#OWS: The Shocking Truth about Naomi Wolf’s Journalistic Hackery [updated]

Rumormongering at its most despicable.

Two weeks ago, a rumor circulated that the Department of Homeland Security was “behind” the crackdown at Zuccotti Park. The rumor originated with Michael Moore who got it from a thinly-sourced article in Examiner.com. I wrote about it here and here.

The author of the Examiner.com article, Rick Ellis, published multiple updates to his thinly-sourced post, and promised that he would provide more information once he had it. That was on November 15. No further information has been provided.

I figured it had been settled. As Joshua Holland, writing for Alternet noted, “There’s a lot of speculation, but very little substance to the tale of the “nationwide” crackdown on the Occupy movement. ”

So I figured this rumor would be put to bed. I was wrong.

Today—ten days after the rumor had been debunked—Naomi Wolf saw fit to write an article so fraught with hyperbole—“what happened this week is the first battle in a civil war”—and so utterly fact-free that its publication should hang like an albatross around Naomi Wolf’s neck for the rest of her career. It is Judith Miller-style hackery, and it is shameless.

Karoli has the story in a post aptly titled “How Bullshit Magically Turns into Fact“:

Naomi Wolf wrote a nonsensical piece today that’s being spammed all over Twitter. It asserts that there is a deliberate plot afoot via collusion by the United States Congress, the Department of Homeland Security and our oligarchical overlords to undermine the very populist, leaderless Occupy Wall Street movement. One of her key pieces of evidence is an unsupported and unverified report that 18 mayors coordinated their crackdowns with the Department of Homeland Security. There’s only one problem with that: It’s nothing more than innuendo. Here, let me show you. More »

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Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Action

Here’s Nathan Brown, author of the open letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, speaking on Monday at UC Davis. His department, English, has posted a call for her resignation, as has the Physics department [pdf].

Katehi was not allowed to speak at yesterday’s General Assembly on the quad, which has grown to include a giant geodesic dome. She did speak at a meeting last night, where she announced that Davis would pay students’ medical expenses and ask that all charges be dropped. Here’s the latest firewall that the UC administration is trying to erect:

In response to many questions asked of the panel, the term “moving forward” was repeated multiple times. Talk of reassessing and changing current university and UC policies was prevalent.

The panel spoke of the five committees that have been assigned to look into the pepper spray incident. UC President Mark Yudof announced Tuesday that former LAPD Chief William Bratton will be leading the UC investigation.

“The truth is going to come out in the end, and all of this will come out publicly,” Katehi said.

Who are you going to believe? Five committees or your own lying eyes? Also too, by the third law of committee thermodynamics, we know that 5 committees are 5X better than one.

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Youth Should Be In Revolt

There are a lot of reasons for tuition increases in the UC and other systems, but one of the big ones is that the modern Republican party decided that they would change the terms of the deal. Everyone over 55 gets the package that’s been around for a few generations: an inexpensive state-sponsored University education, and Medicare and Social Security when you’re 65. The rest of us get thousands of dollars of college debt, vouchers that cover a fraction of Medicare costs, and privatized Social Security. If fucking the young is what it takes so the old don’t pay more taxes, then the young shall be fucked. The only thing surprising about the Occupy movement on college campuses is that it isn’t more widespread, and that it didn’t happen earlier.

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Fox News and Casually Pepper Spray Everything (Especially Liberals)

Sheer dumbassery.

Of course Fox News stands with Officer Pepper Spray.

From Gawker:

“I don’t think we have the right to Monday-morning quarterback the police,” Bill O’Reilly said tonight, discussing the appalling use of pepper spray by UC Davis police on Friday. No, God forbid we Monday-morning quarterback the police, especially, as O’Reilly continued, “at a place like UC Davis, which is a fairly liberal campus.”

Indeed: what right do we have to think that Lt. John Pike should probably not have indifferently dusted peacefully sitting protesters with pepper spray from only a few feet away? And, gosh, even if we were going to Monday-morning quarterback the police, shouldn’t we remember, as Megyn Kelly tells O’Reilly, that pepper spray is “a food product, essentially”?

