We've all seen the Occupy Wall Street signs: America for sale! End corporate personhood! Get the money out of politics!
~db~ via Flickr We'll see about that.
But what if a corporation actually became a politician?
Farmscape LLC, which describes itself as "the largest urban farming venture in Los Angeles," is launching a full-fledged mayoral campaign...
More »
Smack dab in the middle of an election season, the L.A. City Ethics Commission decided yesterday afternoon to raise the cap on campaign contributions that municipal candidates can collect from their sponsors.
~db~ via Flickr Quit your yammerin'.
In other words: L.A.'s election system just got a little less Democratic, a lot more bought-and-sold.
The controversial item (especially controversial in the aftermath of Occupy Wall Street, with 1-percenter suspicions lingering on the air) drew a large, angry crowd...
More »
Things got pretty rowdy at the foreclosed North Hollywood home of undocumented immigrant Blanca Cardenas (and her U.S. citizen family, including two small children) on Monday night. 
InsightOut News Occupy la Casa Cardenas.
Occupy L.A. protesters, who have been rallying against both the Bank of America foreclosure and Cardenas' resulting deportation, can be seen in a video of the on-site demonstration running through doors, picketing on the front porch and refusing to leave the premises. This, despite about 20 LAPD cops in riot gear waiting to pounce...
More »
Though Occupy L.A. has always been firm about its status as a collective, not a group of individuals, some protesters have inevitably achieved more celebrity than the rest.
Alexander Weinschenker via Facebook
The first and foremost being Sarah Mason, whose portrait at a Bank of America occupation ended up on the cover of TIME's "Protester of the Year" issue. (Albeit heavily manipulated by controversial street artist/graphic designer Shepard Fairey.)
Another local celebrity of sorts was 22-year-old Alex Weinschenker...
More » |
| Laurie Levenson |
The Occupy 90210 protest last night, to call out President Obama for accepting big campaign cash from Hollywood donors, got a little chaotic when a protester was thrown from his bicycle by a Smart Car flying by. (Scroll down for dramatic video of the downed cyclist, sprawled in pain on Sunset Boulevard.)
Ustream Down and out in Beverly Hills.
Though the protest was scheduled for Will Rogers Memorial Park, it looks like occupiers moved onto the sidewalk once the sun went down...
More »
Unlike the people's beloved First Lady -- who stops by Inglewood groceries when she's in town; so humble! -- President Obama is notorious for never letting his limo stray beyond L.A.'s lavish Westside.
Shepard Fairey Guess this settles the "hope you're on our side" thing.
Especially now that election season is drawing near, and so many deep Hollywood pockets have yet to be tapped for campaign donations.
Hence the president's $38,500-per-plate campaign fundraiser in the Holmby Hills this evening...
More » |
| REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/Pool |
| Occupiers lock arms at City Hall on Nov. 30 |
And you thought the occupation of Los Angeles was over with the raid on Occupy L.A.'s City Hall lawn encampment at the end of November.
SEIU Occupying a downtown B of A.
Oh no.
The occupy nation is getting ready to confront a series of banks today regarding their take-our-bailout-money-and-our-houses tendencies:
Updated at the bottom: The city is going with a Cadillac plan. First posted at 8:05 a.m.
If you were part of the occupation of the L.A. City Hall lawn late last year, prepare to be very mad.
Remember when the mayor sent 1,400 officers to clear Occupy protesters from their City Hall encampment right after Thanksgiving weekend? The rationale was that, while Antonio Villaraigosa and much of the City Council professed to be down with the 99 percent, they couldn't stand by as the protesters destroyed city property and incurred millions of dollars in costs to taxpayers.
The destruction of the City Hall lawn, a huge issue at the time, turned out, in fact, to be peanuts:
More »
Occupy L.A. wants its murals back.
The Occupy octopus.
Local leaders of the 99 percenter movement sent a letter to the city Department of Cultural Affairs asking for it to return the artwork, including a 24-by-16 piece depicting a federal reserve bank as an evil octopus, which was painted during the two-month occupation of the City Hall lawn.
