This is the press release from the Metropolitan Police in DC:

November 7, 2011
Statement from Chief Lanier Regarding Occupy DC

While the Occupy DC movement has been here since October 6, 2011 and the Metropolitan Police Department supports an individual’s right to assemble, we do not condone nor will we tolerate violence or aggression. Prior demonstrations had been peaceful. However, the aggressive nature of Friday’s demonstration prompted the Metropolitan Police Department to adjust tactics as needed to ensure safety.

MPD will continue to protect life (residents, visitors, protestors --everyone) and property as warranted. The administration will do what’s necessary to maintain order in the city and to ensure that everyone is safe.

Five people that we are aware of were injured. That is no longer a peaceful protest. Demonstrators have become increasingly confrontational and violent toward uninvolved bystanders and motorists. Demonstrators have also jeopardized the safety of their own children by using them in blockades. The following videos highlight such actions by demonstrators:

Intentionally Blocking Traffic/putting little children in the street
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpDsogOy2IU

IUsing little children to blockade the door
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CguFPFJAqlA

IDemonstrators blockade doors and injure attendees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prgkEAuSQT0

IBlockading people from leaving the Convention Center
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXXf56JhTbs

Regarding the traffic incident and allegations of hit and run, MPD is investigating and is seeking any evidence and witness statements. Anyone with information should contact police by calling (202) 727-9099 or 1-888-919-CRIME (1-888-919-2746).

Cathy L. Lanier,
Police Chief

If you click on the links to the videos - they are shocking - shocking because they are heavily edited and released by conservative groups. Why is this a big deal? Well, because the protest was of John Birch Society scions the Koch brothers at their Americans for Prosperity powwow. Yes. Oil money. Billionaires who fund candidates like Herman Cain who was at the conference and said he was a Koch brother from another mother. So for the police to cite FOUR videos that are all pro what was being protested - is twisted. Especially since being deemed "no longer a peaceful protest" has translated into (from the reports I'm getting) more cops at McPherson Square with their batons out.

Here's the Daily Caller video the police cite:

Continue reading »

AmericaBlog has the latest from MyDD. What's interesting is that Dailykos, TalkingPoints Memo, Raw Story, Eschaton, Crooks and Liars and Americablog nowhave more traffic than Instapundit, which remains the highesttrafficked conservative blog...read on

To Blogroll or Not To Blogroll?

I have been having a lot of problems with my blogrolling. I can't log on anymore. I know everyone likes to be on everybody eleses blogroll, me included. That said the amount of traffic generated by a blogroll is miniscule. Getting linked to a site by your post is obviously the best way. That's why I started Mike's Blog Round Up. Which leads me to this post...

via Rox Populi

...I hardly use mine anymore, preferring instead to use RSS readers. The only thing keeping me from dumping it is my belief that some readers may be using my blogroll to surf and discover new blogs. However, lacking any empirical evidence to support this notion, I feel my theory may be without merit.

Therefore, I'm soliciting feedback.

...that Mike Allen of The Politico is a hack?

Allen is allowing a member of the administration that broke the Geneva Conventions and commited war crimes to attack the current president and claim, without any substantiation, that the torture worked. He then allows that "top official" to proclaim things that are at the very least highly questionable. What journalistic standard is Allen following in allowing such a person to speak anonymously?

And how much lower can he sink in craving buzz and traffic?

He's been a Bush bottom feeder for a long time and it won't stop anytime soon.

T. Coraghessan Boyle in The New Yorker: "The Lie"...

The clock inched forward. Clover got dressed, put on her makeup, and took her coffee mug out to the car and was gone. There was nothing heroic in what I did next, dealing with the baby and my own car and the stalled nose-to-tail traffic that made the three miles to the babysitter’s seem like a trek across the wastelands of the earth—it was just life, that was all.

Open Thread below...

Chalk this up as a win for Deborah Shank and decency... props to the blogoshere and Keith Olbermann, who hammered Wal-Mart all last week as his "Worst Person" for their shameful treatment of a former employee. We've been exposing this horrendous story for a while now.

CNN: (h/t Andy K & Dr. Hussein Matt)

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is dropping a controversial effort to collect more than $400,000 in health-care reimbursement from a former employee who suffered brain damage in a traffic accident.

The world's largest retailer said in a letter to the family of
Deborah Shank it will not seek to collect money the Shanks won in an injury lawsuit against a trucking company for the accident.

Whatever explains Wal-Mart's change of heart, this is great news for Mrs. Shank.