What’s the big deal? It’s just food. And besides, when it comes to policing librulz, anything goes!

Fox News is a parody of Fox News.

By the way? Casually Pepper Spray Everything is a meme now, because of course it is.

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So Sorry

Everyone who wanted to speak at today’s assembly on the Davis quad had one minute to speak. Here’s Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi’s minute. She tends to blather on, and having 60 seconds to say her piece focused her mind. She threw in a reference to her presence at the Greek uprising in 1973, which just makes me wonder what she learned at that event. Overall, though, Atrios gets it right:

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Occupy Everywhere: Blanket the Earth

Since I am objectively pro-dry-socks, here is the Rude Pundit’s plan:

11/10/2011
Blanket the Earth: The Plan:

Ever since I first mentioned the idea of getting cold weather gear to Occupy Wall Street campers around the nation, I’ve heard from dozens of people about what exactly they could do. Could they donate money? Where could they send gear? What is the plan? Here goes:

1. The idea: on November 25, the day after Thanksgiving, people will gather in designated spots in cities around the country where there are encampments of OWS protesters.

2. They will have warm weather gear to donate to the protesters. This can be blankets, socks, sleeping bags, hand and foot warmers, sweaters, or anything you think can be used to keep the camping protesters warm throughout the winter. The items can be secondhand (and clean, you know). New items can be purchased whenever, preferably not on the exploitative day coined by marketers as “Black Friday.”

3. People will gather in designated places in each city near the OWS encampments in order to donate the items. I will post a list of organizers next week. The organizers will say where the Blanket the Earth group should meet. For example, in Atlanta, they have decided to gather at 60 Walton St. NW.

4. Yes, donations at any time are great. But Blanket the Earth is not organizing as a group to accept donations of any kind. If you want to participate in the day, give someone who is going the items you’d like to donate. Also, I’m not accepting any monetary donations for this. If you want to donate money, that’s generous of you, and you should give to things like Occupy Supply.

5. The goal here is to show our support not just through the kindness of monetary donations, but by being physically present to demonstrate that we’re here for the protesters.

6. Yes, there is a chance that you may end up being the only person in your town to show up.

7. Organizers should send me a message on how people can contact them in their cities. Write, as ever, to rudepundit_at_yahoo.com (and you can send me questions there). You can also post info on the Blanket the Earth Facebook page or you can follow and respond on Twitter to @blankettheearth.

8. Spread the word. Use your own social networks to get out the information. Let’s make sure the people who are the foot soldiers in this movement know that they are appreciated and that we have their backs.

Much more, including video, at the link.

(h/t commentor Mamayaga)

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It’s Cold Out There for Occupy Everywhere

Our Balloon Juice correspondent in Missoula, Taryn Hart,reports on a low-tech security-forces tactic suitable for harrassing even the humblest Occupy encampment:

I had heard from several of the 24/7 occupiers at Occupy Missoula that the police have dropped off drunken, belligerent people at the occupation. I happened to be there when just that happened. A woman who was extremely drunk and was belligerent was dropped off by Officer Kasey Williams of the Missoula Police Department, Badge #348. She headed directly into the occupation and was belligerent and threatening. This very small occupation was forced to handle this on their own (which, by the way, they did very well).

As soon as I left I called Sgt. Jerry Odlin to speak to him about it. I informed him of the situation and informed him that the occupation has rules prohibiting intoxication. He denied that anything had been done to create disruption at the Occupy Missoula occupation.

For those of you who may not have seen the post regarding the authorities’ backhanded eviction attempt of Occupy Missoula – here’s that link. Occupy Missoula is still in dire need of funds and supplies to re-establish and Winterize the occupation – list here.

I will risk the wrath of a thousand purists by saying, if Glenn Greenwald is reporting correctly, this is pretty genius:

... Over the past month, FDL — with the construction of this network — has done something truly amazing. In addition to police crackdowns, it has long been assumed that the greatest challenge to sustaining the Occupy movement would be the approaching harsh winter in Northern cities. The assumption — not unreasonable — was that few people would be willing to occupy outdoor spaces in zero-degree weather or below. FDL, with its “Occupy Supply” project, is all but ensuring the elimination of this problem.

