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Occupy Wall Street: Over 10,000 Protestors Occupy Times Square (Photos)

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The Occupy Wall Street movement that originated in Zuccotti Park transformed into a flash mob in New York City’s Times Square this afternoon as 10,000 – 20,000 protestors descended upon the the Crossroads of the World to demonstrate their opposition to corporatism and run-amok capitalism, not to mention any one of dozens if not hundreds of causes.

Today’s Times Square demonstration was one of over 1000 in 87 countries across the planet.

Of course, the NYPD continued to embarrass themselves today, with more beatings and possibly unlawful arrests, including locking into a Citibank branch ATM lobby citizens who reportedly went in to the bank to withdraw their money from their accounts.

The NYPD penned in both protestors and ordinary citizens — including thousands of tourists — who were merely “occupying” Times Square by walking around the plaza and sidewalks, unaware there was a protest about to happen.

We got to Times Square just past 5:00 PM and already the several-blocks area was packed, with metal police barricades making it dangerous to enter the area. People literally were immobilized, something the NYPD likes to do — divide and conquer. It’s a tactic they use on Independence Day and on New Year’s Eve, closing off streets, making travel from one block to the next almost impossible, and making travel across town nearly impossible too. It’s flat-out dangerous and it’s time for it to stop.

However, there truly is no stopping this movement. The real question now is, where is it going?

New York Magazine offered extensive coverage, including this:

By 6:30 p.m. Twitter users at Times Square were broadcasting that arrests were being made, minutes before Democracy Now! reporter Ryan Deveraux tweeted “A horse just went down. Crowd is going wild. NYPD says anyone near barricade is going to jail.”

…

New York‘s Alex Klein reports from Times Square: As officers on horseback pushed into the crowd at 46th and Broadway, two people were beaten, and one pinned and carried away. As crowds on the other side of the barricade pushed forward, a group of officers ran toward the divider with billie clubs. The crowd pushed backward and an older woman was knocked to the floor. She lay bleeding from a gash in her head, tended by four occupiers around her. “She’s an 81-year old holocaust survivor,” claimed Alan Roth, 50, who was holding a rag to her head. “They charged quickly toward the gate then this happened,” he said. His denim jacket was stained with her blood. An officer standing next to her told me an ambulance was coming, but given the blockades, there is no way an ambulance could get through.

The occupation had been fairly low-key until the 6 o’clock arrival of police in riot gear, on horses, motorcycles, and with shields. An occupier Jason Saadiin, 31, said, “It was so pedestrian and boring until the police showed up.” He was also at the scene and saw police pulling front-line protesters out of the crowd and beating them with batons, about 20 yards from where I was standing. “They embarrass themselves every time, they draw an invisible line through intimidation, and when people cross them, they hurt them.”

WNBC is estimating that between 10,000 and 20,000 people are in Times Square, while Twitter reports collected by Reuters’ de Rosa say that police in riot gear as well as the NYPD’s counterterrorism unit have arrived in the area. By now, police have sealed the area and even pushed protesters back enough to allow limited car traffic through, asking the assembled masses to “please exit at 46th.”

Here are a few photos I took at today’s Occupy Times Square rally. More and video to come later tonight and tomorrow, along with our now-daily “Occupy Wall Street Photo Of The Day.”

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‘We’re Not Gonna Fix It’: TN Republican Says Congress Can Do Nothing to Stop Gun Violence – Calls for Christian ‘Revival’

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March 28, 2023

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U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) says there’s nothing the 535 elected officials in the House and Senate can do to reduce gun violence and gun deaths.

“We’re not gonna fix it,” Congressman Burchett said on the steps of the Capitol.

“I don’t see any role that we could do other than mess things up, honestly,” he said in response to Monday’s school mass shooting in Nashville, where three nine-year olds and three adults were shot to death by a shooter with two AR-15 style assault rifles and a handgun.

READ MORE: Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

Instead of Congress enacting stricter gun laws, background checks, and a ban on assault weapons, Congressman Burchett said, “you’ve got to change people’s hearts,” as he called for a Christian revival.

“As a Christian, we talk about the church. I’ve said this many times, I think we really need a revival in this country.”

Monday’s shooting at the Covenant Presbyterian Elementary School was the 130th mass shooting this year in America, bringing the death toll from all gun violence across all causes to 9989, including 403 children 17 or younger, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Congressman Burchett is a member of the far-right Republican Study Committee, which has strong ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA).

READ MORE: ‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

On Monday, Burchett released a statement saying, “Kelly and I are praying for everyone at The Covenant School, especially the families of the shooting victims. No one should have to go through that kind of horrific event or lose a loved one like that. I’m so thankful to those brave folks who brought down the shooter and took care of the students and their families.”

Earlier this month Rep. Burchett was one of 26 House Republicans on the Oversight Committee who refused to sign a simple two-sentence statement denouncing white supremacy.

