From Occupy Oakland's Josh Healy:

“The events in Oakland on January 28 indeed occupied national headlines and local jail cells, but they almost certainly lost more supporters to the movement than they gained. Needlessly picking fights with the cops, vandalizing City Hall, and putting our own people in harm's way is not the path to social and economic justice. It is a losing, incoherent strategy, one that will continue to damage the public's support for Occupy until our claim that 'We are the 99%' becomes a bad joke. Forget whether folks can survive endless police confrontations and court dates. The question now is: Can Occupy Oakland survive itself?”

http://oaklandlocal.com/posts/2012/02/occupy-oakland-crossroads-rebirth-or-self-destruction

“To my fellow Occupiers, though, it is time that we critically examine our own tactics.”

The polling numbers tend to support Mr. Healy's view. The following from SF Weekly points out the drop in support after violence erupts, the police gaining sympathy with every rock or bottle tossed.

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2012/01/surveyusa_occupy_oakland.php

Mitt the twit:

(AP) – “Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney, confident after his Florida primary victory, ended up inviting criticism Wednesday when he said he's "not concerned about the very poor" because they have an 'ample safety net.'"

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-02-01/romney-campaign-poor-comment/52922000/1

So when was the last time you asked a poor person if they thought the safety net was ample Mr. Romney? That would be bothersome, and who wants to be seen with a poverty-stricken American that slept on the street the night before because there wasn't enough room in the shelters? People that try and hide their blankets and sleeping bags during the day only to find they are stolen by police trying to push them out of sight of the public?

Have you ever met an elderly woman pushing a shopping cart around, sleeping at a bus stop, begging for food Mr. Romney? Have you ever spoken with a foreclosure victim, fighting a battle with cancer, unable to pay for medicine, and looking at life on the street as the only alternative?

The safety net is ample Mr. Romney? The safety net as you call it, is in disrepair primarily because companies like Bain which paid you millions in income while you evaded taxes in the Bahamas, hardly pay anything when it comes to corporate taxes. Instead they spend billions of dollars on lobbyists to make sure they are never confronted with the reality that most Americans have to deal with daily.

http://youtu.be/Y-oMPa1w99E

If it has holes I'll fix them?

Let's have a look at some verifiable accounts that make your moronic analysis look like the uninformed bullshit we usually hear from clueless Republicans, completely detached from their constituents living at or below the poverty level.

Ms. T was involved in a whistle-blowing incident, and as we have come to expect, people like that often find difficulty finding work after they have blown the proverbial whistle on a scam in progress. Especially when that scam is netting big profits for the perpetrators..

She found herself alone and unemployed after her husband committed suicide, so she set about inventing her own job, starting a business in her home that started to grow but not fast enough for the folks at Wachovia. That esteemed financial institution was found to be packaging mortgage-backed securities with toxic loans, and facing imminent collapse, but found a buyer willing to take on $37 billion which it in turn wrote off.

That would be Wells Fargo, and much like the purchase of Countrywide by Bank of America, they put their “toxic assets” into their bank operations so the taxpayers would have the privilege of paying for their malfeasance. How nice.

So after a few months, Ms. T managed to grow her business so she could begin making payments on her mortgage. Wells Fargo said no. They decided that foreclosure was the best option and disregarded attempts to modify the loan. Ms. T begged for a chance to get her mortgage current and was told that if she made a payment it would be returned to her. So she waited for the inevitable, willing to pay but told that she was facing eviction.

At this point most Americans know that Mitt Romney is full of shit. Like Ms. T they know that there is no agency that will help them. Like Ms. T they spend a lot of time calling phone numbers that are supposed to assist them, help them through the crisis, only to find out none of them actually do anything to change their situation. The agencies ostensibly set up to intervene somehow never provide that service. I don't know why, but when you listen to how those efforts play out, you quickly realize that there is no safety net.

Maybe Mr. Romney thinks that once you are completely destitute someone will offer you a sack lunch and everything will be OK. Of course, maybe Mr. Romney is a complete idiot, the poster boy for a typical Republican asshole that doesn't know what he's talking about. We've seen enough evidence of it from Mr. Romney to draw that conclusion already.

We will follow the story of Ms. T here because not only is it representative, it is typical of what has happened to millions of homeowners that couldn't absorb their share of the losses inflicted on them by crooked bankers running a shell game and regulators that were asleep at the wheel when their homes, savings and retirement funds were devastated by the various bank scams destined for collapse in 2008.

Sign petition:

Ms. T needs your help. Eviction in progress. Please sign the petition at this link:

http://www.change.org/petitions/wells-fargo-bank-reinstate-borrower?share_id=iytujdcEoT&

To his credit, the President came out with this plan as promised in his State of the Union address:

“'I am sending Congress a plan that will give every responsible homeowner in America the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage by refinancing at (today’s) historically low rates,' the president said.”

http://www.bostonherald.com/business/real_estate/view/20220202prez_new_bank_fees_to_aid_homeowners/srvc=home&position=also

Of course, the article notes the plan doesn't have much chance of becoming law. That is because Republicans control the House, and we know that they are confident that the alleged safety net is adequate to stop those falling into poverty and foreclosure. More from Romney:

"'You can choose where to focus,' he said. 'You can focus on the rich; that's not my focus. You can focus on the very poor; that's not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans.'”

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/02/politics/campaign-wrap/?hpt=hp_t1

From Davos: Boo hoo for bankers

“Many arrived in the Swiss Alps following a year marked by weak revenue, declining stock prices and cuts in jobs and compensation. The finance and banking industries remain the 'least trusted' for the second consecutive year, according to a 20-country survey released earlier this week by public relations firm Edelman.

“Financial companies, mainly in Western Europe and the U.S., have announced more than 238,000 job cuts since last year’s meeting in Davos, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.”

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-31/federated-rule-davos-roundup-sec-watchdog-compliance.html

Yeah, we noticed

“Understandably upset at this disruption to their plans to fleece the public, Wall St. and the powers-that-be began an assault on our civil liberties not seen since the era of the Vietnam War protests. Rubber bullets, illegal arrests, unconstitutional restrictions to speech and, of course, gallons upon gallons of pepper spray were used to threaten, intimidate and otherwise disperse the protesters. Also understandably, it didn’t work. For people who own the country, the 1% doesn’t understand it very well.”

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/27/occupy-wall-st-wins-the-gop-has-completely-lost-control-of-the-narrative/

UCR protest by John Hays: OLA Media victory

http://youtu.be/pn3oJZ-dZtM

Chalk art 'vandalism' with Zenyatta OSD

http://youtu.be/kXF5IlC8aYY

http://youtu.be/EB3jL0fAxbU

Grumpy