Democrats for Romney?

I vacillate between thinking the Obama administration is really dumb or sporadically smart. They may be hoping for Mitt Romney to win the Republican nomination because his support seems to plateau at the 25% level. If he somehow gets the 40% or so needed to win a contested primary race, that other half of the Republican base may sit home enough to drag Obama across the finish line.

The wonky take of course is that Romney isn’t as “scary” as the conservative or Tea Party candidates and disaffected Democrats could see themselves voting for him. He’s also managed to capture a number of endorsements from Republicans who are not running for president or decided to stop. If there still was a smoke-filled room in the Republican Party, Romney’s name would emerge from it.

I’m note sure why independents would be crazy about this guy, but there is a reason for Democrats to vote for him. Sure, he’s got big money connections. He has a conservative agenda. He also may be as much of a crony as President Obama, but he has one advantage. He’s a Republican.

You see, the media is pretty much in the tank for Obama. The progressive and liberal organizations are as well. Even if Obama engages in activities that would be called out under a Republican president, they will be explained or ignored by the distributors of news. So, we might as well elect a Republican. That way, the people who previously swaddled their plastic Jesus will be filled with anger and vengeance. It’s a good way to keep the next administration honest. If the media can’t do their job with the messiah they want, then he needs to be taken away from them.

Romney 2012: He won’t get away with anything.

Occupied Websites

Without direct insider information, we can’t truly know if the Occupied movement is an astroturf operation, but the charge has been made in various places as the noise machine has increased the reach and presence of branches of the Occupy Wall Street movement. This means we’ll have to rely on our powers of observation and reason to determine where the movement came from and where it’s going, what it’s purpose is and who benefits.

When I’m trying to figure something out, I tend to look first for data that can be grouped. This can often flush out an otherwise obscured pattern. When I saw that Indianapolis was in the process of being organized for the Occupied movement and found the website, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities to the Obama 2012 campaign’s Attack Watch website. This led me to investigate other websites devoted to occupying other cities to see if there were further similarities. What follows is a brief but incomplete survey of various occupied websites directed at cities, related to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I want to stress that this research does not de facto prove that the Occupied movement is an astroturf operation, but certain aspects and collective characteristics do allow for categorization, suggesting few hands are in the pot to create a branded movement. The reasons for the similarities could be as simple as e-mail directions going out to various dedicated activists, or could be the design of more coordinated group. Obviously Crawdad Hole readers can and will decide for themselves what conclusions are warranted. As reminder, here’s the definition and history of astroturfing.

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There are two kinds of Occupy “Your City Here” Websites. One is a dot org, and with a few exceptions, they seem to related in aesthetic thematics. Dot orgs are not replicas of each other, but they almost all follow a similar aesthetic vein, using a black, white and red visual arrangement. Some sites are accented with grays and pinks as well. Art work tends to be thematic as well, often harkening back to the 1960s activist style of art (large words arranged on top of each other, fists, and peace signs, etc), with some suggestion of modernistic iconography related to the earlier labor movement (which the original 1960s artwork tended to emulate as well). Information is often arranged as a bar at the top of the page, allowing users to access events, blogs, donation services, maps, etc. Most had twitter and facebook links.

An example of Occupied Art from the Occupy Atlanta website.

The other kind of occupied website is a dot com website, and they are all perfect mirrors of each other, with white backgrounds, black and red text, and six video boxes that show the exact same media messages related to the Occupied movement. Dot com websites include a list of links to all the other replicated occupied movement sites. They also sponsor advertisements. The dot com websites might be the creation of this PR firm, which volunteered its services pro bono to Occupy Wall Street.

List of Dot Orgs

The dot orgs can be categorized a few different ways. Most of them use the tagline “We are the 99%.” Some use a website format very similar to President Obama’s Attack Watch Website, with a black background and red and white text. These websites fall into that category:

Occupy Indianapolis Black background with red and white text.

Occupy Louisville Black background with red and white text. Fleur-de-lis represented, which is the symbol of Louisville.

