The Twilight Zone-like video above, shot and posted by Lee Fang, was taped this evening as UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi walked to her car while students lined the sidewalk and roadway, sitting and locking arms in complete silence. Their demonstration came on the heels of Katehi's support of the hyper-militarized UC Davis Police Department's outrageous and brutal use of pepper spray on dozens of compliant, peaceful Occupy demonstrators who were sitting in a circle, locking arms, on the campus quad yesterday.

We covered the shocking pepper spray incident, including the remarkable photographs and videos of the event, along with the calls for Katehi's resignation, earlier today here.

Fang's describes what happened leading to the haunting moment seen in the video above this way:

The blatant torture of peaceful demonstrators on the UC Davis campus yesterday was just the latest in a string of similarly appalling incidents of violence orchestrated by highly militarized "law enforcement" officials over the last several weeks across the nation in response to the growing Occupy Wall Street movement. We detailed a number of the most disturbing recent incidents, many of them caught on video tape and photographs, in this report yesterday.

UPDATE 11/20/11: Several quick updates following the events of last night depicted above, including explanations of how it came about (one of the pepper sprayed students organized it), interviews with some of the pepper sprayed students, an interview with a Baltimore cop who supports the use of force at UC Davis, and news that two of the UC Davis cops have now been placed on "Administrative Leave". Details follow below...

On Friday, Lt. John Pike [and a number of other officers --- see UPDATE below] of the UC Davis police force lead a group of lawless cops in lining up demonstrators who had been peaceably assembled on the University of California, Davis quad and then covered them with with pepper spray. His fellow cops did nothing to stop him, and actually stood by in support. [Complete appalling video posted at the end of this article.]

We're at a loss to describe this type of outrageous, unprovoked and unnecessary behavior as anything less than torture, to be frank.

Yesterday, we shared the photo of a cop at OccupyPortland similarly pepper spraying a young demonstrator directly in the face. And the day before, we detailed the story of 84-year old Dorli Rainey who met a similar fate at OccupySeattle.

Our report yesterday detailed a rapidly growing partial list of other atrocious incidents of blatant, lawless, unprovoked violence carried out by "law enforcement" officials across the nation since the Occupy Wall Street movement began two months ago. The incidents, almost all documented on video by citizen journalists, demonstrate the unrestrained, and almost always illegal, use of brutal force, aggression, violence and often torture by Big Government against peaceful American citizens exercising what were once known as their Constitutional rights --- the very behavior which supporters of the Tea Party once pretended to be concerned about.

As we averred in that article --- as supported by the included linked incidents --- and as we feel even more certain of today after viewing the video of the casually brutal and tortuous behavior of Pike and his band of UC Davis stormtrooper thugs who stood by in support (see full video below), the U.S. has not become merely a Police State in the ten years following 9/11, but a fully weaponized Military State.

Though video evidence of what happened was widely available on Friday, rather than condemning the outrageous violence by a member of her own Police force --- as she almost certainly would have had the situation been reversed and a student used pepper spray against peaceful cops --- UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi chose to issue a statement yesterday which seemed to excuse the police brutality as necessary "to protect the health and safety of our campus community"...

Our own Jeannie Dean --- longtime reader, supporter and commenter at The BRAD BLOG, years-long Election Integrity champion, and now OccupyLA rep --- brings the gospel of the Occupation to RT (formerly Russia Today)...

Says Jeannie to the whole wide world via RT: "We have already changed the narrative from deficit spending to jobs and to the economic disparities and the social injustice as we are seeing through our banking system, and the hijacking and corruption inherent in our banking and political system."

Way to sing it, JD! You do us proud! Great job! And keep making noise!

[Now UPDATED with audio archives below!]

We're back! We're guest hosting the nationally syndicated Mike Malloy Show every weeknight tonight through next Wednesday!

As usual, we'll be BradCasting LIVE 9pm-Mid ET (6p-9p PT), coast-to-coast and around the uprising globe from the studios of L.A.'s KTLK am1150 in beautiful downtown Burbank. Join us by tuning in, chatting in, Tweeting in and calling in! Our LIVE room will be up and rolling right here at The BRAD BLOG, as usual, while we are on the air. Please stop by and join the fun while you're listening! (The Chat Room will open at the bottom of this item a few minutes before airtime, see down below, just above "Comments" section.)

