AUGUSTA, Maine — The first of nine people to go to trial on criminal trespass charges stemming from an Occupy-inspired protest at the Blaine House has been convicted.
Jurors on Friday returned a guilty verdict against 59-year-old Diane Messer, who said she was exercising her First Amendment rights when she and others refused to leave the Blaine House grounds.
The Kennebec Journal said Messer testified she wanted to negotiate a compromise after authorities demanded a daytime-only permit for Occupy Augusta protesters to remain in Capitol Park.
Prosecutors said the problem was the location, not the message, when demonstrators went to the Blaine House on Nov. 27. The Capitol Park encampment disbanded after a federal judge ruled on Dec. 7 that banning camping in the park didn’t stymie free speech.
Suppression of dissent is a symptom of fascism.
Even more specifically, taking down a mural that honored the struggle of labor to get fair wages and working conditions, a mural that praised Frances Perkins, one of Maine’s great heroes–taking this down because an anonymous letter said it was similar to “North Korean propagana”–
that is a symptom of fascism, or gross imperious conduct.
Did you have that same stinky Proffessor back in the 70s that I did? You listened way too hard.
so is the corporate takeover of government through a ‘progressive’ central bank….
I’m afraid you got that one backwards westie.
Right, kcjonez must have forgotten that liberals are the ones constantly denouncing science and education. That liberals are the ones claiming that those who study and further their education are elitists.
Which is apparently why you can’t understand that this is not about stifling dissent. It’s about trespassing, which is against the law. Apparently, your brand of science and education didn’t teach you that.
I was replying to a specific comment. Is that that hard for you to understand? Were you too busy trying to figure out how you’d land an insult?
Wrong. Trespassing laws were the tool used in this instance to stifle dissent. It is much cleaner than some of the violently suppressive techniques which are also tools used for the same purpose in many cases. If our law enforcement personnel wanted to arrest people for trespassing we would have a line stretching across the state of violators.
Make no mistake–these arrests were about stifling dissent.
What”s this have to do with a person being charged and found guilty of criminal trespass?
It has to do with the comment I was replying to. Obviously.
I believe that should be the comment “…to which I was replying.” I thought elitists knew not to end a sentence with a preposition.
How consistent of you guys. Complain about me being off-topic and then do the same. Anything to derail the conversation it seems.
Look at this, have an opinion?
2. Boeing just received $35 billion from our government to build 179 airborne tankers, but despite nearly $10 billion in profits from 2008 to 2010, it too paid no taxes, again thanks to foreign tax havens.
Also,look up Boeing airplane skin failure.Off topic,yes but the BDN won’t cover it.
and where did the 35 billion come from Sprucey?
certainly NOT from excess income tax revenue…we borrowed it…and who made that possible Spruce? You guessed it….the federal reserve
aim your weapon where it counts, and would actually matter…..tax reform is a fool’s errand
Did you know that Forbes Magazine says the happiest countries in the world all have “generous welfare benefits”:
[The happiest countries] are all borderline
socialist states, with generous welfare benefits and lots of redistribution of
wealth.
http://www.forbes.com/2011/01/19/norway-denmark-finland-business-washington-world-happiest-countries_print.html
Hilarious!!
Apparently the liberal yuppies can’t take over the parks that we all pay for.
Did you know that Osama bin laden was on the CIA payroll and that we trained him to use black ops? What do you think of that?
Did you know, smoking is known to cause cancer? I like pie!
Did you know that pie, specifically “apple pie”, is an icon of the United States (i.e. “mom and apple pie”), which is a nation that harbors evil corporations that don’t pay any taxes, and also supports evil dictators around the world like Osama Bin Laden, who is the ruler of the underwater town Bikini Bottom, where Sponge Bob Squarepants lives, who tries to infiltrate the minds of our young children…..
Did you know the minds of those same young children will then grow to expect free stuff without having to work for it, or better yet, make someone else work for it? Then, if they dont get it, they will then protest those who do work?
There you have it people, Bin Laden is clearly responsible for OWS
The US has trained many foreign military to defend themselves. We also trained Israeli fighter pilots who are questionably considered to be the “2nd” best in the world. What’s your point? Israel is considered one of our closest allies, yet who knows what could happen in 5-10 years? Our pilots could face them in the skies and see how well we trained them. At this point, we want them to be the best pilots on that continent, because it’s in our best interest. Wait and see what happens to Iran if they make the wrong move towards Israel. Israel will not fight a “humanitarian” war like your kind force the US to do. They fight to win, the way we used to.
