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“President Barack Obama’s 2013 budget plan would raise taxes for 27 percent of U.S. households, far more than the administration estimates, according to a nonpartisan study.

The study comes from the Tax Policy Center, a research group in Washington that analyzes proposals from presidential candidates in both parties.

Obama focuses the tax increases in his 2013 budget on corporations and the top 2 percent of individual taxpayers. The result in the center’s study stems from the fact that taxpayers in all income brackets own parts of corporations…”

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It used to be that Barack Obama had kind things to say about Republican Congressman Paul Ryan and his budget. He often called it a “serious proposal” even though he didn’t agree with it.

Not anymore. Ryan has updated the budget, and Obama is running against it.

Yesterday White House spokesman Jay Carney said that supporters of the Ryan Plan were “aggressively and deliberately ignorant” about the economy.

Now they are putting out this infographic, saying that the Ryan budget plan cuts benefits and programs for the middle class while giving an “average tax cut of at least $150,000” to millionaires and billionaires.

Take a look:

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — City Council members took a step closer on Wednesday to becoming the first in the nation to adopt a resolution condemning certain types of speech on public airwaves.

Councilmember Jan Perry introduced legislation that would call upon media companies to ensure “on-air hosts do not use and promote racist and sexist slurs” on radio and other broadcasts.

Members of Black Media Alliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, Korean-American Bar Association, American Indians in Film and Television were on hand to voice their support for the proposal.

The resolution — which was also supported by Councilmember Bernard Parks and Council President Herb Wesson — called attention to the recent uproar over comments by KFI 640 AM talk show hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou.

Kobylt and Chiampou were suspended after they called the late pop singer Whitney Houston a “crack ho” three days after her death in February.

The proposal cites a “long history of racially offensive comments as well as deplorable sexist remarks, particularly towards women and Black, Latino, and Asian communities” at KFI 640 and calls for parent company Clear Channel Communications to hire a more diverse workforce to offset the trend.

“It is easy to become desensitized to what other groups find intolerable which ultimately fosters an environment where negative comments can go unchecked and corporate guidelines and policies are no longer being enforced,” the resolution reads.

Remarks from syndicated talk show host Rush Limbaugh referring Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and a “prostitute” for testifying on Capitol Hill about women’s access to contraception were also cited in the proposal.

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“Among the controversial issues discussed by the remaining GOP candidates, all find it necessary to protect themselves from the ever present threat of glitter bombs. All candidates but one.

Ron Paul is the only Republican presidential hopeful who doesn’t find it necessary to spend tax payers’ money on fancy luxuries such as Secret Service protection, comforting other GOP candidates: Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

In an interview with Jay Leno, Paul added that employing Secret Service is a “form of welfare.”

“You know, you’re having the taxpayers pay to take care of somebody,” Paul said.

“I’m an ordinary citizen and I would think I should pay for my own protection, and it costs, I think, more than $50,000 a day to protect those individuals,” Paul told Jay Leno on Tuesday when he appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show.

The twelve-term Congressman received a standing ovation last night as he walked on to discuss where he stands on the issues and discuss how the other candidates change their stance on matters as long as it appeases their crowd.

But it seems Romney and Santorum have no issues spending Americans tax money for their own well-being.

To Doctor Paul Romney is a “flip-flopper” and Santorum is a “fake conservative,” but to Secret Service they are known as “Javelin” and “Petrus” respectively….”

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“Rather than focus on helping smaller businesses, Republicans and Democrats in Washington have come together on legislation that would assist large corporations and allow them to skirt financial disclosure rules.

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“(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON – It’s the political cure-all for high gas prices: Drill here, drill now. But more U.S. drilling has not changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, math and history show.

A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.

If more domestic oil drilling worked as politicians say, you’d now be paying about $2 a gallon for gasoline. Instead, you’re paying the highest prices ever for March.

Political rhetoric about the blame over gas prices and the power to change them — whether Republican claims now or Democrats’ charges four years ago — is not supported by cold, hard figures. And that’s especially true about oil drilling in the U.S. More oil production in the United States does not mean consistently lower prices at the pump….”

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“If you’ve been fretting about faltering math education and falling test scores here in the United States, you should be worried based on this campaign season of Republican math.  When it comes to the American military, the leading Republican presidential candidates evidently only learned to add and multiply, never subtract or divide.

Advocates of Pentagon reform have criticized President Obama for his timid approach to reducing military spending.  Despite current Pentagon budgets that have hovered at the highest levels since World War II and 13 years of steady growth, the administration’s latest plans would only reduce spending at the Department of Defense by 1.6% in inflation-adjusted dollars over the next five years.