Again using nothing more than reader donations, FDL designed and then purchased a full line of winter clothing for free distribution to the various Occupy sites around the nation: hats, sweaters, scarves, gloves, socks, blankets, jackets, thermal underwear, face masks, and more. Every penny FDL raises — 100% — goes exclusively toward the manufacture and free distribution of these products to Occupy protesters. They have thus far raised close to $90,000, and spent roughly $85,000 of it on the purchase of almost 7,000 items. They have also furnished heat generators, tents, and sleeping bags to numerous sites as well.
More »

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Today’s Fallout Firebreak

UC Davis Chancellor Katehi hastily constructs another bullshit moat to help protect herself and her dwindling palace guard:

UC Davis placed Police Chief Annette Spicuzza on administrative leave Monday in the wake of controversy over the pepper-spraying of student protesters last week by campus police officers.

The move by UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi came less than a day after she put two UC Davis police officers on leave.

“As I have gathered more information about the events that took place on our Quad on Friday, it has become clear to me that this is a necessary step toward restoring trust on our campus,” Katehi said in a statement.

Spicuzza had initially defended the police action, telling reporters Saturday, “The students had encircled the officers. They needed to exit. They were looking to leave but were unable to get out.”

Katehi has resisted calls by some UC Davis faculty members for her to resign.

I think we’re just a few days away from her screaming “It’s just a flesh wound, come back you cowards” from a university podium.

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Checking In With Statler and Waldorf

I’m a regular reader of Outside the Beltway and today I’d like to serve up a heaping helping of Doug Mataconis and James Joyner claim chowder. The general point these two are always making is that the Occupy movement is dirty and attracting violent elements, every setback means the protesters will give up, and the protesters are on the verge of doing crazy shit.

In the dirty and violent department, we have Tuberculosis at Occupy Atlanta, Health Threats at Occupy Wall Street and Shooting Deaths at Occupy Oakland and Occupy Burlington. The Occupy Atlanta “outbreak” was a Fox News meme that has been completely debunked. The vague “threats to health” at Zucotti park didn’t materialize. The story about the Oakland shooting makes it pretty clear that it was nearby, not in the encampment, and the shooting in Burlington was a tragic suicide by a military veteran.

In the “it’s over” department, here’s a prescient October 27 piece by Mataconis titled Occupy Wall Street on the Verge of Fizzling Out?, and last Sunday’s Occupy Portland Appears to be Over. Yesterday in Portland:

Finally, the crazy protesters meme is well represented by this post cherry picking crazy OWS participants who ended up doing nothing, and yesterday’s note by Joyner, in an otherwise quite good post about police action at UC Davis:

I truly hope Occupy doesn’t devolve into rioting. We’ve got real problems in this country with the scope of government power but this isn’t Mubarak’s Egypt. Here “authoritarian” is a tendency that we need to combat and that people like Greenwald and I can openly and forthrightly discuss without fear of reprisal and stronger than stupid comments from Internet trolls. Organized interests, particularly monied ones, have outsized influence in our system precisely because they care whereas most of us are apathetic most of the time. But there are still nonviolent political tools at our disposal and protests must be peaceful and, for the most part, law abiding.

After two months of almost completely non-violent protests, and marches where violence has mostly been initiated by cops, Joyner just can’t help his concern trolling. If UC Davis showed anything, it showed that there’s something going on in Occupy that moves the participants towards peace rather than violence. The events on the Davis quad could have devolved into a riot, but it was action by the occupiers that kept it from doing so. If you watch the entire video of Katehi’s march of shame, there was not a word spoken by any of the obviously upset yet incredibly disciplined protesters. I guess you can worry about a devolution into rioting, if you’re a worrier, but there’s no evidence that Occupy is going in that direction, just as there’s no evidence for the many other claims made at OTB by Joyner and Mataconis.

Also, too: as usual, Steven L. Taylor is turning in solid, reasonable posts.

Update: More on the run up to Friday’s Davis event, and a really compelling inside account of the events after the press conference, from the campus minister who accompanied Kathei on her walk of shame, on the ministers’ Facebook page, via RalfW in the comments. Here’s her blog with the same posts for those of you not on Facebook (via Fallows).

