Astroturf's Bitter Harvest- Occupy Wall St. Wallows in Own Filth; Occupy Boston Protestors Spit on Uniformed Coast Guard Personnel

If you haven't noticed, I haven't been paying that much attention to these supposedly spontaneous and grassroots 'Occupy Wall Street' and numerous affiliated 'Occupy' protests in Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis and Atlanta.

If there's anything I'm learning from this whole 'Occupy' movement, it's that my opinion apparently doesn't have any merit until I squat in a public park with hundreds of lilly white graduates who overpaid for their degree in Queer and Transgender Basket Weaving Studies for weeks at a time. I mean come on- I'm supposed to be impressed that a bunch of 20-something trustafarians, stoners and slackers with profound daddy issues bailed on what little obligations they had in the first place to camp out in a public park for weeks at a time hoping they'd score some pot and poontang while raging against the machine?

The democrat party and left-wing celebrities have tried to claim the whole Occupy Movement as their own and as far as I'm concerned, they can have every last criminal, anti-semite, communist, anarchist and Black Panther referring to themselves as 'the 99%'.

The movement (and I'm not just talking about taking a dump on an NYPD cruiser) has also garnered the support and praise of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard as well as aging Cuban dictator and the ruling Chinese Communist party.

There also seems to be big bucks behind the demonstrations, which have been continuing with the tacit approval of President Obama. Some of the organizers are politically connected former lobbyists, which seems to undermine the claims of grassroots purity some of the media and progressive cheerleaders have started repeating. Interestingly, the Occupy Wall Street found time to try and march on the homes of boogeymen like Rupert Murdoch or the Koch Brothers, but not billionaire Democrat donors like General Electric [NYSE: GE] CEO Jeffery Immelt or billionaire mayor Micheal Bloomberg.

As of Thursday Evening, Mayor Bloomberg had ordered the park cleared in order to be cleaned, but protesters have vowed to block sanitation crews from entering the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park on Friday morning. Brookfield Properties [NYSE: BPO], which owns the land that Zuccotti Park is located on (and the recipient of previous 'Green energy' grants from the stimulus) has expressed concern to the city of New York about sanitary conditions in the park after allowing the Occupy Wall St protesters to camp out there for weeks at a time.

On early Tuesday morning, some Occupy Boston protesters began setting up in the Rose Kennedy Greenway- away from the original site in Dewey Square- without a permit. Boston Police repeatedly warned the protestors to clear the park or face arrest. With cameras rolling, police moved in and began making arrests, including a group of soccer-flopping 'veterans' who rushed at officers while brandishing the flag.



My favorite part was when the 'veterans' among Occupy Boston began shouting that they were veterans, thinking that it would have the same effect as the South African diplomats hissing 'Diplomatic Immunity!' in Lethal Weapon 2 [Oh gosh golly gee, I guess there's like ZERO military veterans in uniform for the Boston PD- NANESB!].

Anywhoo, the Occupy crowd attempted to circulate the video as an example of 'Police Brutality' in action, an internet meme that has yet to gain any traction among those outside the whole 'Occupy' movement [or anybody paying the fuck attention- NANESB!]. Then, on Wednesday the organizers of a small-business heavy Food Fest and canned food drive for the needy announced that they were cancelling the scheduled event because the Rose Kennedy Greenway would be too crowded thanks to the Occupy Boston crowd (they are still accepting online monetary donations- more information here).

On Thursday night, however, Occupy Boston's earlier bogus claims of support for veterans or active-duty servicemen and women came unravelled as members of the occupy Boston crowd spat on a uniformed Coast Guardswoman and threw watter bottles at her.

BOSTON (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - The Coast Guard in Boston confirmed that a woman in uniform was harassed and spat upon by Occupy Boston protesters.

The woman was walking to the train and said protesters spit on her twice, called her foul names and even threw a water bottle at her.

Now, the Coast Guard is warning all staff working on Atlantic Avenue to avoid those protesters while in uniform.

How nice- the US Coast Guard is advising their uniformed personnel that downtown Boston is a 'no-go' area thanks to these whiney, petulant thugs supposedly representing the 99%.

I have to say that as somebody to the right of Daniel Ortega, the whole #Occupy (insert name of city here) movement has tremendous upside. The overwhelming majority of these protests are taking place in dark blue cities in blue states, which means that if a liberal Democrat mayor or governor decides to forcefully crack down on the #Occupy protests, this would concievably provoke a good deal of infighting and factionalization among the democrats and progressives. At a time when protestors have been doing things like spitting on uniformed servicemembers, crapping on police cars, going on wild-eyed anti-semitic rants, parading around in communist East German military uniforms or calling for the violent overthrow of the United States government the democrats have taken it upon themselves to embrace this movement as being representative of the majority of hardworking Americans.

