Free Republic

After a police-assault conviction made her a rallying point for activists, an Occupy Wall Street protester was cleared Friday of charges stemming from another confrontation with police. Cecily McMillan was acquitted Friday of obstructing government administration, after her second trial this year. […] In the latest case, prosecutors said McMillan interfered with officers who’d stopped two accused fare-beaters in a Manhattan subway station in December 2013. McMillan claimed to be a lawyer, urged the two not to cooperate with police, hectored the officers and got in the way while shooting video when the officers took the two to a transit...

Occupy Oakland has finally found their candidate, who arguably has the same intelligence as them: a dog. Called "Einstein," Occupy Oakland released a pun-laden announcement in February declaring the dog's intent to run for office. As the group of ultra-liberals explained, "Einstein has thrown his collar in the ring, his leash in the pond, and his id chip in the circular file. Yes, Occupy Oakland’s unofficial official non-human with personhood status has announced, on the steps of City Hall, that he will be a candidate in Oakland’s mayoral race for 2014... ANOTHER OAKLAND IS POSSIBLE!" Eight months since then, the...

Occupy Wall Street, which surprisingly still has at least one supporter, is declaring that the United States is run by white supremacists, despite the fact that the President is an African American. In an article published yesterday, "OWS" declares that America has suffered through a "Summer of White Supremacy." Referencing Ferguson, Detroit, and "white cops," the article explains that throughout the United States, white people are oppressing black people as much as they can. Not only is it the police, but racist elected officials in the government are doing the same... The same anger toward whites and Republicans is seen...

".......Ms. Yellen broke little new ground in her speech. She reiterated the Fed’s basic guidance after its July meeting that holding short-term interest rates near zero remains necessary and useful to increase employment. She said the gap between current conditions and a return to full health was still “significant.”..... .......... A small group of demonstrators made the trek to the remote resort hotel in the middle of Grand Teton National Park to urge Fed officials to continue the stimulus campaign. They formed a receiving line for policy makers in the lobby outside the conference, dressed in green T-shirts emblazoned: “What...

Suburban Albany is not known for its rip-roaring weekend scene, but this most recent Saturday night, it was the momentary center of the political universe, as an underfunded political party was using its quadrennial convention to try to force America’s most powerful and best-financed governor to submit to its demands. Though the Working Families Party’s conventions are typically low-key affairs, this one had drawn 800 activists and operatives and most of the New York press corps—all to see if the party would endorse conservative Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo or run a third-party candidate against him. In the end, when the...

We're better than those damned Russians and their Putin; we have democracy! Well, maybe not. Quote: Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism. Lots of big words in that paragraph. Let's distill it down -- the argument presented is that America is really no different than...

It is the most important question being asked of dozens of New Yorkers lined up as potential jurors for the trial of Cecily McMillan, an Occupy Wall Street activist accused of assaulting a police officer: what do you think of her protest movement? Unfortunately for those keen on the swift procession of justice, a series of Manhattan residents who presented themselves at the criminal courthouse this week declared that they strongly disagreed with it – and could not promise to be impartial about one of its members. “I’m involved in Wall Street things. I’m on the Wall Street side, not...

Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street -- a rollicking three-hour black comedy based on the true story of debaucherous con man Jordan Belfort -- has become one of the most controversial films in the director's 50 year career. The filmmaker, who has nothing left to prove after directing 23 narrative features including such classics as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas, sees Belfort has part of a long tradition of the American confidence man who "takes your trust, takes your confidence and betrays you." While critics and moviegoers argue over whether Scorsese is celebrating Belfort or exposing...

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, dear Kings of Hollywood, but you have been conned. Let me introduce myself. My name is Christina McDowell, formerly Christina Prousalis. I am the daughter of Tom Prousalis, a man the Washington Post described as "just some guy on trial for penny-stock fraud." (I had to change my name after my father stole my identity and then threatened to steal it again, but I'll get to that part later.) I was eighteen and a freshman in college when my father and his attorneys forced me to attend his trial at New...

My husband and I and 2 friends walked out of "Wolf of Wall Stret", the new DiCaprio flic, about 10 minutes into the movie. We absolutely could not stand the constant barrage of obscene language and visuals. I have never seen anything so obnoxious in my life and refused to ruin Christmas Day with such garbage. We complained at the box office and got our money back. Now, I'm about ready to write to the movie theatre and newspaper to warn others about this offensive movie. The interesting thing is that I'd seen a trailer for this movie last week,...

