Otherwise occupied.

Today's newsletter roundup is about the Occupy fill-in-the-blanks movements.  It gleans interesting little items from my Emailed Congressional Quarterly newsletters of recent weeks.




"There’s really no rush" to pass the teacher/first responders jobs bill, "because the measure isn’t going to do much better, if it does any better at all, than the entire Obama jobs package," said David Hawkings in today's CQ newsletter (Oct. 18, 2011), CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing.  To quote further:

SLICING AND DICING: There is no timetable today for the Senate test vote on that $35 billion in grants for teachers and first responders. . . Reid has no incentive to call the vote while the president is out on the road promoting his new piecemeal approach.

. . . As in the past, Obama and the Democrats would rather have the money and the new jobs more than anything else. But it’s also true they’re not unhappy with the consolation prize from another defeat (and at least three more after that). They will get to campaign for the next year on just the sort of declaration that they hope will get the Occupy Wall Street types to the polls: That the GOP had a choice between creating jobs and protecting millionaires — and chose the metaphorical 1 percent.

Another favorite CQ regular newsletter focuses on national security and intelligence.  It is written by David C. Morrison and titled CQ Behind the Lines.  This (Oct. 13, 2011) clip focused on the Occupy Boston protest.

Over Here:  “The Tarek Mehanna Support Committee came to Occupy Boston’s ever-evolving tent city to say [that the] Muslim American pharmacist, is a victim of anti-Muslim sentiment, ”Townhall.com condemns.

Washington D.C. has also been occupied by protesters.  From the Oct. 11, 2011 CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing by David Hawkings, we learn that each group sort of forms on its own, and may or may not be connected.  To quote from another newsletter:

ONE IS NOT THE OTHER: The hundred or so “Stop the Machine” anti-war protesters who spent the weekend camped out in Freedom Plaza are threatening to swarm through the House and Senate office buildings this afternoon in an effort to cause some TV-worthy disruptions. These people do not want to be confused with the Occupy D.C. crowd that’s been in McPherson Square for several days in a relatively low-impact version of the Occupy Wall Street movement. That ragtag group, which is getting less ragtag now that the AFL-CIO is helping it — and now that the Democrats are urging them on from just offstage — is planning its own protest on the Capitol Hill grounds for this afternoon.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has the job of passing the President's latest jobs bill, piece by piece.  This summarizes the issue.  The quote is from the Oct. 6 CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing, by David Hawkings:

GOING NOWHERE: Obama is embracing the “millionaire’s surtax” as the best way to pay for his jobs package — 

. . . So the president’s $447 billion package is sure to stall as a stand-alone bill — meaning that, for a while longer at least, the 330,000 or so families with income of more than $1 million can remain more worried about running into an Occupy Wall Street protester than about finding creative new shelters for their wealth. 

Democrats May Find ‘Occupy’ Movement Is Not That Into Them.  By Ambreen Ali and Neda Semnani, Roll Call Staff  Oct. 6, 2011, 2:29 p.m.  A quote:

• Liberals have been racing to embrace the Occupy Wall Street protests as a left-leaning response to the tea party, but the protesters aren’t exactly returning the favor.

Early this month, David C. Morrison wrote about how the Occupy Wall Street folks and law enforcement might or might not get along.  It is dated Oct. 3, 2011 and comes from CQ Behind the Lines. To quote,

• NYPD Blue: . . .  A violent clash with members of the Occupy Wall Street movement may underscore “the flip side of a police force trained to fight terrorism,” the Times analyzes. “Anything connected to a potential terrorist attack on New York is a target for surveillance anywhere,” The New American disapprovingly leads.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has morphed into a world-wide set of protests against the perceived greed of big-monied interests.  I predict that it will be a long time before it ends.




Related articles

• Cities fret over democracy's costs as 'Occupy Wall Street' stretches on (csmonitor.com)
• Occupy D.C. protests march into second week (news.nationalpost.com)
• Senate Republicans Vote to Defeat Obama's Jobs Bill (usnews.com)
• Occupy Wall Street: Police and Protesters Face Off Over Cleaning (newsfeed.time.com)
• Senators Vote Down Obama's Jobs Bill (abcnews.go.com)
• Decorated Marine Reads Riot Act To NYPD Officers At Occupy Wall Street (wzlx.radio.com)
• Poll: 49% of Occupy Wall Street Protesters Think the Bank Bailouts Were Necessary (reason.com)

[Post date: October 18, 2011]


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