Free Republic

A woman who appears to be a professional protester appeared in the middle of the violent rally against Donald Trump in San Jose, Calif., on Thursday evening. Given the previous appearance of paid-protesters at anti-Trump events, it raises the question of whether the violent mobs have been rented — hence the term “rent-a-mob.” Writing in the Daily Caller in March, Trump supporter Roger Stone said, “I learned most were from MoveOn or the Occupy movement … Several admitted answering a Craig’s list ad paying $16.00 an hour for protesters.” Stone claimed the protesters were “paid for mostly by George Soros...

The following is a testimony by Maurice Newhope, who has stayed at Seattle's notorious share shelters and tent cities. Maurice Newhope is a conservative libertarian activist who has experienced homelessness in the past after he was wrongfully and unjustly accused of a crime. Despite having his name cleared, his arrest record has stopped him from finding work and he has difficulty. It is his third time being homeless in America. Maurice expects to get housing in a month or so in New Hampshire. He currently works part time in the Manchester Concord metro area.  Maurice was enrolled in SHARE/WHEEL from...

Violence has gotten a lot of attention in the 2016 presidential race — from the kicking and punching of protestors at Trump’s rallies to incitements of violence against Muslim refugees and Mexican immigrants to promises by various candidates to use overwhelming military force to destroy the Islamic State. But nonviolent resistance — that is, when unarmed civilians use a coordinated set of actions, such as protests, strikes, and noncooperation to directly confront opponents without harming or threatening to harm them — has actually been incredibly influential in this election. On both the left and the right, popular movements have brought...

Ohio State Vice President Jay Kasey paid the protesters a visit shortly after the occupation began, with a message from the president. "Dr. Drake will never receive a list of demands and he will not negotiate with you," Kasey calmly informed the group before moving on to the next part of his conversation, which included the university's own list of demands. "If you refuse to leave, then you will be charged with a student code of conduct violation," Kasey said. "If you are here at 5:00 a.m. we will clear the building and you will be arrested." He added, "We...

Donald Trump played up his plans to tax companies that move jobs out of the United States as he tried to appeal to blue collar workers in a New York rally Sunday. Speaking for about an hour Sunday in Rochester, N.Y., Trump recited statistics about the area's loss of manufacturing jobs and economic hardship in recent years. He reiterated his desire to tax goods sold by companies once based in the United States that moved away to find cheaper labor. The plan has been widely panned by economic experts. But the Rochester crowd ate it up. "I'm the only one...

While covering Occupy Wall Street’s “Day of Action” Thursday morning, Daily Caller reporter Michelle Fields and videographer Direna Cousins were struck by NYPD officers as police tried to clear Wall Street of protesters. “The police officers were beating the protesters with batons, and were also beating the media,” Fields told TheDC. “They hit Direna and me with batons. They hit other members of the press in order to get them to move out of the street.”

The biggest question for Bernie Sanders and his supporters is whether they'll transform his presidential campaign into a permanent organization that can carry his political revolution forward in the long-term; or whether, like Occupy Wall Street, it will quickly disappear. If Bernie pulls off a triple bank shot, receives the Democratic nomination, and is elected president, such an organization will be needed to help him accomplish his ambitious goals. If a corporate centrist Democrat like Hillary Clinton becomes president, a mass national social democratic/socialist/liberal organization is needed to prevent her from moving to the right and to build a base...

On September 17, 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement exploded onto the scene. Peaceful protestors set up tents and sleeping bags in New York City's Zuccotti Park. The movement's slogan was "We are the 99 percent." Protestors railed against big banks, the growing foreclosure scandal, and political corruption. Five years later, the Occupy movement finally has the leader it never really had: Bernie Sanders. In the years since the movement was squelched by a chillingly multi-pronged alliance between various U.S. government agencies and private enterprise, resentment toward those who retain a chokehold on power and money has simmered just below...

SALT LAKE CITY -- Video clips captured outside the Donald Trump rally in Salt Lake City Friday night shows protesters in a shoving match with officers in riot gear. In the video, the protesters can be heard shouting "Trump Stinks!" In another clip, protesters appear to tear down a security tent and can be heard yelling "Shut it down!"