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Trump Trying to ‘Pollute the Jury Pool’ With ‘Gibberish and Obstruction’: Analysis

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2 hours ago

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March 28, 2023

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Donald Trump has been hurling ominous warnings and racist insults against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg ahead of a possible indictment, and legal experts fear those threats could provoke violence in the same way his rhetoric fueled the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The former president has attacked state and federal prosecutors “thugs,” claimed two Black district attorneys are “racist” and used anti-Semitic tropes to suggests he’s the victim of a “globalist” conspiracy and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the prosecutors who are investigating him, reported The Guardian.

“Trump cannot stop the judicial process, although he can try to slow it,” said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor. “But he can undermine its credibility through his charges and by mobilizing his supporters. I see what he’s doing now as aimed at them, just as he tried to discredit the election returns in their eyes and anger them with baseless charges over the ‘steal.'”

Trump’s legal defenses have recently weakened after federal courts required some of his top aides, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, to testify in the Jan. 6 grand jury investigation, and compelled the testimony of his current lawyer Evan Corcoran in the classified documents case, and prosecutions in Manhattan and Georgia also appear to be nearing conclusion.

READ MORE: David Pecker is a ‘critical witness’ who could get Trump charged with a ‘second crime’: former prosecutor

“If I were on the prosecution teams in Manhattan or Georgia, I would expect Trump to assert every defense he can think of, including accusing the prosecutors of misconduct,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Michigan.

“None of these accusations about the motives of prosecutors, however, will negate the evidence of Trump’s own crimes,” McQuade added. “A jury will focus on the facts and the law, and not any of this name calling. The Trump strategy may work in the court of public opinion, but not in a court of law.”

Trump’s lawyers are using his trusted stalling tactic by raising “specious” objections in Georgia, according to former Watergate prosecutor Phlip Lacovara, and Trump is “trying to pollute the jury pool” with attacks on Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.

“All he needs is one juror who believes this is all a concocted plot,” Lacovara said.

Trump used many of the same tactics in his attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss, which ultimately led to the deadly U.S. Capitol attack.

“This is more of what we saw during the election,” said Donald Ayer, who served as deputy attorney general in the George H. W. Bush administration. “He throws up gibberish and obstruction.”

 

Image: Hunter Crenian/Shutterstock

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Tennessee Governor Slammed After ‘Praying’ for Nashville School Community Without Mentioning Mass Shooting

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17 hours ago

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March 27, 2023

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Governor Bill Lee quickly drew tremendous outrage in the wake of a school mass shooting where six people including three young children were shot to death. Social media users criticized the Tennessee Republican, who had signed a permit-less gun carry law, for declaring he was “praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community,” without posting any mention of the mass shooting.

Tweeting he was “closely monitoring the tragic situation at Covenant,” Gov. Lee said, “As we continue to respond, please join us in praying for the school, congregation & Nashville community.”

There was no mention of any loss of life, and, as Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts passionately noted, the “situation” was a mass shooting.

“If thoughts and prayers alone worked to stop gun violence, there wouldn’t have been a shooting at a Christian elementary school. It’s your actions – including weakening the state’s gun laws – that’s killing kids in Tennessee,” Watts also tweeted. “SHAME ON YOU.”

Gov. Lee signed a permit-less carry bill into law in 2021, at a Beretta gun manufacturing plant.

According to the CDC, as of 2020 – one year before the permit-less carry bill was signed into law – Tennessee ranked tenth in the nation in per-capita firearm mortality.

READ MORE: ‘Our Children Deserve Better’: First Lady Jill Biden Speaks Out After Six Die in Nashville School Mass Shooting

Meanwhile, others took notice of the gun culture Gov. Lee has fostered in “The Volunteer State.”

MSNBC analyst and Bulwark writer Tim Miller commented, “Tennessee governor Bill Lee issued a statement recently about how the drag ban in Tennessee ‘protects children.’ If only he would have instead focused on laws that might have prevented the mass murder of children in his state today.”

Historian Kevin Kruse pointed to an article from last year, after the Uvalde, Texas school shooting, titled: “Rep. Clemmons Seeks Renewed Gun Laws, Gov. Lee Requests Prayer.”

“You chose prayer over gun reforms last year after the Uvalde massacre,” Kruse wrote. “And now here we are.”

The progressive website Tennessee Holler pointed out that Gov. Lee, along with GOP lawmakers, “just appointed Jordan Mollenhour to the [state] board of education— whose company was sued for selling ammo to an underage mass killer (SANTA FE) and sold ammo to at least one more (AURORA) He has ZERO education experience.”

Let’s Give a Damn founder Nick Laparra tweeted, “We are 86 days into 2023. So far, 9859 people have died by gun violence and there have been 128 mass shootings. Meanwhile, @GovBillLee spends his days being outraged over drag queens and CRT and book bans. This is Bill Lee’s and the GOP’s fault.”

See the tweets and video above or at this link.

READ MORE: New WSJ Poll Is Devastating for DeSantis and His ‘Anti-Woke’ Policies

 

 

 

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