Call me foily, but somehow I have a hard time picturing "evacuation" as anything but a euphemism for "detain indefinitely without trial." CBS 2 in Chicago:

Is there a secret plan to evacuate some residents of Chicago in the event of major trouble during the NATO summit next month? CBS 2 has uncovered some evidence that there is. It comes from the Milwaukee area branch of the American Red Cross.

CBS 2 News has obtained a copy of a Red Cross e-mail sent to volunteers in the Milwaukee area.

It said the NATO summit “may create unrest or another [What other?] national security incident. The American Red Cross in southeastern Wisconsin has been asked to place a number of shelters on standby in the event of evacuation of Chicago.”

According to a chapter spokesperson, the evacuation plan is not theirs alone.

“Our direction has come from the City of Chicago and the Secret Service,” she said.

"But it's a Red Cross shelter! They're being treated for injuries! They're being detained for their own protection."

On the Black Agenda Report website Jemima Pierre writes:

Clearly, and methodically, “the US government is preparing for domestic insurrection.”

.... In only three years, the Obama administration and its enablers have established, legitimized, and normalized a national security state apparatus that removes any doubt that domestic policing is a prelude to a totalitarian police state. This apparatus has surpassed the Bush administration’s attempts to expand executive power by crushing the civil liberties of US citizens. And it has done so boldly, with only a few prominent critics, and without so much as a whimper from so-called leftists.

Reuters:

Four giant card-payment processors and large U.S. banks that issue debit and credit cards were hit by a data-security breach after third-party services provider Global Payments Inc discovered its systems were compromised by unauthorized access.

My first thought was that the bankster C*Os were behind it. After all, they've got the means, the motive, and the opportunity. Much more sensible than Uzbekistani or whatever hackers who never seem to appear in court.

Salon:

I tried to think of the most extreme tyrannical and lawless power possible which a President could hypothetically assert, in order to reveal the invalidity of Todd’s reasoning, and this is what I wrote:

The Times of Northwest Indiana reports that the state Senate unanimously passed a law requiring local candidates (school board, dogcatcher) disclose their employers, their spouses' employers, their dogs' and cats' employers, and the date, time and place of all of their sexual encounters, along with their partners' names.

Want to participate in government? Surrender all your family's privacy.

(edited to correct erroneous information: I mistakenly posted that income must be disclosed and that was wrong... My most sincere apologies)

Know anybody who still thinks Steve Jobs is a god, or even a near-decent human being? Who doesn’t understand what’s meant by “Chinese competitiveness” in attracting iPhone and other computer & smartphone assembly business? Who doesn’t believe their favorite gadgets are assembled in near-slave conditions?

Sources within the regime of the Liar-in-Chief said today that the king wouldn't approve the Keystone XL pipeline. And all the liberals are pissing in their pants because their hero saved the day. I guess they never read Peanuts and don't know who Lucy is.

Spare me, please:

"Assuming that what we're hearing is true, this isn't just the right call, it's the brave call. The knock on Barack Obama from many quarters has been that he's too conciliatory. But here, in the face of a naked political threat from Big Oil to exact 'huge political consequences,' he's stood up strong. This is a victory for Americans who testified in record numbers, and who demanded that science get the hearing usually reserved for big money.

How Gender Violence on the Left Enables State Violence in Radical Movements

I don't have a TV, but my boss likes to listen to it as "background noise". So when I arrived at work this morning, knowing that the results in Iowa were Romney, Santorum, and then Paul, with Gingrich trailing badly, I was keen to see what the spin-meisters were going to say on TV. I burst out laughing when the talking head said that Romney won, Santorum was 8 votes behind, and Gingrich trailed badly. Not the first mention of Ron Paul, not a word. It was as if Paul never even existed. I was astonished at the chutzpah of the talking head. I'm sure glad that I don't have a TV to pollute my mind. I've always maintained that TV is the best damn propaganda tool the elite ever invented. This morning's experience was in-your-face proof of that belief.

Keith Preston has an interesting post over at Attack the System on Green Republicans and Ron Paul. Thought-provoking reading.

Occupy Wall Street (OWS) raises the issue of emerging oligarchy, based on wealth inequality, taking control of democracies worldwide through a small global elite composed of the very rich, powerful corporate executives in financial multinationals and other global conglomerates, and their allies in international financial organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS).

Even Izvestia gets it:

Obama refused to entertain any investigation of the abuses of power under his predecessor, and he has been far too willing to adopt Mr. Bush’s extravagant claims of national secrets to prevent any courthouse accountability for those abuses. This week, he is poised to sign into law terrible new measures that will make indefinite detention and military trials a permanent part of American law.

The Boston Phoenix cuts to the fascist heart of Judge McIntyre's anti-Occupy Boston decision. It's one sentence:

“Little in the way of expression is outlawed under the United States Constitution, but an act which incites a lawful forceful response is unlikely to pass as expressive speech.”

So, that which the police suppress violently is unlikely to be protected by the First Amendment?

Wow, I thought this sort of thing was down the road a little ways ...

Breaking News: Feds Falsely Censor Popular Blog For Over A Year, Deny All Due Process, Hide All Details...

Sen. Carl Levin and Sen. John McCain have set in motion bill S. 1867 in the upcoming “defense authorization bill”.

