Occupy Denver stands in solidarity with The Tar Sands Blockade, and is calling for national and international mobilization and solidarity actions against the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Tar sands giant TransCanada has begun construction on the southern leg of the Keystone XL. Leading NASA Climate Scientist James Hansen has called the Keystone XL “game over” for the climate, and Americans are already feeling the heat. The pipeline will make TransCanada rich while encroaching on ranch lands, poisoning Texas’ working class communities, and destroying the environment that makes the lone star state so beautiful.

Kick off the new year by demonstrating your resistance to Keystone XL!

Join us for another mass action in Southeast Texas on Monday, January 7th, including a 3 day training camp leading up to the big event. Our trainings and events are open and include roles for everyone ready to defend our homes from toxic tar sands.

RSVP right now so we can know how many people to expect.
tarsandsblockade.org/jan7/

SCHEDULE (Jan. 3rd – 8th):

Thursday, Jan. 3rd – Travel & Arrival
Friday, Jan. 4th – Day 1: Direct Action Training Camp
Saturday, Jan. 5th – Day 2: Direct Action Training Camp
Sunday, Jan. 6th – Day 3: Direct Action Training Camp
Monday, Jan. 7th – Mass Action to Stop Keystone XL
Tuesday, Jan. 8th – Debrief and Depart

Questions? Contact: 972-439-5310, TSBComms@riseup.net

Tar Sands Blockade is a coalition of Texas and Oklahoma landowners and climate justice organizers using peaceful and sustained civil disobedience to stop the construction of TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

As a grassroots campaign, we are funded entirely by the generosity of individual donors. Meaning that every dollar of your contribution goes directly into stopping TransCanada and the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline where it matters most. The Tar Sands Blockade is one of the most important resistance actions in the nation. If you can’t join us, you can still help. Please consider donating.

Wish List tarsandsblockade.org/donate-3/wishlist/

WePay wepay.com/donations/tsbdonate

And please join our E-Action to help continue to spread awareness and support our people on the ground.

[Via OWS]

Yet another instance in which a gun was a really bad idea.

Via:

A Denver mother who believed her daughter was being bullied at school drove into the school's parking lot and threatened four girls with a gun, according to an arrest document.

Monica Avila, 34, was charged Tuesday with four counts of felony menacing and one count of possession of a weapon on school grounds, also a felony. According to the probable cause statement accompanying her arrest paperwork, Avila drove into the parking lot at Lake Middle School on Thursday afternoon and confronted four girls, ages 13 and 14.

The statement says Avila began arguing with the girls about bullying. She then, while still sitting in her car, pulled out a black semi-automatic handgun and said, "Look what I have," the document states.

Now Monica is in jail in lieu of $50k bail, and with those felony charges, it could be a long while before she isn't behind bars. The "bullies" will still be at school with Monica's daughter, and there will no doubt be a "special" grudge there that could potentially last a lifetime. A gun in your face isn't something anyone would likely soon forget.

Even without firing a single bullet, this case of poor judgement with a gun will affect many more lives than just Monica's for years to come. It may only have been dumb luck that no one was killed this time.

On the morning after the first presidential debate, President Obama mocked the Mitt Romney he encountered last night as decidedly different from "the real Mitt Romney" on the campaign trail. During the chilly morning at Sloan’s Lake Park in Denver on Thursday, Obama touted his plan for restoring the middle class.G

Now, the reason I was in Denver obviously is to see all of you, and it’s always pretty, but we also had our first debate last night. And when I got on to the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney. But it couldn’t have been Mitt Romney because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night said he didn’t know anything about that. The real Mitt Romney said we don’t need any more teachers in our classrooms, but -don't boo, vote – but the fellow on stage last night, he loves teachers, can’t get enough of them. The Mitt Romney we all know invested in companies that were called pioneers of outsourcing jobs to other countries, but the guy on stage last night, he said that he doesn’t even know that there are such laws that encourage outsourcing. He’s never heard of them. Never heard of them. Never heard of tax breaks for companies who ship jobs overseas. He said that if it’s true, he must need a new accountant.

