There have already been over 700 nominations of local occupations for outstanding community activism, representing 149 occupations across the country. Occupy Supply announced the contest yesterday, and we’ll be accepting nominations up until this Monday.

Five occupations will receive command post tents worth $5000 each, three will receive media laptops, and twelve runner-ups will receive a credit for supplies at the Occupy Supply store.

These are the occupations that have been nominated to date:

1. Albany
2. Albuquerque
3. Ann Arbor
4. Asheville
5. Ashland
6. Atlanta
7. Austin
8. Baltimore
9. Bangor
10. Beaverton
11. Bellingham
12. Berkeley
13. Boca Raton
14. Boise
15. Boston
16. Boulder
17. Buffalo
18. Cape Cod Hyannis
19. Carson City
20. Centralia & Lewis Co.
21. Charleston
22. Charlotte
23. Chattanooga
24. Chicago
25. Chico
26. Cincinnati
27. Cleveland
28. Colorado Springs
29. Columbia
30. Columbus
31. Conway
32. Dallas
33. Davis
34. Delaware
35. Denver
36. Des Moines
37. Detroit
38. Eugene
39. Everett
40. Fort Lauderdale
41. Fort Wayne
42. Frankfurt
43. Franklin County
44. Frederick
45. Freedom Plaza
46. Fresno
47. Fullerton OC
48. Gainesville
49. Glasgow
50. Grand Junction
51. Grass Valley
52. Greensboro
53. Gwinnett
54. Harrisburg
55. Hartford
56. Helena
57. Hendersonville
58. Homer
59. Honolulu
60. Houston
61. Indianapolis
62. Iowa
63. Kalamazoo
64. Kansas City
65. Klamath Falls
66. Kona
67. Las Cruces
68. Las Vegas
69. Lincoln
70. Little Rock
71. Longview
72. Los Angeles
73. Louisville
74. Lubbock
75. Madison
76. Maine
77. Manchester
78. Miami
79. Milwaukee
80. Minneapolis
81. Minnesota
82. Monterey Peninsula
83. Nashville
84. New Hampshire
85. New Haven
86. New Orleans
87. New Paltz
88. New Port Richey
89. Newark
90. Newport OR
91. Northampton
92. Nottingham
93. Oakland
94. Ocean Beach
95. Olympia
96. Orlando
97. Palm Beach
98. Pasadena
99. Pensacola
100. Petaluma
101. Philadelphia
102. Phoenix
103. Pittsburgh
104. Plymouth
105. Portland
106. Prescott
107. Providence
108. Raleigh
109. Reno
110. Roanoke
111. Rochester
112. Rockford
113. Roseburg
114. Rutgers
115. Sacramento
116. Saint Louis
117. Salem
118. Salmon
119. Salt Lake City
120. San Diego
121. San Francisco
122. San Luis Obispo
123. Santa Barbara
124. Santa Fe
125. Santa Rosa
126. Sarasota
127. Savannah
128. Seattle
129. Sebastopol
130. Shelton
131. South Bend
132. Spokane
133. St. Louis
134. Stockton
135. Syracuse
136. Tacoma
137. Tallahassee
138. Tampa
139. Taos
140. Trenton
141. Tucson
142. University of NM Albuquerque
143. Utica
144. Wall Street
145. Washington DC
146. Wenatchee
147. Wilmington
148. Wisconsin

We also received a number of nominations for occupations outside the US — St. Paul’s UK, Vancouver BC, Melbourne, Glasgow, Frankfurt and Kingston among them. Because of the limitations on shipping the tents and computers out of the country they aren’t eligible for the prizes, so we’re looking into other opportunities to reward outstanding activism by occupations outside the US.

For more information on the contest, see yesterday’s post.

