Occupy Wall Street: The "YOPP" of our age.

Open thread below.

Ryan Adams has emerged from semi-retirement with his most cohesive, and possibly his strongest record yet. It's called Ashes And Fire and I sure am digging it. Here's the first single.

Ashes & Fire
	Price: $7.99 (As of 10/19/11 04:00 am details)

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In the foreign policy section of the Republican debate, Michele Bachmann once again acted as spokeswoman for the Dominionists worldwide as she castigated Ron Paul for saying we should withdraw aid from Israel. She then went on to say that Libya and Afghanistan Iraq should reimburse us for "liberating them", and finally declared flatly that the US never, ever negotiates with terrorists for hostages or anything else.

The Bachmann doctrine: We're gonna come in and strafe your country, kill tens of thousands of your people, and you will be so grateful you'll offer to reimburse us for that!

In between this and the next segue, Herman Cain calls the Guantanamo Bay detainees hostages, and declares he would never release them. Um, ok. They'd be our hostages, then.

To which Ron Paul asked all of them whether or not they denied that Ronald Reagan negotiated arms for hostages in the 80s.

You could have heard a pin drop in that Republican audience. I don't think anyone was prepared for it. And then Rick Santorum began to hem and haw and admit that there were indeed such negotiations because Iran is a sovereign state.

Indeed, Iran is (and was) a sovereign state. A sovereign state who took diplomats hostage. Even in war, it's accepted that diplomats are untouchable. Send them home, make them persona non grata, but taking them hostage is just not done. Until Iran did it.

Newt then made some lame comment to rehab Ronnie, saying it was really just all part of a plot that he didn't know about at the time, but when he discovered it, he was appalled. Alzheimer's excuse, Newtie?

I think it's remarkable to hear the audience react with stunned silence when Ron Paul speaks the truth about what Saint Ronnie did and did not do. Guess Michele ought to brush up on her Reaganalia before she opens her mouth at another debate.

Update: I replaced the clip so that the entire exchange is now there, including Herman Cain's declaration that Guantanamo Bay detainees are hostages, along with Ron Paul's pointed question about Reagan. Apologies for the confusion.

Transcript follows:

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Republican presidential candidates clearly came to Tuesday's debate with the intentions of taking on former Gov. Mitt Romney.

After accusing Romney of backtracking on his suggestion that the Massachusetts health care law should be available to the entire nation, former Sen. Rick Santorum did his best not to allow him to answer the question.

As CNN host Anderson Cooper noted the time had expired, the crowd began to boo. Romney was given a few more seconds to respond, but former House Speaker Newt Gingrich added his voice to the criticism of Romney's health care plan.

"Your plan essentially is one more big government bureaucratic high cost system which candidly could not have been done by any other state because no other state had a Medicare program as lavish as yours, and no one got a grant from the Bush administration for this experiment," Gingrich charged.

"Actually, Newt, we got the idea of an individual mandate from you," Romney replied.

"You did not get that from me," Gingrich insisted. "You got it from the Heritage Foundation."

"And you never supported it?" Romney asked.

"I absolutely did -- with the Heritage Foundation -- against Hillarycare," Gingrich admitted.

"OK, that's what I'm saying. We got the idea from you and the Heritage Foundation," Romney concluded.

The Las Vegas GOP Debate has been just schadenfreude-licious to watch. Bickering, backtracking, catfights and it even looked at one point that Perry and Romney would come to blows.

Clearly, the plan was to attack the frontrunners. After spending the first 15 minutes bashing Cain's 999 plan (and demonstrating clearly that Mr. "Imagine There's No Pizza" is not ready for prime time), it was time for the wannabes to set their target sights on Mitt Romney.

Rick Perry had his attack points ready to go and launched into Romney's hypocritical stance on getting strict on immigration reform only to hire undocumented workers to construct his new mansion. That led Mitt to utter the ultimate 1% response:

[W]e went to the company and we said, 'Look, you can't have any illegals working on our property! I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, we can't have illegals!'

