Watch the Occupy Oakland’s May Day Actions Live! (All Times are PST)

9AM – NOON: 3-4 morning actions,

Decentralized actions leaving from 3 points on the edge of downtown at 8:30am. These actions can take the form of “strike enforcement brigades” such as pickets, blockades, snake marches etc. Strike stations will be set up at each of these locations starting at 8am with coffee, snacks, water, propaganda etc.

Station 1 anti-capitalist: Snow Park – flying pickets to shut down banks and the Chamber of Commerce
Station 2 anti-patriarchy: 1st & Broadway – occupy Child Protective Services, called for by OOP
Station 3 anti-gentrification: 22nd & Telegraph – flying pickets to shut down Uptown & Downtown Business Associations

NOON – 1PM: Everyone Converge on Downtown: Mass rally from noon to 1pm at 14th & Broadway including speakers, food, music activities, etc.

1PM – 3PM: Themed Actions & Marches Around Downtown:
After the rally, those in attendance have the opportunity to stay downtown or join one of the autonomous actions that will be departing from 14th & Broadway to continue shutting down various capitalist institutions in the downtown area.

3PM: March for Dignity and Resistance
All are encouraged to join the march starting at Fruitvale BART station at 3pm.

6PM – 7PM: Reconvergence downtown to coincide with the march arrival: Everyone back downtown to rally and celebrate together as the March for Dignity and Resistance arrives.

1:02 PM ET – Williamsburg Bridge march by Occupy Wall Street makes it across the bridge.

12:59 PM ET – KQED reports thousands of commuters affected by Golden Gate bridge ferry strike…Occupy Bloomington tries to get up an encampment for May Day but police immediately take tent down…Arrests at Occupy Albany for the reprehensible crime of—wait for it—putting a table up in a park without a permit!

12:53 PM ET – Gothamist roundup on Occupy Wall Street action so far features – dancing cops

12:50 PM ET – Dustin Slaughter (@DustinSlaughter) is heading to Philadelphia’s financial district to cover Occupy Philly’s Strike the Banks action. Five banks were reportedly chain-locked earlier.

12:45 PM ET – Livestream of Occupy Wall Street picket near and around Citibank branch in New York.

12:41 PM ET – Picketing by Occupy Wall Street continues

Original Post

Firedoglake is live blogging all the May Day action that the Occupy movement is engaged in today. Just now, reports are coming in of an Occupy Wall Street march being kettled at 41st and Park. Seven vans of riot cops are said to be deploying. National Lawyers Guild legal observers and medics are present.

With that update, I am now taking over for the next four hours and will be posting updates on May Day action until 4 pm ET when Dustin Slaughter takes over again.

Justin Slaughter of the David and Goliath Project live blogged much of the morning’s action. You can see what he covered here. Also, below are a few updates to help you catch up with the action.

Previous updates from Dustin Slaughter

-Hundreds of Caterpillar plant workers in Joliet, Illinois have gone on strike today, refusing to accept a new contract that offers no pay increase and includes higher health insurance costs.

-Josh Harkinson from Mother Jones has also posted a video of alleged Black Bloc vandalism in San Francisco’s Mission District from earlier this morning. According to Harkinson, Occupy San Francisco has reportedly denounced these incidents.

-Occupy Wall Street livestreamer Tim Pool is reporting at least two arrests so far, including a military veteran who was arrested for standing in the street with an American flag. Protesters are returning to Bryant Park to rest, before more action in an hour. Approximately 1,000 people at the park right now.

-Portland high school students gather to protest education cuts

-Mobile picket teams, as part of OWS’ 99 Pickets, disperse to a number of banks throughout Manhattan. A Golden Gate Bridge ferry picket unfolds in San Francisco too.

GOP leaders, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner (photo: Speaker Boehner/flicker)

Every time Washington goes through a new bout of deficit hysteria, it’s important to remember that most of the politicians warning about the dangers of the annual deficits or the national debt don’t really care about them. From the The Hill:

House Republicans say they have no plans to pay for the extension of the Bush-era tax rates, a move that could erase the deficit reduction they have achieved since winning their majority in the chamber in 2010.

The income and investment tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are set to expire at the end of the year and are at the center of a thicket of fiscal decisions that Congress must make in the next several months.

While President Obama and congressional Democrats want to extend only the Bush rates for middle-income earners, Republicans have long argued that the entire slate of tax rates should be kept in place until Congress can agree to a complete overhaul of the tax code.

Allowing all the tax rates to return to the levels in effect under the Clinton administration (or finding pay-fors for them) would reduce the deficit by roughly $4 trillion over the next decade. The first option simply requires Congress to do nothing, but it would dramatically reduce the federal deficit and cumulative debt.

If Republicans really thought the deficit was some huge pending moral and fiscal disaster, they could easily fix it by simply letting the tax cuts expire as scheduled. The main reason some projections of the long term deficit are so high is because the projections assume the same politicians who claim to be so worried about the deficit are actively planning to increase it by passing an unpaid-for extension of the current tax cuts.

The deficit fear-mongering has nothing to do with the deficit. It is only an excuse to justify cutting programs that help regular people.