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Can’t Anyone Here Play This Game

Mistermix already linked to the walk of shame video, and it should be clear to anyone watching that the kids have better organizational and critical thinking skills than the administration. I particularly liked the fact that she attempted to claim that she was threatened by the kids, turning herself into the victim to save her ass and her job. At any rate, we’ve now progressed in the ass-covering to the stages where we start chucking minions overboard:

The University of California at Davis placed two police officers on administrative leave after they pepper-sprayed non-violent protesters at point-blank range, the school announced Sunday.

Video of the Friday incident has led to calls for the resignation of UC-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi, who made the announcement of the officers on leave in a written statement Sunday afternoon. Katehi said she shares the “outrage” of students and was “deeply saddened” by the use of the chemical irritant by campus police.

“As chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident,” she said. “However, I pledge to take the actions needed to ensure that this does not happen again.”

It’s important to remember the evolution of Katehi’s doublespeak in this fiasco. First, she was trying to blame the students:

I am writing to tell you about events that occurred Friday afternoon at UC Davis relating to a group of protestors who chose to set up an encampment on the quad Thursday as part of a week of peaceful demonstrations on our campus that coincided with many other occupy movements at universities throughout the country.

The group did not respond to requests from administration and campus police to comply with campus rules that exist to protect the health and safety of our campus community. The group was informed in writing this morning that the encampment violated regulations designed to protect the health and safety of students, staff and faculty. The group was further informed that if they did not dismantle the encampment, it would have to be removed.

Following our requests, several of the group chose to dismantle their tents this afternoon and we are grateful for their actions. However a number of protestors refused our warning, offering us no option but to ask the police to assist in their removal. We are saddened to report that during this activity, 10 protestors were arrested and pepper spray was used. We will be reviewing the details of the incident.

This then progressed to the blue-ribbon fact-finding task force supercommittee dialogue encouraging investigation to find out just what happened, when everyone on the planet knows what has happened because we saw the damned video, and the following mealy-mouthed bullshit:

During the early afternoon hours and because of the request to take down the tents, many students decided to dismantle their tents, a decision for which we are very thankful. However, a group of students and non-campus affiliates decided to stay. The university police then came to dismantle the encampment. The events of this intervention have been videotaped and widely distributed. As indicated in various videos, the police used pepper spray against the students who were blocking the way. The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.

To this effect, I am forming a task force made of faculty, students and staff to review the events and provide to me a thorough report within 90 days. As part of this, a process will be designed that allows members of the community to express their views on this matter. This report will help inform our policies and processes within the university administration and the Police Department to help us avoid similar outcomes in the future. While the university is trying to ensure the safety and health of all members of our community, we must ensure our strategies to gain compliance are fair and reasonable and do not lead to mistreatment.

It was chilling! It raises questions! We must form a task force to find out what happened!

This would be funny if it were not so pathetic, but people were not fooled by her nonsense, so she has moved on to the next stage in ass-covering- firing the minions. Notice that now she has pinned this on the rent-a-cops, she can find time to be outraged. Just two days ago, she was blaming the students. Sure, she says she is willing to take full responsibility for the events that transpired, but she doesn’t mean it. Quite simply, she just doesn’t get it. But when I looked at her expression as she did the walk of shame, I think it might be starting to set in. She’s in clearly over her head, and there is no way out this time. No level of administrative doublespeak is going to get her out of this mess.

Which leads me to what bothers me the most, which is the failure of leadership in every institution in this country. Can’t we do better than this? Can’t we do better than pay 400k to someone who doesn’t have an instinctive gut rejection of the idea of macing a bunch of kids sitting on a sidewalk. Can’t we do better than that? Shouldn’t we be able with that kind of money and benefits and perks to find someone who would immediately recoil at the thought of sending riot police with batons and chemical weapons to go thump the kids paying 35,000 a year for the privilege to sit in that public space? Can’t we find people whose immediate response to everything is not the application of force and a reliance on police brutality? Are we really this lost as a nation that our academic institutions are run by sociopaths with no problem solving skills? It’s just fucking amazing, whether it be UC Davis or Penn State or Wall Street or the Catholic Church or, well, wherever.

