OWS Brooklyn Bridge Lawsuit Update

Class Action Lawsuit Against NYPD Over Mass Arrests On The Brooklyn Bridge

Legal opinion by judge, allowing Occupy Wall Street protesters and other plaintiffs to sue the NYPD in a class action based on the police entrapment and brutality during the Brooklyn Bridge protest.

2012 06 07 OWS Brooklyn Bridge Arrests Garcia v Bloomberg Opinion and Order

Class action complaint from mass NYPD arrests of Occupy Wall Street activists.

2011 10 OWS Brooklyn Bridge Arrests Class Action Complaint Garcia v Bloomberg

MF Global Trustee Fraud Investigation Report

2012 06 04 MF Global Trustee Investigation Report

Help Sustain TJ Williams And His Social Justice Work

Please help support the important Social Justice work of TJ Williams.

The LGBT civil rights activist TJ Williams will be spending a large part of summer in New York City, to complete his clerical study, and he is asking for private donations to fund his important work relating to social justice.

''Please join us in our fight for progressive causes, that includes organizing clergy to support the President. It is a crucial time in our history,'' Mr. Williams wrote on his Facebook page. ''And I need your help to sustain, in terms of study and the development of the work that I do.''

Mr. Williams, who is normally based in Chicago, is asking people to donate money to his PayPal account, which can be accessed on his Pilgrimage to Riverside website, to pay for his housing, education, and social justice expenses.

''Your gift today means that more progressive voices of faith will join our national discourse and that we can collectively speak louder then bigoted Conservative voices who have taken over ou air waves,'' Mr. Williams added.

Here is the kind of work that Mr. Williams has done : he takes the message of LGBT equality to African-American churches, to build a grassroots support for LGBT civil rights.

In another example, Mr. Williams made a compassionate appeal for all minority groups to work together, to further progressive causes. Watch the video statement here :

Memory Lane : Lila Leeds

Her name is Lila Leeds. I knew her when I was in my teens growing up. She was MGM's bright young star on the horizon. She was caught smoking pot with Robert Mitchum and they both spent 60 days in jail. Mitchum became more popular than ever. Lila Leeds was never heard from again and forced to leave the state. She did, and went to Chicago. That what it was like for women in the 1950's. -- Mamie Van Doren, via Facebook

Cy Vance Dirty D.A.

Scandalous Cy Vance Razzle Dazzle Dirty D.A. Boy Toy Video Reappears on Dropbox.

Watch the parody video made of Cy Vance's incompetencies that rise to the level of corruption : Dirty D.A.

Dalida Tribute Video

LGBT Equality Presidential Debate

Seeing as how Vice President Joseph Biden put marriage equality on the national agenda as a presidential campaign issue, LGBT civil rights activist need to band together and organise a national presidential debate dedicated to LGBT equality, kind of like the ''Meeting LGBT pour l'égélité,'' which took place in Paris on March 31 in the final lead-up to the French presidential election there.

Whatever your political party, it is important that voters know what you think about LGBT equality.

Watch above how voters responded to President Nicholas Sarkozy's lack of policies to end discrimination against French LGBT citizens. President Sarkozy's representative was booed off stage. No wonder he lost the election.

Chloë Sevigny Transphobia ?

Chloë Sevigny Cries Over Wearing Prosthetic Penis

Chloë Sevigny has made some culturally incompetent remarks that border on transphobia about her current acting role : she plays a pre-op transgender hitman named Mia in her TV series, Hit & Miss, and had to wear a prosthetic penis, which she described as very upsetting, because "she was worried men would no longer find her attractive," The Daily Telegraph has reported.

"I cried every day when they put it on. You know, I’m ample-chested and I have this on," Sevigny said. "I felt very exposed, and it was hard, very hard, having people so close to your personal parts anyway - who you’re not sleeping with - for an hour-and-a-half each day, to put it on."

"Then looking in the mirror... it was weird. I was lonely and I felt really unattractive," the 37-year-old actress added. "I was confused about my desirability - was I desirable? - in having put that on, and having men see me with that on."

Ms. Sevigny's comments are more than just insensitive to transgenders, what you are dealing with here is ignorance -- deep ignorance on a personal level, when then rises to something worse : spreading hate, because our culture wrongly puts actors and other entertainment people up on pedestals. The right thing to do is to challenge Ms. Sevigny on it, so that she can examine what she is doing. Something similar to this (but not exactly) happened to the author Aphrodite Jones, who once said some very insensitive remarks. What happened to Ms. Jones was that she was challenged, and she came out of that having a new personal understanding that she now carries with her and talks about, having learned new sensibilities. The way I look at it, is as painful as Ms. Sivigny's words are, the key is to challenge Ms. Sivigny and engage her, so that she can learn from her own ignorance and selfishness. That's how you can hear Ms. Sivigny apologise, and then she can go on to speak about this experience to share her new sensibilities with other people.