Occupy Wall Street buys $15 million of Americans' medical debt Tue, Nov 12 2013By Elizabeth Dilts(Reuters) - An Occupy Wall Street spin-off group has bought up $14.7 million worth of Americans' personal medical debt and forgiven it over the last year as part of its Rolling Jubilee project, the group announced Monday.The Rolling Jubilee project, organized by Occupy Wall Street's Strike Debt group, has so far spent $400,000 to buy the debt, in the process relieving 2,693 people of the money they owed for medical services Occupy thinks should be free."Think of it as a bailout of the 99 percent...

Colorado - The Gilmore case attracted national attention because he supported demonstrations at an Occupy Wall Street encampment a block away from where the fire was started. Occupy activists were protesting against economic inequality and government policies favoring the wealthy. The early-morning fire caused an estimated $10 million damage to a four-story apartment complex under construction and the occupied Penny Flats condominium and retail building next door.

The House Oversight Committee wants to find out why the Park Service behaved so bizarrely. ... Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a former prosecutor, almost drove National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis into incoherence with his relentless questioning. Gowdy wanted to know why Jarvis had allowed “pot-smoking” Occupy Wall Street protesters to camp overnight illegally in Washington’s McPherson Square park for 100 days, yet put up barricades to keep veterans out of war memorials on the first day of the shutdown. By not issuing a single citation to the Occupy campers, Gowdy argued, the Park Service was treating them...

Matt Damon’s new sci-fi blockbuster 'Elysium' has received a deluge of criticism that it is pushing a socialist agenda - inspired by the Occupy movement - down moviegoers’ throats. Set in the year 2154, ‘Elysium’ imagines a world where the wealthy elite have abandoned an overcrowded Earth for a better life aboard a luxury space station. While Earth is characterized by crime-riddled and poverty-stricken slums, the super-rich live in Elysium, an exclusive gated community in space complete with a cure for all illnesses and robots that enforce strict anti-immigration laws. The extreme disparity between the haves and have nots in...

John Pike -- the University of California, Davis police lieutenant whom the university fired for pepper spraying Occupy protesters Nov. 18, 2011 -- has filed a workers' compensation claim based on a "psychiatric injury." UC should change its motto from "Fiat lux" ("Let there be light") to "Fiat meum" ("Where's mine?"). The protesters got theirs when they sued the University of Deep Pockets. Ironically, they were protesting rising tuition while telling themselves they were underdogs who courageously stood up to authority. Please, their demands for more state money were in perfect harmony with the aspirations of UC brass. Protesters set...

Media in general do not report things that are not happening; perhaps an artifact of human nature, but important non-events simply are not news. The fact that nobody in the US starves to death for lack of food is a non-event, as is the decreasing rate of cancer or the absence of polio infections. These non-events are actually bigger news than the latest warehouse fire or shark attack, but such is the news business. Another non-event worthy of reporting is the complete death of Occupy Wall Street. Once billed as the future of political discourse, and heralded by many left-wing...

Men's Wearhouse executive chairman George Zimmer has been "terminated," the clothing retailer said on Wednesday. Zimmer opened the company's first store in Houston in 1973. He's been the bearded face of Men's Wearhouse (MW) in television ads for years, famously promising men "You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it."

To think it only took the world's most (in)famous whistleblower to get the NSA to disclose that it had heroically managed to prevent terrorist attacks involving the New York Stock Exchange (we supposed they refer to the Manhattan-based TV studio and not the actual exchange where the servers are now housed in Mahwah, NJ) and the NY Subway. Because whereas there was a time in the past when the various US secret services would scurry at the opportunity to disclose their expertise to the general public, now it is a false negative that is supposed to disprove a positive (pervasive...

Barbara1247 wrote:  The Republicans have helped bring us to this sorry state of affairs. - How About More Scandal, Incompetence, Venality, Hubris, Vanity and Error to Start Dear Comrade 1247, You’re a liberal, so even when you are right- like you are now- it’s accidental. So as a public service, let me explain to you, in the simplest terms, what you got right, accidentally. Certainly the GOP has helped establish a track record of what might be the sorriest 25 years of governing in American history. But it’s because they have supported watered-down versions of the Democrat agenda. For every...

Susan L. Anderson, wife of embattled former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, was a supporter of, and active participant in, the Occupy Wall Street movement, attending and promoting Occupy DC in Oct. 2011. Photo posted to Twitter by @slandersonwdc In the fall of 2011, during the height of the global Occupy protests, Anderson tweeted out to her followers: Jobs on Main Street, not on K-ching Wall Street! #takeback11 #ows #occupydemocracy http://yfrog.com/o0crsizj 12:20 PM - 5 Oct 2011 At Larry Lessig teach-in @ #occupydc. Will intro him tonight on his new book on how big $ threatens our #republic @ GW Law...