Others belong thematically to the inverse; a white background with red and black text. There may be a few design differences, but they generally follow a pattern of colors and information arrangement. The sites may be enhanced by iconography that favors the home city and/or is meaningful to its residents.  Most of these websites use the “We are the 99%” tagline.

Occupy Together A conglomerate site to allow smaller cities to organize and advertise. White background with red and black text.

Occupy NOLA White background with red-font header and black text. Icon of a fist used.

Occupy St. Louis White background with red-font header and black text. St. Louis Arch represented.

Occupy Austin White background with red and black text.

Occupy Dallas White background with red and black text.

Occupy Houston Tagline: dedicated to ending the corporate corruption of democracy.

Occupy Cincinnati this website is slightly different, using a white background, and shades of pink and gray, instead of the red and white text. Skyline of Cinti represented.

Occupy Ashville Similar white, red, and black visual thematics. An old-fashioned microphone graced with a peace sign and some suggestions of sea gulls complete the effect.

Occupy Salt Lake City This one has the same color thematics, but it also has “We the people” overlay on the photo graphic, giving it a tea party feel. Not sure what the beehive is about. Might be a SLC thing. Like several other sites, the hashtag symbol (#) is incorporated into the text.

Cougartown

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Smoking Gun:

A naked 71-year-old woman and her equally clothes-free male companion, 54, were arrested last month for indecent exposure after a Michigan cop found them trysting in the back seat of a Buick Regal that was rocking gently and had its windows steamed over, according to a police report.

When the officer opened the vehicle’s rear door and asked the nude couple what they were doing, Tim Adams offered a concise answer. “I’m f**king this chick,” he said.

Yes, Adams referred to his septuagenarian consort, Rita Daniels, as a “chick.

[...]

A police investigation determined that the couple’s courtship was a brief one. They had met for drinks at a nearby bar “before moving to the back seat of the Buick.” When questioned by cops, neither Daniels nor Adams–both of whom were unsteady and smelled of booze–knew the other’s name.

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The expression on her face is priceless.

This is an open thread.

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I smell astroturf

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I keep getting asked what I have against Occupy Wall Street. The answer is simple:

I smell astroturf.

Let’s not forget that Barack Obama’s campaign manager is an astroturf specialist. Three years ago he astroturfed the blogosphere. Now his candidate is in trouble and suddenly we have Obama acting like a born-again populist at the same time a populist protest movement starts.

Who is in charge of OWS? Supposedly nobody, but they are awfully well organized and coordinated for a group of anarchists that couldn’t put together a two-car parade.

Go read Riverdaughter’s posts about her field trip to Wall Street yesterday. It was right in front of her nose and she didn’t see it. Thousands of people, no leaders, and it WASN’T a major clusterfuck.

Hello?

OWS is protesting against banks and rich people, but none of their anger is directed at the single biggest recipient of campaign donations from Wall Street.

While they’re protesting against Wall Street they ARE NOT protesting against Obama. Now the unions that support Obama are joining the action.

Check out this column by Justin Idiot over at Salon:

A real death panel

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Glenn Greenwald:

So a panel operating out of the White House — that meets in total secrecy, with no known law or rules governing what it can do or how it operates — is empowered to place American citizens on a list to be killed by the CIA, which (by some process nobody knows) eventually makes its way to the President, who is the final Decider. It is difficult to describe the level of warped authoritarianism necessary to cause someone to lend their support to a twisted Star Chamber like that; I genuinely wonder whether the Good Democrats doing so actually first convince themselves that if this were the Bush White House’s hit list, or if it becomes Rick Perry’s, they would be supportive just the same. Seriously: if you’re willing to endorse having White House functionaries meet in secret — with no known guidelines, no oversight, no transparency — and compile lists of American citizens to be killed by the CIA without due process, what aren’t you willing to support?

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No trial. No due process. No appeal.

No protests.

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Fight Like A Girl: Lessons learned from Hillary to Sarah

Never Say Never

What have we learned from the journeys of Hillary & Sarah? What knowledge have they bought us with their valiant struggles against media immolation and backdoor power shenanigans?