Still, compared to his main Republican opponents, Obama is a T. rex of budget slashers.  After all, despite their stated commitment to reducing the deficit (while cutting taxes on the rich yet more), the Republican contenders are intent on raising Pentagon spending dramatically.  Mitt Romney has staked out the “high ground” in the latest round of Republican math with a proposal to set Pentagon spending at 4% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  That would, in fact add up to an astonishing $8.3 trillion dollars over the next decade, one-third more than current, already bloated Pentagon plans.

Nathan Hodge of the Wall Street Journal engaged in polite understatement when he described the Romney plan as “the most optimistic forecast U.S. defense manufacturers have heard in months.”

In fact, Romney’s proposal implies that the Pentagon is essentially an entitlement program that should receive a set share of our total economic resources regardless of what’s happening here at home or elsewhere on the planet.  In Romney World, the Pentagon’s only role would be to engorge itself. If the GDP were to drop, it’s unlikely that, as president, he would reduce Pentagon spending accordingly.

Rick Santorum has spent far less time describing his military spending plans, but a remark at a Republican presidential debate in Arizona suggests that he is at least on the same page with Romney.  In 1958, the year he was born, Santorum pointed out, Pentagon spending was 60% of the federal budget, and now it’s “only” 17%.  In other words, why cut military spending when it’s so comparatively low?

Of course, this is a classic bait-and-switch case of cherry-picking numbers, since the federal budget of 1958 didn’t include Medicare, Medicaid, theEnvironmental Protection Agency, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.  The population was 100 million less than it is now, resulting in lower spending across the board, most notably for Social Security.  In fact, Americans now pay out nearly twice as much for military purposes as in 1958, a sum well in excess of the combined military budgets of the next 10 largest spending nations.

Of course, in a field of innumerates, Santorum’s claim undoubtedly falls into the category of rhetorical flourish.  It’s unlikely that even he was suggesting we more than triple Pentagon spending — the only way to return it to the share of the budget it consumed in the halcyon days of his youth.  (Keep in mind that profligate Pentagon spending in that era ultimately prompted President Dwight D. Eisenhower to coin the term “military-industrial complex.”)  Still, Santorum clearly believes that there’s plenty of room to hike military spending, if we just slash genuine entitlement programs deeply enough. He would undoubtedly support a Pentagon budget at Romney-esque levels, as would Newt Gingrich based on his absurd claim that the Obama administration’s modest adjustments to the Pentagon’s record budgets would result in a “hollowing out” of the U.S. military.

Mitt Romney at Sea

But let’s stick with the Republican frontrunner (or stumbler).  What exactly would Romney spend all this money on?

For starters, he’s a humongous fan of building big ships, generally the most expensive items in the Pentagon budget. He has pledged to up Navy ship purchases from 9 to 15 per year, a rise of 50%. These things add up.  A new aircraft carrier costs more than $10 billion; a ballistic missile submarine weighs in at $7 billion or more; and a destroyer comes with a — by comparison — piddling price tag of $2 billion-plus.  The rationale for such a naval spending spree is, of course, that all-purpose threat cited these days by builders of every sort of big-ticket military hardware: China.

As Romney put it late last year, if the U.S. doesn’t pump up its shipbuilding budget, China will soon be “brushing aside an inferior American Navy in the Pacific.”  This must be news to former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who noted in a May 2010 speech to the Navy League that the fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined — 11 of which, by the way, belong to U.S. allies.  As for the Chinese challenge, much has been made of China’s new aircraft carrier, which actually turns out to be a refurbished vessel purchased from Ukraine in 1998 and originally intended to be a floating casino. It would leave the U.S. with only an 11 to 1advantage in this category.

It’s true that China is increasing the size of its navy in hopes of operating more freely in the waters off its coast and perhaps the contested South China Sea (with its energy reserves), but it is hardly engaged in a drive for global domination.  It’s not as if Beijing is capable of deploying aircraft carriers off the coasts of California and Alaska.  In the meantime, Romney’s shipbuilding fetish doesn’t add up.  It’s as ludicrous as it is expensive.

Romney is also a major supporter of missile defense — and not just the current $9-$10 billion a year enterprise being funded by the Obama administration, primarily designed to blunt an attack by long-range North Korean missiles that don’t exist.  Romney wants a “full, multi-layered” system.  That sounds suspiciously like the Ronald Reagan-style fantasy of an “impermeable shield” over the United States against massive nuclear attack that was abandoned in the late 1980s because of its staggering expense and essential impracticality.

