The 99% includes well, almost everyone. And within the 99% are the majority of LGBTQ, so activist John Wailbling has started a LGBTQ affinity group at Occupy LA to help articulate and expand upon their places in the progressive movement at at Occupy.

As expected, Senate Republicans blocked the state fiscal aid bill that would have put as much as 400,000 teachers and public safety officials back to work. All 47 Senate Republicans voted against cloture on the motion to proceed on the bill. In addition, three members of the Democratic caucus said no. We knew that Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson would be no votes, but Mark Pryor also decided that a 0.5% surtax on every dollar over $1,000,000 for Sam Walton and the Walton family wealthy Americans was too much to ask. This means that the final tally on the bill was 50-50. In a sane world where majority rules, Vice President Biden would have cast the tie-breaker and 400,000 teachers and fire fighters and cops would have jobs to look forward to. As it is, the Senate is an undemocratic institution, and states still suffering with depressed tax revenues will have to continue the rounds of layoffs that have been a lead weight on the economy.

Following a twitter-twatted link from tired old punchline Christine O’Donnell, I was pleased to see that there is something on the internets called the “Tea Party Tribune“. Obviously this will be ripe for future lulz. But I’m not sure that anything will top the amazing story of teabagger Kevin A. Lehmann.

Who is Kevin A. Lehmann, you might rightly ask? Let’s go through this step by step.

But…if we cut millionaires’ taxes even more, revenue will go up!

Why, oh why, would anyone protest the current financial state of this country? The average individual now has $1,315 less in disposable income than he or she did three years ago at the onset of the Great Recession – even though the recession ended, technically speaking, in mid-2009…the most dramatic drop in the US standard [...]

Janis Joplin — Cry Baby, live in Toronto, 1970.

Hello, fellow revolutionaries!

From England, Fox News UK at Occupy LSX…

A slight majority of the American people don’t think President Obama deserves another term. According to the AP-GFK poll 50 percent of American adults think he deserves to be voted out of office, while only 46 think he deserves another term. But Obama still beats the leading Republican candidates in head to head match ups.

We returned to the occupation to find a few standing near the road with signs and the rest under blankets or sleeping bags in lawn chairs. It was cold and people were hunkering down for the long night. At one point a gentlemen approached and asked how things were going. He was from South Carolina and supported the movement. His job was with the state government and had something to do with tracking others access to health insurance.

Someone asked him if he had health insurance. He laughed shaking his head responding, “Oh, no no no.” After a short conversation he bid us good luck and farewell. Within 5 minutes he returned carrying a sleeping bag. He said, “I might not be able to stand out here with you guys, but at least this can help keep someone warm.” I gratefully accepted the sleeping bag from him, and immediately found a taker in Jess who quickly used it to insulate herself further from the cold. We all thanked him and again he left.

In a major setback for Bank of America, a federal judge has moved the venue for their $8.5 billion settlement with investors on mortgage-backed securities issues to federal court. In so doing, the judge criticized the arrangement on a variety of fronts.

BofA hoped to do away with all of their investor liability on Countrywide MBS in one fell swoop with the settlement, negotiated with only a small sliver of institutional investors through the trustee, Bank of New York Mellon. Other investors, as well as the Attorneys General of New York and Delaware, criticized the deal and took BofA and BNYM to court over it. Keep in mind that the $8.5 billion settlement represented around 2-3 cents on the dollar for the total pool of mortgage securities affected.