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After the violence we saw break out late night at the Occupy Oakland protests and the likelihood that those disturbances were either caused by anarchists, or someone from within the establishment that wanted to make the peaceful protesters who came out in mass earlier in the day look bad and cause disruptions, Michael Moore had a suggestion for any of those protesters out there who don't want those violent acts pinned on them from this week.

Sadly Moore is exactly right when it comes to everything from those protesting the World Trade Organization to the Civil Rights movement and the fact that those who want to peacefully assemble have always had to put up with those who don't want to see their movements move forward, whether they be fringe groups, the police and what's considered the establishment themselves or just rabble rousers who want to take advantage of a situation to stir up trouble.

As he noted, those promoting the Occupy movement don't need violence for it to succeed. Those who want to make sure it fails do. I would hope that's something the general assembly and any of those who put themselves out there as potential spokesperson's for the protests in Oakland keep in mind if they don't want to be marginalized after what we saw happen there with the violence this week.

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ThinkProgress:

The Sun-Times reports that the Family Research Council, a social conservative advocacy nonprofit headed by CNN pundit Tony Perkins, has awarded Walsh a 100 percent rating as a “True Blue” member of Congress. The FRC said it gave the honor to Walsh because of his “unwavering support of the family”:

“We thank Cong. Walsh who has voted consistently to defend faith, family and freedom,” said FRCA President Tony Perkins. “Cong. Walsh and other ‘True Blue Members’ have voted to repeal Obamacare, de-fund Planned Parenthood, end government funding for abortion within the health care law, uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, and continue support for school choice. I applaud their commitment to uphold the institutions of marriage and family.”“I am proud and honored to be recognized by the Family Research Council as the only member from Illinois with a 100 percent pro-family voting record,” Walsh said in a news release. “Defending American values have always been one of my top priorities, and this reward reaffirms my dedication to that fight.”

Weird. Defending American values is a top priority, yet Walsh doesn't see his family as part of that. Not only is he behind in his child support, but he also declined the Congressional health insurance plan, leaving his current wife uninsured with a pre-existing condition. I sure hope she earns a decent salary since it had to be paid for out of pocket. I'm fairly certain it would be a mistake to expect the good Congressman to pay for much of anything.

I'm waiting with baited breath for the FRC to award Judge Adams their Father of the Year award. It can't be far behind this.

I finally opened an account at my local credit union a few weeks ago, and the manager told me their membership was up by "at least" 25 percent this quarter. Which is good! They treated me like a human being, they had a nice waiting area and enough tellers that there weren't huge lines. It seemed, well, almost un-American! In a press release from American Banker, here's news that the "move your money" movement has been a real success:

WASHINGTON — An estimated 650,000 consumers have closed their bank accounts and opted for credit union membership over the past four weeks, according to CUNA, bringing the approach to Saturday’s Bank Transfer Day to a crescendo.

In a survey of 5,000 of its credit union members CUNA estimates that at least 650,000 consumers across the nation have joined credit unions since Sept. 29, the day Bank of America unveiled its now-rescinded $5 monthly debit card fee. Also during that time, CUNA estimates that credit unions have added $4.5 billion in new savings accounts, likely from the new members and existing members shifting their funds.

"These results indicate that consumers are clearly making a smarter choice by moving to credit unions where, on average, they will save about $70 a year in fewer or no fees, lower rates on loans and higher return on savings." said CUNA President Bill Cheney.

Cheney said the growth is particularly noticeable at larger credit unions (those with $100 million or more in assets, which account for about 20% of all credit unions – but count about 80% of all credit union members).

The CUNA survey shows that more than 70% of these credit unions reported they have seen growth in memberships and deposits since Sept. 29.

After the Senate blocked debate of President Obama's infrastructure proposal to stimulate the economy and create jobs, Ed Schultz went on a tear, letting Republicans have it for their obstructionist ways.

SCHULTZ: Good to have you with us tonight. thanks for watching. Republicans' calculated campaign to sabotage President Obama, well, it hit a new low today. a few hours ago the Senate Democrats came up nine votes short of passing the Rebuild America jobs bill. The bill would have created thousands of construction jobs by investing $50 billion in rebuilding America's roads, bridges, and airports. Not a single Republican voted for the bill. Backstabber Joe Lieberman and sellout Ben Nelson joined with the Republicans to kill the bill. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell objected to the bill because it would put a new tax on America's richest 345,532 people.