Scheduled tonight:

• JOSH HARKINSON, of Mother Jones from Occupy Wall Street in NYC where he's been bringing us some remarkable live reporting on the scene, including this harrowing description of an NYPD cop threatening his life during the eviction at Zuccotti Park last Monday night/Tuesday morning.
• DENISE LOCKWOOD, of the Caledonia Patch, on the alleged plans by supporters of WI Gov. Scott Walker to sabotage the recently launched RECALL WALKER effort. We'll discuss her recent reports of a source who claims there are some 1,000 folks working on the effort to game the effort, and some of the journalistic questions surrounding her reporting.
• PLUS! Has Occupy Wall Street now revealed this nation to be a full blown Military State? We'll have plenty to say on that, along with your calls, more news on "Occupation Nation" and anything else you might want to use your public airwaves for at 877-520-1150 and with your tweets to @TheBradBlog!...

The Mike Malloy Show is nationally syndicated on air affiliates across the country and also on SiriusXM Ch. 127. You may also listen online to the free LIVE audio stream at affiliate GREEN 960 in San Francisco or at WhiteRose Society or via MikeMalloy.com.

POST-SHOW UPDATE: Great show tonight, I think. Nice to be back. Very lively, great guests, great callers...just fun (and infuriating) all around! Don't believe me? Listen to the commercial-free audio archives now posted below (along with chat room archives). Enjoy!...

The remarkable photo above [hat-tip Mother Jones' Mike Mechanic] was taken yesterday by Randy L. Rasmussen of The Oregonian who reports the incident occurred in Portland, where the "police officer deployed pepper spray at SW Yamhill, between the JP Morgan Chase bank and Pioneer Courthouse Square."

He says "The photo was taken from the southeast corner of the square, looking toward the intersection of 6th and Yamhill after a day of marching through downtown Portland, Ore., by Occupy Portland participants."

Rasmussen goes on to report that "Several people were arrested" during the march to the Wells Fargo downtown branch in recognition of "N17," standing for November 17th, the two-month "anniversary" of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

I'm guest hosting the Mike Malloy Show tonight, so haven't had time to confirm for certain, but I suspect one of those "arrested" was not the officer pepper spraying the apparently peaceful demonstrator in the face.

Add this incident to the growing body of apparently unprovoked police abuse of peaceful citizen demonstrators in the Occupy movement, including (but not limited to):

• Two-tour Iraq War vet Scott Olsen whose skull was fractured by a tear gas cannister fired allegedly by a law enforcement official with Oakland PD's multi-agency task force on October 25, despite no evidence of a threat from demonstrators;
• Iraq and Afghanistan vet Kayvan Sabehgi whose spleen was ruptured by Oakland cops who allegedly beat him up, even though he was not even demonstrating that same night;
• citizen journalist Scott Campbell who was shot with a bean-bag round by Oakland PD while simply rolling his camera on November 3;
• the Berkeley CA cops who slammed (I'm sorry, AP, "nudged") batons into the guts of peaceful student demonstrators on the UC Berkeley campus;
• the Dallas cop who pushed a peaceful demonstrator off a 4 foot ledge;
• the Mother Jones journalist Josh Harkinson (who will join us on tonight's Malloy Show) who reports that he was dragged behind a moving truck by an NYPD officer after midnight on Tuesday morning as riot cops were clearing Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan;
• and, of course, 84-year old Dorli Rainey who similarly received a face full of pepper spray from cops at an Occupy Seattle march on Tuesday.

This is not a Police State. It is a fully weaponized Military State, at this point. Just ask the folks at Occupy Tampa if it feels that way to them...

UPDATE 11/19/11: The outrage --- and, yes, torture --- of the fully-weaponized Military State continues, as peaceful student demonstrators are lined up and pepper sprayed by cops at UC Davis on Friday. Details/Video...

Well this is a fun one...on a day where we could use a momentary breather...

...but on a day when the OWS folks are taking anything but.

Today is the 2 month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, which has, at this hour, brought tens of thousands of demonstrators to downtown NYC tonight (and many more elsewhere at Occupations around the country.)

You can check out NY Fox5's helicopter video of the crazy huge crowds down in NYC right here.

A number of live video feeds from citizen journalists on the ground follow below, if you'd like to check out some of the live action as it happens in NYC and elsewhere tonight...