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Walk of Shame

The last minute or so of this report by Aggie TV at UC Davis is pretty amazing. It shows a large group of UC Davis students sitting in silence as Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi walks from her press conference to her car. The conference had to be cut short because protesters entered the building, and Katehi’s walk occured after three hours of negotiation. This is the conference where, as John posted yesterday, Katehi announced her blue-ribbon ass covering panel. UC Davis Police Chief Angela Spicuzza also said this (via Fallows):

“There was no way out of that circle,” Spicuzza said. “They were cutting the officers off from their support. It’s a very volatile situation.”

Here’s what “no way out” looks like:

As Steven L. Taylor notes, there was another incident of police brutality at UC Berkeley on Tuesday, where police hit demonstrators with batons and dragged a female faculty member away by her hair. Katehi knew that the last order to clear the area on a UC campus ended in violence, but she gave the order to clear her campus anyway. The UC Davis faculty association has called for her resignation, and they’re right, though I sense she’ll be hanging on for a good, long time.

I have to confess that I have a major prejudice against university chancellors, presidents, provosts and the like. I think most of them are sociopaths, and their pathology and immorality is in many ways worse than their corporate equivalents. At least corporate sociopaths are in it for big money, and if they succeed their stockholders have a chance of doing OK. University administrators are in it for questionable prestige, petty power and a pretty good salary, and their success redounds on no one but themselves. To get to their post, they develop a habit of pushing out the most blathery, dishonest, sounds-good-but-means-nothing rhetoric. If they disagree with something, they find a way to “encourage dialogue” that actually buries the issue in a do-nothing committee. If the disagreement continues, they paint their opponents as “inappropriate”, the all-purpose word that means nothing other than “I don’t like it”.

For example, Kathei told CNN that she found the actions of the police on Friday “inappropriate”. She can’t say what everyone else watching those videos thinks—that macing peacefully assembled protesters is illegal, immoral and disgusting. Those words aren’t in her vocabulary. If they ever were, she threw them away to get where she is now.

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What Are They Thinking

Just getting up to speed on what went down at UC Davis, and after watching the videos of the cops walking up, flamboyantly brandishing the pepper spray, and then hosing down a bunch of kids doing nothing but sitting with their arms crossed, and all I can wonder is what the fuck were they thinking? Maybe our society is just numbed by the abuses of authority figures, but this image is a powerful one, and one that does not reflect well on the police, the UC Davis administration, or by extension, the 1% crowd. I’ll bet the folks at CLGC, plotting to destroy #OWS, scream in anguish every time they watch this sort of blatant and disgusting police brutality, because it only fans the flames.

It’s really just amazing that any administration official would think that this is the appropriate response. It’s mind-boggling that anyone with law enforcement training thinks that was the appropriate response. Lt. John Pike wasn’t maintaining the public order or using appropriate force, what he did was to physically assault a bunch of kids who pay a hell of a lot of money to be on that college campus. He shouldn’t have a job today, and if any of his colleagues had any balls or any sense, they would have arrested him on the spot on multiple counts of assault.

And neither should that shithead chancellor of UC Davis, Linda P.B. Katehi. This open letter to her calling for her resignation points out the most salient fact:

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

The kids aren’t a threat to public order, it’s the so-called adults. Who hired these morons?

*** Update ***

Predictably, the ass-covering has begun:

During the early afternoon hours and because of the request to take down the tents, many students decided to dismantle their tents, a decision for which we are very thankful. However, a group of students and non-campus affiliates decided to stay. The university police then came to dismantle the encampment. The events of this intervention have been videotaped and widely distributed. As indicated in various videos, the police used pepper spray against the students who were blocking the way. The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.

To this effect, I am forming a task force made of faculty, students and staff to review the events and provide to me a thorough report within 90 days. As part of this, a process will be designed that allows members of the community to express their views on this matter. This report will help inform our policies and processes within the university administration and the Police Department to help us avoid similar outcomes in the future. While the university is trying to ensure the safety and health of all members of our community, we must ensure our strategies to gain compliance are fair and reasonable and do not lead to mistreatment.

