Occupy the Moment is on the air

A few weeks ago, I covered an event by the St. Louis Occupy protest, interviewing many of the protesters. One of these protesters (named "Matt") has (along with "Mark") created a website called Occupy the Moment, which is "Podcasting in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street." I just finished listening to the Episode 3 podcast (more than an hour in length), and was encouraged to hear extensive intelligent, well-informed and self-critical analysis regarding Occupy protests, both in St. Louis and nationwide.  The first 40-minutes of Episode 3 concerned the Occupy movement. Listening to this podcast, I heard that some protesters are charging that at least some St. Louis police officers are obscuring the names on their badges or even displaying false names. The hosts do recognize that the St. Louis Police Department has generally shown admirable restraint regarding the St. Louis protesters. From the same podcast I also learned that last week the Manhattan police (apparently illegally) seized a Wikileaks donation truck.  I've heard that J.P. Morgan/Chase donated more than $4 Million to the New York Police Department shortly before the Department evicted protesters from Zucotti Park. I heard the hosts discuss other substantial collaborations between large corporations and law enforcement. The hosts also commented at length on the recent and obviously coordinated simultaneous evictions of protesters nationwide. Matt and Mark voice many well-considered opinions regarding the motives and methods of the Occupy protests and the oftentimes disappointing response to these protests by law enforcement agencies and the national media.  The podcast covers issues raised by particular Occupy protests in many locations across the country.   Once they finish discussing the Occupy movement, the hosts moved on to discuss other issues, including hot issues regarding intellectual property. Based on Podcast 3, I plan to periodically return to Occupy the Moment to hear further insights regarding the Occupy movement, in St. Louis and beyond.

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The ways in which First Amendment expression is morphing into “disorderly conduct”

In his article published at The Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal urges us to refrain from villainizing police officer John Pike and, instead, consider that his actions an illustration of change in the systematic police plan for responding to protest movements.

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A new Declaration for America: to wake up from its delusions

With the help of a DI reader who wishes to remain anonymous, I have created the following Declaration for modern Americans to wake up from their delusions. I'd recommend that all adults and school children put their hands over their hearts in the morning and say the following instead of pledging allegiance to the powers-that-be (but see here for an alternate form of the Pledge).

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One-third of the United States Supreme Court attends Federalist Society fund raiser

As reported by Common Cause and Bob Edgar:

[T]hree members of our Supreme Court were guests last Thursday at an annual fundraising dinner sponsored by the Federalist Society, a self-styled association of conservative and libertarian lawyers that is providing much of the intellectual firepower behind efforts to overturn the landmark health care reform law passed last year. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were honorees and speakers at the black tie event and Justice Samuel Alito, a regular at Federalist Society gatherings, was in the audience, according to a program prepared for the dinner.
Edgar anticipates the question of whether this activity is ethically acceptable. The quick answer is that justices on the United States Supreme Court are not subject to any code of ethics:
[This activity] clearly violates the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges, a set of ethical standards the Supreme Court helps enforce on lower federal courts but has refused to impose on itself.

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How to destroy a perfectly good real estate recording system.

What would you think if an outside enemy systematically attacked hundreds of U.S. county real estate recording offices, making it impossible for most of us to know who owns what legal rights regarding real estate anymore.   Imagine that our courts, from coast to coast, have slowed to a crawl because the enemy had nefariously dismantled a system that had worked quite well for centuries. Imagine that, also for centuries, the filing fees paid for recording real estate interests had funded numerous important local government functions, but that the outside enemy destroyed this source of income, causing many government functions to flounder. Image that this enemy then set up its own real estate "information" offices that gave lots of incomplete information, often refusing to provide any information at all, and did so with reprehensible customer service. Imagine one more thing:  This has all really happened, but it was not caused by an outside enemy. Rather, all of this has happened regarding 60% of all home mortgages, and the entities doing the damage are America's banks, who have conspired to create an entity called MERS, designed to circumvent government real estate recording offices, at a high cost to everyone who relies on the integrity of our real estate recording system. If you want to know the specifics, here is a terrific article by law professor Chris Peterson: "Two Faces: Demystifying the Mortgage Electronic Registry System's Land Title Theory." This damage to our recording system is relatively new--it's been happening for a bit more than ten years, but the theme is now familiar to many of us: Corporate players taking over government functions and, in the process, rigging the playing field against the interests of ordinary Americans. The challenge now is to see whether the courts across America can recognize MERS for what it is, a despicable scam that has clouded the real estate titles of millions of people in an effort to rev up private corporate profits.   The courts are now clogged with many cases attempting to deal with the problems caused by MERS; you'll want to keep your eye on this story to see whether the courts will slap down the banks.

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