Occupy Vancouver to join West Coast protests

Hundreds of Wall Street protesters blocked gates at some of the West Coast's busiest ports on Monday, causing the partial shutdown of several in a day of demonstrations they hope will cut into the profits of the corporations that run the docks.

The closures affected some of the terminals at the ports in Oakland, Calif., Portland, Ore., and Longview, Wash., though it was not immediately clear the how much the shutdowns would affect operations and what the economic loss would be.

From California to as far away as Vancouver, British Columbia, protesters picketed gates at the ports, causing longer wait times for trucks. There were no major clashes with police.

In Oakland, shipping companies and the longshoremen's union agreed to send home about 150 workers, essentially halting operations at two terminals. In Portland, authorities shuttered two terminals after arresting two people who were carrying weapons.

And in Longview, Wash., workers were sent home out of concerns for their "health and safety."

When Ritta Mikkonen learned she and her husband had qualified for a one-bedroom, $400-per-month apartment in Vancouver's Olympic Village, the formerly homeless couple rejoiced.

"I was so overwhelmed I started crying," Mikkonen told the Canadian Press. "I felt like we won the lottery."

Mikkonen had worked as a forestry engineer until a car accident prematurely ended her career seven years ago. Her husband, a former RCMP officer, is also unable to work due to blood clots in his legs. For over a year the couple had been unable to afford housing in Vancouver's expensive rental market. That changed in 2010, when the government pledged to convert a number of Olympic Village units once occupied by the athletes into low-income housing.

Though the number of units made available was slashed to recoup city costs, the couple managed to secure one of the rare vacant apartments just over a year ago. But now the Mikkonens fear that unexpectedly high utility bills may result in their eviction from the property.

The Swiss government is preparing for a collapse of the euro, according to Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf. She told parliament that a work group was studying the imposition of capital controls and negative interest rates to protect Switzerland from the capital flight that a euro collapse would engender (Handelsblatt). A tidal wave of euros would drive up the Swiss franc, devastate Switzerland's export economy, and devalue its vast wealth invested in other countries. Already in August, the Swiss National Bank instituted a currency peg and swore to defend it by acquiring "unlimited" amounts of euros, a risky strategy if the euro were to collapse (for the debacle leading up to the peg, read... Swiss Franc Wreaks Havoc In Switzerland).

Lierre Keith, co-author of the book Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to Save the Planet, speaks at Occupy Oakland.

Stop the 1% Literally, Our Bodies Will Be Our Demands, Read Occupy the Machine here:

The Occupy movement is barely more than two months old and already showing signs of growing up. Seeing their encampments thwarted, they are responding with a coordinated counterpunch themselves. The Occupy groups in California, Oregon and Washington state are moving together against the US centers of the global economy - the ports of the West Coast that handle some 60% of the country's international trade - and their 1% owners.

Inspired by the massive participation that shut down the Port of Oakland during Occupy's "General Strike" Nov. 2, the movement's chapters in San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle all plan port shutdown actions on Monday, Dec. 12. They hope to amass picket demonstrations so large that the dockworkers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), long the radical labor vanguard of the West, will invoke the part of their contract allowing them not to cross the line because it is a health and safety risk.

This type of community picket action for political purposes has a long and venerable place in ILWU history. Back in 1939 longshoremen honored a picket line set up at the Port of San Francisco by the local Chinese community to stop a load of steel being sent to then-fascist Japan for its war effort, at that time focused on mainland China, but soon crossing the Pacific. Again it was used in 1977 against a South African ship in protest of that country's apartheid policies, in 1997 against a ship loaded by scab labor in support of the dockers in Liverpool, England, in 2003 to stop a ship being loaded with war materiel bound for the just-declared war on Iraq, and most recently just a couple of years ago against an Israeli ship in protest of the Israeli military attack on the Turkish ship bringing medical and construction supplies to Gaza.

A police force has launched an investigation into its own officers after claims that they took cash from street beggars.

Four West Midlands Police officers were suspended and sent home on December 1 after suspicious colleagues raised concerns about their conduct.

The force's Professional Standards Unit was then called in to investigate claims that money was stolen from beggars, believed to be Eastern European, in the Bordesley Green area of Birmingham.

The allegations involve the mishandling of property taken from members of the public 'that could amount to theft'.

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board provoked an enormous backlash by airing ads that tell women who are date-raped that they have only themselves and their friends to blame. The ad was part of a $600,000 campaign aimed at curbing excessive drinking.

After hearing from hundreds of rape victims that the ads were extremely upsetting, even traumatizing, the board has decided to pull them:

© Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board

The ads send the message that women are not only at fault for getting themselves raped - a societal bias reflected in and re-enforced by too many court decisions - it's your fault if your friend gets raped, too.

Last night, after receiving hundreds of phone calls and hundreds of email complaints, the PLCB has yanked the ads.

"We feel very strong, and still do, that when we entered the initial discussion about doing a campaign like this it was important to bring the most difficult conversations about over-consumption of alcohol to the forefront and all of the dangers associated with it - date rape being one of these things," says PLCB spokesperson Stacey Witalec.

"That being said, due to the number of concerns that we heard about that specific ad, and the victims especially that we heard from talking about how the image ... made them feel victimized all over again, we felt it was prudent to pull it."

Late last month, Wyoming state Rep. Bob Nicholas (R) was arrested following an incident where he kicked and beat his disabled son outside of a restaurant:

Nicholas, 54, was arrested in Boca Grande, Fla., while on vacation after allegedly punching and kicking his 19-year-old mentally disabled son, according to a Lee County Sheriff's Office report. The document indicates that multiple witnesses outside of a restaurant saw Nicholas hit his son repeatedly with a closed fist, push him onto the sidewalk and then kick him more than five times.

By employing a plethora of tax-dodging techniques, 30 multi-million dollar American corporations expended more money lobbying Congress than they paid in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010, ultimately spending approximately $400,000 every day -- including weekends -- during that three-year period to lobby lawmakers and influence political elections, according to a new report [pdf] from the non-partisan Public Campaign.

Despite a growing federal deficit and the widespread economic stability that has swept the U.S since 2008, the companies in question managed to accumulate profits of $164 billion between 2008 and 2010, while receiving combined tax rebates totaling almost $11 billion. Moreover, Public Campaign reports these companies spent about $476 million during the same period to lobby the U.S. Congress, as well as another $22 million on federal campaigns, while in some instances laying off employees and increasing executive compensation.

29 Major Corporations Paid No Federal Taxes, 2008-2010

Of the 30 companies analyzed in the report, which include corporate giants such as General Electric, Verizon Communications, Wells Fargo (WFC), Mattel (MAT) and Boeing (BA), 29 of them managed to pay no federal taxes from 2008 to 2010. Only FedEx, which raked in about $4.2 billion in profits during that period, paid a three-year tax rate of 1 percent -- totaling $37 million -- far less than the statutory federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent.

The Public Campaign report expanded on a newly released analysis on corporate tax dodging by the liberal-leaning Citizens for Tax Justice, a non-profit research and advocacy group, as well as lobbying expenditure data provided by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Daniel Ganziano went from having $4.85 to owing more than $200