The Right twittersphere has been buzzing for the past week about planned ambushes of CPAC 2012, the annual gathering of conservatives in D.C., by the Occupier mob. The conference kicks off today and every major Republican speaker has a giant target on his/her back — because every fame-seeker, troll, Michael Moore wannabe, and glitter-bomber will be looking to claim their 15 minutes of infamy.

Lachlan Markay at Heritage reported on the saboteurs’ schemes earlier this week:

During a Thursday meeting at McPherson Square, until Saturday the epicenter of the protests, Occupiers brainstormed tactics for shutting down or disrupting the conference, according to a source who was present at the meeting.

The protesters suggested pulling fire alarms in the hotel where the conference will take place, screaming “fire” during conference activities, “glitter-bombing” participants, cutting electrical power, and barricading entrances to the hotel, according to the source, who requested anonymity.

“Speakers will be physically assaulted, not just verbally confronted,” the source told Scribe in an email. Two Occupiers, who the source also identified as members of the New Black Panther Party, “said they would be disappointed if they didn’t get arrested and planned to ‘make it count.’”

The source quoted another protester as saying, “Mitt [Romney] has Secret Service now, but [Newt] Gingrich and [Andrew] Breitbart don’t,” seemingly suggesting that the latter two would not be as heavily guarded.

Protesters planned to conduct most of these activities on Saturday, the last day of the conference, so as not to overlap with the recently announced protests by labor groups on Thursday and Friday.

Labor Union Report has details of the Big Labor goons’ plans:

According to the AFL-CIO’s Washington DC Metro Council website, “Actions are currently being planned for noontime andafter work on Friday, February 10.”

Apparently, the unions plans to attempt to disrupt the conference with rats, puppets, and more:

WE’VE HEARD ENOUGH FROM THE 1%! Join the rally featuring tents, an inflatable fat cat, puppets, “candidate Walmart,” and more to LET THE VOICES OF THE 99% BE HEARD!

There is also a Facebook page for Occupy CPAC, posted by Change to Win staffer, Trina Tocco. It is important to note that Change to Win is the SEIU-led federation that broke away from the AFL-CIO in 2005—which means both union federations are involved in planning the attacks on CPAC.

Alas, for a mountain of family obligations and other reasons, I won’t be at CPAC this year. But I’ve been there and done that with the ambushers. And my advice is simple:

Mockery is the best medicine.

If they bring the glitter, you bring the silly string.

When they scream and spit, spray Lysol.

When they make a mess, bar the door and don’t let them leave ’til they clean it up.

Then soldier on!

***

Flashback: The conservative bloggers who attended BlogCon in Denver earlier this year ably dispatched the Occupier mob with hilarious wit and political jujitsu.

***

Commenter squeaker1: A “Super-Soaker” filled with lightly perfumed water would work well on smelly protesters.

This was attached to the end of a nauseating Boston Globe article celebrating the amorous relations between Occupy protesters:

Editor’s note: This story about relationships that began during Occupy Boston featured a man, Robert Stitham, who is a registered sex offender, according to state records. Had his status been discovered during reporting, the story would not have been published.

Oops.

The Boston Herald called out the Globe for its lazy vetting:

Looks like somebody forgot to Google.

The Monday Boston Globe featured a photo on the front page of its Metro section of a lip-locked couple who “found romance” at Occupy Boston.

“Holding hands outside the food tent before the encampment disbanded,” read the accompanying story, “they were the archetype of an Occupy couple: he, a red-headed Mainer with tattoos on his arms; she, a petite upstate New York girl with a heart-shaped face and a boyish haircut, wearing a knit grandmother sweater three sizes too big.”

Good details — but the story failed to mention one big one: Robert “Red” Stitham, the 25 year-old beau whose relationship with Anya Karasik, 18, is the focus of the piece, is a Level 3 sex offender.

A quick Google search of his name turns up his sex offender notification — complete with his photo — on the website of the police department in Plymouth, where Stitham grew up. A search on the state Sex Offender Registry Board website shows Stitham now lives in a homeless shelter in Boston.

“The Board has determined that these individuals have a high risk to re-offend and that the degree of dangerousness posed to the public is such that a substantial public safety interest is served by active community notification,” the registry site reads.

In 2007, a Barnstable County jury convicted Stitham of two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14, and he was sentenced to 18 months with time served, court records state.

Bias? What bias? Congrats, Boston Globe. You get the Honorary Fishwrap of Record Award.

They just couldn’t help themselves.

This weekend’s one-year anniversary of the Tucson massacre passed quietly and respectfully.

And then femme-a-gogue Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz had to open her big mouth:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., speaking in New Hampshire this morning, reminded her audience of the tragic Tucson shooting last year — and also insinuated that the Tea Party, which she said regards political opponents as “the enemy,” has enhanced divisiveness in Congress and had something to do with the shooting, at least indirectly.

“We need to make sure that we tone things down, particularly in light of the Tucson tragedy from a year ago, where my very good friend, Gabby Giffords — who is doing really well, by the way, — [was shot],” Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Committee chair said during a “Politics and Eggs” forum this morning. “The discourse in America, the discourse in Congress in particular . . . has really changed, I’ll tell you. I hesitate to place blame, but I have noticed it take a very precipitous turn towards edginess and lack of civility with the growth of the Tea Party movement.”

How dare her. How dare her.

After a year of unhinged Tea Party-bashing and false accusations from New Tone Democrats, the DNC and DWS have done nothing to tone down their own poisonous, hypocritical vitriol.

“Tone things down?” Practice what you preach, trash mouth.

***

Previous:

“Civility Watch” post archive.

“New Tone” post archive.

“Civility police” post archive.

Alternate headline: Romney campaign to unveil breakthrough memory erasing technology:

Mitt Romney said today he’s “the ideal candidate” for the Tea Party movement because his stance on issues lines up “pretty darn well” with the movement he says will soon realize that GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich isn’t their best option for president.

“I recognize that the speaker has a big lead here,” Romney said of Gingrich in a press conference in South Carolina. “But I think as people take a closer and closer look, they’ll recognize that I reflect more effectively the positions which they hold on key issues.

Um, okay. Everybody has a different definition of “ideal,” I suppose.

Romney was probably basing that on having recently received S.C. Governor Nikki Haley’s endorsement, but the Tea Partiers I know are saying that’s not proof Romney has climbed aboard the Tea Party platform, but rather evidence Haley has stepped off it — maybe because she feels that’s what it will take to move onward and upward at some point.

Update: The Des Moines Register announced their endorsement Saturday evening:

In backing Romney, the paper’s editorial board praised the candidate’s “sobriety, wisdom and judgment” and said he offers the best qualities and experience of anyone in the Republican field.

“He stands out especially among candidates now in the top tier,” the paper said of Romney in an endorsement published online Saturday. “Newt Gingrich is an undisciplined partisan who would alienate, not unite, if he reverts to mean-spirited attacks on display as House speaker. Ron Paul’s libertarian ideology would lead to economic chaos and isolationism, neither of which this nation can afford.”

Romney, the paper wrote, has an “ability to see the merits of tough issues from something other than a knee-jerk ideological perspective” suggesting Romney “would be willing to bridge the political divide in Washington.”

“His record of ignoring partisan labels to pass important legislation when he was governor of Massachusetts suggests he is capable to making that happen,” the Register wrote.

The Register endorsed John McCain before the 2008 caucuses.

Also… the Sunday print edition of the Register will contain this Romney endorsement from Bob Dole (h/t Dan Riehl via Twitter).

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

On December 16, 1773, the taxpayers of Boston had had enough.

The Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum website recounts the story:

On the cold evening of December 16, 1773, a large band of patriots, disguised as Mohawk Indians, burst from the South Meeting House with the spirit of freedom burning in their eyes. The patriots headed towards Griffin’s Wharf and the three ships. Quickly, quietly, and in an orderly manner, the Sons of Liberty boarded each of the tea ships. Once on board, the patriots went to work striking the chests with axes and hatchets. Thousands of spectators watched in silence. Only the sounds of ax blades splitting wood rang out from Boston Harbor. Once the crates were open, the patriots dumped the tea into the sea.

The silence was broken only by the cry of “East Indian” as patriots caught Charles O’Conner filling the lining of his coat with tea. George Hewes removed O’Connor’s coat, threatened him with death if he revealed the identity of any man present, and sent him scurrying out of town. The patriots worked feverishly, fearing an attack by Admiral Montague at any moment. By nine o’clock p.m., the Sons of Liberty had emptied a total of 342 crates of tea into Boston Harbor. Fearing any connection to their treasonous deed, the patriots took off their shoes and shook them overboard. They swept the ships’ decks, and made each ship’s first mate attest that only the tea was damaged.

When all was through, Lendall Pitts led the patriots from the wharf, tomahawks and axes resting on their shoulders. A fife played as they marched past the home where British Admiral Montague had been spying on their work. Montague yelled as they past, “Well boys, you have had a fine, pleasant evening for your Indian caper, haven’t you? But mind, you have got to pay the fiddler yet!”

Montague’s words were to be an omen for the patriots. The party was indeed over for Boston.

Meanwhile, over on Capitol Hill today: GOP leaders: Pipeline stays in payroll tax bill

And last night, another Band-Aid, stop-gap government spending bill passed.

$1 TRILLION for 9 months.

What would the original Tea Partiers think and do?

***

In the spirit of the original Tea Party movement circa 1773 and circa 2009, Gateway Grassroots Initiative has launched — advancing limited government principles through targeted, locally-based action.

Go here for more information. It’s a terrific model for grass-roots conservative activism.

More: The Tea is Brewed: GGI.

The DNC must know it’s a ridiculous claim, but they’ve got their reasons:

Who worries the Democratic National Committee after Saturday night’s Republican debate?

For months, the committee has been training all of its rhetorical fire on Mitt Romney, sending out hundreds of e-mails and producing dozens of anti-Romney videos.

But at 1:41 a.m on Sunday, the Democrats sent out a quickly produced Web video accusing Newt Gingrich of being the “original Tea Partier.”

Here’s the ad:

There’s “wither on the vine” once more. It’s 1995 all over again.

That ad would work best only if Gingrich were running in the primaries as a Democrat.

If the Dems really wanted to bring down Gingrich’s standing among GOP voters, all they’d have to do is show this ad over and over again. They must have another motive for tying him to the Tea Party. What could that be?

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

NBC’s Law & Order franchise has had some fun taking swipes at the right — from the Tea Party to conservative talkers — but an upcoming episode of Law & Order SVU was set to revolve around the Occupy Wall Street protests.

It’s unlikely that the script calls for OWS to be cast in a negative light, but we may never know. As it turns out, Law & Order SUV’s “Occupy” set was… occupied:

More than 100 Occupy Wall Street demonstrators stormed the set for “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” across from the Manhattan State Supreme Courthouse, shutting down production of an OWS-themed episode.

“We made it so that they could not exploit us and that’s awesome,” said Tammy Schapiro, 29, of Brooklyn.

The protesters arrived around midnight at Foley Square and roamed around the park inspecting tents and signs built by the production company.

“This is not us,” said Drew Hornbein, 24, of Brooklyn Heights. “We are not part of corporate TV America.”
[...]
After midnight, a police officer on a bullhorn announced that the film permit had been rescinded by the city, which drew cheers from the crowd.

The empathetic upper one-percent’s Hollywood dramatization of the Revolution will not be televised.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

If you have kids (or remember from your own grade-school days), Scholastic puts out news bulletins that get sent home weekly or monthly.

One of those items is Scholastic News, which bills itself as “America’s Leading News Source for kids.”

Reader Edward has a daughter in fourth grade who brought home the December issue of Scholastic News — and he wasn’t too happy when he saw the publication’s coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Read for yourself (click for full-size):

The news bulletin also included some quiz questions about OWS:

Talk about a whitewash. The Scholastic writers have great futures ahead as MSM writers.

Reader Edward wrote to Scholastic:

I grew up in Soviet Union and seeing your propaganda about Occupy Wall Street brings back my memories.

I’m neither Republican or Democrat but I would rather see my kids hear about both sides.

Scholastic responded:

Thank you for contacting Scholastic Book Clubs. I am happy to forward on your concern about providing both Democrat and Republican views. I apologize for any inconvenience you may have encountered while trying to offer different views for your children.

We truly appreciate your support of Scholastic Book Clubs.

Perhaps the next edition can provide kids with a full accounting of the Occupy-related illnesses, vandalism, rapes, deaths, and other criminal violations — and a related pop quiz on John Nolte’s Occupy arrest rap sheet.

The kids deserve the whole truth. The teachers unions’ Alinsky brigade won’t give it to them.

***

Mermaz tips me to this rather unbalanced piece on the Tea Party published by Scholastic last fall. Compare and contrast:

The Tea Party movement was founded in 2009 to advocate smaller government, lower taxes, and a smaller national debt. According to a CBS News poll, 18 per cent of Americans identify themselves as Tea Party supporters.

“The Tea Parties are filled with people who are average citizens,” Ross told the Scholastic Kids Press Corps. “We are the heart and soul of what the American spirit is.”

U.S. Senator Dan Inouye of Hawaii disagrees.

“I think they’re good Americans, but they go to the extreme,” he said. “They’re not covering the soul of America.”

Inouye is a former veteran and spoke to the Scholastic Kids Press Corps at a rally where the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) endorsed Senator Barbara Boxer for U.S. Senate in California.

…In Nevada, Sharron Angle, a Tea Party-backed Republican candidate, has become a real threat to U.S. Senator Harry Reid, who currently serves as the Senate Majority Leader. Reid called out the big guns to go up against his opponent. Former President Bill Clinton was recently in Nevada campaigning for him and warning voters against casting their ballots in anger.

“If any time in your life you make an important decision when you’re mad, there’s an 80 per cent chance you’re going to make a mistake,” Clinton said at a rally for Reid. “I don’t want people to abandon their anger. I want them to channel it so they can think clearly.”

***

A reader reminds me this isn’t the first time Scholastic has gone moonbatty:

Not the first time that Scholastic has whitewashed or succumbed to radical environmentalist (TreeHugger and Sierra Club) and liberal (Mother Jones, New York Times, Rethinking Schools, Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood) pressure. Earlier in the year they succeeded in shaking down Scholastic and won another liberal propaganda campaign that seeks to dictate average Americans’ lives down to the kindergarten level simply because a curriculum was not up to the standards of the environmental Left.

Of course now, Scholastic simply wants to focus on promoting environmental awareness child activism based on the book The Down-to-Earth-Guide to Global Warming, which was written by Al Gore’s co-producer of ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, Laurie David.

Background here and here.

***

Related today: Occupying the Classroom: NYU to Offer Class in Occupy Wall Street

***
Previous:

“Educate, collaborate, AGITATE!”: Alinsky’s teacher corps
Flashback: Bill Ayers declares education “the motor-force of revolution”
Obama’s classroom campaign: No junior lobbyist left behind
Brainwashed in New Rochelle
Obama and Ayers Pushed Radicalism On Schools
A public school field trip…to the local illegal alien day labor center
First graders take school field trip…to teacher’s gay wedding
Roses are red. Bees are swarming. We’re all going to DIE from global warming!
Anti-war educators exploit The Children in the name of peace
The 3 R’s in the Age of Obama: Rappin’, revolution & radicalism
Get Schooled: Nickelodeon & friends want your kids to “change the system”
Nickelodeon goes moonbatty
Nickelodeon is at it again

Longtime readers know I have always identified as a CONSERVATIVE first, not a Republican. I have never identified myself as a GOP strategist or GOP operative or GOP anything throughout my writing career, which is what I was trying to say here in the exchange with Gretchen Carlson.

Some partisan GOP viewers seem to want Karl Rove/Newt Gingrich-style rah-rah Republicanism 24/7.

Never been what my work has been about, as you know, friends.

***

If you’re just visiting for the first time, click here for the GOP 2012 Hold Your Nose plugs and an overview of Newt and the rest of the GOP field’s warts and all.

Truth in campaign advertising.

Photoshop: Reader Jimmy D.

There’s a curious little article in the New York Times about the contretemps I blogged yesterday over FreedomWorks’ Tea Party Debt Commission. The group was scheduled to discuss its report and findings at a meeting with Utah GOP Sen. Mike Lee at 2pm Eastern. At the last minute, someone pulled the plug.

Who and why? The Fishwrap of Record’s Kate Zernike scoffed at the idea that Democrats were trying to suppress the grass roots activists’ voices:

A self-styled Tea Party debt commission was foiled Thursday in its effort to hold a Senate hearing on its proposals to reduce the deficit.

The 12-member commission, which was appointed by the libertarian group FreedomWorks, has been holding hearings across the country over the last several months. It had arranged for several Tea Party-aligned Republicans, including Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah, to convene what they called a “hearing” Thursday afternoon in the Russell Office Building, one of the three Senate buildings across the street from the Capitol. There it planned to present its final recommendations in which it declares, against the argument of many Republicans and Democrats alike, that Congress can erase the national debt and reduce spending at the same time it preserves the Bush-era tax cuts.

But the Capitol police shut down the room where they planned to meet, after a suspicious package was found in the office of Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama.

Tea Party activists who arrived at Hearing Room 325 in the Russell building at 2 p.m. discovered Capitol police there, removing microphones and locking the room.

FreedomWorks staff members had been celebrating it as something of a coup that they were holding their “hearing” at the same time as a meeting of the joint Congressional committee charged with cutting $1.2 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 years. “Dueling debt committees,” they crowed in a press release earlier in the week.

Evicted from the Russell Building, they saw suspicious motives – big government strikes again! — and issued another press release declaring the shutdown “outrageous.”

After snarking about the press release, Zernike peddled the claim, via the Capitol Police, that “no foul was intended” and that the evacuation was done as “a security and life-safety measure” because of the suspicious package in Sen. Sessions’ office.

The problem with that is the package was reported at 1:30pm Eastern and then the area was deemed safe and cleared just a little after 2pm Eastern, according to Capitol Hill e-mails. From the Capitol Hill police:

The US Capitol Police has concluded its investigation of the suspicious package in Room 326 of the Russell Senate Office Building. All tests are negative and the area is now open.

Message sent from USCP Command Center – DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS MESSAGE
11/17/2011,14:08:40

E-mails from Democratic staffers to Sen. Lee’s office make clear exactly why the citizens’ tax/budget reform meeting was shut down:

Lynden C. Armstrong
Chief Clerk
U.S. Senate Committee on Rules and Administration
305 Russell Senate Office Building
(202) 224-7078
(202) 224-1912 Fax
lynden_armstrong@rules.senate.gov

Here’s the video again of Armstrong and Sen. Lee (with captions):

Funny thing is, members of Congress have been able to convene politicized “hearings” in government buildings for years. On the House side, Democrat Rep. John Conyers’ “basement hearings” on everything from impeachment to illegal immigration are legend.

On the Senate side, such non-official, non-hearing “hearings” are plentiful:

Here’s an announcement of a Republican Senate policy forum held by former Utah GOP Sen. Bob Bennett (the entrenched incumbent that Sen. Lee beat, as it happens) on climate chance and nuclear energy.

Vid:

And here’s a transcript of another non-hearing hearing involving Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer (yeah, the guy responsible for shutting down the Tea Party debt panel) on the Valerie Plame affair.

The Times, however, preferred to use the unceremonious booting of the Tea Party group from a taxpayer-funded building to mock limited government activists — and take a swipe at Hillsdale College, to boot — while covering for unrepentant Tea Party-basher Chuck Schumer and Democratic staff off the hook.

And now you know, as the late Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.

***

Update: Hold up. There’s more from Ben Howe at RedState…Was the Tea Party Kicked Out of the Capitol By Former Bennett Staffers Mad at Mike Lee?

Takeaway:

Man, isn’t it amazing how the world just works to Senator Schumer’s benefit, even when he has no idea it’s going on?

So the only logical conclusions you can come to is that a) The staffers are lying or b) Chuck Schumer is lying.

My gut tells me the answer is c) all of the above.

FreedomWorks explains:

Senate Rules Committee staff on Thursday removed microphones and locked the doors of a hearing room in the Russell Senate Office Building where an informal hearing was scheduled to review the findings of the Tea Party Debt Commission, a months-long crowd-sourced effort to develop a budget proposal that balances the budget, reduces the debt and gets America’s fiscal house back in order

Sen. Lee is leading the tea party members to the Hillsdale College Kirby Center (227 Massachusetts Ave., NE Washington, D.C. 20002), where the meeting will continue.

You can download the PDF of the volunteer panel’s report here.

Intro:

[W]e offer a bold — but, we believe, feasible — plan that:

Suspends pension contributions and COLAs for Members of Congress, whenever the budget is in deficit.In short, the Tea Party Budget enables us to end chronic deficits and pay down debt, while moving us back toward the kind of limited, constitutional government intended by our Founding Fathers. And it does all this without raising taxes. In fact, we make the so-called Bush tax cuts, and other expiring tax relief provisions, permanent. With these reforms, we can unburden the productive sector and get back to robust economic growth and rising living standards for all. With this plan, everyone benefits.

More:

“This is not your father’s debt proposal,” commented Dean Clancy. “This is the only existing debt reduction proposal generated over just four months using cutting edge crowd-sourcing technology, and that cuts $9.7 trillion without raising taxes. While the super-committee is struggling to write a single proposal behind closed doors, we are here today to present a bold but practical plan supported by a coalition of hundreds of thousands of grassroots activists from across the country.”

…Among the members attending were RSC Chairman Jim Jordan (OH-4), Senator Mike Lee (UT), Senator Rand Paul (KY), Congressman Jeff Flake (AZ-6), Congressman Paul Broun (GA-10), Congressman Joe Walsh (IL-8), Congressman Michael Burgess (TX-26), Congressman Steve King (IA-5), Congressman Mick Mulvaney (SC-5) and Congressman Raul Labrador (ID-1).

Live feed of the hearing here.

Authorities say a Utah man has been arrested after throwing a Molotov cocktail at a Wells Fargo branch.

Police responded early Thursday morning in West Jordan, about 15 miles south of Salt Lake City. A bank window was cracked, but authorities say the device didn’t explode.

…The threat comes on the same day Occupy protesters are marking the two-month anniversary of the movement. It wasn’t immediately clear if the Utah bomb was connected to the national protest.

If this had happened during the Tax Day Tea Party…

Hat tip – William Amos…

As the nationwide Rage-fest gets underway tomorrow to mark the two-month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement and its devolution into a lice-infested, criminal-attracting, craptacular Molotov cocktail party, where, oh where, are the civility police? The speech monitors? The White House?

Just a few weeks ago, the president’s staff rushed to the side of the Occupiers.

Now? Not so much. I noted tonight at the end of my segment on the Hannity show that silence = complicity.

Maxine Waters shrugs at dead bodies and rapes and child molesters infesting the Occupier camps: “[T]hat’s life and it happens.”

The nutball who threatened to bomb Macy’s with Molotov cocktails has been arrested, by the way.

Spin from Occupier apologists: All those troublesome violent agitators are just “infiltrators.”

Comment from White House flacks? Bueller? Bueller?

Here’s some lowdown on the “#N17″ festivities. Banks will be targeted again. NYC thugs will aim to shut down Wall Street for real. D.C. hoodlums plan to shut down traffic. Other Occupiers will shut down bridges.

You can monitor Occupier livestreams here or here.

Conservative Daily News is holding an alternative “National Day of Doing Crap That Matters.”

How sympathetic describe the planned chaos: “a combination of envelope-pushing direct actions and mass demonstrations.”

Update: 1:00am Eastern Police have moved in on Occupy Dallas, shutting it down citing violations of a city curfew for city parks between midnight and 5am. Interesting timing now given that city cut a deal with the occupiers and tolerated the rule-breaking for nearly two months…

***

Flashback:

If this tragedy prompts reflection and debate, as it should, let’s make sure it’s worthy of those we have lost. Let’s make sure it’s not on the usual plane of politics and point scoring and pettiness that drifts away with the next news cycle.