Two women, equally impressive in record and accomplishment, of opposing politics, of different generations, both beloved by the voters of their party’s base, share a remarkably parallel journey that has done more to reveal the truth about our rotten political system in 4 years than most of us could ever imagine.

One: A strong woman leader, one who is determined to lead, will be ostracized, attacked, and backstabbed by her own party establishment. Their own party’s establishment will break any rule, move any date, do everything, to prevent the base from voting for them.  A strong woman’s greatest obstacle to cracking the ultimate glass ceiling is her own party.

Two: The media will lie shamelessly, repeatedly and filthily, to convince us that a strong woman leader is unacceptable. They will invite us to rhetorically stone her and goad us to commit atrocities against her. The media is the propaganda arm of the establishment’s backers.

Three: That a strong woman leader will nevertheless endure and thrive and do what she does best – lead. Whether it’s Hillary Clinton in the State Department keeping the USA safe despite the President’s booberies, or Sarah Palin in Wasilla as the lone voice in politics with the guts to point out the Crony Capitalism is what is killing the USA — you just can’t get these women to shut up and sit down.

Four: That we, the people, deserve better than this rotten DonkyPhant of a political party. A party that presents a liberal face to the left, and a conservative face to the right, but really is in place only to ensure the continued looting of the country for the benefit of the most powerful. One of the greatest things we can do for our children’s future will be to destroy the DonkyPhant party and the permanent political class for ever. This is not democracy. This is plutocracy. This is the slow death of everything our country was founded on. Don’t consent to it. Resist. Reform. Restore.

Whether you count yourself a PUMA, a Tea-Partier, or a 99%er, we all share one goal – to restore democracy to America.

What if the protesters were Neo-Nazis?

Neo-Nazi March

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When we sympathize with a group it’s easy to rationalize their behavior. In issues of free speech you need to flip it around and imagine that the group is one that you detest, then evaluate their behavior and the government response.

Imagine if the Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Brotherhood and the Skinheads decided to hold a unity protest and occupied Zucchini Park near Wall Street. Thousands of white supremacists from all over the country attend.

They don’t obtain permits, they just start camping in the park and hold daily rallies and protest marches. They announce that they are not leaving until their unspecified demands are met.

What, if anything, should the police do?

According to the law the police should treat them just like they would treat any other group. And the police should treat any other group just like they would treat the Neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Brotherhood and the Skinheads.

That’s what “content neutral” means.

ACLU:

Public Sidewalks

Sidewalk, streets, and parks are what are known as traditional forums and “have immemorially been held in trust for the use of the public, and time out of mind, have been used for purposes of assembly, communicating thoughts between citizens, and discussing public questions.” Hague v. CIO, 307 U.S. 496, 515 (1939). The government cannot deny the public access to a traditional public forum nor can it regulate use of the forum based on the content of one’s speech. Perry Education Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983). However, the government is permitted to impose “reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions” within a public forum so long as the regulations are “narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave open ample alternative channels of communication.” Id. In short, the government may set reasonable rules in a public forum, those rules can be no more expansive than is necessary to accomplish the government’s purpose and such rules can not be used to completely deny access to the traditional public forum.

Thus, the government may be able to prevent protesters from completely blocking a thoroughfare to traffic, such as a street or sidewalk, but cannot curtail any more speech than is necessary to accomplish that goal. Similarly, government can regulate use of sound amplification equipment, such as limiting the decibel level and requiring a permit, but would normally not be able to bar use of amplification equipment entirely. Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781 (1989).

While certain basic free speech activity is almost always permissible in a traditional public forum, such as leafleting or protests involving a small number of people, it is generally advisable to check applicable regulations before hand. For instance, sound amplification equipment will often require a permit as might a demonstration involving a large number of people. To find out what regulations exist you should contact the municipality where you intend to demonstrate.

Public Roadways

As noted above, public streets are traditional public forums and therefore are open for expressive purposes such as marches. Of course, public streets are also used for cars, buses, and other vehicles. Therefore, municipalities usually impose reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on the use of streets for speech purposes. These regulations generally involve a permit requirement, advance notice, time limitations, and some sort of police presence to close the street or a portion of the street to traffic during the march. Many municipalities try to also impose an insurance requirement to indemnify the city. Insurance requirements to use a traditional public forum are almost always unconstitutional. Municipalities are, however, allowed to charge a nominal fee to cover the cost of processing permit applications.