So far, it appears, the city ain't budging:
More » |
| Henry David Thoreau: The original Occupier |
 |
In gardening terms, "progressive" means less grass and more drought-tolerant and native plants. The fear, however, was that the city, bureaucratic and broke, would blow the opportunity to reboot the garden and just go with the least expensive and most traditional option: planting another flat, green sprawl. After all, grass is the cheapest to install and the easiest to maintain.
More »
Conspiracies!
Good Jobs LA
On this suspiciously nice-weathered morning in Los Angeles, a freak accident between a Fed-Ex truck and a Metro bus has blocked Van Nuys Boulevard in Panorama City.
The crash occurred mere hours before a big union- and Occupy L.A.-vetted protest of Fed-Ex (and other "corporate tax dodgers") was set to stage at the intersection of Sunset and Vine...
More » |
| Photo by Colin Young-Wolff |
| Protesters face off with the LAPD at the Nov. 17 Bank of America Plaza protest |
University of California police became iconic "bad guys" of the Occupy Wall Street movement back in fall, when an officer from UC Davis pepper-sprayed a peaceful line of protesters directly in the eyes as they sat, motionless, on the ground. (That incident has since been ridiculed, memed and Christmas-sweatered into the halls of Internet infamy.)
YouTube Cops versus kids.
And the board of directors for the nine-campus university system, called the UC Regents, have likewise pitted themselves against the 99 percent:
More »
See our review of the festivities here. Updated at the bottom with what went down. First posted at 4:33 p.m. Friday.
publicenemy.com Will Mr. D fight the power?
A planned "Occupy Skid Row" free street concert Sunday featuring Public Enemy, Cypress Hill, Kurupt and other hip-hop artists is in doubt, police tell the Weekly.
The Los Angeles Community Action Network (LACAN) is holding a street festival at the location and has a permit to do so, police say. But they don't have a permit to hold a concert, and LACAN organizers told cops that the show is not happening, at least according what authorities told us.
Public Enemy frontman Chuck D. has been promoting the event in media interviews this week. In fact ...
More »
Members of Occupy L.A. were out in force today to protest a foreclosure auction at a downtown hotel.
starwoodhotels.com The downtown L.A. Sheraton.
When four or five of them got inside the downtown Sheraton hotel and shouted outside the doors of the meeting room where auction.com was selling properties to the highest bidders, police moved in and threatened the demonstrators with arrest, LAPD Sgt. T. Keenan told LA Weekly.
The occupiers ...
Turns out the Occupy L.A. cost estimate released by the City Administrative Officer last month -- $1.7 million -- didn't include the price of fixing the lawn outside City Hall. 
LA Daily News CIty Hall lawn, post-Occupy.
Nope. That was just the bill from LAPD headquarters for the overtime it had to pay 1,000-plus riot cops to raid the peaceful Occupy camp.
The ravaged lawn will require another invoice entirely. And though we agree Los Angeles has wasted an inordinate amount of time talking about a patch of grass instead of Occupy's quite pressing grievances -- banksters/pols ruining America, etc. -- the continuing ridiculousness of the city's approach to tidying up after Occupy L.A. cannot be ignored.
More »
Here on the Internet news circuit, the Occupy boom has more or less settled. Don't bite our heads off -- we're not saying the movement itself is over, by any means -- but it's nearing the end of its shelf life as a meme. (The young American hive mind has a severe case of ADD, and a story can only stay hot for a few months before everyone goes looking for the next trending topic to beat the life out of. Just look at Charlie Sheen.)
zazzle.com Janky, non-trademarked Occupy gear of old.
Unlike the national attention span, though, trademark law is still Paul Revering it through the 21st century. So these SoCal-based applications to trademark phrases like "Occupy," "Occupy LA" and "Occupy Los Angeles" (discovered by trademark lawyer Sue Basko and posted to the official OLA blog), are still pending in court:
More »
Find everything you're looking for in your city
Find the best happy hour deals in your city
Get today's exclusive deals at savings of anywhere from 50-90%
Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