Nominate your occupation for a chance to win a command-post tent or laptop with webcam!
DEADLINE: Monday, 1/30/2012

Download the Contest Flyer for distribution to occupations: Downloadable PDF | Online version

Contest Rules: Downloadable PDF | Online version

Occupy Supply has raised over $180,000 to supply occupations across the country. 100% of all money received goes to the purchase and distribution of supplies. You can donate to Occupy Supply here.

Former Obama Administration transition official Mike Lux was the first to report that the liability release on foreclosure fraud “looks tight.” In other words, the release is limited to mostly post-crisis conduct, basically robo-signing and servicer abuse. Private right of action would still be available under any settlement – Attorneys General cannot stop the right of an individual to sue over misconduct – and there would be no criminal liability release. In addition, these avenues of inquiry would still be available.

No release on any fair housing, fair lending, or civil rights claims.
No release on any Federal Housing Finance Agency or Government-Sponsored Enterprise claims.
No release on any Consumer Financial Protection Bureau claims (which would admittedly be modest, since the Bureau was only established in July 2011).
No release on tax liability claims.
No release on criminal liability claims.
No release on SEC claims.
No release on National Credit Union Association claims.
No release on FDIC claims.
No release on Federal Reserve claims.
No release on the “vast majority” of origination claims.
No release on the “vast majority” of securitization claims, including all claims of state pension funds.
No release on legal liability surrounding Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS).

Sam Stein and Zach Carter back this up with their reporting. And it matches with mine. My sources tell me that the release is one area where progressive pressure has dialed back the initial offer, which actually included securitization, among other things. “It looks substantially different on the release question today than it did in August,” said one official close to the talks. Of course, the current terms have been enough to keep at least Beau Biden and Kamala Harris off the deal, and Eric Schneiderman actually remains opposed to the final language, so it’s clearly not perfect. [cont'd.]

Could Brad Miller, who just yesterday announced his retirement from Congress, be urged to turn around and run in the Governor’s race in North Carolina? It could happen.

Hours after Miller made his announcement yesterday, Bev Perdue, the embattled governor of the state, announced that she would not seek re-election. Polling showed that Perdue would not win a second term, and that Republican former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory would romp to victory. This leaves Democrats searching for a replacement on the ticket. And lo and behold, Miller has become available.

Fundraisers are already encouraging him to run:

But shortly after Miller’s announcement, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee sent an email to all of its members in North Carolina asking them if Miller should run for governor, while highlighting his congressional efforts to protect consumers from banking abuses. So far, over 97 percent of respondents have urged Miller to run for governor, according to PCCC spokesman Neil Sroka.

“Brad Miller authored the bill in Congress that would break up the big Wall Street banks and prevent future bailouts,” the PCCC email to members reads. “He also fought to make it easier for North Carolinians to ‘move our money’ from big banks that gamble away our money to smaller community banks.” [...]

“I really did not expect to be thinking about this today,” Miller told HuffPost. “I really had no inkling that Bev was not going to run again. She’d been giving every indication that she was getting ready to run for re-election. I had about an hour this morning getting putzed into my own funeral and getting emails from friends, and then I spent another hour reading emails from those same friends telling me to run for Governor.”

“I just haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone or think about it,” Miller continued. “I had no inkling that this was going to happen.”

There are other potential candidates on the Democratic side, including Lt. Governor Walter Dalton, current Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx, current Reps. Mike McIntyre and (Lord help us) Health Shuler and (really lord help us) Bowles-Simpson clown Erskine Bowles. Miller would probably face massive big bank opposition in the home of Wachovia and Bank of America, but with a competitive Barack Obama at the top of the ticket, and the grassroots fundraising potential that could be unlocked for him, Miller does bring some advantages.

Miller’s core strengths were always consumer protection and financial regulation, not quite in the window of the major priorities for a Governor. Attorney General would be a great fit, but Democrat Roy Cooper (who’s on the foreclosure fraud settlement executive committee) will run for re-election.

More than anything, I think the country needs more public servants like Brad Miller, so I’d love to see this happen.