Huh? Can’t make sense of this comment…..please elucidate. Thanks.
It’s a response to SpruceDwellers question to me above.
LOL.
Violence is OK with the lefties if they use it to attain their own ideological goals.
Due you know that Saddam Hussein was a US ally in the late 1980’s, under Reagan, and we gave him military aid even while we used chemical weapons on his own citizens?
So you must have been in favor of the military action in Iraq that brought down Saddam’s regime and brought him to justice, right?
Actually, we went to war under false pretenses–even George W. Bush admitted there were no WMD and no Al Qaeda links in Iraq. We went in for oil, not to get Hussein. But Cheney’s company Halliburton make a fortune by stealing money from the US through no-bid contracts.
The Iraq war was a disaster, from justification to planning to logistics. Any military officer will tell you so.
Yaawwwnnnnnn…..ok, I’ve sifted through the paranoia and….ummmmm…oh yeah, couple of things:
1. You didn’t really answer my question: Were you in favor of the action to bring down Hussein?
2. If we went in for oil, why is gas reaching four dollars a gallon?
3. How many military officers do you know, just out of curiosity?
pssst (proofread.)
Hussein was a vicious dictator on the CIA payroll for years, like many vicious dictators on the CIA or US payroll for many years. You know, people like Pinochet, Osama bin laden and Trujillo.
The question isn’t should we take them down–the question is why support them in the first place.
As for Big Oil, the reason they are experiencing record profits has a lot to do with caring more about profit than anything else, including human rights and committing the worse kinds of lies and sins.
But you knew that already.
So when you cant answer a question you change the question? Brilliant!
Don’t bother, my friend, this is beyond pointless
Why are we paying so much for oil? Look to Wall Street speculators, who are betting that as oil gets scarcer, they will be able to charge more and more, so they’ll bet now on oil futures.
Speculation is also driving up food prices, as food shortages grow around the world. Wall Street is betting against us – they’re betting on foot futures that food will cost more and they will, therefore, be able to get more for their shares by selling off shares of food suppliers. This, in itself, is driving up food prices.
It’s all quite anti-people and pro-profit, as if profit were all that mattered on the face of the earth.
Another option would be to build more refineries here in the US, and drill the bejesus out of Alaska. To hell with the caribou.
You know the existing oil pipeline that was built in Alaska that was supposed to lessen our “dependence on foreign oil.”? All that oil got shipped straight to Japan. It never got here.
Now this XL pipeline oil, which is too dirty for American energy plants, will go to China and other parts of the world that don’t care how dirty their fuel or air is.
Will we never learn? Entrusting our welfare to big corporations whose only motivation for existence is to make as much money as they can, no matter how they do it, is a fool’s game.
We need regular people to decide what happens to our natural resources. I’d be for Citizens’ Referendum on the question of the XL pipeline, and also whether corn ethanol is better used as fuel, or as food.
I know of two reasons the cost of food is up. One, the price of oil is up. Two, We are providing farming subsidies so we can grow corn to make ethanol to burn in our cars. We are burning our food.
Yes, exactly. And all of these commodities – oil, food, and corn for ethanol – are priced high in part because of Wall Street gamblers speculating that they will go up in price, and that speculation is actually making the prices go up. Disgusting! No concern at all for regular people who cannot afford these higher prices.
LOL….you fail to see that simple monetary inflation explains the price increases you see across the board….remember the stimulus’, ‘TARP’, and ‘Quantitative Easing’. Yeah, well the banksters are easing the vast quantity of debt obligations they have no way of honoring by making everything you purchase cost more. But hey, carry on claiming it is the evil speculators and seek your federal government in assisting your escape from the situation THEY created. Let us know how that works out for yah!
The big banks and the Wall Street speculators are not really separate entities, since banks invest in Wall Street with our money, that is, they gamble with it. Goldman-Sachs, for example, invested billions in bad debts knowing they were bad debts and sold them to other Wall Street speculators/bankers.
I am not looking to the federal government for assistance in lowering prices; we know the driving up of prices is on purpose and – at the moment – there’s not much we can do about it.
For example, people are buying less oil to heat their homes (warm winter), and because people have less money they’re not buying as much gasoline – – but the prices are going up. nontheless. It’s not a case of shortages making prices go up.
So if we don’t let them make their enormous, gluttonous profits by buying their over-priced, taxpayers’ money subsidized products, they will up the price of our necessities so they can make at least as much profit.
