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The divide between the 1 percent and the 99 percent has ignited a national debate about the income gap, especially since Occupy Wall Street protesters descended on lower Manhattan last fall. But how much money does it take to feel financially secure these days? The answer, at least according to a new survey of Americans by WSL/Strategic Retail, is $150,000. That level of income is more than three times the national median of $49,445 for 2010, and it’s enough to put a household into the top 10 percent nationally. The survey asked respondents to choose which of four categories best...

URGENT: Five people described as anarchists were arrested Monday in a Cleveland-area park for allegedly trying to blow up a bridge, sources tell Fox News.

Last night’s vandalism in the Mission District of San Francisco has drawn some criticism from Occupy activists—for its violent tactics and also for its direction against local businesses. But while many Occupiers would like to limit their focus to big banks and other entities they perceive as getting unwarranted special treatment in the economy, others are just opposed to capitalism altogether. For these protesters, small businesses are fair game. Though last night’s vandalism was in San Francisco, the event that sparked it was organized by Occupy Oakland. And OO describes today’s general strike as an “anti-capitalist” action that also sees...

How Occupy Wall Street plans to spring back to actionBy Gloria Goodale | Christian Science Monitor – 23 hrs ago **SNIP** Dubbed National Occupy Washington (NOW), the event began with a march on the Environmental Protection Agency – accompanied by a brace of alpacas, a large polar bear, and a even larger blow-up of planet Earth. **SNIP** “We are preparing to give people the skills and training they need for longer and more powerful involvement,” he says, adding, “the tents were just a tactic, not the purpose of this movement.”

Members of Occupy Nashville have apparently heeded the new law that would have evicted them from War Memorial Plaza overnight. Gov. Bill Haslam originally signed the new law a week ago, but Occupy Nashville members were given a week to comply. A handful of tents remained on the plaza Thursday, but WSMV Ch. 4 reports that the last remaining protestors packed up their belonging overnight. Occupy Nashville was camped out on the plaza for more than four months. Under the new law, those who camp on state property that is not properly designated can face a $2,500 fine, a year...

Economy: The president's strategy this election year is to divide the supposedly battered 99% from the evil, super-rich 1% doing the battering. But reports of America's income inequality are greatly exaggerated. That financial "inequality" gets treated as a serious issue is proof of an epidemic of economic illiteracy, since the rich do the job-generating in our economy. Now, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Diana Furchtgott-Roth has just added some essential new analysis exposing class-warfare fallacies. Examining Labor Department data, "The Myth of Increasing Income Inequality," published this week, show "that inequality as measured by per-capita spending is no greater today than...

A new poll suggests that Warren Buffett's call for high-income Americans to pay more in taxes may not have the backing that the investment mogul believes. The Hill newspaper interviewed 1,000 likely voters and results released Monday show 75 percent of them think the "most appropriate top tax rate for families earning $250,000 or more" is 30 percent or less. Currently, upper income Americans pay a 35 percent rate, and President Obama and several Democrats in Congress want to raise that rate to nearly 40 percent next year.

Having recognized that he cannot outflank Rick Santorum from the right, Mitt Romney is now mimicking Newt Gingrich’s anti-Romney strategy, moving to the left with populist economic rhetoric. VIDEO Here’s what he said in Arizona yesterday: The transcript, in relevant part: I am going to lower rates across the board for all Americans by 20%. And in order to limit any impact on the deficit, because I do not want to add to the deficit, and also in order to make sure we continue to have progressivity as we’ve had in the past in our code, I’m going to limit...

Over at USA Today, a self-employed massage therapist from Austin, TX has a letter to the editor responding to an editorial suggesting that Occupy Wall Street has lost its way. (Snip) '' So maybe they should take up their Second Amendment-sanctioned guns and storm Wall Street and our nation’s capitals. If our country doesn’t change, it could very well come to that one day.'' Notice the language here. Rich Latta, the author, threatens outright to head to Wall Street with firearms. Janet Napolitano, where are you? He says they out to head to Washington, D.C. packing heat. Secret Service, you’re

Occupy Albany has announced an event in March called, The Weather Underground Meets Occupy Wall Street. The event will be held March 3rd, and is co-sponsored by The Sanctuary For Independent Media and the Albany Social Justice Center. It is described as, “A book event and multi-generational dialog to celebrate U.S. political prisoner David Gilbert’s new memoir, “Love and Struggle.” Gilbert is currently serving time in the Auburn Correctional Facility and is described as “an American radical leftist organizer and activist.” He was imprisoned for his role in the Brinks Robbery of 1981, a botched effort that led to the...

