Breaking – Occupy Denver vs. Police

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Occupy Denver, law enforcement clash; more arrests underway

Denver police have ordered protesters to disperse this evening and are arresting more protesters in Civic Center.

At about 6 p.m., they are standing in riot gear with their gas masks down.

Earlier today, police confirmed they used pepper spray and either rubber bullets or pepper balls to disperse the crowd in Civic Center, and seven protesters were arrested earlier today. Broadway was closed off at both Colfax and 14th Avenue and a stream of patrol cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring, hurried to the scene. Officers were dressed in riot gear.

Denver police spokesman Matt Murray said seven arrests had been made — including two for assault and one for disobedience.

He said some protesters had received medical treatment on the scene, but no one had been taken to a hospital.

Murray said one officer was knocked off his motorcycle and other officers were kicked by protesters.

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I’ll keep updating this as things develop.

UPDATE:

9NEWS:

Police say about 20 Occupy Denver protesters were arrested on Saturday after they say protesters wanted to occupy the capitol.

Denver Police say they knew there was going to be a protest on Saturday and wanted to keep the event peaceful. Officers say the protesters wanted protest inside the capitol, which is illegal.

Of the seven arrested, police say two were arrested for assault.

“Unfortunately at one point, that group did try to occupy the capital, which is illegal. We made sure that they knew that, it was pretty clear that they were not allowed to do that, they tried to do it anyway,” Lt. Matt Murray with the Denver Police Department said. “We had to step in and push them off. Things escalated; we did have to call out city-wide for assistance.”

According to Gov. Hickenlooper’s office, protesters need a permit to protest on the steps of the capitol. Protesting inside is illegal.

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Jonathan Alter channels Sgt. Schultz

I see nothing!

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Via Legal Insurrection:

Obama Miracle is White House Free of Scandal: Jonathan Alter

President Barack Obama goes into the 2012 with a weak economy that may doom his reelection. But he has one asset that hasn’t received much attention: He’s honest.

The sight of Texas Governor Rick Perry tumbling out of the clown car recently as a “birther” (or at least a birther- enabler) is a sign of weakness, not just for the Perry campaign but for the whole Republican effort to tarnish the president’s character.

Although it’s possible that the Solyndra LLC story will become a classic feeding frenzy, don’t bet on it. Providing $535 million in loan guarantees to a solar-panel maker that goes bankrupt was dumb, but so far not criminal or even unethical on the part of the administration. These kinds of stories are unlikely to derail Obama in 2012. If he loses, it will be because of the economy — period.

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Professor Jacobson:

Let’s educate Alter on the scandals of the Obama administration.  I’ll start:

• Solyndra – how is it not a scandal when a big Obama campaign donor receives special treatment to bilk the country of half-a-billion dollars?
• Fast and Furious – guns missing, border patrol agent dead, Mexican gangs well-armed, and an Attorney General who is incompetent at best, misleading at worst.
• Nixonian control of press access to fundraisers.
• Obamacare – possibly the most deceptive law ever passed, so much so that one of its key cost-saving tools turns out to be too costly to implement.
• The disregard of judicial orders as to Gulf oil leases and the near shutdown of new production.

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What about plain old lying and broken promises? Do those count?

What about the Obama Scandals List?

Hmmmm?

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Jonathan Alter

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Coming unglued

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Seriously. Via Hot Air:

MSNBC Analyst: GOP Sees Herman Cain as a ‘Black Man Who Knows His Place’

“One of the things about Herman Cain is, I think that he makes that white Republican base of the party feel okay, feel like they are not racist because they can like this guy,” Finney said. “I think he giving that base a free pass. And I think they like him because they think he’s a black man who knows his place. I know that’s harsh, but that’s how it sure seems to me.”

“Thank you for spelling that out,” Bashir responded.

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Obviously Herman Cain doesn’t know “his place.” If he did he would be a Democrat.

Joe Cannon:

Wouldn’t it be astonishing if Herman Cain became the Republican nominee? The general election would present voters with an unprecedented choice. One of the candidates would be a pro-business black conservative who, despite the occasional outburst of populist rhetoric, could never bring himself to challenge the Wall Street overlords who funded his campaign. And the other candidate would be Herman Cain.

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Who is Joseph Stiglitz?

I really wanted to stop doing Occupy posts, but this is just too bothersome to me.

Last week, I was reading an old blog post of mine from April and poster turned Occupy drone ralphb had the following comment on my debt ceiling post.

It goes to the Joe Stiglitz Maxim: a government of the 1%, by the 1%, and for the 1%.

He’s generally right. In one article some time back, he wrote that economics was a failed profession which should be re-invented from the ground up. No matter what, I like Stiglitz.

Well, if this guy was talking 1% from a while back, I figured he must have something to do with OWS. Actually, Stiglitz is bigger than that. Besides being an economist who seems to hate every other economist (kind of like a less famous Paul Krugman) and he loves protesters.

From Wikipedia:

On July 25, 2011, Stiglitz participated to the “I Foro Social del 15M” organized in Madrid (Spain) expressing his support to the 2011 Spanish protests.

He also spoke at an Occupy rally back on October 2.

