Police Attack Peaceful UC Davis Students With Pepper Spray

By Zaid Jilani on Nov 19, 2011 at 1:08 pm

Yesterday, a group of students at the University of California Davis staged a sit-in to protect their occupation encampment and demand the release of those who had already been arrested.

Police dressed in riot gear approached the peaceful group of students and began attacking them with pepper spray, forcing them to cover their faces. Many of them fell over. “What is wrong with you?” demanded one student. “You’re supposed to protect us!” yelled another. Watch it:

Professor Nathan Brown, who is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at the University, has written an open letter calling on Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi to resign in response to the incident. “I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis,” it reads. “You are not.”

Update

The entire UC Davis Faculty Association has now called for the Chancellor’s resignation. Separately, the Chancellor has announced the formation of a task force to investigate the incident.

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Economy

VIDEO: Deja Vu All Over Again — GOP Intransigence On Taxes Edition

By Jeff Spross on Nov 19, 2011 at 12:00 pm

As the deadline nears for the Congressional super committee to finalize a deal to address the nation’s deficit, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that Republicans and Democrats on the committee will be unable to reach an accord. By now, the nature and cause of the impasse should be bitterly familiar to most Americans: Congressional Republicans refusal to consider tax increases as a means to reduce the deficit. After insisting on an extension of the Bush tax rates for the wealthy — which alone will blow at least a $670 billion hole in the U.S. budget — and receiving an agreement from Democrats to cut nearly a trillion dollars in spending, Republicans have offered a paltry $300 billion in new revenue. At the same time, the top Republican on the committee has declared that every “penny” in additional revenue is a “step in the wrong direction.”

This dance should by now be familiar. This past summer, during the debt ceiling negotiations which produced the super committee, the Republicans nearly drove the country into financial default by refusing to allow tax rate increases even as they insisted that Democrats make up the difference in deficit reduction through trillions in destructive spending cuts. Indeed, Standard & Poors specifically cited the GOP’s intransigence on revenue raising when it downgraded the United States’ credit rating.

And before that, in a budget deal hammered out last December, Republicans established their ongoing theme by refusing to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for even the top brackets — at a cost of $133 billion, and benefiting a mere 4.8 million people.

ThinkProgress has compiled the video evidence of the GOP’s singular ongoing obsession. Watch it:

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Climate Progress

Can Romney Beat Obama? Questions Abound As Likely GOP Nominee Doubles Down on Denial

By Joe Romm on Nov 19, 2011 at 10:11 am

Mitt Romney has consistently been the candidate of the 1%:

“Mitt Romney’s Money Shot,” as The Atlantic puts it. Photo: Bain Capital/The Boston Globe

Intrade prediction markets puts Romney’s chances of being the GOP Presidential nominee at 69.5% as the rest of the field implodes and unelectable Newt Gingrich (!) is the latest to surge.

Romney is moving to the right on core issues that matter to the Tea Party like climate change. In October, Romney started flipping to denial (see Likely GOP Nominee Asserts, “We Don’t Know What’s Causing Climate Change”).

But now he’s started pushing the truly inane hard-core denier talking points, as the Boston Globe reports today:

Discussing climate change in response to an audience question, he mocked the notion of asking the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

“I exhale carbon dioxide,’’ Romney said. “I don’t want those guys following me around with a meter to see if I’m breathing too hard.’’

Seriously. This from a guy who, just in June, said “I think it’s important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you’re seeing.”

Why is Romney pandering to the most extreme part of the GOP when he just about has the race sewed up, and the rest of the general public believes in global warming and climate action?

Intrade has Obama at almost dead even to be reelected — 50.5%. Who do you think will be the next President?