but. a woman in a. playing dirty from the windy city to the mile high city police force is ramping up their efforts to shut down the occupy wall street and now oakland's mayor and wounding forty four to needed crackdown so will this stop the cars in its tracks or fuel it further we'll have a live report from new york city. that if you're going to afford to reduce the movie or want to be even remotely put a fortune down the. well this elite shark and maybe that's why the nation's richest counties are located right here in the nation's capital so while the rest of the country tightens its this cool belt we'll take

a look at lawmakers and lobbyists who are living the high life. plus it's a game of deal or no deal on the line america's financial future the players twelve members of the super committee but out the clock ticks toward the eleventh hour as a deal even possible at this point and with all the lobbyists influence this game where it. everyone you are tuned in to our t.v. on this wednesday november sixteenth it's seven pm here in our studios in washington d.c. i'm christine for south. well they are bruised but not broken occupy wall street protesters kicked out of various occupations around the country including the one where it all began in new york city they say they are not backing down meanwhile they've been taking shifts at zuccotti park where they have been allowed to return

but not to camp backpacks tents and sleeping bags are banned after protesters were cleared late monday night early tuesday morning on the orders of new york mayor michael bloomberg but we want to take a closer look at what's gone on the. past few days it wasn't of course the scene you're seeing here this wasn't the only one new york it was also happening in cities across the country very early this morning it was about one twenty in the morning it was san francisco police raided three encampments and dismantled tents about sixty people have been camping out there it was a similar situation over the weekend in portland oregon police in riot gear evicted campers it occupy locations and portland police arrested more than fifty people when protesters say police used excessive physical violence other local authorities say the occupy protests have turned into nothing more than a power to check out these photos these are from overnight in seattle washington this one this is a four foot ten a four year old woman pepper sprayed in the face this could become folks the new

face of the movement police here are vehemently using pepper spray with no discretion as a weapon in their war to try to clear people out also check this out also in seattle this is nineteen year old pregnant woman pepper sprayed in the face this photo here more protesters and it just shows you how much how much police presence is there police say they only use pepper spray against objects who are either refusing a lawful order to disperse or engaging in quote assaultive behavior towards officers once again this pregnant woman after she is being escorted out taken to the hospital so this all seems a little strange that all of these evictions of occupy wall street movements around the country happened during the same few days many even on the same day and most of them were very early in the morning most included a large police presence and no access this time even to the media but it could really be a cordon a good effort right police departments in various cities are autonomy's aren't they

well maybe not here's oakland mayor jean klein in an interview with the b.b.c. . i was recently in our conference call eight hundred fifty s. across the country who had the fear and situation where we had started as a political movement in the core. and that being an entrapment that was no longer in show for the people who started on and what i think you are starting to see is. is looking forward to. our as are the mayor of oakland saying she was on a conference call with mayors from eighteen cities now we're hearing reports particularly a news article written in the minneapolis top news examiner i was just mayors that the department of homeland security was also in on this so what's going on here what happens is as an organizer with the october two thousand and eleven movement i spoke to him a little earlier to get his opinion on what all this could mean as we understand. i'm not surprised but i mean this is a the occupy movement which we're part of we would occupy washington d.c.

org that's our web site so we're part of the occupy movement. and i'm not surprised at all this movement is a big threat to the status quo and spread to the economic and political elites and . the unusual kind of protest it's not a one day protest march go home or a weekend where we get close margin to go home it's people staying and camping out and taking up space and affecting the political dialogue and so the powers that be are is going we talked to a police officer two weeks ago who told us that they were national calls going on describing what to do because this is a new thing or to figure out how to handle it and then the are people who has a challenge because when you have a public space you're taking over you would track all of the problems of our country homelessness alcoholism addiction mental illness and these people are not well taken care of and they have nowhere to go and they come to the occupy. and hope to get food and a place to sleep and it's so interesting because it's not like they appeared out of nowhere you know that they didn't exist anymore but to have them in

