P!nk performing Glitter In The Air at the 52nd Annual GRAMMY Awards.

Michael Shure, Michael Hastings and Tricia Rose talk to “ER” and “Falling Skies” star Noah Wyle about his recent arrest with the group ADAPT (Americans with Disabilities for Attendant Programs), which was in Washington, D.C., protesting Medicaid cuts.

“It’s usually a very unsexy kind of issue,” Wyle said. “This isn’t really a medical issue. This is a civil rights issue. It’s for everybody who is planning on getting old.”

Given Wyle’s former castmate George Clooney’s activism, Shure says, “What was in the I.V.s on ‘E.R.’?”

Wyle says, “I give George all the credit in the world — he walks the walk as well as talking the talk. He always singles out the underdog and champions the underdog. It being a medical drama…we all got politicized earlier on than most people do on their TV gigs.”

[Via]

[Video surveillance of an incident involving the arrest of a Bronx teen back in January has at least two former members of the force agreeing with a growing number of calls for the DA to press charges against officers involved.]

I posted about this video back on March 30th of this year:

Here I thought the police brutality in New York was reserved for just Occupy Wall Street activists. But here a group of New York City police officers were so busy kicking and beating a man with their batons that it took them a little while to realize they were being recorded.

Now that I know the actual story behind the video, it's even more horrifying. What is taking place in the video is the brutal beating of Bronx teen after an illegal "Stop and Frisk"

Via:

Jateik Reed, 19, was arrested on Thursday on charges of robbery, possession of marijuana and crack cocaine and assaulting a police officer on East 168th Street in University Heights.

The video shows Reed being pushed onto the ground and receiving multiple blows from batons, punches and kicks from officers.

According to the criminal complaint, after the arrest an officer needed stitches to close a cut on his nose.

However, family members said Reed received a lot worse.

"They refused to take him back to the hospital and they wouldn't give him no medicine or anything. He is sitting there telling me his head is hurting, he doesn't feel good," said Schuan Reed, Jateik's mother. "He has staples in his head, he has staples in his arm, his eyes were black, his whole entire back is black, blue, purple."

Reed's mother, brother and friend went to the local police precinct to ask about the arrest, and they were arrested as well. A criminal complaint says the family members attacked officers, but they deny that.

A friend of Reed's who wanted to help him, but feared he would be beaten as well took the video from above that led to an investigation that unearthed yet another damning video from an outdoor security camera. Now all charges against Reed have been dropped.

Via:

Officers swore they witnessed bags of crack and marijuana being carried by Reed. In the criminal complaint one officer is quoted as saying, "He observed the defendant to have on his person, in his hand, one (1) clear plastic bag containing a white, rock-like substance, which he threw to the ground. In his hand, two (2) clear plastic bags, each containing a dried green leafy substance with a distinctive odor, in public view."

Surveillance video from a nearby building shows Reed walking with his hands out, no drugs in view. John Eterno, a retired New York City Police Department captain, says it appears Reed shouldn't have been stopped.

"The officers would have to only go in their pockets if they had reasonable suspicion, if there was a weapon in there. And given what I've seen on the film I'm not sure they had that reasonable suspicion," Eterno said.

The Bronx district attorney later dropped the charges. As for the claims of hitting and kicking by police, the same criminal complaint said, "The defendant flailed his arms, refusing to be handcuffed at which time the defendant struck informant (the officer) in his nose with a closed fist."

It does appear Reed tried to get away. But on the video he does not throw a punch. Still, after the melee starts, an officer appears to be checking his nose. Also in the exclusive surveillance video, a female officer walks over and kicks Reed while he's handcuffed.

Jateik Reed's attorney wants the officers involved in the attack charged with assault, and filing a false police report.

Via:

The officers involved have been stripped of their badges pending the outcome of an internal investigation.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly called the video "disturbing."

"Just thankful that we beat this first case, I hope the other cases go as good as this one do. Thank you everybody for your support I appreciated it," Reed told reporters outside the court.

"He was simply in a situation where he was completely vulnerable and he was trying to protect himself as best he could," said Reed's defense attorney.

Reed's lawyer says they intend to file a civil lawsuit against the New York City Police Department and city in the near future.

How many more lawsuits can Mayor Michael Bloomberg afford before he finally reins in his private army?

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A Republican Senate candidate in North Dakota and his staff found themselves stumped recently by a voter who wanted to know the state's minimum wage.

A video of the exchange between Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) and a young woman was posted by the North Dakota Democratic Party on Monday.

"I was wondering what is the minimum wage right now in North Dakota?" the woman asked.

"Hmm," Berg replied, pointing at a staffer and adding, "You know, this guy would know."

"I think it's probably seven something," the congressman guessed. "It depends -- they don’t have a minimum wage for waitresses in North Dakota."

Berg then posed the question to a staffer who only knew that it was "same as federal."

"Oh! Put it back on my shoulders!" the candidate exclaimed.

North Dakota is one of about 20 states where the minimum wage is the same as the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25.

As The Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel noted, Berg voted against raising North Dakota's minimum wage in 1999, 2005 and 2007 while he was serving as a state lawmaker.

The Center for Responsive Politics reported in 2010 that Berg had a maximum net worth of over $54 million, making him the 14th richest member of Congress.

Another epic video promoting the coming May 15th Global Day of Action in NYC and the activities planned for the week leading up to the big day. To RSVP for any of those actions, follow the links here.

Filmmaker Rodrigo Dorfman adds another short film to his Occupy the Imagination series, this time setting May Day's triumphant New York City march to music by Horacio Salinas and slowing it down "so we can get lost in the sea of faces."

