Since the news of coordination among mayors and near simultaneous raids on occupations across the country, there’s been speculation about federal coordination and funding. The National Lawyers Guild and others have filed FOIA requests with federal agencies for information about their role in the occupy evictions.

I tweeted last night, “When bad news from Europe tomorrow makes stocks tank, and the idiots in DC blame it on Super Committee fail, could someone correct them?” Apparently, no one told the AP or Washington Post, who insist the Super Committee Fail is driving down the stock markets.

The most recent USA Today/Gallup poll finds that Newt Gingrich has shot to the top of the Republican field and that Herman Cain is now bleeding support. This confirms that as Cain’s support fell, Gingrich, the latest not-Mitt, was the primary beneficiary. Romney remains stuck in the 20s.

Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian activist and recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Do you know why she received the Nobel Peace Prize? She led a protest movement against civil war and human rights abuses, and she and her fellow activists sat down in a soccer field near the Presidential palace in Monrovia and refused to move until they secured a meeting with the President, Charles Taylor.

In Spain, the Popular Party led by Mariano Rajoy scored a victory over the Socialists, due in no small part to the crisis ravaging the country with high unemployment and a collapsing housing market. But the new government is wedded to the same austerity policies that have already tanked the Spanish economy.

Today’s headlines feature the imploding Euro system, the misreading of the Super Committee’s failure to make the US economy worse, leadership changes in Spain, a mind numbing GOP discussion of religion and more.

The pepper spraying of UC Davis students by Lieutenant John Pike (and at least one other police officer) has spawned an Internet meme, with dozens of photoshops. Lt. Pepper Spray may have become the icon for insensitive, unresponsive, violence prone leadership everywhere.

This brutality occurs… And the West political leaders are quick to react. The European Union’s foreign policy chief urged interim authorities in Egypt on Sunday to halt violence against protesters         But in our own nation, this occurs… And the noise of condemnation from our political leaders is deafening…in that you might [...]

Peter, Paul & Mary – If I Had A Hammer

Sadly (well, not really, but we’re in Village-narrative land with this post, so) the Stupid Debt Super-Committee won’t reach agreement by its “deadline” of this coming Wednesday. As part of its contribution to stoke the crisis narrative in Village Washington, enabling Very Serious People to pretend their concern about the Stupid-Committee actually matters in a nation otherwise beset by record income inequality, vast unemployment, continuing foreclosures, soaring, unforgivable and undischargeable student debt as well as widespread hunger and poverty, the online edition of The Washington Post (WaPo0) has prominently displayed on its digital front page a Deadline Clock.