a concentrated area is certainly bringing light to the fact and i've spoken to some organizers of protests around the country who say you know what we don't mind helping them because these people are victims of the system too but it seems that people on the other side that are trying to to change this to dismantle these protests are saying look at these people they're causing violence there and you're in a ding on public property you know you know they're trying they're using some of these people to try to win their messaging or are we initially actually invited the homeless for dinner and then we start to realize a broader problem that we couldn't handle it mental illness and addiction problems are beyond our capability we then developed in take form where required people to stay there to participate in our political movement and help build the community they had to participate in protests and now some are best activists there actually are some homeless people have transformed completely it's been fantastic but others have had to leave and so we've been able to control that better but it's not an easy and easy problem that we have to face up to and deal. you know i was going to come back it's not going away people have found their political voice and they're

not going to lose it they're going to come but we're going back even stronger more sophisticated better we're doing let's talk about this now on one hand you can see why federal agencies might want to tear this movement down certainly one of the top things that a lot of occupy protesters are critical of is the system is you know they're too close for comfort relationship i guess you could say between wall street and washington so kind of called corruption because so over government to wall street are the kind of the legal call it there so i can see on one hand why they would feel threatened by this but what do they actually have to gain by tearing this protest out why not let you know your people go along with your message and do your thing well i think right now you know the supercommittee that's about in this report in your answer to your i guarantee their report will be the one percent of the report and ninety nine percent of report we're about to come up with our own super committee report on friday so you can see that our website and i think it's something we report that comes out of congress is going to build

a school in bigger it's going to show once again the rich getting more free the military can grow and the brunt of the pain on students on elderly on the impoverished on the middle class that's where the pain is going to it's going to build stronger so they want to get us out before this move and this report comes out you say you know you and people hear you're going to come back even stronger but do you see what i'm going to see for a second because this is one of the few places where the relationship between the protesters and police has been pretty good they're still turns out both at freedom plaza where you've been there and in my fair since square. these people are aren't going anywhere and they haven't been asked to go anywhere so are you are you worried are you concerned that d.c. is next we've actually had threats of some seven weeks ago from the police or they're going to enforce the rules we intentionally called the police and have them come with us because we want to find out without was going around the country where the things that these things are what do they tell you it's all. right now i mean their knowledge of their national cause so that was certainly we've heard that.

from homeland security which i have and then and then they notice it is them in d.c. and i think that's because in d.c. if we don't play as we make a rug macpherson's or if you know we are a very big effort to let the police know we consume part of the ninety nine percent we know they work for the one percent but they're part of the nine percent of their families and they will be better off in the kind of world we want to create we make a big effort to do that every time we see that we make that point over and over again in various ways not to solve the problem but let them know they want to human to human level these kind of revolutions are won when the people who force the wars for the one percent switch sides and so we on the other side the occupiers need to be very careful to be nonviolent to not not make the police the enemy but make their bosses the enemy and be very clear about that and so if we do that we will not only give the public support in the end will gain the police support as we have to try to do is to break the police let them see they've got to take sides either with the people or with the elites and you pick the people in the end and i should

mention it's pretty interesting what's going on i was at mcpherson square yesterday and a lot of people who have been staying there and by the way that just keeps getting bigger but with the done is they've moved their tents making more room in case protesters from some of the other movements possibly new york calm here because this is one place where they'll say well we have we have some or people right now marching or walking from philadelphia they want to feel if you meet like i was commuters and we're trying to help protest and was in full if you were threatening people and having them walk through the city and also more interview no you can't exactly next week that's the time for that super committee report here as in the land organizer of the october twentieth having movement can exist thanks so much. well as this movement gets ready to enter into its third month another chapter in this story is being written now about those who usually write the stories themselves over the last few days it's several examples of reporters being kept away from the very scene supposed to be reporting on in new york even reporters with n.y.p.d. issued press passes physically moved from the scene in some cases being put into