Many people need to speak out in order for the banks and Wall Street to cease and desist squeezing us out of every dime they possibly can, especially in difficult economic times.
I don’t think we’re disagreeing here.
No, there were WMD’s and we know that for a fact. We have the receipts…
we went to war in Iraq to pre-empt the rejection of the dollar in the trading of oil throughout the middle east
again, get educated
You mean “he” used chemical weapons on his own people, not “we”.
I know that you can’t stomach it when “we” have to rid the world of scum, but someone has to do it. If you had ever been to Baghdad and maybe toured some of Hussein’s and his son’s palaces, perhaps you wouldn’t be such a looser.
Do you know that many of their palaces had man made lakes (in the desert mind you) and these lakes had elaborate house boats on them. These were used to rape and abuse 13-14 year old girls because they don’t believe that Allah can see what happens on the water. After they would kill the girls because then they are soiled, and their parents wouldn’t want them back anyway. Maybe you could have seen the swimming pools with no water in them, only riddled with bullet holes and blood stains, since the pools were a convenient place to murder many people at once and contain the mess.
Many of us wish that you would make yourself happy, and go live in one of your beloved “welfare” countrys that you love to preach are so happy.
Again, the US supported Saddam Hussein while he committed mass murder and mass rape. if you think he was evil, you should consider the US giving him millions and millions of dollars in military assistance evil. We patted him on the back and gave him money while he did all the atrocious things you mentioned. We didn’t criticize him at all, and he was on the CIA payroll.
Read, for instance, Journalist Alan Friedman’s book, “Spider’s Web.”
“We patted him on the back and gave him money while he did all the atrocious things you mentioned. We didn’t criticize him at all, and he was on the CIA payroll.”
Indeed, and he was playing the US Dollar monetary game the whole time. Of course when Saddam stepped out of line and tried to claim his own indpendence from the US Dollar in looking to use alternative curencies to trade oil, guess what happened?
You’re missing the fact that these are banker’s wars Spruce…..all wars are banker’s wars
why do you level your gun at anything other than fractional reserve banking?
LOL, Sprucy..your reaching here man, come on even you can see the fallacy in your lame comparison. I expect more from someone like you…lol.
Show me where it indicates violence in the above story.She’s a 59 y/o woman.
Ummm, I’m trying to figure out what violence you’re referring to here…….there was no violence in Augusta that I can see….please elucidate.
Suppressioin of dissent…..they broke the law….dissent that…
The American Empire is sinking due to greed. A vast transfer of wealth has occurred from the middle class to the wealthy. The movie “Inside Job” and the book “Winner Take All Politics” make the case well–but they have a lot of trouble competing with the lies spread by people like Glenn Beck, who prey on hatred.
Did you know that many huge corporations paid no income tax at all:
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2011/apr/10/tax-evaders-wall-shame/
Article says Exxon/Mobil paid no tax in 2009. Sen. Bernie Sanders made that statement from the floor in 2010, and PolitiFact rated it as false. Exxon/Mobil did indeed pay taxes.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/10/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-filibuster-exxon-mobil/
The article you provide says that it is strange that ExxonMobil had a negative 156 million US tax return in 2009, and the company is not required to divulge info on that:
—————–
The three-year tax numbers listed on the 10-K do seem to suggest that
the company’s 2009 tax bill was unusual. In 2007 and 2008, the
equivalent tax totals on the 10-K were $4.5 billion and $3.4 billion,
respectively, which suggests that some unusual factor reduced the
ExxonMobil tax bill into negative territory for 2009.
While the company is not obligated to publicize its tax return, and
thus the actual amount it paid in taxes, ExxonMobil has voluntarily
released a figure for its actual federal income tax bill in response to
media requests that questioned why the company reported a negative tax
liability in 2009. Jeffers told PolitiFact that the “U.S. income tax
expense for 2009 activities was approximately $500 million.” The company
declined to provide documentation for this number, however.
The negative number quoted is not from a tax return. It is a financial statement. In 2009, the 10-k (financial statement… not a tax return) refers to a “deferred tax expense” of $-156 million. In 2008, Exxon had to dump a lot of money into its pension plan to keep it solvent, due to to market losses. This resulted in a tax refund. That refunded is reflected in 2009 as a negative number.
It’s complicated, especially if you never done accrual accounting.
They paid about $500 million in US taxes. They would have also paid foreign income taxes, state and local taxes.
