
An examination of the staggering amount of money accumulated by the teachers unions puts the situation into perspective. The AFT collected $211 million in dues in 2010, while the even larger NEA pulled in $397 million. Taking into consideration affiliated state groups, the unions collectively take in about $1 billion, more than half of which is taken by force in states with compulsory unionism. If you take into account their vast budgets and revenue streams forcibly collected from teachers, the NEA and AFT numbers align nicely with those of the corporations they so vehemently criticize. (Read more from washingtontimes.com)
Maybe the 99% are right
Maybe the 99% are right. Maybe we should take all the money from the richest 1%. Perhaps, however, the protesters don’t go far enough. We should then find the most beautiful 1% and scar their faces with box cutters. Then we should find the smartest 1% and damage their brains. We should find the most athletic 1% and break their legs. We should find the healthiest 1% and feed them poison.
Equality for all! Of course, we’d need to appoint some bureau and give them absolute power to decide who is and who is not the 1%.
Edit: In response to a friend’s objection, I’ll acknowledge that protesters might not be calling to take all the money from the richest 1%, but the comparison still stands. I’m not calling to take all the beauty from the most beautiful 1%, only some of it. Their faces should be scarred just enough to knock them down into that meaty part of the bell curve.
SA@TheDC – If Cain Wins the Tea Party Loses
Occupy Phoenix with AR-15’s
Never heard about Phoenix protestors getting tasered and maced
Peter Schiff Goes To Occupy Wall Street… “I Am The 1%. Lets Chat”
Great Analysis of Occupy Wall Street
It seems there is a bigger libertarian contingent to the protests than is being acknowledged.
Socialist vs. Libertarian Protestors according to the media
Government Orders You Tube To Censor Protest Videos
In a frightening example of how the state is tightening its grip around the free Internet, it has emerged that You Tube is complying with thousands of requests from governments to censor and remove videos that show protests and other examples of citizens simply asserting their rights, while also deleting search terms by government mandate.
The latest example is You Tube’s compliance with a request from the British government to censor footage of the British Constitution Group’s Lawful Rebellion protest, during which they attempted to civilly arrest Judge Michael Peake at Birkenhead county court. (Read more)
Occupy Wall Street — a leftist movement?
I’m not sure.
I agree with this guy:
But some of them are definitely ridiculous leftists, and this mainstream criticism is partially correct:
Their anger should be directed at those who developed and supported the federal government’s housing policies that were responsible for the financial crisis.
Beginning in 1992, the government required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to direct a substantial portion of their mortgage financing to borrowers who were at or below the median income in their communities. The original legislative quota was 30%. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development was given authority to adjust it, and through the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations HUD raised the quota to 50% by 2000 and 55% by 2007.
It is certainly possible to find prime borrowers among people with incomes below the median. But when more than half of the mortgages Fannie and Freddie were required to buy were required to have that characteristic, these two government-sponsored enterprises had to significantly reduce their underwriting standards.
Fannie and Freddie were not the only government-backed or government-controlled organizations that were enlisted in this process. The Federal Housing Administration was competing with Fannie and Freddie for the same mortgages. And thanks to rules adopted in 1995 under the Community Reinvestment Act, regulated banks as well as savings and loan associations had to make a certain number of loans to borrowers who were at or below 80% of the median income in the areas they served.
Research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer of Fannie Mae (now a colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute) has shown that 27 million loans—half of all mortgages in the U.S.—were subprime or otherwise weak by 2008. That is, the loans were made to borrowers with blemished credit, or were loans with no or low down payments, no documentation, or required only interest payments.
Of these, over 70% were held or guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie or some other government agency or government-regulated institution. Thus it is clear where the demand for these deficient mortgages came from.
The huge government investment in subprime mortgages achieved its purpose. Home ownership in the U.S. increased to 69% from 65% (where it had been for 30 years). But it also led to the biggest housing bubble in American history.