If the Occupy Wall Street crowd does decide to get violent and go on a rampage, odds are it will reflect very poorly on the progressive democrat governor or mayor in question for letting the situation get out of hand and coddling the protesters to begin with. Again, these are protestors that the democrat party has embraced.

And with the cold weather starting to move in, expect the #Occupy crowds to start dwindling in many of the cities with their demands unmet.

BUMPED 8/5: USA Loses S&P AAA Credit Rating; Dow Plummets More Than 500 Points in One Day

In it's worst single day since the 2008 Subprime meltdown, the Dow Jones fell 512 points on Thursday, wiping out their gains for the year in one afternoon. The 4.31% loss would be the market's biggest single-day loss since October 2008. Declining stocks outnumbered stocks that finished ahead on the day by a 14 to 1 margin.

Meanwhile, the NASDAQ was down 2.68 on Thursday. Gold prices pulled back slightly from an all-time high to end at $1652 an ounce while oil dropped down from $92 a barrel to $83.

The losses weren't limited to the NYSE or NASAQ either. North of the border, the TSX Composite dropped 3.4% while in Asia the Nikkei was down 3.72%, Straits Time was down 3.61% and the Hang Seng index plunged 4.29% overnight.

Analysts believe that a concerns over the economy, high unemployment numbers, the recently passed debt ceiling deal and the ongoing Eurozone crisis played a part in Thursday's selloff.

The massive selloff comes a day before the July jobs report is set to be released, but investors and analysts have even less reason to optimistic as far as that's concerned.

Curiously, a number of experts that spoke out in favor of the debt ceiling cautioned that this was exactly the scenario the markets would face if the ceiling wasn't raised.

UPDATE 8/5:: The markets closed on a mixed note Friday afternoon, with the Dow-Jones up 60 (0.54%) and the NASDAQ down 24 points (0.94%). However, that was nothing compared to the bombshell that was dropped after the markets closed on Friday afternoon.

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's on Friday lowered the nation's AAA rating for the first time since granting it in 1917. The move came less than a week after a gridlocked Congress finally agreed to spending cuts that would reduce the debt by more than $2 trillion -- a tumultuous process that contributed to convulsions in financial markets. The promised cuts were not enough to satisfy S&P.

The drop in the rating by one notch to AA-plus was telegraphed as a possibility back in April. The three main credit agencies, which also include Moody's Investor Service and Fitch, had warned during the budget fight that if Congress did not cut spending far enough, the country faced a downgrade. Moody's said it was keeping its AAA rating on the nation's debt, but that it might still lower it

Interestingly, this is the exact opposite of what Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said would happen if a debt ceiling agreement was reached.

Not surprisingly, the Obama Adminstration has gone after the messenger by shooting it with both barrels.

WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The Obama administration attacked the credibility of the analysis underlying Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the United States' top credit rating on Friday, saying it had found a $2 trillion error.

S&P was forced to remove the number from its analysis after Treasury officials discovered that the rating agency's estimates of the government's discretionary spending was $2 trillion too high, sources familiar with the discussions said.

There was evident dismay, and some anger, within the Obama administration at S&P's decision to downgrade U.S. debt despite the errors officials said they had found in the calculations.

"A judgment flawed by a $2 trillion error speaks for itself," a Treasury spokesman said after S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch to AA-plus on concerns about growing budget deficits.

Also unsurprisingly, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) used the occasion of the S&P's Downgrade announcement to call for tax increases.

[Hat tip: Jammie Wearing Fool: Sea of Syrah]

Standard and Poor's Lowers Outlook on Long Term U.S. Government Debt to 'Negative'

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the long-term outlook for US Soverign debt from 'neutral' to 'negative', putting the government on notice that it is at risk of losing it's AAA credit rating (the agency's highest possible rating).

S&P said there’s a one-in-three chance that the rating might be cut within two years and that its “baseline assumption” is that Congress and the Obama administration will come to terms on a plan to reduce record deficits. Treasuries and the dollar rebounded from early losses following the statement, while stocks declined. Moody’s Investor Service, which has a stable outlook on U.S. debt, today said the U.S. budget debate is “positive” for the country’s credit.