The balls on this lady. She orders the cops in riot gear to go pepper spray the kids, then when everyone is horrified at what she has done, she forms a task force to figure out what happened. You don’t need a fucking task force to figure out what happened. You’re the problem. Just look in the mirror and ask yourself “Why am I such a blithering idiot?” And then resign.

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In Your Base, In Fact Destroying The Credibility Of Your Doodz

Here’s the Up With Chris Hayes story that Anne Laurie was talking about earlier today:

A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up w/ Chris Hayes.”

The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.

CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.

According to the memo, if Democrats embrace OWS, “This would mean more than just short-term political discomfort for Wall Street. … It has the potential to have very long-lasting political, policy and financial impacts on the companies in the center of the bullseye.”

The memo also suggests that Democratic victories in 2012 should not be the ABA’s biggest concern. “… (T)he bigger concern,” the memo says, “should be that Republicans will no longer defend Wall Street companies.”

It was pretty obvious that this was the plan and has been Wall Street’s response for some time now: demonize the Occupy movement among independents/swing voters to divide them from supporters (“They’re Dirty Effing Hippies and criminals!”) and further divide and demoralize the remaining supporters by trying to split them from the Democrats (“The Dems are just as much Wall Street lackeys as the GOP, there’s no difference!”)...all to avoid losing the “populist” mantle the Tea Party currently has, giving them license to happily loot the treasury and make the rest of us suffer.

It’s a pretty good plan from an Evil Overlord perspective, and it has made headway into reducing support for the movement.  Well, that was before the whole park evicting and pepper-spraying of grandmothers and college kids sitting peacefully on the sidewalk started happening.

I’m thinking that might change as a result.

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Occupy’s Friends in High Places

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi is the latest member of the list of stupid responders to Occupy provocation. Since Katehi is a university administrator, she cloaks her iron fist in a flabby glove of bullshit comity rhetoric:

While we have appreciated the peaceful and respectful tone of the demonstrations to date, the current encampment raises serious health, safety and legal concerns, and the resources we require to supervise this encampment cannot be sustained, especially in these very tight economic times. Our resources must support our core mission to educate all of our students.

We appreciate the substantive dialogue you have begun here, and we want to offer you appropriate opportunities to express opinions, advance the discussion and offer solutions as part of the time-honored university tradition. We invite you to consider the topics you would like to present and we will work with you to sponsor a series of forums throughout our campus.

I must now ask that all tents be peacefully removed by 3:00 p.m. today in the interest of safety, respect for our campus environment and in accordance with our Principles of Community.

I love that last bit—the time-honored UC Davis “Principles of Community” are apparently printed on a can of pepper spray. Here’s part of her response to to a dozen students getting maced in the face:

We deeply regret that many of the protestors today chose not to work with our campus staff and police to remove the encampment as requested. We are even more saddened by the events that subsequently transpired to facilitate their removal.

A moron who thinks the passive voice is the politically smart response to what went down yesterday is probably too thick to realize there’s a simple alternative that’s worked elsewhere. For example, after clearing the Occupy encampment in Rochester once, and realizing that it would cost far more and bring Occupy more attention to do it again, the Mayor here cut a simple deal. Occupy gets half the park, and cleans up after themselves.

If you look at the pictures of the UC Davis encampment in the campus newspaper, it was occupying a tiny bit of space. Linda P.B. Katehi figured clearing out that peaceful little encampment was important enough to send in armed riot police instead of cutting a deal. For that, she should be fired.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread

Anybody here watch Chris Hayes’ morning show? From Greg Sargent, at his WaPo Plum Line blog:

You should definitely check out Chris Hayes’ show on MSNBC [Saturday] morning — he has a scoop coming that will shed some new light on the meaning of the constant efforts to discredit Occupy Wall Street. Here’s the teaser:

‘Up’ will reveal details of a memo the program has obtained from a prominent lobbying firm pitching a Wall Street client on how to hit back at Occupy Wall Street and target specific Democrats in 2012 races around the country.

Don’t get MSNBC in our household, but I’m curious about this.

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