New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg ”finally decided to wipe Zuccotti Park clean after learning about a rancid outbreak of scabies, lice and lung ailments among protesters,” reports the New York Post.
New York Post
Meanwhile, a nurses union bused in 1,000 members to Occupy DC from as far away as California and Florida — prompting pundits to speculate whether the health care workers, many from Veterans Administration hospitals, could have been better deployed to prevent New York from having to hose down Manhattan’s park protest site.
“Scabies and lice recently cropped up among those sleeping in Zuccotti Park,” reported the Post, ”and there were concerns that the infestations would grow even worse, said a law-enforcement source. There also was an increasing number of lung ailments caused by constant smoking and the chilly nighttime temperatures, medics who worked on the scene confirmed.”
Another factor was protesters’ plans to storm the New York Stock Exchange, a massive action that had been planned for this week, multiple sources told the Post.
An administration source told a reporter that Bloomberg gave the go-ahead to roust the protesters and ban further overnight camping because of “an accumulation of things” — including the growing filthiness of the site due to a lack of sanitation as well as concerns that the park could became a deathtrap since protesters were planning to build wooden structures to prepare for winter.
“There was a collective sigh of relief — and good riddance — from the residents and business owners surrounding Zuccotti Park yesterday,” reported the Post’s Lachlan Cartwright, Laurel Babcock and Chuck Bennett. ”After two months of impenetrable barricades, aggressive panhandling, public urination and seemingly interminable drumming — locals were beaming over getting back their lives and livelihoods after cops cleared the park.”
“Its a glorious day. I take my hat off to the police,” Marc Epstein, owner of the Milk Street Cafe, told the Post. “I‘m grateful to the police that they did it without any serious injury. There is a reason they are called New York’s Finest.”
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been critical of Bloomberg, saying he would never have tolerated protesters sleeping in the park. Bloomberg was also chaffing after reports ”that Oakland Mayor Jean Quan was being lauded for acting against the Occupy Oakland movement and that Denver Mayor Michael Hancock was being praised for taking a hard line,” reported the Post.
A few days ago, 11 U.S. mayors participated in a conference call on how to deal with the protests days before several cities cracked down, a spokesman said.
While mayors were kicking protesters out, unions are busing them in — and paying their expenses, according to members of the nurses union from Veterans Administration hospitals who spoke with a reporter at Occupy DC. in this video:
posted November 16, 2011 at 4:07 pm
I’ve never done this before. But the politics of the day seems to call for more than a conscience, but for more interaction and unification. Not being a writer or an orator, you will just have to read and hopefully get my idea for change. If you didn’t see “60 Minutes” on Nov. 13, 2011 then you really should see it. This might make more sense to you.
“Occupy Wall Street”
I keep hearing the Occupy Wall Street demonstration lacks focus. Perhaps Congress would be the best place to focus. It is Congress who has let Wall Street and their friends on Wall Street get away with creating the crisis we are in today. Congresses greed and unbridled power is at the source of this problem:
Politicians
We need to hold politicians to the same laws as the people they are supposed to be serving.
• Insider trading is illegal for all but Congress – this absurdity needs to change.
• Congress should write no laws that will exclude themselves or any other public servant or elected official.
• There should be no special services available only to politicians; they are not little princes or princesses. Expenses need to be cut and validated
• No limousines and drivers should be furnished. (President Carter got rid of expensive gas guzzling limos, but Regan brought them right back. Regan also removed the solar panels from the Whitehouse roof.)
• Pensions should not be tailored by Congress for Congresses own benefit. Congress men and women should receive the same pensions as the Civil Servants of their own state.
• Congress should not be able to vote themselves a pay raise.
• No one should be above the law. Whether it is city, state or federal.
• No separate public funded retirement and no special healthcare or insurance provided to politicians at the expense of the voting public.
• Politicians should be afforded retirement through Social Security as are we.
• No special retirement benefits that go beyond the benefits received by States’ Civil Servants.
Ask yourself, why would any one spend millions of dollars and 10’s of millions of dollars of their own money for a political office that pays less than $200,000.00 annually? There has to be a hefty profitable insensitive coming from some source. If this doesn’t ring of corruption, I don’t know what does. Any politician caught and convicted of a crime for profit should be removed from office, fined a minimum of one year’s income, or his salary earned while in office, his/her license revoked and sent to a state prison and bared from holding an elected office again.
Most Congress persons are attorneys and write contracts for public works and infrastructure. They are supposed to be some of the brightest legal minds in the country. These legal minds have graduated from Yale, Harvard, Stanford and just about every Ivy League campus; yet the contracts written by Congeressmen and women are written in such a way that the projects’ are deliberately filled with loopholes and cost overruns that are ultimately paid for by the tax payer. If any Congressperson objects to the term “deliberately” then it should be substituted with incompetent or inept. And often times these same legal geniuses retire from government positions with fat bank accounts, and well paying legal positions for the same contractors they wrote publicly funded contracts for. (I don’t think the contractor would have hired an incompetent attorney at such a high wage, do you?)
There should be laws against Congress and all elected officials:
• Benefiting from insider trading ( Congress and Wall Street should not be bed-fellows)
• Closed-door meetings with lobbyist
• All persons and organizations should have the same access to an elected official, not just lobbyist who come with money and bearing gifts.
• Closed-door meetings with contractors bidding on public works
• Closed-door meetings with special interest groups
• Politicians convicted of a crime should not be sent to a “Federal Prison” that is more of a holiday resort, with tennis courts and golf courses rather than a place for punishment. Politicians need to be prosecuted for the crimes they commit. Putting personal profit and personal gain above the office s/he were elected to is treasonous and really should be a serious crime with equal justice.
• LAW should be equal for all. Beverly Hills and Washington D.C. are blinded by money. If one has enough money s/he can get away with almost anything. It shows in our justice system almost daily.
Treasury
There are departments and agencies that do nothing, they are obsolete – extinct – they are kept alive by individuals who receive a salary and do noting more.
The treasury department needs to go “line by line” and reduce the federal budget by getting rid of the obsolete agencies.
During the Clinton administration there was not enough funds for a National Health Plan. But a decade later there has been a trillion dollars spent on war of which $90 Billion is unaccounted for. Seems war is more costly and more important than the nation’s health issues.
This is what I think the Occupy Wall Street issue should be about. Vote out all current Congressmen/women and clean up the mess they have made. Put Congress and Wall Street on a short leash and don’t allow them to vote themselves back into politics with the same power and corruption.
John
posted November 16, 2011 at 4:56 pm
The protestors have their day in the sun and because they broke God’s law of being clean it has bitten them in their backsides.
posted November 18, 2011 at 8:37 pm
while calling these ppl “fleabags”, remember they are first Americans.