MCCONNELL: I'm sure that it is the case that most Americans support raising taxes on high-income individuals. My guess is they might have a different view if they knew that 4 out of 5 of those individuals were actually business owners. Nevertheless, it's time it seems to me for us to quit making the campaign speeches and remember the election is in November of '12, not this month of '11.

I want to stop here and tell you what my dream ad is. It's one that could be made for lots of Republicans (and Lieberman and Nelson, too), and one that I think would be effective. It goes like this. Take a clip like the one of McConnell talking about business owners and pretending an itty-bitty extra tax on income over $1 million would break them. Or the one of Boehner talking about what a job creator he is. Loop it, over and over. Split the screen and scroll all of the non-jobs bills Republicans have voted on. All of them. The umpty-zillion "ban abortion" bills. The de-fund NPR bills. The idiotic "In God We Trust" vote. scroll them all, while looping the claim they've been busy, busy, busy creating jobs. End it with a simple question: Where are the jobs?

I am so tired of these lunatics going on television and claiming they're creating anything but mayhem and dissonance. Let them own all of those lies, right here and right now and all the way through until voting next November.

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Via WaPo:

At his weekly news conference Thursday morning, Boehner (R-Ohio) was asked whether he believes the Americans for Tax Reform president and architect of the anti-tax pledge signed by an overwhelming majority of congressional Republicans is “a positive influence” on the House GOP conference.

The speaker shrugged his shoulders and paused at the podium for a full five seconds before responding.

“Listen, our focus here is on jobs,” Boehner said at last. “We’re doing everything we can to get our economy moving again and to get people back to work. It’s not often I’m asked about some random person in America.”

Asked whether he genuinely believed Norquist was a “random person” to members of his conference, Boehner replied, “Listen, our focus is on creating jobs, not talking about somebody’s personality.”

“Our conference is opposed to tax hikes because we believe that tax hikes will hurt our economy and put Americans out of work,” he added when asked about the impact of Norquist’s anti-tax pledge.

An odd expression which drew laughter from the assembled reporters but in a way Boehner wasn't joking. The idea behind the pledge has become so central to Republican thought, so fixed in their way of thinking that for someone like Boehner the question itself makes no sense, does not compute. That this "random person" just happens to be the originator of something which has been wholly incoporated into the Republican® brand is incidental.

This orthodoxy is now woven so deeply into the party’s identity that all but 13 of 288 GOP lawmakers in Congress have signed a formal pledge not to raise taxes. The strategist who invented the pledge, Grover G. Norquist, compares it to a brand, like Coca-Cola, built on “quality control” so that Republican voters know they will get “the same thing every time.”

Conformity is comforting to Republicans.

Via Think Progress, some fascinating news. I think this makes it pretty clear that the Koch brothers (you remember, the "financial engine of the Tea party"?) are counting on Mitt Romney to protect their agenda if he stumbles into the Oval Office:

[Today], 2012 GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is slated to give a “major spending policy speech” at Americans For Prosperity’s Defending the American Dream Summit. Both the conference and AFP itself are funded by money from the billionaire Koch Brothers.

Romney has, of late, been trying to claim the economic plan he put forth is meant to aid the middle-class, not those in the Koch brothers’ tax bracket. “I want to focus on where the people are hurting the most, and that’s the middle class. I’m not worried about rich people. They are doing just fine,” Romney said at a GOP debate last month. Yesterday, he even tried to claim “I’m proposing no tax cuts for the rich.”

Leaving aside that Romney intends to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, he has proposed a huge giveaway to the very rich by suggesting the complete elimination of the estate tax. Only the very richest households in the country ever have to pay the estate tax, since, right now, an estate must be worth more than $5 million (or $10 million for a couple) to pay any estate tax at all.

Currently, more than half of the estate tax is paid by the richest 0.1 percent of households. And according to a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, the Koch brothers heirs’ would save a combined $17.4 billion in estate taxes thanks to Romney’s plan.

Each of the Koch brothers — Charles and David — is worth about $25 billion. They are each married, so they would receive an exemption on the first $10 million that they pass down, and then theirs heirs would pay a 35 percent tax, or $8.7 billion, on the rest of their vast fortunes.