Glenn Greenwald distills the bill's 3 main provisions: 1) it mandates that all accused Terrorists be indefinitely imprisoned by the military rather than in the civilian court system INCLUDING U.S. CITIZENS ON U.S. SOIL ACCUSED OF “TERRORISM”; 2) it renews the 2001 “Authorization to Use Military Force” (AUMF) against anyone who SUBSTANTIALLY SUPPORTS Al Qaeda, the Taliban or “ASSOCIATED FORCES”; 3) it “imposes NEW RESTRICTIONS on the U.S. Government’s ability to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo “

According to Tom Carter of wsws:

By

Nancy Bordier and Joseph M. Firestone

As the Occupy Wall Street movement grows, OWS members are weighing their options for obtaining redress of their grievances.

Holding and expanding the ground they occupy is an obvious priority. It draws worldwide attention to their grievances and increasing numbers. It gives them a place to meet, build relationships, discuss and debate their issues, and plan.

Foiling violent action on the part of the police and anarchists is a constant distraction, but it helps the movement develop rules of engagement for everybody. Civil disobedience and voluntary arrests is another avenue, as is direct action, like preventing the seizure of illegally foreclosed homes.

Seeking redress through the political process is even more problematic. Many OWS members believe it would be a futile exercise to try to get lawmakers who have been corrupted by special interests to pass laws in their favor. Using the ballot box to replace their elected representatives is difficult, if not impossible, now that the U.S. Supreme court has given corporations a green light to spend unlimited amounts of corporate funds to influence elections.

The nation's two major parties, the Democrats and Republicans, are a major stumbling block to non-party candidates trying to win electoral victories over party-backed candidates. The parties' grip on the nation's electoral machinery, and their ability to raise huge amounts of money for their candidates from special interests, gives them decisive advantages over their adversaries at the ballot box.

Efforts to pass laws reforming this corrupt system appear equally futile. Few lawmakers would vote to overturn the laws (governing campaign finance, gerrymandering and elections) that get them elected and enable them to hold on to office.

Despite these obstacles, we think there is a way OWS members can use the political process to redress their grievances. It is by taking advantage of the Internet and a new web-based organizing platform to build winning voting blocs and electoral coalitions that OWS members control.

Susie has the details. It seems there was a conference call. But why couldn't the mayors have simply said no, we are not going to do that?

Video of police provocateurs shot at the anti-SPP protest in Montebello 2007

2 protesters does not make much of an occupation, does it?

Plus, this take down won't make as much exciting video compared to tear gas & pepper spraying; though effective nonetheless.

When I try to tell people how sleazy, subtle, underhanded, sly, smart, and dangerous the Dems from Maryland are, they never understand. This is the kind of stuff they pull.

City Hall declares Occupy Baltimore's camping illegal

FBI Account of "Terror Plot" Suggests Sting Operation

Reuters:

"The picture of health in Greece is concerning," said David Stuckler, a sociologist at Britain's University of Cambridge who reported his findings in the Lancet medical journal.

"We're seeing ... worrisome trends -- a doubling of suicides, rising homicides, a 50 percent rise in HIV infections and people reporting that their health has got worse but they're not going to the doctor even though they felt they needed to."

In the past two years, the Greek government has imposed harsh austerity measures to deal with a debt mountain as the country plummeted into its deepest recession in 40 years and was forced to accept an EU-IMF bailout.

Fool us once blame you. Fool us twice and then again and again and again?

Obama is being credited due to the usual bureaucratic numbers twisting that though he hasn’t been able to increase jobs, he has at least arrested job losses. This is profound bullshit.

Hugh has done the real math which deserves a serious read. He has dug into The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ September jobs report with its “undercount” and unearthed the real and horrifying dimensions of disemployment in America. He has also explained just how pathetically and grotesquely inadequate Obama’s and the Dem’s faux-emergency solution to the jobs crisis actually is. Hugh:

Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales

In May 2008, a unit of Koch Industries Inc., one of the world’s largest privately held companies, sent Ludmila Egorova-Farines, its newly hired compliance officer and ethics manager, to investigate the management of a subsidiary in Arles in southern France. In less than a week, she discovered that the company had paid bribes to win contracts.

“I uncovered the practices within a few days,” Egorova- Farines says. “They were not hidden at all.” ...

Have we all worked out that the van labeled Wikileaks driving around the demonstration has nothing to do with Wikileaks and is either from the NYPD, FBI, or DHS?

Riverdaughter:

Please do not tell me about how prudent it is to put aside your money for retirement and not spend it no matter what. We’re not stupid. But that money could be used to stimulate the economy at a time when the Republicans stand in the way of doing anything helpful, and could theoretically provide more jobs, and with jobs we can start socking money away again. When money is tied up in some illiquid 401K that you can’t get to without undergoing a hemorrhage, the only people it benefits are some testosterone poisoned fund managers and their bonus loving banks. Funny how the Obama administration and Congress are so willing to cut a break on the payroll tax but not the excise tax for withdrawing 401K benefits. It almost sounds like they were trying to undermine social security while forcing people to stay in a 401K where there is no guarantee of a return and much, much more risk, tying up those funds.

As the conservatives are so fond of saying, "It's your money."