It turns out that Stiglitz shows up on the boards of a number of George Soros funded organizations. His economic theories call for more government ownership of the business and banking sectors, while he claims to oppose socialism.

The next time I read a post about Stiglitz, it linked to this article from the IMF (now with less rapists!) about the recovery in Iceland brought about by devaluing their currency (back door inflation) and by letting banks collapse. This has followed with something of a recovery, but while the poor are on a generous government dole, the middle class is saddled with foreign bank debt and devalued wages. Still, some people love this solution because it supposedly stuck it to the banks.

So, let’s take inadequate free-market capitalism, a putative denial of socialism, thumbs up to government control of the economy, the middle finger to bank bailouts and the lionization of street mobs. What do you get? Anarchy.

Here’s the trick. No one really wants anarchy. Some people want it for a while and they are the agitators. After a while, even those people get sick of people with no rules messing with them. Anarchy is, however, an excellent means to an end. The “smart” people are sick of the dumb people making the rules. Imposing order is hard in a democracy, because people get to choose all kinds of wrong things for themselves. You would need to break down society for the general public to accept that kind of order.

The Occupiers are already at the anarchy stage. Most cities have made minor concessions and are frequently thwarted anyway. Arrest them and your city spends a fortune on incarceration. Disperse them and they sue for millions. If this crap keeps going, you’ll see large-scale government crackdowns and the people will enjoy the spectacle. Then we have real old-time fascism.

Anyone who thinks that the average 53%er who pays taxes and thinks the protesters are a bunch of whiny kids is really some big money capitalist whip kisser, watch what happens when the real whips show up. This 0.01% calling themselves the 99% are the dupes for a much more sinister model of fascists waiting for the world to break down.

YouTopia

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NY Observer:

Meanwhile Security group member Brendan Burke, a tall bad-ass looking dude who has been volunteering at the park since the second week, told The New York Observer that there have been “three or four” incidents of sexual assault in Zuccotti Park. But since Security — now working with a group called Community Alliance — deals in mediation and conflict resolution and have no authority to check people’s tents or act as bouncers to the park — they have directed these women to file complaints with the NYPD.

[...]

Nor will they be feeding them gourmet meals: as reported, the kitchen has scaled back its services in attempt to dissuade homeless people and the rumored convicts from Rikers Island that the NYPD is allegedly dropping off at the park from cohabiting the park and turning the movement into something more resembling a soup kitchen/homeless shelter. We overhear a conversation between a woman and a member of the Comfort station: she is asking for a tent for a party, and he is taking down her information. “We’re making sure everyone has a phone or email address,” he tells her, “just so we’re not giving away our supplies to the uh…you know…the homeless.” He then quickly apologizes for saying “that word.” But it’s clear that resources, especially for food, shelter, and clothing, are being rationed as closely as possible.

If this seems a little harsh — what happened to the ‘come one, come all’ mentality? — it is obviously out of necessity. Maybe it is the cold weather, or the drop in morale from the lack of Internet connection, but the scene down at Zuccotti Park is much grimmer than ones we’ve previously encountered. There seems to be a lot more heated arguments, a lot more panhandlers, and at least 10 guys stop and chat us up about our legs.

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What’s the statistic on how many sexual assaults get reported? 1 in 10?

Yeah, Zuccotti Park is definitely the kind of place you want to bring your teenage daughter to visit.

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Who started it?

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Corrente:

In all the Oakland footage I’ve looked at, I’ve seen no evidence of rock throwing at police.

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Cannonfire:

To look at this headline from CNN, you wouldn’t know that the violence was caused by the police

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Back to reality – here’s what a protester who was there told Lawrence O’Donnell:

Oakland Interim Chief of Police Howard Jordan: “At that point we were in a position where we had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks.”

O’Donnell: “Did you see people throwing bottles and rocks at the police before they used those tactics?”

Tasha Casini: “Umm, yeah. People were doing that.”

O’Donnell: “What do you think the police response should have been to that?”

Casini: “I think that the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and flash grenades are a completely inappropriate response to bottles being thrown at police officers who are in full riot gear. So I think they should have absolutely not used any chemical weapons.”

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Hey, the cops are wearing bullet-proof vests, so it should be okay to shoot at them too, right?

Seriously though, some of these protesters seem to think “freedom of speech” means “the right to do whatever I want, wherever I want, whenever I want” and any effort, however slight, to restrict the “time place and manner” of a protest is oppression. And if the cops do anything other than watch it is police brutality.

On October 20th the City of Oakland gave notice to the protesters that they could no longer camp overnight at Frank Ogawa Plaza. They were specifically told they could still protest there every day from 6 am to 10 pm.

The protesters ignored the notice.

Last Tuesday morning the police told the protesters to leave or get arrested. A few left, the rest were arrested. Afterwards the plaza was cleared of tents and other camping equipment and then cleaned.

Last Tuesday evening approximately 1000 protesters tried to retake the plaza. When the police blocked them from doing this the protesters threw bottles, rocks and paint at the police.

BTW – As Affinis at Corrente points out, none of the protester-provided footage of events shows the protesters throwing anything at the cops. I wonder why that is?

Hmmmm?

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