The last I heard, the right was feeling quite pleased with itself because there was some evidence to suggest the traffic for the top liberal blogs was trending down, while the traffic for the top conservative blogs was trending up. This item, relying on SiteMeter data from the end of December, argued, “It has long been understood that the largest liberal blogs have generally produced more web traffic than the largest conservative blogs.... After surveying the traffic stats of many major political blogs, I found that web traffic for several major liberal blogs either declined sharply or stayed the same while major conservative blogs saw a sharp increase in traffic.”

Now, apparently, the right is prepared to argue the opposite — liberal blogs are more popular — but with a rationalization to explain the phenomenon.

Erick Erickson, editor of the popular conservative megablog RedState, conceded that progressives currently enjoy an advantage over conservatives online — though he attributed it to an asymmetry in free time, since conservatives “have families because we don’t abort our kids, and we have jobs because we believe in capitalism.”

I’m not quite sure how best to respond to something like this — it’s unusually unhinged, even by the standards of the far-right blogosphere — though I think Matt Stoller is on the right track by relying on simple mockery: “Now, being a doctor who performs abortions is in fact a job, so one might find conflicting narratives in Erick’s quote. And if the way to use the internet well politically is to up the number of abortions, then the GOP is kind of fu**ed.”

NY Times: (reg. req'd)

Suddenly, on that May day in 2005, the copter dropped CS gas, a riot-control substance the American military in Iraq can use only under the strictest conditions and with the approval of top military commanders. An armored vehicle on the ground also released the gas, temporarily blinding drivers, passers-by and at least 10 American soldiers operating the checkpoint.

"This was decidedly uncool and very, very dangerous," Capt. Kincy Clark of the Army, the senior officer at the scene, wrote later that day. "It's not a good thing to cause soldiers who are standing guard against car bombs, snipers and suicide bombers to cover their faces, choke, cough and otherwise degrade our awareness."

Both the helicopter and the vehicle involved in the incident at the Assassins' Gate checkpoint were not from the United States military, but were part of a convoy operated by Blackwater Worldwide, the private security contractor that is under scrutiny for its role in a series of violent episodes in Iraq, including a September shooting in downtown Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead.

None of the American soldiers exposed to the chemical, which is similar to tear gas, required medical attention, and it is not clear if any Iraqis did. Still, the previously undisclosed incident has raised significant new questions about the role of private security contractors in Iraq, and whether they operate under the same rules of engagement and international treaty obligations that the American military observes.

"You run into this issue time and again with Blackwater, where the rules that apply to the U.S. military don't seem to apply to Blackwater," said Scott L. Silliman, the executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at the Duke University School of Law.

Officers and noncommissioned officers from the Third Infantry Division who were involved in the episode said there were no signs of violence at the checkpoint. Instead, they said, the Blackwater convoy appeared to be stuck in traffic and may have been trying to use the riot-control agent as a way to clear a path.

You know, I get frustrated in rush hour traffic too, but that's ridiculous. I have to agree with Markos:

The use of these mercenaries has been glorified by the Right for years. But at the end of the day, their actions have hampered and perhaps even sabotaged our mission while endangering our troops.

In order for all of us at C&L to get some much deserved time over the holidays with our friends and loved ones, John Amato has decided that we will be posting a little less over the next couple of weeks. We'll still be around for any breaking news, but we'll do fewer regular posts and host an open thread every afternoon.

For this open thread, I was inspired by my chronically procrastinating husband, who is braving the traffic and jammed parking lots to go finish(begin?) his shopping on this last weekend before Christmas. It made me think of some gifts I would love to give people we feature here on C&L regularly (my phone number to Keith Olbermann notwithstanding).

Like this for Chris Matthews...

Or these cards for Culture Warrior Bill O'Reilly ...

Or this for Campbell Brown and Dan Senor's new baby...

...and lest we forget, a certain Mr. Amato is just begging to find this under his Christmas tree.

So what kind of gifts would you like to give? And please, keep it family-friendly.

By now most of you have seen the "don't tase me bro" video, watched morons like Brian Kilmeade from Fixed Noise endorse the use of tasers and brutal violence against protesters or heard of the growing number of incidences involving tasers around the country. This video, of what should have been a routine traffic stop in Utah, ended up with a young father face down on the highway with his screaming, pregnant wife and young child in the car while 50,000 volts of electricity shot through his body. He was tased and immediately arrested -- all without having been read his rights or warned that he was in danger of being tased.

The driver, Jared Massey, refused to sign a speeding ticket because he believed he had slowed down before his vehicle passed the speed limit sign. The officer became visibly upset and that's where things went downhill. More details from ABC News.