Follow and stream @GreenNewsReport!...



(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Political kabuki theatre in the U.S. House over the Solyndra bankruptcy; Obama says "climate change", but only in Australia; It's official: the weather is getting weirder; PLUS: Harvesting water from the desert air... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Does government regulation really kill jobs? NO.; New federal fuel economy rules: 54mpg by 2025: CEO: "No question" new EPA rules create jobs; Defense Science Board warns of "failure to anticipate and mitigate" climate change... PLUS: VIDEO: Watch global CO2 go up and up and up ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning

On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California and the National Lawyers Guild filed a 17-page complaint (Campbell vs. City of Oakland) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking both compensatory damages and the issuance of a temporary restraining order that would enjoin the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and 17 outside law-enforcement agencies from trampling upon the constitutional rights of both bystanders and participants in Occupy Oakland.

The complaint calls for the OPD to cease their vicious, unprovoked and indiscriminate use of chemical agents, flash-bang grenades, nightsticks and direct-impact crowd control weapons --- all in violation of Crowd Control Policies adopted as part of a settlement of two previous federal cases entailing allegations of prior lawless actions by OPD.

The body of the complaint provides graphic details of police misconduct that is so pervasive that the legal filing might aptly be labeled, "an anatomy of an ongoing police riot" or "OPD's campaign of terror"...

Well, this'll teach those lazy kids. Thankfully, the good men and women of law enforcement are here to help keep these dangerous mobs from getting out of hand!.

Get a job, hippie! Am I right, Fox "News"?!

UPDATE 11/17/11: Wow. Olbermann's interview below with the woman seen above, the remarkable 84-year old Dorli Rainey --- who grew up in Nazi Germany(!) --- is an absolutely MUST SEE. Current TV describes the interview this way (though it doesn't adequately detail the full contents of her remarks)...

[Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter, Ralph.]

As you know, just after midnight on Tuesday, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg had to forcibly evict peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters with NYPD riot police, in order to send them in to the streets in middle of the night, for their "health and safety." As we reported yesterday, one of those cops reportedly threatened a Mother Jones journalist by dragging him behind a truck that was backing up, telling him "you could get hurt."

After the NYPD succeeded in removing the peaceful demonstrators --- or "thugs," as they are often described to propaganda-receptive Fox "News" viewers --- from Zuccotti Park, these are the fine folks (off-duty NYPD officers?) hired by the park's owners, Brookfield Properties, to replace them as it was cleaned...

In very related news...the Occupiers in Washington, D.C., in solidarity with their brethren in New York City, decided to Occupy the headquarters of Brookfield Properties yesterday. Some video of their "People's Mic" session in the lobby follows below...

One of the most remarkable moments we were able to follow, as it occurred, during the events of last night, as NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg carried out his middle-of-night eviction of Occupy Wall Street demonstrators at Zuccotti Park, happened at about 4am or so Eastern Time.

Despite the (outrageous) ban on media at the park, as hundreds of NYPD cops in riot gear cleared the peaceful demonstrators for "health" reasons --- tossing them out of their tents, onto the streets and into the night --- Mother Jones reporter Josh Harkinson was able to make his way under the barricades and back into the park.

At the time he did so, there were a few dozen protesters left, holding firm around what had been the Kitchen Tent. It seems he may have been the only reporter in the park at that moment. Then, as he described this morning, the cops began "indiscriminately dousing the peaceful protesters with what looked like pepper spray or some sort of gas." He tweeted at the time that "Everyone I witnessed being arrested was resisting peacefully."

But it was his incredible account of what had happened to him after that moment, as told in a series of tweets that he shared after he had made his way back out of the park last night, which was extraordinary. Here is that remarkable set of tweets, in the order he tweeted them...

Follow and stream @GreenNewsReport!...



(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Occupy Wall Street's bicycle-powered generator trashed by police in raid?; A huge victory for Keystone XL pipeline opponents --- but will it last?; Fracking chemicals found in Wyoming drinking water; PLUS: A prominent climate change skeptic calls for climate change action in Congress ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Clean energy: highest rate of return of any federal program; Why solar is better than stocks; American Electric Power CEO: 'No doubt' EPA regulations create new jobs; The false gospel of green marketing ... PLUS: Reinventing Fire: How the U.S. can change energy use forever ... and much, MUCH more! ...

