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Despite the support from mainstream political and pop culture figures, the ‘Occupy’ movement is quite nutty and, actually, quite dangerous. Origins and Philosophy Behind Occupy Movement Also check out the following videos to learn more about ”Collective Liberty” and other foundations of the Occupy Movement: Direct Democracy Democracy: mob rule? Why Occupy Wall Street - Explained

NASHVILLE, Tenn.- The heavy Tennessee Highway Patrol presence and curfew enforcement on Legislative Plaza came to a sudden and unexpected stop Saturday night, and by Sunday morning, Occupy Nashville protesters declared it a victory on The Hill. "At 4:30 in the morning, I walked around congratulating everybody that we took The Hill, said Clay Wright who proudly waved his Occupy Nashville flag on the steps of Legislative Plaza. "The people, the people own Legislative Plaza, and that's the way it needs to be recognized," said Wright. But a sign with a curfew enforcement states otherwise. Enforced since Thursday, it's put...

   THIS IS WHAT A MOB LOOKS LIKE October 5, 2011I am not the first to note the vast differences between the Wall Street protesters and the tea partiers. To name three: The tea partiers have jobs, showers and a point. No one knows what the Wall Street protesters want -- as is typical of mobs. They say they want Obama re-elected, but claim to hate "Wall Street." You know, the same Wall Street that gave its largest campaign donation in history to Obama, who, in turn, bailed out the banks and made Goldman Sachs the fourth branch of government....

Throughout our history Americans have used petitions to unite around issues they care about. We the People provides you with a new way to petition the federal government to take action on a range of issues. And if your petition attracts enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it is sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response. Learn More | Be the First to Know When We the People Launches Step #1 Create or Sign a Petition Anyone 13 or older can create or sign a petition on WhiteHouse.gov asking the Obama Administration to...

California could eventually award its presidential Electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. It's one of several election-related bills Governor Jerry Brown signed today. Right now, nearly every state awards its Electoral votes to whichever presidential candidate wins that particular state. California's 55 Electoral votes nearly always go to a Democrat these days, so candidates typically don't campaign here much. The National Popular Vote movement seeks to change that dynamic. With the governor's signature, California now joins eight other states that have pledged to award their Electoral votes to whoever gets the most votes nationwide. But...

Lawmakers have taken a step to make California more relevant in presidential politics, voting to give the state's electoral votes to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. The state Assembly passed AB459 on Thursday on a 43-18 vote, sending it to the state Senate. . . .

Just as every Christmas brings the same tired argument over nativity scenes, Christmas trees and Santa Claus, every election cycle brings forth a fresh attempt to ignore the Constitutional establishment of the Electoral College, and allow the city centers to run roughshod over rural Americans. The 2012 election is no different, but it does bring a fresh approach to the age old problem of a "popular vote" Presidential election... by having the state legislators pass a law, obligating their EC votes to the national popular vote winners. Under this scheme, state legislatures would pass legislation that would bind them to...

California is a population powerhouse that's home to 1 out of 8 American voters and a political ATM that pumps millions into presidential campaign coffers. But the state's solid-blue status and election rules make it "irrelevant" in the presidential sweepstakes every four years, state Assemblyman Jerry Hill says.Hill, a San Mateo Democrat, and Republican Assemblyman Brian Nestande of Palm Desert (Riverside County) want to change that. The legislators are part of a growing crowd of bipartisan backers of a nationwide campaign to elect presidents by popular vote. The drive has some powerhouse supporters, including Tom Golisano, the billionaire philanthropist and...

The capitol is being stormed, again.

BHUBANESHWAR, India (AP) -- Indian police detained two people after an angry mob of fired workers burned to death a senior executive of a steel factory, an official said Friday. After learning they were laid off, about a dozen workers attacked a vehicle carrying Radhey Shyam Roy as he was leaving the factory in eastern Orissa state on Thursday, dousing the Jeep with gasoline and setting it on fire, said police Superintendent Ajay Kumar Sarangi.

Madison -- A group of perhaps one hundred protesters has entered the previously restricted and quiet Capitol and is now chanting, “Our house, our house.”David Noyce of Madison said that he entered the building with the demonstrators after someone let them in and that a policeman flashed him a thumbs up as he entered. The protesters entered just as Gov. Scott Walker was about to start a news conference in a separate room of the building.

Madison - A Dane County judge ordered the doors of the Capitol opened Tuesday morning in the run-up to Gov. Scott Walker's budget speech.Dane County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Moeser signed a temporary restraining order Tuesday morning opening the statehouse - at least until a hearing is held on the issue, a step that could come within hours. Walker's Department of Administration had announced a plan earlier in the morning restricting access to the Capitol, which has been filled with demonstrators for two weeks.

How much longer can the Democratic Party, the mainstream media and other leftists successfully maintain the ruse that intolerance, hatred and the propensity for violence mainly come from the right in this country? The lie is getting old. The left's ideas continue to fail in the real world, and the majority of the people reject them, which is why their proponents so often disguise their true intentions. Partially because they can't prevail on a level playing field, they use whatever means they can to advance their agenda. One of those means is to pre-emptively strike their political opponents by falsely...

It's been called "undemocratic," "a relic," and worse. Every fifty years or so, a movement gets underway to eviscerate or eliminate it -- one of the creakiest compromises that emerged from our Constitutional Convention in 1788. I refer to the Electoral College -- that inelegant, less-than-perfect, but ultimately useful device by which we actually elect our presidents. Over the years, more than thirty constitutional amendments have been introduced in Congress to gut the college or eliminate it entirely. None have ever passed the legislature and been sent to the states for ratification. A few states have taken it upon...

(FORTUNE) -- Every journalist loves a peaceful protest-whether it makes news, shakes up a political season, or holds out the possibility of altering history. Then there are the ones that show up on your curb--literally. Last Sunday, on a peaceful, sun-crisp afternoon, our toddler finally napping upstairs, my front yard exploded with 500 screaming, placard-waving strangers on a mission to intimidate my neighbor, Greg Baer. Baer is deputy general counsel for corporate law at Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), a senior executive based in Washington, D.C. And that -- in the minds of the organizers at the politically influential...

Thirty-seven children have been killed in a stampede at a temple in India. The youngsters' bodies, together with those of 27 women, have been recovered by police in Kunda, Uttar Pradesh. A stampede broke out as thousands of people jostled each other to get free clothes and utensils being distributed during a religious ceremony. An under-construction gate collapsed on the crowd as people surged forward towards a local holy man, police said.

Venezuela announced a devaluation of its currency ranging from 17% to 50% depending on a complex formula to be determined by the government. The lowered purchasing power of the currency will make replacement of existing business inventories more expensive and effectively expropriates a portion of all fixed dollar assets, like savings accounts, annuities, bonds, and pensions. Following his announced devaluation of his nation’s currency, Venezuela President Hugo Chavez warned businesses that “any attempt to adjust prices to prevent losses from the devaluation are forbidden.” To help enforce his policy, Chavez asked citizens to “monitor businesses and take action to punish...

<p>IF YOU ENJOYED the election crisis of 2000, you’re going to love what Democrat leaders are cooking up for November.</p> <p>"George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party," charges Republican National Committee spokeswoman Christine Iverson. (2) Some might dismiss Miss Iverson's comment as hyberbole. However, Soros' massive soft-money contributions have indisputably given him power over Democrat strategy.</p>

The Web and the nets are agog with wonder today at the latest attempt at thought policing by a White House and a President that seems to be extraordinarily sensitive to even the appearance of criticism. The latest evidence of this is news that Linda Douglass, Mr. Obama's point person for communications on health care, and her video (posted on the WhiteHouse.gov website) urging all "concerned citizens" -- we assume she means those citizens who voted for Barack Obama -- to send her and the other party apparatchiks staffing what passes for the White House Communications Office these days so-called...

MARDELA SPRINGS, Md. - Repeated heckling and shouted interruptions - “Answer the question!’’ “We’re your employers!’’ “You don’t get it!’’ - overtook a town hall-style meeting in rural Maryland this week, as US Representative Frank M. Kratovil Jr. withstood a verbal beating from a partisan crowd airing its displeasure with the healthcare overhaul working its way through Congress. How to disrupt a town hall meetingThe freshman Democrat fielded question after question about rationing, euthanasia, and abortion, as two state troopers stood guard and Kratovil’s staffers looked on nervously. But at least Kratovil was not hung in effigy, as he had...

WASHINGTON -- The only thing worse than bankers making up accounting rules is members of Congress making them up. Repeating its blunder from the 1994 battle over stock options, the staid Financial Accounting Standards Board has buckled to political pressure demanding that it change accounting rules. The FASB voted Thursday to ease the interpretation of rules requiring banks and other big institutions to value their assets on a reasonable basis. The value of the banks' assets is a huge issue for the global economy right now, because banks are required to have a certain amount of cushion to back up...

Thoughtful Americans – people of common sense and good will – know exactly what is going on today in American Politics. Whether or not the proposed absurd, onerous tax penalties are eventually signed into law, we share the outrage you must feel for the utter hypocrisy, heavy handedness, and pure idiocy of our elected officials. There is nothing new about the concept of politicians identifying scapegoats to divert attention from their own ineptness, but they have now taken it to a preposterous level. These polished, practiced hypocrites, aided by the media, are staging a vicious charade aimed at stirring anger...

By Michelle Malkin  •  March 25, 2009 11:48 AM Have you seen this? It’s the handiwork of an “anti-capitalist vigilante group calling itself Bank Bosses Are Criminals.” The broken window is in the home of Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. His car was also vandalized. The thugs are threatening other targets: The ex-banker’s £3 million Edinburgh house was targeted in the early hours, with at least four ground-floor windows smashed and a black Mercedes vandalised. Police were called at around 4.15am to Morningside, a leafy suburb of the Scottish capital lined with substantial, stone-built...

US President Barack Obama mustered his powerful campaign army on Monday, calling on his millions of supporters to lobby on behalf of his budget and economic plan. The appeal to back the president was made in an email and video sent out by "Organizing for America," the organization which morphed out of Obama's campaign machinery to push his agenda when he entered the White House. In the video, Mitch Stewart, the director of Organizing for America, urged the president's supporters to take part in the "Organizing for America Pledge Project."

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has turned down another challenge to Barack Obama's eligibility to serve president because of his citizenship. The appeal by Cort Wrotnowski of Greenwich, Conn., was denied Monday without comment. Wrotnowski argued that Obama was a British subject at birth and therefore cannot meet the requirement for becoming president. He wanted the high court to halt presidential electors from meeting to formally elect Obama as president.

In his election-night victory speech, Barack Obama said he would be a president for all Americans, not just those who voted for him. But as a candidate he didn't campaign with equal vigor for every vote. Instead, he and John McCain devoted more than 98% of their television ad spending and campaign events to just 15 states which together make up about a third of the U.S. population. Today, as the Electoral College votes are cast and counted state-by-state, we will be reminded why. It is the peculiar mechanics of that institution, designed for a different age, that leave us...

A man wearing a McCain-Palin T-shirt during a Philadelphia celebration on election night was arrested, cuffed and stuffed into a police cruiser, and supporters said it was for no more than wearing the endorsement of the GOP nominees for president and vice-president. Although the man protested that he didn't want to cause any trouble, officers manhandled and arrested him, the video posted on YouTube shows.

Obama to take Internet army to Washington By Frank Greve McClatchy Newspapers Wednesday, November 05, 2008 WASHINGTON — A powerful new lobbying force is coming to town: Barack Obama’s triumphant army of 3.1 million Internet-linked donors and volunteers. In a mass e-mail thanking them, written moments before his Grant Park victory speech, Obama put them on notice. “We have a lot to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next,” he wrote.

The U.S. would no longer use the Electoral College to choose its presidents under a proposal introduced Friday by Florida's Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. Instead, presidents would be picked by popular vote, a method that would have given former Vice President Al Gore the White House after the contested 2000 election. "It's time for Congress to really give Americans the power of one person, one vote," Nelson said in a statement. But changing the system requires a constitutional amendment and a meat grinder of legislative tests. First, Congress must approve the idea, and then 38 state legislatures must ratify...

SAN ANGELO, Texas - A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch. The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children. Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators. The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not...

Greenwich, CT (AHN) - A controversial plan for a 54,000-square-foot mansion proposed by Russian mogul Valery Kogan was rejected by officials after receiving a flurry of complaints from neighbors saying the house would be too large. The permit was denied Tuesday by the Greenwich Planning and Zoning Commission, halting construction of what would have been the largest single-family residence since the city began reviews back in 2001. Reports revealed that in order to construct the mansion, Kogan and his wife Olga were planning on tearing down a 20,000-square-foot home currently erected on the area they purchased in 2005. Commissioners reportedly...

The Democratic Party is finding itself in a very strange position. They’re approaching a potential situation where neither of their candidates have enough elected delegates to secure the nomination, and the race will turn to the superdelegates to decide. Primary results can then be trumped by the say-so of the “party elites�. Thus, the party who complained that Al Gore “really won� the 2000 election due to the popular vote may nominate Hillary Clinton, who now looks unlikely to win the national Democrat popular vote or the elected delegate count. The schadenfreude of watching the Democratic Party put into a...

Many people with whom I talk about politics with are stunned by my constant assertions that America is not supposed to be a democracy. I credit public education for this. The fact is that most people are almost totally ignorant of history and completely brain-dead about the Constitution. Our Founding Fathers did not give us a democracy, nor did they intend to. They were very well-educated men (especially by today's standards), and they knew, historically, democracies had never worked, even on the small scales when they had been attempted. They knew if democracy wouldn't work on the small scale of...

In the heat of the electoral controversy — the worst possible time to make constitutional decisions — many people, such as Senator-elect Hillary Rodham Clinton, are calling for an end to the Electoral College. Big mistake. Someone once said, Don’t knock down a wall merely because you cannot immediately see what it’s good for. The same can be said for the Electoral College. We should keep in mind that the Founding Fathers were of somewhat better caliber than the politician you are likely to see on television, including those with presidential ambitions. The Electoral College was not an idea floating...

Abstract: "The Irony of Populism: The Republican Shift and the Inevitability of American Aristocracy" analyzes the shift in the role of the Supreme Court following the movement towards a democratic Senate which culminated in the Seventeenth Amendment. The Supreme Court's shift is presented as the inevitable result of the system of mixed government that underlies the constitutional order, which orders American Government into democratic, aristocratic, and monarchical parts. While in the original conception of the constitution the Senate was the aristocratic part, the Senate would become part of the democratic part with the Seventeenth Amendment and prior procedural changes. Into...

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA   DON ADAMS, ET AL.,     PLAINTIFFS        v.   TEAMSTERS LOCAL 115, ET AL.,     DEFENDANTS   CIVIL ACTIONNO. 99-CV-4910   JUDGMENT AND NOW, this 4th day of Sept., 2007, judgment is hereby rendered in favor of defendant Teamsters Local 115 and against plaintiffs Don Adams and Theresa Adams in the amount of $450.10.   William H. Yohn, Jr., Judge IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA   DON ADAMS, ET AL.,     PLAINTIFFS        v.   TEAMSTERS LOCAL 115, ET AL.,     DEFENDANTS   CIVIL ACTIONNO. 99-CV-4910  ...

A movement is sweeping the nation that could eliminate the Electoral College in national elections, and with it much of this country's republican form of government, instead giving unstoppable control over the White House to any coalition the major population centers would choose to create. Maryland's state legislature already has given approval to a proposal that would, in conjunction with other states' efforts, eliminate the college, and similar plans have already been approved by single legislative houses in Hawaii, Colorado and Arizona. In seven more states – Washington, Montana, California, New Mexico, Louisiana, West Virginia and Connecticut – the plans...

More than 4,000 clubbers danced through the rush hour at Victoria station in Britain's biggest flash mob stunt. Revellers responded to e-bulletins urging them to "dance like you've never danced before" at 6.53pm. Party time: the dancing starts at Victoria Station at 6.53pm There were knowing looks and giggles among the casually dressed crowd that gathered from 6.30pm, wearing earphones. A deafening 10-second countdown startled station staff and commuters before the concourse erupted in whoops and cheers. MP3 players and iPods emerged and the crowd danced wildly to their soundtracks in silence - for two hours. University of London student...

RCTV is under fire. The big television station, which has been broadcasting under license in Venezuela for 54 years, sort of the equivalent of FoxNews or CBS, officially loses its right to broadcast at the end of today. But that wasn't all that happened. Like furies, red tshirted Chavista mobs gathered and bayed liked wolves in the days leading up to this end of an era, graffiting and spray-painting the TV station with words like 'expropriacion' along with filthy slogans that if you know Spanish, you can see the equivalent of 'f word' among, racism charges, campesino movement slogans, anti-Vatican...

America's college campuses, once thought to be bastions of free speech, have become increasingly intolerant toward the practice. Visiting speakers whose views do not conform to the prevailing left-leaning political mind-set on most campuses are at particular risk of having their free speech rights infringed upon. While academia has its own crimes to atone for, it's the students who have become the bullies as of late. A disturbing number seem to feel that theirs is an inviolate world to which no one of differing opinion need apply. As a result, everything from pie throwing to disrupting speeches to attacks on...

Mexico leftist to swear in as "legitimate president" By Kieran Murray Mon Nov 20, 1:19 PM ET MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's leftist opposition leader was to swear in as "legitimate president" on Monday to revive his flagging campaign against a July election he says was rigged and to prevent his conservative rival from running the country. Tens of thousands of supporters were expected to cram into Mexico City's vast Zocalo square to see Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador take an oath of office in a ceremony that has no legal weight but could mark the start of new street protests....

Immigration activists plan to mass in front of the Capitol today, renewing their appeal for legislative reform as Congress reconvenes after a recess in which many members experienced a backlash against illegal immigration back home. The turnout at today's rally may provide a barometer of the vitality of the immigrant rights movement, which sent millions to the streets this spring but has generated less public attention in recent months. Local organizers said they expect hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from the East Coast, but protests this week in Phoenix and Chicago drew disappointing crowds. (snip) Immigrant activists are seeking legal...

A violent fight between clans in Khan Yunis in central Gaza on Saturday erupted into an all-out battle in which an officer of the Palestinian Authority (PA)'s new elite army was killed, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Five children and 24 others were injured in the fracas, which broke out Saturday night between two clans. The newly-created Interior Ministry Executive Force, made up of terrorists from various organizations, tried to break up the fight and was drawn into an armed battle.

In the 1980s, the historian and social critic Christopher Lasch pronounced dead the conventional political categories of right and left and argued for a revitalization of politics through a redefinition of terms. "The idea of a 'left' has outlived its historical time and needs to be decently buried, along with the false conservatism that merely clothes an older liberal tradition in conservative rhetoric."

More than 50,000 people attended the funeral Saturday of a Pakistani student who died while under arrest in Germany for allegedly planning to attack a newspaper that published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. About three dozen people were injured in a stampede when crowds tried to enter the family's home in the Pakistani village of Saroki to see Amer Cheema's face, police and witnesses said. Mourners chanted "God is great!" and "We are slaves of Prophet Muhammad!" Some congratulated Cheema's father, kissing his hand and calling his son a martyr. German police say Cheema, 28, hanged himself in his Berlin...

Politics has a math of its own. Whereas a scientifically minded person might see things this way: One person who says 2+2=5 is an idiot; two people who think 2+2=5 are two idiots; and a million people who think 2+2=5 are a whole lot of idiots—political math works differently. Let’s work backwards: if a million people think 2+2=5, then they are not a million idiots, but a “constituency.” If they are growing in number, they are also a “movement.” And, if you were not only the first person to proclaim 2+2=5, but you were the first to persuade others, then...

THE TRESPASSERS ARE STAGING ANOTHER BOYCOTT

With so much attention paid to Nepal and its ongoing political struggle, it is worth considering who are the self-appointed agents of change. It is also worth noting that while King Gyanendra is somewhat incompetent and assumed extraordinary powers by dissolving the parliament, he was more of a bumbler than a despot. His overreach probably did less direct harm to his subjects than the unrest that has unfolded over the past weeks that has victimized many thousands of Nepali citizens. It turns out that the interests of small business owners and workers that live from hand-to-mouth are being trampled on....

PARIS - President Jacques Chirac on Monday scrapped a controversial part of a youth labor law that triggered massive protests and strikes, bowing to intense pressure from students and unions and dealing a blow to his loyal premier in a bid to end the crisis. Unions celebrated what they called "a great victory," and also were deciding whether to keep up the protests. The top two student union UNEF and FIDL said they would press on with demonstrations Tuesday across France. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who devised the law, had faced down protesters for weeks, insisting that its most...

Viva La Razzle-Dazzle Another Two Cents on Immigration and Labor By David J. Aland 31 March 2006 Every backyard quarterback knows how to do it. “Magicians” – from the most rudimentary prestidigitators to the nationally-televised are experts at it. In the blockbuster musical “Chicago”, it is touted as the most powerful of the attorney’s tools. The art of Razzle-Dazzle is essentially an unsophisticated form of triangulation aimed at distracting an unsophisticated audience from what is really happening. For the last week, the debate over immigration has been little more than that. Immigration challenges every country where the potential for prosperity...