Harvard Law Prof to Occupy DC: Work with Tea Party

By Lewis McCrary
The American Conservative

Just before dinner time on Tuesday, the Occupy DC movement was visited by one of the establishment’s most prominent activists for change. Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig, who made his name as a leader of the anti-intellectual property, “free culture” movement, was in town to promote his new book on government corruption, Republic, Lost. He stopped by the occupation in McPherson Square for what was billed as a “teach-in.” While there, he gave advice that made many of the left-leaning Occupiers uncomfortable: join hands with tea partiers, or your movement is going nowhere.

Against the Institution: A Warning for ‘Occupy Wall Street’

By Andrew Gavin Marshall

While I fully endorse the efforts and actions of the Occupy Wall Street protests, now emerging internationally, there are concerns which need to be addressed and kept in mind as the movement moves forward.

The process through which a potentially powerful movement may be co-opted and controlled is slight and subtle. If Occupy Wall Street hopes to strive for the 99%, it must not submit to the 1%, in any capacity.

The War on You

Let the word go forth from Washington! The corporate rulers occupying our nation’s capital have declared war on just about every citizen.

Have no doubt: those in the upper ranges of the top 1% of wealth in this country (aka The Money Party) want to kick you to the curb.

Tea Party Horror Show

What sort of person would deliberately ignore the obvious fundamental reality of any budget?

By Numerian

It’s hard to say if the Tea Party has an acknowledged leader, but someone who professes to be just that has chosen a very opportune moment to trash Speaker John Boehner’s attempts to craft legislation that would allow an increase in the debt ceiling. Judson Phillips, the CEO of Tea Party Nation, is the self-acknowledged head of the Tea Party, and in an editorial this morning in The Washington Post, he attacks Boehner’s legislation for providing “almost non-existent budget cuts.”

911 whistleblower blasts Patriot Act renewal

TEA PARTY CRASHES: THE MOST UNPATRIOTIC ACT

By Susan Lindauer
(9/11 Whistleblower indicted on the Patriot Act)

I confess that since November I’ve been holding my breath, watching the clock for how long Tea Party newcomers could hold out against the entrenched Republican elite on Capitol Hill. Collapse was inevitable, however I admit to feeling bitterly surprised at how rapidly they have thrown in the towel.

For the record, most of the Tea Party quit their principles of liberty on February 14, 2011—20 days into the new Congress—when Tea Party leaders abruptly abandoned their opposition to the Patriot Act and voted to extend intrusive domestic surveillance, wire tapping and warrantless searches of American citizens.  In so doing, they exposed the fraud of their soaring campaign promises to defend the liberty of ordinary Americans, and fight government intrusions on freedom. All those wide eyed speeches that flowed with such thrilling devotions, all of it proved to be self-aggrandizing lies.

Tea Party My Ass: Over 3/4 vote for Patriot Act

By Karl Denninger
Market Ticker

You were lied to America.

I told you this before the election.  That you were snookered, lied to, and bamboozled.  That you would not get either real fiscal accountability or liberty and The Rule of Law out of The Tea Party. Many said I was full of crap.

Really?

I challenge any and all who said I was wrong to explain this … Cross-referencing the list at MSNBC and the outcome of the vote, the following is a list of Tea Party-backed candidates voting for the bill (Patriot Act reauthorization):

Boston Snow Warning

You remember about Snow Tax: Boston snow police fine hundreds after blizzard? Well, an entire culture has emerged among the original Tea Partiers, as William Rivers Pitt wrote:

“It is the habit of the locals around here to dig out a parking spot for themselves in the street, and then place in that spot some item – a cone, a chair, a dresser, a box, whatever – to ‘save’ it for when they return.

“Well, it seems someone stole a ‘saved’ spot from someone else by replacing the owner’s cone with a blue chair. I happened upon said blue chair stuffed deep into a snow bank with this note attached with duct tape. Polite enough, to the point, and just too damned funny.”

The Phantom Left, or, Elections as Spectacle

By Chris Hedges
TruthDig

The American left is a phantom. It is conjured up by the right wing to tag Barack Obama as a socialist and used by the liberal class to justify its complacency and lethargy. It diverts attention from corporate power. It perpetuates the myth of a democratic system that is influenced by the votes of citizens, political platforms and the work of legislators. It keeps the world neatly divided into a left and a right. The phantom left functions as a convenient scapegoat. The right wing blames it for moral degeneration and fiscal chaos. The liberal class uses it to call for “moderation.” And while we waste our time talking nonsense, the engines of corporate power—masked, ruthless and unexamined—happily devour the state.

The loss of a radical left in American politics has been catastrophic.

Rand Paul fan who stomped woman’s head wants apology; Assailant Mike Pezzano goes missing

Rand Paul with his newly fired Bourbon County, KY coordinator and woman-stomper, Tim Profitt

By Rady Ananda

UPDATE 10/28 4 am: Mike Pezzano emerged from silence and spoke with Fox 41, condemning the head stomping by Tim Profitt.

New info and more videos have emerged since the brutal stomping a Rand Paul protester received under the jackboot of yahoo, Tim Profitt, who pathologically sees himself as the victim.  Mike Pezzano, who helped in wrestling 23-year-old Lauren Valle to the ground, disappeared until yesterday after his identity was broadcast on the web.  Valle suffered a concussion which may prompt Lexington, Kentucky police to raise the charges from misdemeanor to felony assault.  Tea Partiers ID’d Pezzano from a photo taken of him and posted to the web.

Tea Party ‘founder’: Palin, Gingrich a ‘joke’

By Daniel Tencer
Raw Story

A financial blogger and ex-CEO credited with being one of the original “founders” of the Tea Party has come out against the movement, saying it has been hijacked by the very people it was protesting and is now obsessed with “guns, gays and God.”

In a “message” to the Tea Party Wednesday, Karl Denninger declared that he “ought to sue” anyone who uses the Tea Party name “for defamation.” The following video, of Karl Denninger appearing on MSNBC with Dylan Ratigan, was broadcast Oct. 19, 2010:

Truthers Crash 9/11 Tea Party

By Stephanie Mencimer
Mother Jones

Schedule a tea party on the grounds of the Washington Monument on the anniversary of 9/11 and you’re likely to get a few counter-protesters or people with nutty signs. But while tea partiers seem to have high tolerance for say, LaRouchies and birthers, they don’t seem to have much patience with truthers, conspiracy theorists who think that the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on 9/11 might have been orchestrated by the Bush administration.

Nick and Dawn Get Their First Taste of Activism – And Spit It Out

By LaughnMatter

Tea Party Patriots Receives $1,000,000 Donation

By Tea Party Patriots

Donation to provide grants for development of organization’s grassroots resources

Washington – Tea Party Patriots (TPP), the nation’s largest Tea Party organization with more than 2,800 affiliated organizations, today announced that it has received a $1,000,000 commitment to fund a grant program for the purpose of growing and strengthening regional and local Tea Party Patriots affiliates across the country.  The donor, who wishes to remain anonymous, is committed to building a stronger tea party movement.

Operation ‘Can You Hear Us Now’?

By John Kusumi

Readers of the COTO Report might like to know that a wide array of people are organizing marches to occur at mainstream news media outlets this Saturday, 10/17/2009. I was enthused to hear it.