If the development of Romney’s high-priced version of a missile shield were again on the American agenda, it would be a godsend for big weapons-makers like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, but would add nothing to the defense of this country.  In fact, it stands a reasonable chance of making things worse.  Given the overkill represented by the thousands of nuclear warheads in the American arsenal, the prospect of a nuclear missile attack on the United States is essentially nil.

As arms experts like Dr. Theodore Postol of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have pointed out, in the utterly unlikely event of a massive nuclear missile attack, Romney’s plan would bevirtually useless.  There’s just no way to provide a near-perfect defense against thousands of warheads and decoys launched at 15,000 miles per hour.  The only reasonable defense against nuclear weapons would be to get rid of them altogether, a course suggested by scores of retired military leaders, former defense officials, and heads of state.  Even Henry Kissinger has joined the “go to zero” campaign, supporting a far more sensible approach to the nuclear dilemma than Romney’s fantasy technical fix.

The Romney anti-missile program would, however, do more than just waste money.  It would restore the Bush administration’s plan to emplace a long-range anti-missile system in Europe officially aimed at Iran but assumedly capable of taking out Russian missiles as well.  Given that the Obama administration’s far more limited plan for Europe has already caused consternation among Russia’s leaders, imagine the harsh reaction in Moscow to the over-the-top Romney version.  It could put an end to any hopes of further U.S.-Russian nuclear reductions — a significant price to pay for a high-tech boondoggle with no prospect of success.

Ensuring a Cost-Overrun Presidency

If you were hoping that, with an eye to fighting yet more disastrous wars in the Greater Middle East like the $3 trillion fiasco in Iraq, the U.S. would raise ever larger armies, then Mitt’s your man.  While Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s latest plan would reduce the Army and Marines by about 100,000 over the next five years — essentially rolling back the increases that were part of the post-9/11 buildup — the former Massachusetts governor would double down by adding 100,000 more troops to present force levels.

His rhetoric and the bona fides of his neoconservative advisors suggest that one place President Romney might send those bulked up forces would be to Iran as “boots on the ground.”  He has repeatedly claimed that, if President Obama is re-elected, Iran will get a nuclear weapon, and has asserted that if he is elected it will not.  He has mocked the president for not being “tough enough” on the Iranians and implied that a Romney administration would consider force a go-to option against that country, rather than a threat meant to back up a diplomatic strategy.

Keep in mind that if Romney were to follow through on these costly undertakings and others like them, it would only add to the good old-fashioned waste and fraud that’s the norm of Pentagon contracting these days.  As former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen pointed out, the post-9/11 national security spending binge played havoc with any sense of fiscal discipline at the Pentagon, eliminating the need to make “hard choices” or “limit ourselves” in significant ways.  In his former position as Pentagon procurement czar, Under Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter acknowledgedthat “in a decade of ever-increasing defense budgets… it was always possible for our managers… when they ran into a technical problem or a difficult choice to reach for more money.”

Romney’s Republican math would ensure that this will continue.  Defense giants like Lockheed Martin, whose F-35 combat aircraft has more than doubled in price over original projections, must be salivating at the prospect of another cost-overrun presidency, which would result in soaring profits and few punishments.

And let’s not forget the “spend more” brigades in the Republican House, led by Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA).  Having received more than three quarters of a million dollars in campaign contributions from weapons contractors since 2009, he has never met a weapons system he didn’t like.  Under a Republican administration, McKeon and his pork-barrel pals in Congress would have free rein to jack up spending on weapons and personnel with little concern for the impact on the deficit.

If a Republican president were to follow through on his campaign pledges, massive Pentagon increases and a dogged resistance to raising revenues would also result in major hits to every other item in the federal budget, from education to infrastructure.  According to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Romney budget plan could cut domestic discretionary programs by as much as 50% over the next 10 years.

In an April 1967 speech against the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King assailedthe buildup for that conflict as a “demonic destructive suction tube” that drew “men, money, and skills” away from solving urgent national problems.  Romney’s military buildup would waste far more money than was expended during the Vietnam years.  His presidency would exceed King’s worst nightmare.  When will someone ask him to explain his fuzzy math?

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, a TomDispatch regular (where this column originally appeared), and the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex. “

The plus was for effort…..

A bipartisan bill on insider trading that had been steamrolling through Congress has ground to a halt.

The Senate and House last month overwhelmingly approved different versions of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle predicted some version of the bill would reach President Obama’s desk swiftly.