Today’s announcement marks the first time the U.S. credit outlook has been questioned since 1995 and 1996, when a dispute between then-President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich led to government shutdowns. Fitch Ratings put U.S. debt on a “negative ratings watch” in November 1995 until spring 1996, and Moody’s put some U.S. government bonds on review for a possible downgrade in January 1996.

“We believe there is a material risk that U.S. policy makers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium-and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013,” S&P said in its statement today.

To harldy anybody's surprise, the announcement from S&P was seemingly dismissed by White House press secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday.

White House spokesman Jay Carney says Standard & Poor’s action Monday is a welcome call for a bipartisan agreement to reduce the deficit. He adds that the White House believes the political process will outperform the agency’s expectations because the president and Congress recognize the problem, have proposed confiscating the assets and property of Americans making above an arbitrary number picked by the Obama Administration cutting $4 trillion and will begin negotiations toward a deal soon

Stocks plunged after the agency’s announcement.

Carney highlighted S&P’s positive comments about the U.S. economy [which A) are only applicable in the short-term and B) it's 'positive' by virtue of the unrest in the middle east, natural disasters in Japan as well as Greece, Portugal and Ireland's soverign debt issues bogging down the European Union- NANESB!].

More of the same- either deny that there's a problem (or tell us that this problem will actually be the 'new normal') or redistribute the money and assets of somebody else by invoking the 'anybody who has more money than you probably doesn't deserve it' rhetoric of class warfare.

Congress, Obama Resume War on Rich Uncle Pennybags Wall Street.

PUBLIC ENEMY #1

Less than 2 weeks after Henry Waxman (D-Nostril-ia) threatened to haul the CEOs of Verizon, Caterpillar, 3M, Valero and basically any company that said that 0bamacare would eat into their earnings and harm already existing company healthcare and pensions plans before Congress, Napoleon from Orwell's Animal Farm Waxman has apparently done an about-face.

In lieu of that, we're treated to a dog and pony show chock filled with phony and contrived outrage from Congress over Goldman-Sachs' [NYSE: GS] 'unbridled greed' during the sub-prime lending crisis back in 2008.

I'm not sure, but I think the desired reaction from the public is supposed to be 'GRRRRRR! Those greedy fat-cats at Goldman-Sachs make me so ANGRY! RAAAAAR!! FENWAY SMASH!!!' or something along those lines while overlooking how the Democrats in charge of this week's sad little sideshow as well as Obama himself had benefited mightily from campaign contributions from Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan [which I'm sure they'll be giving back immediately- NANESB].

Even if I made the idiotic assumption that Congress was sincerely calling upon lenders and financial institutions like Goldman Sachs to further explain their activities during the 2008 crisis, I gotta wonder how come Fannie Mae [NYSE: FNM] and Freddie Mac [NYSE: FRE] aren't getting the same treatment as Goldman Sachs from this Congress.

Assuming Goldman Sachs IS guilty of any wrongdoing, maybe the Securities and Exchange Commission could've caught it sooner if their regulators weren't using work computers to surf porn sites for up to 8 hours at a time....on the taxpayer dime, no less.

On a not completely unrelated story, the GOP blocked a vote to allow debate on Chris Dodd's Financial 'reform' legislation earlier today. If you remember less than 2 years ago, it was revealed that Sen. Dodd (D-CT and Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee) had recieved preferntial treatment on mortgages from Countrywide Bank. Earlier this year, Dodd announced that he wouldn't seek re-election and some view his 'reform' bill as Dodd's swan song.

Sweeping nationalization of a sector of the economy cloyingly referred to by this President and Congress as 'reform'. Hmm....sounds familiar.

Buffet's Berkshire-Hathaway Announces BNSF Deal- Railroad Stocks Surge

Already owning a 22% stake in the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, Warren Buffet announced earlier Tuesday that his Berkshire-Hathaway Group reached an agreement with BNSF's board of directors to purchase the remaining shares of BNSF in a $44 billion deal. This would make the railroad the single largest investment by Berkshire-Hathaway [NYSE: BRK-A].

Wall Street seemed to take the news rather well.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe [NYSE: BNI] closed at $97 a share, up 27.51% in a single day.

Canadian National [NYSE: CNI] closed at $49.99, up 2.73%

Canadian Pacific [NYSE: CP] closed at $45.53, up 4.24%

CSX Transportation [NYSE: CSX] closed at $45.97, up 7.31%

Kansas City Southern [NYSE: KSU] closed at $25.79, up 7.1%

Norfolk Southern [NYSE: NSC] closed at $45.15, up 5.4%

Omaha-based Union Pacific [NYSE: UNP] closed at $59.41, up 7.9%