Via:

As a police captain and a bishop, Ray Lewis and George Packard inhabit roles in society that don't lend themselves to activism. But they bucked convention and sided with the people they vowed to counsel and protect. Other police officers were not as kind to the Occupy Movement, and other clergy were certainly not as brave as Episcopal Bishop George Packard, who challenged Trinity Church, one of the largest landowners in New York City, when it denied much-needed space to Occupy Wall Street.

The director, producer and executive producer of these pieces—David Sauvage, Seth Cohen and Lawrence Taubman, respectively—are the founders of Occupy.com. Beth Bogart, one of the original members of the OWS PR Working Group, worked with David and Seth to produce the piece and connected them with the Captain and the Bishop.

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No, really, he did. Those were his exact words. Video via WEWS in Cleveland.

(AP) EUCLID, Ohio — Campaigning in the backyard of America’s auto industry, Mitt Romney re-ignited the bailout debate by suggesting he deserves “a lot of credit” for the recent successes of the nation’s largest car companies.

That claims comes in spite of his stance that Detroit should have been allowed to go bankrupt.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee told a Cleveland television station on Monday that President Barack Obama followed his lead when he ushered auto companies through a managed bankruptcy soon after taking office.

“I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy, and finally when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet,” Romney said in an interview inside a Cleveland-area auto parts maker. “So, I’ll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry has come back.”

Romney has repeatedly argued that Obama ultimately took his advice on the auto industry’s woes of 2008 and 2009. But he went further on Monday by saying he deserves credit for its ultimate turnaround.

The course Romney advocated differed greatly from the one that was ultimately taken. GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy on the strength of a massive bailout that Romney opposed. Neither Republican President George W. Bush nor Democratic President Barack Obama believed the automakers would have survived without that backup from taxpayers.

Romney opposed taxpayer help.

Shameless. Completely and utterly without shame. The guy whose NY Times op-ed Let Detroit Go Bankrupt set the standard for Republican obstinance is now trying to claim credit.

The Obama campaign called it "a new low in dishonesty" and called on Romney to "have the courage and integrity" to admit he was wrong. Yeah, like that'll happen.

[Video:Occupy Albany's peaceful march on May 1st, 2012.]

In yet another victory for the Occupy movement, all charges were dismissed against 20 Occupy Albany protesters who were arrested on May Day after the District Attorney notified the court that he would not prosecute peaceful protesters.

Via:

A City Court judge has dismissed the cases of 20 Occupy Albany protesters arrested last week for violating the state curfew in Lafayette Park across from the Capitol.

Judge Thomas Keefe dismissed the trespassing and disorderly conduct charges — both noncriminal violations — Monday after District Attorney David Soares' office notified the court it would again decline to prosecute the offenses.

The protesters were arrested May 1 for staying in the park after an 11 p.m. curfew, the validity of which they refused to acknowledge.

Soares has refused to prosecute nonviolent protesters who are exercising their First Amendment rights without damaging property or injuring police — a stance he reiterated last week when Occupy Albany prepared to return to the downtown parks in force for the first time since December.

"I'm not going to be prosecuting peaceful protesters," Soares said last week. "So long as we have no damage to property or injury to police, I will continue to abide by the peaceful coexistence policy we implemented when the Occupy movement was here late last year."

A quick "Google" search, and you can see the pages upon pages of reports from across the country of "Charges Dropped" against Occupy protesters. As the lawsuits against individual cities and police departments roll in for wrongful arrests, and injuries received during arrests and protests it will bear watching to see if this begins to translate into a general acceptance of the movement's First Amendment right of free speech and an end to the brutal oppression by some police forces.

Activists who are a part of the 99 percent Spring attended the Verizon Shareholders meeting on Thursday and disrupted the 1 percent six times as they continued to exploit the company's workers. Crooks and Liars has reported extensively on the problems with Verizon and its demands for massive concessions from its workers. Activists used great strategy to draw attention to Verizon and its greedy tactics.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of corporate greed than Verizon, a company making billions and tripling its CEO's pay while demanding givebacks from its workers. Today the 99% Spring movement let Verizon know that 99% of us are trying to bring big corporations back under democracy's control. Today’s Verizon shareholder meeting in Huntsville, Alabama was disrupted six separate times by members of the 99% Power coalition, part of the 99% Spring movement.

The Verizon shareholder meeting comes as the company is in negotiations with the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The highly-profitable company -- the 16th largest corporation in America -- is asking its workers for givebacks amounting to as much as $20,000 each, while tripling the compensation of CEO Lowell McAdam from $7.2 million to $23.1 million. The company made $22.5 billion in profits over the past four years while paying its top five executives $283 million over that period. Because of this the company has earned the nickname “Verigreedy."

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better example of corporate greed than Verizon, a company making billions and tripling its CEO's pay while demanding givebacks from its workers. Today the 99% Spring movement let Verizon know that 99% of us are trying to bring big corporations back under democracy's control. Today’s Verizon shareholder meeting in Huntsville, Alabama was disrupted six separate times by members of the 99% Power coalition, part of the 99% Spring movement.

The Verizon shareholder meeting comes as the company is in negotiations with the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW). The highly-profitable company -- the 16th largest corporation in America -- is asking its workers for givebacks amounting to as much as $20,000 each, while tripling the compensation of CEO Lowell McAdam from $7.2 million to $23.1 million. The company made $22.5 billion in profits over the past four years while paying its top five executives $283 million over that period. Because of this the company has earned the nickname “Verigreedy."

Dave Johnson has much more about the protests at CAF.