But what had been a legislative locomotive is now attracting something quite common in an election year: finger-pointing.

Democrats in the House and a senior Senate Republican want provisions on political intelligence added to the bill. House Republican leaders, who scrapped that part of the legislation, say it’s up to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to make a decision of whether to go to conference or pass the House-passed version. Reid, meanwhile, isn’t saying much….

….One thing is clear: The ball is in Reid’s court, and has been for a while.

On March 1, Craig Holman, government-affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, said, “Everyone is waiting for Reid to make a decision.”

Source

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s food police have struck again!

Outlawed are food donations to homeless shelters because the city can’t assess their salt, fat and fiber content, reports CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer.

Glenn Richter arrived at a West Side synagogue on Monday to collect surplus bagels — fresh nutritious bagels — to donate to the poor. However, under a new edict from Bloomberg’s food police he can no longer donate the food to city homeless shelters.

It’s the “no bagels for you” edict.

“I can’t give you something that’s a supplement to the food you already have? Sorry that’s wrong,” Richter said.

Richter has been collecting food from places like the Ohav Zedek synagogue and bringing it to homeless shelters for more than 20 years, but recently his donation, including a “cholent” or carrot stew, was turned away because the Bloomberg administration wants to monitor the salt, fat and fiber eaten by the homeless.

Read the rest here.

How does the government have a right to filter what is reported as news?

Full Article

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdGJaGbLj5E 450 300]

Is a scheme somehow less hurtful than a scam ?

“(MoneyWatch) COMMENTARY A long-simmering debate about the future of money market funds is heating up, as the SEC signals it wants changes that a fund industry executive on Monday said were “outrageous.” The question, debated in Washington for nearly four years, is whether or not money market share prices should remain fixed at $1 per share, as they have since the first money market fund was created in the 1970s, or whether the share price should be required to “float” to reflect the value of the underlying securities it owns.

Arguing in favor of the fixed share price are fund managers and their trade group, the Investment Company Institute. They contend that a floating share price would scare investors away from money market funds, which would disrupt the financial markets and deprive corporate America of an important source of short-term capital.

Arguing in favor of a floating share price is, well, let’s put it this way: When the Wall Street Journal’s editors, the SEC chair, Paul Volcker, and a blue ribbon commission chartered by President Obama all come out in favor of a floating share price, it’s safe to say that the idea has a broad base of support.

Why is this issue important? Because a fixed share price connotes safety and stability — an investment that’s free from volatility. But while those might be appropriate ways to describe money market funds most of the time, they don’t apply all of the time. While it’s not common, it is possible for the holdings of money market funds to decline enough that the fund is in danger of “breaking the buck” — losing so much on its investments that it can’t return $1 per share to its investors.

When this happens — as it did with one of the nation’s largest money market funds in 2008 — it can create a “run on the bank” mentality as investors scramble to pull their money out before an artificially high $1 share price is lowered. This puts even more downward pressure on prices as fund managers try to sell their holdings to meet these redemptions….”

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“House Republicans, searching for an election-year message amid a muddled political and economic landscape, will introduce a 2013 budget Tuesday that cuts tax rates and provides for just two individual brackets of 10% and 25%.

The budget would end the Alternative Minimum Tax, which originally was aimed at the wealthy but ensnares a growing number of middle-class taxpayers each year. The plan would nearly eliminate U.S. taxes on American corporations’ earnings from overseas operations.

The proposal, to be offered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), who has become the Republicans’ leading figure on budget issues, has little chance of becoming law soon. It is likely to be welcomed by House and Senate Republicans, and rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate.

But with Republicans struggling to agree on a presidential nominee and a campaign theme, party leaders hope the easy-to-understand tax-cut proposal will give Republican candidates a clear and popular message….”

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“Australia passed legislation that will reap about $11 billion in taxes within three years from BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), Rio Tinto Group and other iron-ore and coal miners as the government seeks to turn its budget to surplus.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Minerals Resource Rent Tax was passed in the upper house yesterday and will become law on July 1 after receiving backing from the ruling Labor party and the Greens, who hold the balance of power in the Senate….”

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1KRP6-f7OY

via dailymail

A vacation in the Magic Kingdom should be enough to make a child giddy with excitement, but one young boy was left trembling with fear after he was subjected to an invasive TSA pat-down.

The three-year-old, confined to a wheelchair due to a recently broken leg, was with his family at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, on their way to board a flight to Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

Despite constant assurances from his father that ‘everything is OK’, he physically trembles with fear and asks his parents to hold his hand.