Well, there you go. That wasn't enough for Perry, however, who went back for a second zing on it:

"The bottom line is that we have a federal government that has failed," Perry responded. "There is a clear problem here. And he [Romney] hit the nail on the head a while ago. He said there was a magnet of people that will hire illegals. And you are number one on that list, sir. And people need to understand that. You're one of the problems, Mitt."

Perry's blow perhaps wasn't quite as popular with the audience as he intended it to be. There were audible boos in response to his comment.

"I think we've been down that road," Romney replied. "We've been down that road sufficiently. Sounds like the audience agrees with me."

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Just before the start if GOP presidential debate in Nevada, Erin Burnett and her panel had a little bit of trouble broadcasting from their outdoor studio as they were drowned out by the Occupy Wall Street protesters and chants of "Banks got bailed out! We got sold out!"

After TeaNN's relentless promotion of the AstroTurf "tea party" and Burnett's derisive treatment of the protesters during her opening show, I can't think of a more fitting bunch to have to put up with this, other than anyone from Fox "News."

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Credit: Walt Handelsman at Newsday

They're back again, folks. At what point does Reince Priebus find his giant vaudeville "off the stage" hook? And here's a sad, John Huntsman isn't gonna be there. But Anderson Cooper will be. The debate is on CNN and live streamed at CNN.com.

Let us know what you hear. Open debate thread below....

I still can't figure out why Victoria Jackson posted that video. It was the best endorsement of Occupy Wall Street I've seen thus far. It's OK to be stupid, but not knowing you're stupid? That seems like a cruel way to exist...especially for Jackson who's (technically) a comedienne.

Here's the original video:

And here's the hilarious Jenn Dodd's site.

H/T Mediate

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Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Sunday that he was "delighted" that fellow candidate Herman Cain was surging in the polls but hoped his popularity would be short lived.

"Herman Cain is a terrific person," Gingrich told CNN's Candy Crowley. "I think there's a certain attractiveness to Herman that a lot of people find very genuine. He's a good friend of mine and I'm delighted for him that he's having this kind of run. I wouldn't want it to go to the nomination but I'm delighted that he's having this kind of run."

"If Herman figures out how to do it all right and if he can explain a nine percent sales tax so people decide they want it, he has a good chance to be the nominee. If, however, in New Hampshire, for example, where they have no sales tax at all and no mechanism for collecting it, or in Iowa where senior citizens are going to say, wait a second, as my 79-year-old mother-in-law said on her Social Security, in her fixed income she's now going to pay nine percent more? As people look at 999 and disaggregate it, it gets to be a lot harder sale, I think."

The candidate added that Cain had surged because Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who many saw as the alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, had stumbled during several debates.

"Is Perry done?" Crowley asked.

"No, nobody's done in this business," the former House Speaker declared.

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One of the issues pressing the occupation is the reality of holding a piece of ground round-the-clock (it is an occupation, after all) in October and, soon, November. Milwaukee occupiers have been forced to relocate; Minnesota protesters, who face an even colder winter, have been told they can’t use tents. When you’re outside and exposed, winter survival is a safety issue of Valley Forge proportions.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time living in the snow, and I’ve written this post as a how-to. If you’re holding the line in the name of the 99%, thank you for what you do. I hope this advice will help keep you healthy and on your feet (fingers and toes intact).

When you set up a camp in the winter months, location is everything. Many Occupations have already launched, and they’ll have to make the most of the current site. Others are still in the planning stages, and should take the lay of the land into consideration.

If you are still planning: There are many things you want from your site: visibility, accessibility, and a hope of avoiding arrest. None of these mean anything if you can’t sleep at night from the cold.

Wind and shelter are two of your biggest considerations. In most areas, winter winds come from the north, but be aware of your local weather patterns. An ideal location (in a city) will be a low-lying area with taller buildings on all sides, especially the side the winter wind comes from. Hedges and evergreen trees provide surprisingly effective wind blocks; fences do not. Scout your location on foot and pay attention to whether it seems less windy than the surrounding streets.

Elevated areas are terrible for winter camping. Don’t choose high ground. Likewise, areas that channel wind (such as long, narrow parks or malls) will be miserable.

Lots more useful information. Did you know you'll be better off sleeping on a pile of pine boughs than you would in a blow-up mattress? Neither did I!