They are under no obligation to make their tax return public. Nor are you, for that matter.
So not only did they pay zero Federal Income taxes in 2009, they got a refund of 156 million–all this while profits were at or near record highs:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/02/08/421061/big-oil-higher-prices-record-profits-less-oil/?mobile=nc
Thanks for helping me make case about the corruption in Big Oil.
My mistake in thinking you cared about the actual facts. Clearly, you just want to rant about “big oil”. Here’s a solution for you. Stop buying their products.
Shhh, youll frighten them with things like facts
Did you know that Charlie Rangel, Tom Daschle, and Tim “Turbo Tax” Geithner don’t pay taxes?
Tim “turbo tax” Geithner……Thats the funniest thing Ive read today….thanks
Guess what? I’m willing to admit that the Democratic party is extremely corrupt, are you willing to admit that these big corporations are corrupt?
We need to sweep house, not sit here and play Elephant vs. Donkey. As long as the American people hate each other, split into warring factions, the rich elites win.
Gotta go…
At least I got you to admit that the Democrats are corrupt, this whole thing was ALMOST worth it just for that
Too bad you can’t admit the Republicans are corrupt. Until that happens, the GOP will continue to maintain its army of ignorance.
Did you know that many big corporations paid no income tax at all:
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/ad-lib/2011/apr/10/tax-evaders-wall-shame/
Wait….an arrest at an OWS event? Say it isnt so!
I know, right?!
This must be the first and only one. Im sure there wont be anymore as OWS are a peace loving people
The issue is that the bankers have taken control of all of our lives. They lend their credit which is illegal and than they foreclose on people who can’t pay the usury with their hard work and labor. This is the crime that is being protected. Why do we allow bankers to ruin our lives? Our society? Our
freedom? Why do they get away with their crimes? Why are bankers allowed to tresspass on our lives? This is my question. Who will stick up for the bankers? Any takers?
Thanks.
Trolls with their Google alerts out in full force on another Occupy article.
Well, another option could be having a lawful, peaceful protest, and the arrests wouldnt be there to make the news. Its been done before.
BDN, a fairly liberal news source, has been strangely silent on all the other arrests at different protests. Wonder why that is. Oh thats right, there havent been any.
How can I donate to this brave American’s legal fund and show support?SHAME on them for arresting her!SHAME!
See news item today where NYPD illegally infiltrated liberal groups instead of going after the anti choice bombers,murderers and thugs.THAT is where the DOJ needs to spend time and money.
I’ll sure be glad when all this hoopla over the occupy fiasco takes it’s place in the dumpster beside the occupiers and their blue tarps.
Hi noparkforme – Well, most Occupiers, so far as I can tell, were demonstrating using their Constutitional right to address the Government for Redress of Grievances, such as why give our money to huge banks and corporations while children go hungry.
Seems logical and sensible to me. Good questions they were asking…….and they were met with disdain and ridicule from government, bankers, corporations which pay no taxes, etc.
I’m glad they had the guts to put themselves out there to get issues out which rarely get discussed in this country – – such as why there is such disparity in how people are treated versus how banks and corporations are favored.
And whether our economic system is working for regular people, instead of just banks and corporations.
Children are going hungry? I thought childhood obesity was the problem. Or was that last week and this week it’s hunger? I can never keep it straight.
Irrelevant footnote to irrelevant movement
suppression of dissent in fascism means death, as with communism, which has caused over 137 million deaths in the 20th century according to the US Congressional Record, http://www.agendadocumentary.com…what this person did was break the law and will receive the punishment for that action….we call that equal justice in America…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kanene-holder/occupy-movement_b_1364961.html
Some of the most influential people in the history of this nation have been “convicted” of protesting. They should wear it like a badge.
ლ(ಠ益ಠლ) give us free stuff!
OK that was funny.True but funny.thanks for the laugh I needed that.
“Messer is a military veteran, and was honorably discharged with the rank of major after 22 years in the U.S. Army. She also was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the Maine Senate in 2008.”
I like military veterans…except you. Never have liked Democrats… without exception.
“At no time did I hear at any point that we were trespassing,” Messer testified. “When the officer went down the line, telling us we had to leave, he didn’t say, ‘You’re trespassing.’ He looked straight in my eyes and said, ‘Do you want to be arrested?'” Was this your defense? Lame.
By the looks of all the “comment removed” It looks like our big brother was upset by the verdict.
Hopefully the others will get the message and save the 99% they so fondly like to say they represent the cost of convicting them as well.