Now, we know for sure it was not the real Mitt Romney because he seems to be doing just fine with his current accountant. So you see, the man on stage last night, he does not want to be held accountable for their real Mitt Romney’s decisions and what he’s been saying for the last year and that’s because he knows full well that we don’t want what he’s been selling for the last year. So Governor Romney may dance around his positions, but if you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth. So here’s the truth – Governor Romney cannot pay for his $5 trillion tax plan without blowing up the deficit or sticking it to the middle class. That’s the math. We can’t afford to go down that road again. We can’t afford another round of budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy. We can’t afford to gut out investments in education or clean energy or research and technology. We can’t afford to roll back regulations on Wall Street or on big oil companies or insurance companies. We cannot afford to double down on the same top-down economic policies that got us into this mess. That is not a plan to create jobs, that is not a plan to grow the economy, that is not change, that is a relapse. We don’t want to go back there. We’ve tried it, it didn’t work and we are not going back, we are going forward.

Now, I’ve got a different view about how we create jobs and prosperity. This country doesn’t succeed when we only see the rich getting richer. We succeed when the middle class gets bigger. We grow our economy not from the top down, but from the middle out. We don’t believe that anybody’s entitled to success in this country, but we do believe in something called opportunity. We believe in a country where hard work pays off and where responsibility is rewarded and everybody’s getting a fair shot and everybody’s doing their fair share and everybody plays by the same rules. That’s the country we believe in. That’s what I’m fighting for, that’s why I’m running for a second term as President of the United States, and that’s why I want your vote.

Continue reading »

As supporters of Mitt Romney lined up outside Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum, the site of a Monday night rally, ProgressNow Action wanted to hear what those Romney supporters had to say as they strolled past the group’s cardboard cut-out of President Barack Obama. A Video camera caught every word:

“Go back to Kenya!” one person says.

“Strangle him!” says another.

Some of the comments were directed at the ProgressNow staffers holding up the cut-out and the video camera.

“Is that your Muslim communist buddy?” one person asks.

“Why are you supporting an Islamist, Marxist idiot?” asks another.

“He looks real good standing on a street corner,” one passerby says. “In about three months, he’ll be doing that all the time.”

The Obama cut-out was also wearing a button that said, “Thanks, Obamacare.”

When asked what they want people who watch the video to see, Joanne Schwartz, executive director of Progress Now had this to say:

“It’s clear that not all, but many within Romney’s base of support dislike the President for irrational and often hateful reasons. Comments like ‘go back to Kenya,’ and asserting Obama is ‘black and used up’ reflect a much uglier prejudice than most Americans would identify with.

“Others continue to repeat discredited race-baiting falsehoods about the President’s religion and nationality,” Schwartz continued.

“Everyone we videotaped yesterday has a right to free expression, but others have the right to publicly reject intolerance. In a free society, we have an obligation to call this out.”

I was a bit surprised that the hate speak was coming from all age groups, and virtually all of the Romney supporters. And they were all fully aware that they were being filmed! This video really confirmed for me what I've already suspected; that Mitt Romney has run the nastiest and most hate-filled political campaign that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime.

In this video, a member of Occupy Denver films a Denver Health Department van stopping in front of the Occupy encampment and dropping off a group of people believed to be mental health patients, and many appearing to be homeless.

It does seem highly improper to release patients just exiting mental healthcare into a camp of activists rather than make arrangements for more stable, permanent housing without fear of police raids and arrests.

From Occupy Denver:

On Saturday, April 14th, a white van with Denver Health markings stopped on Broadway directly across from Occupy Denver's encampment. The van was then emptied of several people - many of whom appear to be homeless - who are thought to have been receiving mental health care, who can then be seen simply joining the crowd at Occupy Denver.

Is this how mental patients are to be handled? Why does Denver Health take the time and energy to bring these patients to Occupy Denver? At best, this is an awful, misguided, and irresponsible way to deal with patients who are exiting treatment. At worst, this is an attempt to ensure that Occupy Denver's encampment is kept populated with people who the City and the opposed public can then point to as creating "health and safety hazards".

People who have been at Occupy Denver for a while reported that this kind of scene is normal, and that this is apparently an ongoing practice of Denver Health. Amid the ongoing battle against the proposed Urban Camping Ban that the Denver City Council is pushing through despite a public outcry and a lack of public consultation, this is one more piece of evidence that Denver does not have the ability to deal with it's homeless population, and that no matter how the law changes, homeless persons will be hurt due to lack of services and alternatives.

We demand that the homeless issue be addressed properly, and that this practice of Denver Health be investigated.