Now, this is an exceedingly rough calculation, as it’s almost certain that the Koch’s have engaged in extensive estate planning and would pay nowhere near that amount. But 35 percent is the rate on the books, and Romney’s plan to eliminate the estate tax entirely would undeniably save the Kochs a boatload of money.

Extreme right-wing conservative radio host Bill Cunningham recorded a video wherein he called for Ohio citizens to vote against State Issue 2, which would repeal Gov. John Kasich's anti-collective bargaining Senate Bill 5. Cunningham blasted Kasich for refusing to meet with the union members hurt by the bill, particularly police officers, fire fighters and teachers, who he said were the best Americans he knows.

The stance is surprising coming from Cunningham, who is a rabid birther who frequently blasts the poor as being lazy, compared Barack Obama to the Adolf Hitler and said that Obama wanted to "gas the Jews."

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Will Bunch will be here today at 2pm to talk about his new Kindle book, "October 1, 2011: The Battle of the Brooklyn Bridge."

Will is a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, a Media Matters fellow, Pulitzer Prize winner and blogs at Attytood (which is famous among bloggers for what are quite possibly the nastiest commenters in the known universe).

He's also inspired and energized by the Occupy movement, and is happy to talk with C&L readers today about his own experience writing this book.

Be sure to drop by!

So many people were shocked by the video of that Texas judge hitting his child, but I wasn't. I've been reading for a long time about the abusive child-rearing practices of extreme Christian fundamentalists, and I wouldn't be surprised if that girl's father thought he was merely doing his duty and "raising a godly child."

The books of Michael and Debi Pearl are frequently implicated in that kind of abuse. Here's a heart-wrenching post from a reader over at the No Longer Quivering blog, started by a woman who left the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement:

When the Pearls’ methods failed, I got stuck on method a. Blame yourself. I re-read To Train Up a Child. When I knew I had it right, I hit harder. Prayed harder. Did the whole disciplinary routine smiling from ear to ear and cooing like a dove. My babies acted freaked out by my grin (it was a lot like Debi Pearl’s vacuous, huge grin in the Tuchman interview) and were enraged by my efforts to “lovingly reconcile” with them after spankings. They kept up the fight. At this point, I think I would have admitted to myself that something was wrong with this whole child-training method and stopped torturing the toddlers all day to no avail. If you have to be cruel to get the Pearl method to work on some kids, it’s wrong. I had a husband, however, who was firmly convinced that Pearl was right. He went right for the b. and c. options: hit harder and blame the kid.

Options b. and c. are hard to do without getting angry. They are hard to do without leaving bruises, especially since Pearl discipline is cumulative: faced with entrenched rebellion, you are supposed to hit repeatedly and in the same areas. My ex-husband got angry with the kids for thwarting the Pearl method, but he remained coldly self-controlled. He also left bruises. A lot of bruises.

Why didn’t I stop him? I finally did, but early in my marriage I was paralyzed by fear and brainwashed by bad teaching. We both feared raising ungodly kids. We were looking for confirmation that some part of this system worked, and my ex-husband began to get results. The children flinched when he even moved. Cowered when he reached for a spanking implement. Had semi-seizures on the carpet following “biblical correction.” We got compliance with our wishes. Eventually, there wasimmediate and unquestioning compliance. My ex-husband had quelled the rebellion in three kids. He had created unfocused, freaked-out little robots who obeyed. The joy and the peace that was supposed to suffuse our home according to Pearl, we thought we could dispense with. Maybe it would come later; the Pearls are a little vague on where the peace and love should come into the process, just as they are a little vague on how you can keep “chastising” repeatedly with progressively increased force in the same places without leaving bruises.

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Susie Cagle is a colleague of mine. Full disclosure: I'm syndicated through Cagle Cartoons, her father's gig.

Susie a dedicated journalist who's been diligently covering Occupy Oakland for weeks now. Before the nation was paying attention - Susie was there. Last week she was tear gassed on the job - this week she was arrested.

I'm going to talk with her later today about her arrest. I wanted to put this up here now. Our Nicolle Belle has been down in Oakland. I've personally been to five Occupations in two countries. Susie Madrak has been at Occupy Philadelphia and Occupy St. Pete. We've been going there to tell the story of the people down there. Arresting a journalist is unacceptable. It's intimidation and it's wrong.