Trump is Owned by EVERY Bank on Wall St. (Except Citi, Who He Stiffed for $300M)...

A group of Harvard Law students have occupied one of the school’s halls, saying there is no space for marginalized students and staff on campus. The occupation, which began Monday night, is an effort to create such an environment, according to a statement from the students. The group, which calls itself Reclaim Harvard Law, took to the lounge in Wasserstein Hall around 8 p.m., renaming the spot “Belinda Hall”—a nod to a former slave of the law school’s donors. Around 20 students spent the night in the lounge Monday after toting along air mattresses, blankets, and suitcases, The Crimson reported....

The protest runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in front of NFL headquarters, at 345 Park Avenue in NYC, which is between 51st and 52nd Streets. For those who live or work in the area, you can go at any time and stay as long as it is convenient for you. It is free, but you need to register at the site and get a ticket. I hope you will join me at this very important rally to show support for those who care enough to risk their lives for their fellow citizens. I haven't heard who the speakers...

Political correctness has invaded our culture so thoroughly there are essentially two tiers of justice in this country. If you are a white, progressive, privileged hippy Millennial, or a Black Lives Matter activist, law enforcement and the legal system will bend over backward to accommodate your protests and acts of civil disobedience. The media will hype up any incident in your favor. In contrast, if you are a white, Christian, patriotic rural rancher raising cows for meat, you can expect to have the book thrown at you for the smallest infraction. If there is any media coverage, it will be...

Ammon Bundy, through his attorney Wednesday, asked the remaining armed occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to stand down and go home.... "I'm asking the federal government to allow the people at the refuge to go home without being prosecuted," Bundy said through his attorney Mike Arnold, who stood outside court to read Bundy's statement. "To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts. Please go home."...

U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., on Wednesday urged the remaining protesters occupying Malheur National Wildlife Refuge to leave. Walden, whose 2nd Congressional District encompasses Harney County and the rest of Eastern Oregon, issued the following statement on Wednesday morning: "I've been in close contact with local and federal officials throughout this long standoff, and we had all hoped for a peaceful conclusion to the situation in Harney County. Sadly, our hopes were shattered with the shooting that occurred during last night's arrest. "While we wait to learn more details and next steps, we must keep the people of Harney County...

One of the occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is dead after a shoot-out with federal and state authorities. Eight of the crew, including ringleader Ammon Bundy and his brother, were pulled over while driving to a meeting in a neighboring county. Five of the survivors, including the Bundys, have been arrested, and a sixth man was arrested in a nearby town. The officers had arrest warrants charging several of the occupants of the car with "conspiracy to impede or injure an officer," a less serious charge than "seditious conspiracy" but still good for up to six years. It's...

It must be the holidays, because a lot of liberal media types are publishing end-of-year thumbsuckers on democracy. In the Atlantic, Peter Beinart writes that Americans are becoming more liberal; in the New Republic, David Dayen says no, they are not. And over at Vox, Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk show with the World Values Survey that democracy is in trouble as Americans, and people all over the world, are losing faith in it.

The far-right wing in both America and Europe have seized on the Paris terror attacks as an excuse to turn away the thousands of desperate refugees who are fleeing the terror and violence of ISIS. Thirteen American governors (all Republican) have announced they will refuse to accept Syrian refugees in their states, demonstrating a remarkable ignorance of Constitutional law. As ThinkProgress noted, "the Supreme Court explained in Hines v. Davidowitz, "the supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution." States do not get...

Will Black Lives Matter go the way of the Occupy movement, pushed into self-inflicted irrelevance? You remember Occupy. That movement galvanized attention to economic inequality four years ago, only to shrivel from its allergy to the kind of structure and hierarchy needed for an enduring leadership and agenda. Mentioning it in the same breath as Black Lives surely will anger admirers of the latter, given the good it has done by splashing the face of white America with the icy reality of police oppression in too many communities of color. Some Black Lives members issued a 10-point policing plan, many...

There's apparently less than meets the eye at an OWS occupation in London -- vacant tents masquerading as demonstration participants. The UK Daily Mail headlines: The thermal images that prove 90% of tents in the Occupy camp in London are left EMPTY overnight Here is one of their images: