Previously: Occupy Kansas City: rally and march from Ilus Davis Park (October 30, 2011)

The one percent should probably start worrying.

“…Um, well, we were speaking on the, the ninety-nine, uh, on, on that analogy, or maybe not analogy, but on that demographic, if you will, and, um, it kind of puts in my mind that we all, we’re united whether we realize it or not. We’re all in the same boat together. We’re all living in this world and we’re all trying to make the best of it. And I feel that, uh, you know, the more that we get together and try to understand together that we, you know, we could, we could make something of it, you know…”

If the rest of the ninety-nine percent start thinking the same way…

Occupy Kansas City held a rally and march from Ilus Davis Park in downtown Kansas City on Sunday afternoon.

“It’s Not Only Our Right To Protest The Corruption, It’s Our Obligation”

Show Me Progress: What did you think of the day?

Ron McLinden: You know, it was interesting. I, I thought there might be a bigger turnout. But, my guess is that were probably about three hundred people and, and that’s a good turnout. Uh, the march, I was, uh, surprised to learn that City Hall had okayed it but the police had said no, at least that we couldn’t march in the streets. And, uh, we marched in the streets anyway and the police followed along with us for about four blocks and then just left us alone.

Show Me Progress: Uh, uh, what do you think today’s event accomplished?

Ron McLinden: You know, what does anything, what does anyone accomplish? I don’t know.  Well, there, there certainly was a media presence there and maybe part of the accomplishment will be whatever they choose to put on the air this evening. Uh, I think there was a good, um, a good spirit of coming together from people from a lot of different perspectives. Uh, maybe still not as many minority faces as the group would like, but, uh, you know, that, that will come along. Um, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s hard to know, there’s so many issues involved in this Occupy movement.

Show Me Progress: But hasn’t the, the dialogue, you know, the dialogue has changed since the Occupy movement has started.

Ron McLinden: And somebody retweeted an article just yesterday, I think, some, something on a national blog or in the press that tracks the, the occurrence of words in, in, uh, cable and other news media. And over the past few weeks it has gone from the word debt being the dominant word to the words Wall Street and occupy being dominant words. So, the, the movement has finally gotten the attention of the mainstream media. Uh, to what extent it has gotten the attention of the people that, that, uh, have offices in the capitol building in Washington and the people who are making the decisions in the, in the corporate board rooms, I, I don’t know yet.

[….]

Um, I think this movement has gotten some criticism for not having a focus and from my perspective that’s okay. I interpret the movement as evidence that there is widespread dissatisfaction among the American people, American people of all stripes, all political stripes, all races and creeds and, and socioeconomic status, that the country is headed in the wrong direction. I think there have been national, there are national polls that track that and the, the percent of the American people that believe we’re headed in the wrong direction is, has been trending upward I think.

So, the fact that, uh, people are coming together, albeit in a pretty disorganized factor, fashion, uh, is a good thing and we can only hope that, uh, some positive change will come out of it.

Show Me Progress: So, could you tell me why you’re here today?

Jim White: I’m here to show solidarity with the…ninety-nine percent that are being abused by the one percent. And just to demonstrate by personal presence support of that.

Show Me Progress: So, so what specifically, um, are some of the issues that, that concern you about this?

Jim White: I think the biggest concern we have is the loss of our middle class in this country. We’ve had a strong middle class since the end of the Second World War, it’s what built the country and it’s steadily getting eroded. Uh, the gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider and wider. The top one percent’s controlling more and more of the wealth of this country. And money buys control and money buys power and they’ve got it.

Show Me Progress: So, so, you know, we’ve, we’ve heard over time, that people talk about that their voice isn’t heard. Uh, do you think that that’s a big, big, uh part of this, that people feel that their voice isn’t being heard.

Jim White: Of course their voice isn’t being heard. Your voice is only heard if you’re able to have access to the people in power. And you can’t get access to the people in power unless you have the price of admission.

“Tax The Rich”

“Good Jobs Now”

Voices: We are the ninety-nine percent. We are the ninety-nine percent. We are the ninety-nine percent…

Show Me Progress: Why are you here today?

Eduard Lloyd: I’m, I am actually here to educate myself about what’s been going on in our world today.

Show Me Progress: And, uh, how did you hear about this?

Eduard Lloyd: Um, I’ve actually, I mean, it’s difficult for, for someone like me to not hear about because so many people, I mean, it’s, it’s thick, you know, a lot of people are talking about it. And so it just kind of, daily word.

Show Me Progress: And so, and so, what are, what are you hearing today that, that addresses some of the things? Are you, is it things that address your concerns, or what are you hearing about today?

Eduard Lloyd: Um, I, I think the, the main thing is, uh, money. I just, I think the whole thing is centered around money and, and people being, uh, unsatisfied with the, their current situation. Um, and for me I, I’ve realized that it’s about, I’m, I’m really searching for myself, you know, seeing where, what, what I’m supposed to be doing. And so I’m really just exploring, seeing like, like people like you what, what exactly, you know, what everybody’s doing just to kind of not be lost in the world. Because, you know, there’s a lot of things going on. And I there’s a lot of good, good things that, uh, could happen, you know.

Show Me Progress: So, so, you’ve heard some the things that they’ve talked about here and, and, uh, about, uh, various issues, especially about money. So, has anything really struck you?

Eduard Lloyd: Um, well, we were speaking on the, the ninety-nine, uh, on, on that analogy, or maybe not analogy, but on that demographic, if you will, and, um, it kind of puts in my mind that we all, we’re united whether we realize it or not. We’re all in the same boat together. We’re all living in this world and we’re all trying to make the best of it. And I feel that, uh, you know, the more that we get together and try to understand together that we, you know, we could, we could make something of it, you know.

Show Me Progress: Do you think that that’s happening now?

Eduard
Lloyd: I do, I do. I believe that, uh, I believe that, that, uh, peace has been seeded and, and that it will grow.

Show Me Progress: But, do, do you see this as, uh, that people here are reacting to a world that isn’t that way for them?

Eduard Lloyd: Yeah, I see a lot of people here that that’s, that’s the reason they’re here. The reason.

“Eat The Rich”

“Big Banks Are Corrupt, Strict Regulations!”

“If Only The War On Poverty Was A Real War, Then We Would Actually Be Putting Money Into It”

Watching the great unwashed from on high…

Occupy Kansas City held a rally and march from Ilus Davis Park in downtown Kansas City this afternoon. At its peak there were approximately three hundred to three hundred fifty people participating in the rally and march.

“Stop Legalized Bribery In Politics”

Location, location, location…

“Class War? Hell Yes And We’ve Been Losing”

The crowd in Ilus Davis Park, in the section overlooked by the federal court building.

Organized labor is part of the ninety-nine percent.

The sprinklers were running in the park – go figure.

“Fire The Rich”

“Average CEO Pay, Average Worker Pay”

“The 99% Are Seeing Red”

As the rally progressed the number of people in the park increased.

Signing up.

The march started from the northeast corner of the park. Occupy Kansas City had a permit from the city to march in the street, but apparently the Kansas City Police department vetoed that idea. Marchers were warned by Occupy Kansas City that the police could arrest anyone marching in the street. Most of the marchers took to the street.

In the street.

“Capitalism Is The Crisis”

A number of police cars, with lights and sirens, appeared shortly after the march turned east. After a few minutes the officers gave up on trying to get the marchers out of the street. They left as quickly as they appeared.

The Kansas City Police Department shows up.

So much for the conventional wisdom about the demographics.

“We Are One”

“We Are the 99%”

Flags.

The march headed out of the park into northeast neighborhoods and arrived back at the park approximately an hour and a half after it started.

Eh, what a maroon:

@AriFleischer Ari Fleischer

This is freaky. The temp is dropping & the snown is sticking like crazy. Al Gore – get rewrite 6 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry

The mouthpiece for dubya’s administration gets it wrong. Again.

October 29, 2011 10:10 AM

Richard Muller and science the right didn’t want to see

….Muller and his team conducted a thorough review of all of the available information and discovered – wouldn’t you know it – that the scientific consensus is accurate. “Global warming,” Muller concluded, “is real.”

Remember, this research intended to prove the opposite. Muller and his team even took the most common arguments raised by climate deniers, putting them to the test to see if skeptics’ claims had merit.

But they still found that the scientists are right and the skeptics are wrong. “Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the US and the UK,” Muller and his team said.

The right, not surprisingly, isn’t pleased, especially after so many conservatives agreed to accept the results of Muller’s research.

But reality is stubborn, and doesn’t much care about the right’s preferences.

We knew that already.

There was a Where Are The Jobs/Occupy The Capitol rally on the steps of the Capitol in Jefferson City starting at 11:00 a.m. today. The organizers obtained the required permits and up to noon about twenty-five people showed up with signs on the south steps of the Capitol.  

Organized labor on the steps of the Capitol.

“The ‘Job Creators’ Are Taking The Decade Off” and “Thank You For Killing Aerotropolis”

Show Me Progress: So, why are you here today?

Dan Norris: I’m here just to emphasize my disgust with, uh, both political parties and, uh, what’s gone on out there recently.

Show Me Progress: Uh, so, what specifically troubles you?

Dan Norris: Uh, it troubles me that, it seems like neither one of the major parties, uh, really empathizes with, uh, the everyday working person. And, you know, there’s, there’s handouts on both sides of the political spectrum to special interests, uh, based on their lobbying power.

Show Me Progress: So, do you feel that you, you have a voice that’s heard?

Dan Norris: Uh, I feel that my voice largely goes ignored. And, uh, you know, that’s why I feel that it’s, uh, something we, we need to get out and to exercise our freedom of speech to be sure that, uh, we are noticed.

“Where Did All The Science go?” and “Banks Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out”

Show Me Progress: Why are you here today?

Matt Dillingham: Try and change a little bit of the system.

Show Me Progress: So what, what about the system disappoints you, that needs change?

Matt Dillingham: The fact that we have no control over anything that we do in our government. Everybody else says what we do.

Show Me Progress: Um, in, in, in what way, who’s that everybody?

Matt Dillingham: Um, we’re that everybody. All the people, you know, get screwed and, I mean, the government’s the one that’s doing it, the government and corporate power.

Show Me Progress: So, do you feel that, that, uh, you have a voice?

Matt Dillingham: No, not at all, not one bit.

Show Me Progress: And, and what do you think, uh, you can do to change that.

Matt Dillingham: This is a start. I don’t know where it’ll finish.

“Corporate Greed is Bad”

Show Me Progress: Why are you here today?

William Bradford Connor: I’m here ’cause I agree with the Occupy Wall Street people that, uh, greed and the excessive abuses that have occurred in Wall Street and have been covered up by our mass media need to come out. What Elliot Spitzer was doing should still be done. And we should throw ’em all in jail.

Show Me Progress: Um, other than that solution of, uh, throwing people into jail, what other solutions do you think can, can help the situation?

William Bradford Connor: Wall Street needs to remember about the ninety-nine percent, that we’re angry and we’ve just had it. And change has to occur in how they manage, especially jobs which are being outsourced left and right.

“End Corporate Personhood!”

“This is still a Democracy, Not a Plutocracy!”

In front of the statue of Thomas Jefferson.

@RepHartzler Rep. Vicky Hartzler

Just found out I’m going to be on Fox and Friends tomorrow morning at 7:10 a.m. 1 hour ago

October 3, 2011:

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/flash/pl55.swf

Bumper sticker on a vehicle in west central Missouri.

Did you see where our junior GOP Senator, Roy Blunt, tweeted a couple of weeks ago that he’s:

Glad to see reports EPA is finally heeding our call not to impose a ridiculous job-destroying regulation on farm dust

Except, of course, the EPA hasn’t heeded virtuous GOP calls to cease efforts to regulate farm dust, which Blunt’s cynical, carefully worded post implies. There was never any indication that the agency was contemplating doing so in the first place. The Republicans were just engaging, as they so often do, in much ado over nothing.

Even The Hill article Blunt cites notes that the belief that the EPA was going to regulate farm dust was the result of GOP “speculation” about the possible results of the review that, under the terms of the Clean Air Act, the EPA is obligated to perform every five years. The article even quotes an EPA spokesman who addressed the rumor mongering last August, stating that “this is a myth the administrator has debunked personally on several occasions.”

Roy Blunt, who is not a stupid man, knows this very well. But getting and keeping farmers all worked-up about those know-nothing, anti-farm regulators seems to work out well for cynical GOPers as well as for the anti-regulatory agenda of their corporate financial supporters.

Today I got one of those surveys our state representatives occasionally send around, ostensibly to solicit our views on the issues. Unfortunately, my GOP representative, Andrew Koenig, is an inhabitant of the far reaches of the right wing, and that fact is reflected in his survey questions (although, to be fair, when compared to the surveys distributed by my federal representative, Todd Akin, Rep. Koenig’s efforts are only mildly tricky).  One very simple question, however, sent chills down my spine:

There has been legislation proposed in other state legislatures to ban abortions if a heartbeat can be detected.

7. How do you feel abut these legislative actions?

–I Support

–I Oppose

–They are not a Function of State Government

–No Opinion.

Bear in mind that Koenig sits on the House’s Children and Families Committee – where he could do lots of harm in this area. Is he feeling out his constituents to learn what kind of brownie points he’d score if he pushed this particularly onerous abortion restriction? Will this be the next anti-abortion move from the Children and Families Committee next session? (And, just to satisfy my personal curiosity, where is he going with the question about whether or not abortion restrictions are a function of state government?)

Such a heartbeat bill would essentially prohibit abortions any time after 18-24 days post conception, when an embryonic heartbeat can first be detected. It would effectively ban a legal, medical procedure that should be freely available to women. Many women do not even know that they are pregnant at such an early stage.

The other state legislature that Koenig refers to is Ohio where a heartbeat bill has been wending its way through the legislative process since last February. If it is finally passed, it will be the most restrictive law in the nation.

The proposed Ohio law is so extreme that it has ignited controversy even among anti-abortion adherents. Ohio Right to Life does not support the legislation because they believe it unlikely to withstand a court challenge, and they worry that its failure to do so could set the anti-abortion movement back considerably and prefer not to risk it. Instead, they would rather continue their current strategy of nibbling away at reproductive rights a little at time until they have finally, unobtrusively, eaten the whole thing. The executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio agrees that if the law were to pass, it would be held up in the courts for a very long time.

While not as severe as the “personhood” amendment that has been proposed in Mississippi – which would grant legal protections to an egg from the moment of fertilization, raising questions about everything from contraception to in vitro fertilization – a heartbeat bill would be very bad news for Missouri’s women and, at the very least, would divert legislative energy that could be better directed toward resolving the state’s serious economic problems. We can only hope that Koenig’s query represents a trial balloon that goes up and never comes down again. We’ve all got much more important things to worry about right now.

   

A letter to the editor in today’s Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal:

Wall St. should be occupied

I’ve been hearing a lot about the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that’s going on across the country. As someone who runs stock and bond portfolios, I have my own stories to tell.

One is about IDT, the long distance phone card company which has two classes of shares, one the founders hold that gets one vote on company matters and one the public holds that gets 1/10th of a vote.

Then there is Health Management Associates which offered a $10 special dividend and loaded up the company with debt, all so the top five in management could retain their jobs by making the stock unattractive to potential acquiring companies.

And one of my favorites, 4Kids Entertainment, which instituted a “poison pill” which would add additional shares to thwart the shareholders from outing the CEO for his horrible performance.

Yes, I can assure you that there are problems on Wall Street. The top five people in management will do anything to retain their power, all to the detriment of stock shareholders, mutual fund share holders, college endowments, pensions, and rank and file employees.

Holmes Osborne, CFA,

Osborne Global Investors Inc., Odessa

Holmes Osborne (D) is an announced candidate for the Missouri House. He ran against Mike McGhee (r) in the 122nd Legislative District in 2010.

“…all to the detriment of stock shareholders, mutual fund share holders, college endowments, pensions, and rank and file employees…” And even an investment professional tells us that the Occupy Wall Street folks have it right.