For those of you who haven’t been following the #TakeBackWallStreet or #OccupyWallStreet action, today was the first day of Occupy Wall Street. Background on the inspiration for the action can be found here.

The new Libya now straddles these two contrasting scenes, its freedom struggle ruptured by infighting and pressure from foreign forces that have their own designs for the country’s future. Yet viewed from a wide angle, the revolution has cracked open a window for a new political vision, spanning the full spectrum of peril and promise that Libyans have long been denied.

In what appears to be an attempt to make light of her husband’s controversial, bogus ex-gay therapy service, Michele Bachmann bizarrely throws him under the bus while on Jay Leno’s show.

Adam Winkler’s Gunfight is a book of contradictions: a dispassionate book about a passionately debated topic, a sane book about competing insanities, a page-turner about legal doctrine and obscure bits of history, a piece of serious scholarship combined with journalistic flair.

The House GOP leadership has written a memo to their caucus picking and choosing what they would be willing to support in the American Jobs Act. The numbers come out to support for 1/44th of the overall price tag, about 2% of the total bill.

As you may know, the AJA is comprised of about 57% tax cuts and 43% spending initiatives. So in the main, House Republican leaders tossed out the spending and embraced a few of the tax cuts. They also rejected the tax hikes on corporations and the wealthy to pay for the bill.

As reported in a previous post, today is the day for Occupy Wall Street, an action that a number of organizers have been planning for lower Manhattan for the past months. Inspired by occupations in Greece, Spain, Tunisia, Egypt and other countries where occupations have taken place, organizers began to put together websites and fliers to promote an occupation on Wall Street. Hoping for around 20,000 to swarm the area, they intended to come setup peaceful assemblies on public sidewalks and be there for a while to call attention to the crimes Wall Street banksters and casino capitalists have been perpetrating against the United States.

I will be live blogging what happens today. So far FDL user athena1 deserves praise for posting a bunch of links and information in the comments thread of my previous post on this action.

The ratings agency Standard and Poor’s is threatening another downgrade of the United States credit rating if the Super Committee doesn’t get results.

We live in a culture that is more comfortable asking rape victims “why did you let yourself get raped?” than asking their attackers “why did you rape?” After a Toronto cop’s remark seemed to put the responsibility for rape on how a victim dressed, it lit a fuse of anger that has spread around the globe.

Slutwalk. “Because We’ve Had Enough”

It’s coming to Kansas City today, and maybe to your city next.

Drawing inspiration from Greece, Spain, Tunisia, Egypt and other countries where occupations have taken place in the past months, organizers are preparing to occupy Wall Street in New York on September 17. They have spent weeks planning logistics and building support for the action and hope to see 20,000 swarm lower Manhattan and set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy the area.

Just as Norm Coleman and other relatively progressive — or at least pragmatic — Republicans try to reassure Latino voters that the GOP isn’t stuffed stem-to-stern with lily-white bigots cowering in fear of skins browner than theirs, Michele Bachmann has to go harsh their mellow by visiting Joe Arpaio for the second time this year.