I want us to live up to her expectations. I want our democracy to be as good as she imagined it. All of us – we should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children’s expectations.

***

Update: Rise and whine, Occupiers! A large mob has descended on Wall Street, blocking traffic, stopping work. Here’s a livestream.

Only thing discernible: Mass cries of “F**K THE NYPD!”

9:30am Eastern: NYSE opens without delay.

Epic Occupier Fail.

Bankers taunt Occupiers: “Get a job.”

It has nothing to do with anything Gloria Allred has her hands in.

It’s his continued lack of preparedness on, and familiarity with, basic domestic and foreign policy issues. Sorry, Cain fans. Tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. But like Rick Perry, Herman Cain is just not ready for prime time. The real Cain scandal: He can barely form a coherent thought on Libya when put on the spot and garbles collective bargaining 101 facts.

This Milwaukee Sentinel Journal editorial board session — all on video, in all its prolonged cringe-worthiness — sums up the problem with the Cain Train. The paper’s recap:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Monday that he believes public employees should be allowed to bargain collectively on wages and other benefits as long as it does not create an undue burden on taxpayers.

In Wisconsin Monday for two fundraisers, including a tailgate fundraiser at tonight’s Packers game at Lambeau Field, Cain met for a half-hour with Journal Sentinel reporters and editors. In the meeting Cain:

* Struggled to collect his thoughts and explain how his approach to the crisis in Libya would have differed from the actions taken by President Barack Obama.

…On the issue of collective bargaining, Cain said he supported the right of public employees to bargain collectively.

“But not collective hijacking. What I mean by that, if they have gotten so much for so many years and it’s going to bankrupt the state, I don’t think that’s good. It appears that in some instances, they really don’t care.”

Asked about last week’s vote in Ohio, in which the state’s new collective bargaining law was rejected by voters, Cain said that “maybe they tried to get too much and as a result it failed.”

Asked if the Ohio Legislature had gone too far in stripping collective bargaining rights for public employees, including fire and police personnel, Cain said that Ohio legislators “may have tried to get too much in one bill.”

Ohio’s collective bargaining law differed from Wisconsin in at least one key aspect: Wisconsin exempted police and fire personnel from the law.

In an interview with the Journal Sentinel last month, Cain said that he was “right in the corner of Gov. Scott Walker 100%” in Walker’s battle with public employee unions.

Cain also appeared to be unclear on the issue of collective bargaining as it involves federal employees. Asked if he thought federal employees should have the ability to bargain collectively, Cain said: “They already have it, don’t they?”

Told they didn’t, he said, “They have unions.”

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 600,000 federal government workers in 65 agencies, says that most federal employees don’t have collective bargaining over pay and benefits.

Watch for yourselves. Take anti-depressants or a stiff drink first:

On Libya (listen for the part where he excuses his hemming and hawing by explaining that he has “a lot of stuff twirling around in his head”)…

And on collective bargaining…

Cain makes Rick Perry look like a Mensa president.

Where are my nose plugs?

Awwwwwwww yeah.

Michael Moore isn’t the only one cashing in on the increasingly violent, deadly Occupy Wall Street Movement.

He’s selling books. Rappyer Jay Z’s hawking t-shirts.

And he’s got no plans to redistribute the wealth:

Jay-Z is releasing a new line of T-shirts in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement Friday via his Rocawear clothing label, but he doesn’t plan to share any of the profits with the protesters.
our editor recommends

The rapper was recently seen wearing one of the shirts, which tweaks the phrase “Occupy Wall Street” by crossing out the “W” and adding an “S” to make it read “Occupy All Streets.”
The protests, which started Sept. 17 in New York, have since spread to Los Angeles and other cities as demonstrators protest corporate greed and corruption.

The Business Insider noted the “irony” in that Jay-Z has no intention to distribute any of the proceeds to protestors.

Jay-Z has the support of fellow 1 percenter-posing-as-99 percenter Russell Simmons.

$22 a pop. Come on, cough it up, progs.

Occupy Jay-Z’s Wallet!

Money Ain’t a Thang…

***

Update: Backlash plus mockery equals no more Jay-Z #OWS swag.

Downtwinkles!