Scroll down for video

Outrage: The wheel-chair bound three-year-old boy was stopped at O’Hare Airport in Chicago and subjected to invasive checks

Despair: Despite constant assurances from his father that ‘everything is ok’, he physically trembles with fear and asks his parents to hold his hand

The terrified boy was swabbed on his hands and under his shirt for explosive residue.

His outraged father filmed the whole process and it has been posted on YouTube.

Despite such strict security for this toddler, the TSA is offering background-checked travellers the chance to use special lines and keep their shoes, belt and jacket on, leave laptops and liquids in carry-on bags and avoid a full-body scan – for a price.

The TSA’s new fast track ‘Precheck’ screening, now at two airlines and nine airports, is similar to security checks before 9/11, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Scared: The terrified boy, who was in a cast for a broken leg, underwent an invasive pat down and was swabbed for explosive residue

Airport disgust: The toddler was stopped at O’Hare Airport in Chicago on his way to Disney World for a family vacation

To qualify, frequent fliers must be invited by airlines and meet an undisclosed TSA criteria.

A $100 fee for a background check is required as well as a brief interview with a Customs officer.

However, approved travelers who are in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s ‘Global Entry’ program can transfer into Precheck, according to the Journal.

‘It’s a completely different experience than what you’re used to,’ Matt Stegmeir, a platinum-level Delta Air Lines frequent flier who was invited into Precheck, told the Journal. 

‘It’s really a jarring contrast. It reminds you just how much of a hassle the security procedures in place really are.’

The program can improve screening of unknown passengers if it can move low-risk people out of the main queues.

‘We can reduce the size of the haystack when we are looking for that one-in-a-billion terrorist,’ TSA Administrator John Pistole told the Journal.

Mr Pistole added that by studying frequent-flier histories as well as conducting background checks, he’s confident the U.S. now has the technology and the intelligence information to make less-rigorous, faster screening work.

Easy pass: Passengers in the Precheck program will not have to go through full body scanners, and can instead pass through a standard metal detector

TSA is working with only two airlines, American and Delta, on program which is still in the pilot phase.

Precheck lanes are already in place only at nine airports including Dallas-Fort Worth, New York Kennedy, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, Detroit , Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

By the end of the year  Precheck will be in place at 35 airports and six airlines, covering most major U.S. airports and airlines, reports the Journal.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116881/TSA-subject-child-wheelchair-invasive-airport-security-tests-Chicago.html#ixzz1pZgYKpZA

Voter fraud is un American…left or right.

via dailymail.co.uk

On the six-month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement, protesters swarmed its birthplace –Zuccotti Park – again sparking the cat-and-mouse clashes between New York City police officers and demonstrators.

The sweep of the park by police just before midnight capped a day of demonstrations and marching in lower Manhattan. There was no official word on the number of arrests but dozens of people were handcuffed and led out of the park.

Earlier in the day, 15 people were arrested and three officers suffered injuries, police said.

An unused public transit bus was brought in to cart away about a dozen demonstrators in plastic handcuffs. 

Anniversary: NYPD officers clash with members of the Occupy Wall St movement at Zuccotti park in New York last night

Several arrests: A bus was brought in to remove the arrested protesters

One female under arrest apparently suffered a seizure and had difficulty breathing. She was taken away in an ambulance to be treated.

For hours, the demonstrators had been chanting and holding impromptu meetings in the park to celebrate the anniversary of the movement that has brought attention to economic inequality, as police mainly kept their distance.

But New York Police Det. Brian Sessa said the tipping point came when the protesters started breaking the park rules.

‘They set up tents. They had sleeping bags,’ he told the Associated Press. Electrical boxes also were tampered with and there was evidence of graffiti.

Det. Sessa said Brookfield Properties, the park owner, sent in security to advise the protesters to stop pitching tents and to leave the park.

The protesters, in turn, became agitated with them. The company then asked the police to help them clear out the park, the detective said.

Many protesters shouted and officers took out their batons after a demonstrator threw a glass bottle at the bus that police were using to detain protesters.

Taken down: One protester missing his right shoe is pinned to the ground by an NYPD officer

The clash: An NYPD officer runs after a woman in green as those around her are being arrested

Sandra Nurse, a member of Occupy’s direct action working group, said police treated demonstrators roughly and made arbitrary arrests. She disputed the police assertion that demonstrators had broken park rules by putting up tents or getting out sleeping bags.