To change the word, we need to be engaged in a conversation.

Parents Put Child In Washing Machine

VIRAL VIDEO : Parenting Fail at a Laundromat

A couple put their baby in the washing machine to scare him but it turned out to be a bad idea as the machine had auto lock system and it took the child for a spin. The child suffered minor injuries and is safe, according to the YouTube video posting.

Chicago Police Beat NATO Protesters With Batons ; Police Use Of Violence Against Citizens Highlights Need To End War, Conflict (Raw Video)

"The police have several demonstrators detained behind their lines, calling for medics. Bloodied protesters being dragged out of sight now," Occupy Chicago group wrote on its Twitter page earlier in the day.

A city official, who was not authorized to talk to the media on police matters, told CNN that between 75-100 protesters had refused to leave the area after being told to disperse.

Dharun Ravi Leniency Shocker

In an unexpected turn of events, some activists for LGBT equality have begun to offer support for Dharun Ravi, the Rutgers University student, who was convicted of invading the privacy of his roommate, Tyler Clementi, in an act that some described as bullying against an LGBT student, which culminated in Mr. Clementi's suicide. In rallies that have been being held in support of Mr. Ravi, a new worldview has been growing among LGBT activists, one that is based on a premise that Mr. Ravi has been the subject of a "judicial witch-hunt." From articles in The New York Times, to blog posts on Towleroad, to Reuters wire stories, there are emerging prominent voices among LGBT equality activists, including William Dobbs, that Mr. Ravi should not be scapegoated for Mr. Clementi's suicide. At a rally in support of Ravi outside the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton this week, Mr. Dobbs ... told the crowd that Ravi was "overcharged" in the incident. "The hate crime law in New Jersey has got so many problems that it should be repealed," Dobbs said. "It has become a dangerous weapon that is not necessary."

Credit : Pool photo by John Munson

Obama Indefinite Detention Update

Judge Blocks Controversial NDAA

U.S District Judge Katherine Forrest granted a preliminary injunction last week to "block provisions of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that would allow the military to indefinitely detain anyone it accuses of knowingly or unknowingly supporting terrorism," the Courthouse News Service reported.

Signed by President Barack Obama on New Year's Eve, the 565-page NDAA contains a short paragraph, in statute 1021, letting the military detain anyone it suspects "substantially supported" al-Qaida, the Taliban or "associated forces." The indefinite detention would supposedly last until "the end of hostilities." ...

"There is a strong public interest in protecting rights guaranteed by the First Amendment," Forrest wrote. "There is also a strong public interest in ensuring that due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment are protected by ensuring that ordinary citizens are able to understand the scope of conduct that could subject them to indefinite military detention."

Weeks after Obama signed the law, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges filed a lawsuit against its so-called "Homeland Battlefield" provisions.

Several prominent activists, scholars and politicians subsequently joined the suit, including Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg; Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Noam Chomsky; Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jonsdottir; Kai Wargalla, an organizer from Occupy London; and Alexa O'Brien, an organizer for the New York-based activist group U.S. Day of Rage.

2012 05 16 Preliminary Injunction Against Ndaa Indefinite Detention

Protesters in Chicago Urge Growth, Not Austerity

Thousands in Chicago Protest War and Austerity

From Occupy Wall Street :

"You wouldn't know it from watching CNN, but thousands of people have gathered this week in Chicago and elsewhere to peacefully express their indignation at a political system dominated by war and austerity. While world leaders gather for the G8 and NATO summits -- where they are discussing war plans and addressing their failed financial system with rhetoric alone -- Occupiers and our allies are not only holding our own workshops and discussions on the financial crisis, we are taking direct action to create a world that does not need their warfare or austerity. "

Following are examples of what just some of the Chicago protests looked like on Friday, May 18, 2012 :

The very next day, The New York Times published an article that reported that President Barack Obama suddenly began to press for a growth and jobs programs -- totally ignoring the Chicago protests and the activists' messages. Additional videos of the May 18 Chicago protests follow :

Donna Summer Dead

Disco legend Donna Summer died today at age 63 after a battle with cancer, TMZ has reported. More details to come. Someone left the cake out in the rain. I don't think that I can take it, 'cause it took so long to bake it. And I'll never have that recipe again. Oh, no !

Eric Schneiderman St. Vincent's Hospital

Activists from the Coalition For a New Village Hospital protest against New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Is Attorney General Eric Schneiderman corrupt ? Activists didn't ask that question, but they do demand to know why the Attorney General's Office never investigated the shady closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.