Iraq Veterans Against the War invited Occupy Denver to a teach-in at the Mercury Cafe on April 11, 2012. Local chapter members Garett Reppenhagen, Kelly Doughtery, and Graham Clumpner opened with personal accounts of what led them to join IVAW and a discussion about what veterans and active duty service members are doing to resist war and militarism. We then heard from Matt Howard and Scott Olson, a vet wounded while peacefully protesting at Occupy Oakland, about a new IVAW project called Operation Recovery. Operation Recovery advocates for individuals suffering from trauma and for their right to remove themselves from the source of the trauma.

Via:

Scott Olsen served two tours in Iraq with the Marines. He was critically injured last October when the Oakland police shot him in the head with a projectile while he was peacefully protesting as part of Occupy Oakland. He is currently organizing with IVAW and Occupy in San Francisco and Oakland. Matt Howard also served in Iraq with the Marines. He is currently a resident organizer at Under the Hood Coffeehouse and GI Resource Center in Kileen, TX, the home of Ft. Hood Army base. Matt is organizing with active duty soldiers there around the Operation Recovery campaign which aims to stop the deployment of traumatized troops.

Graham Clumpner is a two-tour Afghanistan veteran and member of the Colorado IVAW chapter. Graham is an organizer with the Operation Recovery campaign and is currently organizing the Right to Heal tour which will bring soldiers and veterans to communities across the country to talk about issues of war and trauma.

[Video via MoxNews]

I've gathered updates from Occupy Wall Street solidarity movements across the nation that have grabbed headline news over the weekend, as well as this CNN coverage that includes a brief interview with civil rights leader Angela Davis in New York City.

Portland:

Via:

"Nearly 30 people were arrested Sunday morning as “Occupy Portland” protesters refused to leave Jamison Square, but the demonstration ended without violence, police said."

"When the park closed just after midnight, police warned everybody that they would be arrested if they didn't leave."

"The arrests occurred after numerous warnings to people remaining in the park that Jamison Square Park had closed at midnight and anyone remaining in the park could be arrested."

More Via:

"Occupy Portland offered a different take."

"Six mounted police and approximately 65 police in riot gear pushed supporters to the sidewalks and conducted the arrests over a period of several hours," the group said in a statement."

"A Twitter post from the group as police entered the park said, "This is what a police state looks like."

Denver:

Via:

"Of the 20 arrested, police say two were arrested for assaulting police officers, possible felony charges."

Austin:

Via:

"Police also arrested 38 people in Austin, Texas, who had set up a table with food and other items outside City Hall two days after the city issued rules saying food tables at the event must be put away between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. When the group was asked to leave the area, the 38 refused and were arrested, police said."

"A number of individuals decided to try to prevent the police from taking the food table, so they formed a ring around it. That's when they (police) started pulling people out arresting them," Occupy Austin member Ronnie Garza told CNN affiliate YNN."

"Group members questioned the legitimacy of the city's new guidelines, saying they were not passed by a City Council vote, YNN reported."

Nashville:

Via:

"Tennessee’s governor and his administration have twice sent state troopers to handcuff and haul away Occupy Nashville protesters camped out just steps away from the Capitol. And twice, a relatively obscure local official refused to throw them in jail."

........

"Under Tennessee state law, a judicial commissioner determines if there is probable cause that a crime has been committed. That official in this case has set the demonstrators free, despite Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s efforts."

"The magistrate, Tom Nelson, says state officials have no authority to set a curfew requiring the protesters to clear out or face arrest."

Someone following the letter of the law? Three cheers for the magistrate!

Zucotti Park:

Via:

"A day after New York authorities confiscated their generators, hundreds of protesters struggled to stay warm and dry after more than an inch of snow fell in the city with temperatures forecast to drop to freezing overnight."

“We knew this would be tough. We didn’t start this as a sort of summer of love, it’s the winter of discontent,” said Alan Collinge, 41, from Seattle, poking his head out a tent."

"He estimated one in five protesters in the park had left due to the unusually early storm, but added, “They’ll be back, we’re not going anywhere.”

Boston:

Via:

"Occupy Boston protesters said they were going to stick out the weather. Many of them used tarps that were large enough to cover the top of the tents so no water would leak through. Throughout the night, protesters dusted off the snow from the top of the tents so it wouldn’t weigh them down."

"There were problems with hypothermia leading up to the storm, so many people took as many precautions as they could going into Saturday’s nor’easter."

Much more coming for you on Monday. We've delivered more solidarity pizzas, and more of you have sent in your "Occupy" photos for us to share with everyone.