If you choose to ignore reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions and block traffic on public thoroughfares you can be arrested (or at the very least ticketed). There is nothing unconstitutional about the enforcement of generally applicable laws so long as the are enforced equally and not on the basis of the speaker’s message. Indeed, equality under the law requires that generally applicable laws be enforced uniformly even if the violators believe they had a good purpose for their action.

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Don’t believe everything you hear

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Riverdaughter:

**** latest from OccupyWallStreet at OccupyWallSt.org: A little after 9:00pm tonight, police moved in and used billy clubs and pepper spray on protestors. Several members of the media team were arrested.

[...]

It’s hard to tell from the OccupyWallSt videos what exactly sparked the crackdown. But I doubt that the media team had done anything to provoke the kind of action they were subject to. None of the organizers or media team members looked like loaded springs looking for trouble. My best guess is that the NYPD was given the go ahead to clear the park tonight and getting the media team out of the way was the first step.

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Bostonboomer:

NYPD cracking heads and pepper spraying protesters under cover of darkness

It figures New York’s “finest” would wait until after dark to break out the mace and nightsticks. This video is from We Are Change. It’s pretty chaotic, but it shows police beating and pepper spraying #OccupyWallStreet protesters. These thugs don’t seem to understand that their Gestapo tactics are having the effect of bringing more media attention to a protest that was largely ignored for a couple of weeks.

Here’s a report from the FOX News reporter who was there:

In the evening, crowds surged past barriers and NYPD officers moved in to contain the protesters. By many accounts, mayhem broke out.

Officers, many wearing white shorts indicating supervisor rank, swatted protesters with batons and sprayed them with mace, video from the scene showed.

Fox 5′s Isen and Brennan were there and witnessed the chaos. At one point, Brennan was hit in the abdomen by a police baton and Isen got irritant in his eyes. Both journalists were all right and continued to cover the protests and arrests.

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If you follow the link to the FOX 5 website there is a clip of the reporter who got hit explaining what happened.

The cops set up a barricade at an intersection. The crowd pushed forward. About twenty arrests were made. So far I have seen three different clips (including the one posted above) of the same one officer swinging his baton.

The officer is not advancing, he is standing his ground. He is swinging his baton back and forth about level with the midsections of the people in front of him. No one is getting hit in the head.

There is a metal barricade pushed back behind the officer, and it appears that other officers are kneeling right behind him on the ground making arrests. When the crowd backs up the officer doesn’t move forward.

There are a lot of cops around, but most of them are forming a wall facing the crowd. They are not riot police. In the videos you can hear the cops telling people to back up.

No reporters were arrested. The crowd doesn’t seem afraid, in fact many of them are pushing forward to take pictures.

Here’s a question – what was the crowd trying to do? It was after 9:00 pm and the march held earlier was over.

I looks to me like the protesters were trying to provoke a response and they succeeded.

UPDATE:

Behind the scenes in recent days, union leaders have debated how to respond to Occupy Wall Street. In internal discussions, some voiced worries that if labor were perceived as trying to co-opt the movement, it might alienate the protesters and touch off a backlash.

Others said they were wary of being embarrassed by the far-left activists in the group who have repeatedly denounced the United States government.

Those concerns may be renewed after a disturbance about 8 p.m. Wednesday as the march was breaking up. The police said they arrested eight protesters around the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street, after people rushed barriers and began spilling into the street. While a couple of witnesses said that officers used pepper spray to clear the streets, Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said that one officer “possibly” used it. Several protesters were also arrested at State and Bridge Streets at 9:30 p.m.; the police said one protester was charged with assault after an officer was knocked off his scooter.

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All those people and all those cameras and nobody saw what started it.

Every one of the protesters appears to have a camera phone. Why aren’t there any clips posted that show the beginning of the disturbance? You would think if there was video showing the cops attacking peaceful protesters without any provocation that it would be posted.

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