This health hazard and social menace is what the Left regards as America's next great political cause? As the tents were coming down at McPherson Square, the dead rats and mice being retrieved, the urine and feces and filthy bedding disposed of by District of Columbia employees dressed in hazardous-materials suits like their contemporaries at Fukushima, I thought of the left-wing press. You see, I read the left-wing press. Not the urban throwaway rags, but I read the Nation, the Progressive, the American Prospect, and more -- I read them all. They have been raving for months about the exciting...

PROVIDENCE, RI, January 30, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street movement threw condoms on Catholic schoolgirls, refused to allow a Catholic priest to give a closing prayer, and shouted down a pro-life speaker at a Rhode Island right to life rally on Thursday, according to its organizer. The event marked the third time protesters associated with the movement have disrupted a pro-life meeting in a week. About two-dozen members of Occupy Providence hiked from Burnside Park to the 39th Annual Pro-Life State House Rally organized by the Rhode Island State Right to Life Committee on Thursday. The...

Police were in the process of arresting about 100 Occupy protesters for failing to disperse Saturday night, hours after officers used tear gas on a rowdy group of demonstrators who threw rocks and flares at them and tore down fences. Police Sgt. Christopher Bolton said the arrests came after protesters marched through downtown Oakland a little before 8 p.m. Saturday, with some of them entering a YMCA building. Meanwhile, about 100 police officers surrounded City Hall while others were swept the inside of the building to see if any protesters broke in.

BOISE -- With a bill aimed at getting rid of the Occupy Boise encampment making its way through the Idaho Legislature, new pictures of people identified as Occupy members may not do much to help their cause. The pictures don't reveal any crimes, rather the Department of Administration says they are violations of the good neighbor policy, meaning it shows Occupy members taking things and using things they shouldn't. Since Occupy Boise set up camp in early November, the Director of the Department of Administration, Teresa Luna, says they have dealt with vandalism, violence, trespassing and theft. Earlier this month,...

Michelle Obama Wore a $2K+ Barbara Tfank Dress to State of the Union “As the President declared his intent to help buoy the 99% (“Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense,” he declared), his wife dazzled in a cobalt sheath from Barbara Tfank’s resort collection. While reps for the brand won’t reveal the item’s retail price, a similar style from the collection is currently available at Barney’s New York for $2,400.”

People earning over $1 million per year should pay an effective tax rate of no less than 30 percent, President Obama said in his State of the Union address Tuesday night. The president laid down one of his most political markers of the annual policy speech by crafting what he called the "Buffett Rule," named after the famous billionaire investor. "Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes," Obama said.

The news spotlight has moved elsewhere, but Oakland continues to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars a month for the Occupy protests. Every week for the past month, more than 100 cops, or roughly one-fifth of the city's patrol force, are called in to work the Saturday night Occupy demonstration held downtown. Estimated cost: about $50,000 a week. City officials now estimate their overall Occupy tab is up to $3 million and counting - this at a time when up to 400 city workers will likely be laid off Feb. 1 for lack of money.

Occupy protesters rally against Congress at Capitol Photo 12:56pm EST By Ian Simpson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Demonstrators from the Occupy movement rallied outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to protest against the influence of money on Congress. In a sign of renewed vigor for the Occupy movement, which staged protests in many U.S. cities last fall, several hundred protesters gathered on the Capitol's West Front Lawn to greet members of Congress returning from a holiday break with a day of rallies and protests they said would include attempts to occupy lawmakers' offices. Occupy protesters from around the country who gathered...

Thousands of Occupy protesters from across the country are expected to converge Tuesday on Capitol Hill to take their message to the halls of Congress, in what some observers say is the movement’s overdue moment to engage the American political system. Protesters already have set up camps in public spaces, taken over foreclosed homes and shut down key shipping ports, but for the most part they have shunned the political system, viewing it as beyond salvation. The congressional protest – which falls on the movement's four-month mark and the beginning of a new session of Congress – appears to represent...

The following is edited from remarks given at the Nov. 11, 2011 meeting of the Communist Party National Committee.2012 is a big election year and as we know the stakes are very high. The right-wing Republican opposition unashamedly defends the wealth and privilege of the 1% over the 99% that includes tens of millions who are struggling to survive. These self-proclaimed patriots are willing to wreck our country in order to defeat Barack Obama in 2012 elections. Our party and youth league are an active part of the great democratic mass that is standing against them. These so called patriots...