‘I didn’t see any sleeping bags,’ she said. ‘There was a banner hung between two trees and a tarp thrown over it … It wasn’t a tent. It was an erect thing, if that’s what you want to call it.’

She said they had reports of about 25 demonstrators arrested in the police sweep.

Protesters reconvened at the park following afternoon marches through New York’s financial district. By 11pm, roughly 300 had gathered there.

‘This is our spring offensive,’ Michael Premo, 30, of New York told Reuters. He identified himself as a spokesman for the movement.

‘People think the Occupy movement has gone away. It’s important for people to see we’re back.’

Inspired by the pro-democracy Arab Spring, the Wall Street protesters targeted U.S. financial policies they blamed for the yawning income gap between rich and poor in the country, between what they called the one per cent and the 99 per cent.

The demonstrators set up camp in Zuccotti Park on September 17 and sparked a wave of protests across the United States.

Famous face: Activist and outspoken filmmaker Michael Moore joined protesters and spoke briefly at the rally, calling it ‘the beginning’

American Spring: More than a dozen arrested protesters sit on the ground outside of Zuccotti Park; protesters are likening the Occupy movement to the Arab Spring

Events got under way near midday on Saturday, with street theatre troupes performing and guitar players leading sing-alongs. Some boisterous protesters marched through the streets of the financial district, chanting ‘bankers are gangsters’ and cursing at police.

As they have in past marches, protesters led police on a series of cat-and-mouse chases. Marchers at the front of the crowd would suddenly turn down narrow side streets, startling tourists and forcing police to send officers on motor scooters to contain the crowd.

The movement has made headlines for its clashes with police after campsites were set up for months in cities from New York to California. The camps were eventually shut down by authorities citing zoning regulations and public health concerns.

In New York, the Occupy movement lost significant momentum in November when a pre-dawn sweep broke up the encampment at Zuccotti, although Occupy protests in Oakland, California, in January led to police firing tear gas into crowds of protesters and more than 200 were arrested.

Protester Paul Sylvester, 24, of Massachusetts said he was ‘thrilled’ to be back at the park but said he hoped the movement would begin to crystallize around specific goals.

‘We need to be more concrete and specific,’ he said.

Critics say the Occupy movement lacks direction and clear demands.

It continues to draw celebrities, however. On Saturday night, independent filmmaker Michael Moore strode through the park before the police incursion.

Civil disobedience: Protesters that have been arrested sit on the ground in plastic hand cuffs

Hovering: Police stand over a detained protester; one NYPD officer holds another set of plastic hand cuffs

‘I think it’s great that this movement continues to grow,’ Mr Moore said. ‘I think the goals are clear. People are concerned that they have no control over their own democracy. They have no control over their own lives.

‘This is the beginning. This park is sacred ground for millions across the country.’

As always, the protesters focused on a variety of concerns, but for Tom Hagan, his sights were on the giants of finance.

‘Wall Street did some terrible things, especially Goldman Sachs, but all of them. Everyone from the banks to the rating agencies, they all knew they were doing wrong. … But they did it anyway. Because the money was too big,’ he said.

Dressed in an outfit that might have been more appropriate for the St. Patrick’s Day parade, the 61-year-old salesman wore a green shamrock cap and carried a sign asking for saintly intervention: ‘St. Patrick: Drive the snakes out of Wall Street.’

Chalkupy Wall Street: Earlier in the day, protesters chalked OW-inspired phrases in Zuccotti Park

Stacy Hessler held up a cardboard sign that read, ‘Spring is coming,’ a reference, she said, both to the Arab Spring and to the warm weather that is returning to New York City.

She said she believes the nicer weather will bring the crowds back to Occupy protests, where numbers have dwindled in recent months since the group’s encampment was ousted from Zuccotti Park by authorities in November.

But now, ‘more and more people are coming out,’ said the 39-year-old, who left her home in Florida in October to join the Manhattan protesters and stayed through much of the winter.

‘The next couple of months, things are going to start to grow, like the flowers.’

Some have questioned whether the group can regain its momentum. This month, the finance accounting group in New York City reported that just about $119,000 remained in Occupy’s bank account – the equivalent of about two weeks’ worth of expenses.

But Ms Hessler said the group has remained strong, and she pronounced herself satisfied with what the Occupy protesters have accomplished over the last half year.

‘It’s changed the language,’ she said. ‘It’s brought out a lot of issues that people are talking about.

And that’s the start of change.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116661/Occupy-Wall-Street-protesters-clash-police-Zuccotti-Park-movement-began-6-months-ago.html#ixzz1pUKYVnbU