I was up most of the night following Mayor Bloomberg's NYPD eviction of the original Occupy Wall Street demonstration at Zuccotti Park, as it happened, via live streaming video (which may still be rolling at this hour right here) and via Twitter.

The surprise eviction by hundreds of cops in riot gear after midnight in NYC was done as protesters were told to suddenly clear the park for "health" reasons. In other words, Bloomberg threw hundreds or thousands of folks onto the streets of NYC in the middle of the night, for their health.

You can scroll through much of what happened tonight (in reverse order) via http://Twitter.com/TheBradBlog.

If I can offer any order out of the pointless, NYPD-caused chaos tomorrow, I will. Hopefully by then, others will have offered sufficient coverage.

Suffice to say for now, at least, what thousands of us witnessed tonight was appalling. At least those of us who sought it out, as none of the NYC local channels were covering it live and neither were any of the cable news channels MSNBC, CNN or Fox. As a matter of fact, other than citizen media streaming live on the Internets, only Al-Jazeera jumped in to offer live coverage.

Hours on end, thousands of peaceful demonstrators were roaming and marching the streets after being evicted from the park, all of the belongings, tents, gear, from two months of the Occupation in the park --- including thousands of books from The People's Library and their bicycle-powered generator --- were trashed and thrown into garbage trucks.

Network news helicopters were reportedly grounded during the raid, as air space above the park was shut down and --- perhaps most maddeningly --- media were not allowed into the park itself as the park was cleared, and as the last of the demonstrators who refused to leave were evicted, arrested, and, reportedly either tear gassed or pepper sprayed (though that is not confirmed --- because media were not allowed in the park!)

First Amendment, RIP.

I took a "quick poll" of my Twitter followers late at night to ask who would be hurt the most by the events of tonight, #OWS or Bloomberg? The vast consensus --- all but one --- replied to say that Bloomberg would be hurt, and that OWS would grow because of this. I don't know if that'll prove to be the case or not, but if I had to guess, I'd say they're probably right. The entire thing does seem to have been incredibly stupid and ill-considered on the part of Bloomberg and the NYPD.

Too tired to add links to any of the above, or offer more tonight. But, as I say, scroll through my Twitter page for detailed coverage of much of what happened tonight. If need be, I'll try to fill in any holes tomorrow. Signing off at 3am PT (6am in NYC as crowds continue to try and regroup as the sun will soon rise.)

UPDATE: Read about the horrifying experience of Mother Jones journalist Josh Harkinson with an NYPD cop, as he snuck back into Zuccotti after the park had been cleared of media...

UPDATE 11/16/11: After the riff-raff was cleared from the park, they were replaced by upstanding folks hired by Brookfield Properties, the "owner" of the public park, as security. One of those fine folks called a citizen journalist a "faggot" on video, in the bargain. Details/video...

Wow. Until very recently (like, today recently, when Newt Gingrich --- yes, Newt --- found himself atop two new national polls! Party like it's 1994!), this man was the front-runner for the GOP nomination for President of the United States...

UPDATE: NBC's Chuck Todd tweets to say the Cain campaign responded to the video above by saying he "Didn't say anything wrong or inaccurate, it just took him a while to recall the specifics of Libya."

And NBC's Andrew Rafferty tweets: "Cain camp tells @NBCNews that Libya video being taken out of context. Cain going on 4hrs sleep, just took him a while to gain bearings."

The complete, 5-minute answer above was..."taken out of context." Got it.

Now back to news that actually matters. Sorry for the distraction there. But sometimes the insane freak show that has replaced actual political affairs in this nation is just too much to not take notice of here. This has been one of those moments.

The effort to recall Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker begins in earnest tomorrow, November 15. As TPM's Eric Kleefeld reports, Democrats and other opponents of the WI GOP's big government removal of public union collective bargaining rights will have just 60 days to collect more than 540,000 signatures in order to put the controversial Governor onto a recall election ballot early next year.

It won't be easy, as the initiative must succeed in gathering an average of more than 9,000 signatures each day between now and the 60-day deadline in January. To make matters worse, if indications on a number of Facebook pages are to be believed, some Walker supporters are planning to sabotage the effort with a number of dirty tricks, including collecting signatures under cover and then burning and shredding the petitions...