chokeholds there are also several reports of journalists being arrested around the country and it's causing many to say there's a coronated media blackout at occupy wall street our own producer lucy cavanagh has spent several weeks at occupy wall street both in new york and oakland she is back in new york and with us now and lucy before we get started first i want to pick play a little piece of video and then we can talk about it. so there's video obviously a very shaky of a journalist being taken into custody this report of course only one of many from what we're hearing of journalists being arrested journalists who just want to get close to the scene close enough to see what's going on so lucy let's talk about this i mean a lot of these people issued press credentials and they kind of me on the scene. and it's really something that i've experienced firsthand minus the arrest part and at the risk of sounding like the whining for the state you know it's not about the

fact that journalists should be treated specially and given special privileges that other people don't have but in a country that really values itself and its freedom of speech freedom of the press that often talks down to other countries and calls for improvements in press freedoms abroad it's really quite absurd that the level of media clampdown in relation to these occupy wall street protests has been as high as it's been i mean the raid in zuccotti park saw several journalists arrested they ripped off the dentals of one and b. c reporter they had asked a c.b.s. news helicopter to clear the air space so they wouldn't capture images of what was actually being recorded and i've seen both firsthand and spoken to a journalist both in in oakland in washington d.c. and here that are essentially kicked off of the scene prevented from filming targeted in some places we even have video of police officers using these high powered strobe lights to blind the video cameras to prevent from filming and it's just bizarre that indeed united states this kind of thing could happen it almost

feels one veteran journalist that i spoke to said that it was easier to get access when he was imbedded in iraq than it was covering some of these occupy wall street protests. i don't know if that's necessary. we did see you were just in oakland a few days ago and we did see while you were doing a report talking to the camera you were even sort of pushed out of the way by authorities in the middle of europe. sort but now that you're back in new york i really want to know from you we saw this video just crazy to think that zuccotti park is sort of the heart of this movement the heart of the occupation idea is now no longer allowing people to camp out but can you tell us a little bit about what's going on there with the scene is like now. it was quite shocking so i went down there today almost completely empty in fact there's probably more police officers there than actual protesters really really strange sight not to see any of the infrastructure there anymore one interesting thing is although there's a lot of police officers there i talked to one gentleman ask him if he was and i

could be he said that he was a private security guard hired by brookfield refused to give me the name of the company but the fact that this private public space that's dedicated to for public use twenty four hours a day is now guarded not only by police department officials but private security guards it is quite absurd and to prevent against what threat to people with tents people expressing their first amendment rights but it is interesting i mean a lot of the people that work camping out i was told are now staying at churches different churches that open their doors and i was trying to get a sense whether people really felt like this was going to be a giant damper on the movement whether this is going to slow down i guess the efforts because as you said this is a very symbolic location and a lot of folks said that surprisingly actually that they thought it was a good thing because it would allow my wall street people in new york at least to think about their tactics there's a lot of discussion of for example doing cold hunger strikes once the snow comes doing other sort of more powerful visual events that would get these protests more noticed in the media and so i don't think that it's an end necessarily just

a little pause yeah it is certainly interesting the timing of it and it is we've been lucky in the past few weeks here in d.c. and there in new york with a little bit of warm weather but i know any day now the winter is coming so it is very interesting the timing of this all i want to talk about tomorrow obviously a big day the two month anniversary you talked a little bit about the fact that it's empty but is there a sense of defeat or is there real planning going on in terms of sort of marking this important date and taking it to the next chapter. well i really think that tomorrow is going to be a big test the wall street across the country it is the two month anniversary we did see this wide spate of crackdowns all across the country and i think that if if these protesters are able to turn out massive numbers and they are planning to do so whether or not they will or not remains to be seen if they're able to turn out massive numbers in los angeles here in new york and across the country then we will know that this is a much stronger force that we expected to deal with in new york specifically i

talked to several protesters who said that they are prepared and willing and are expecting in fact to get arrested for nonviolent civil disobedience they're going to try to take over wall street or around the new york stock exchange area to do a massive sit in into what we've seen in the civil rights era and we also know that there's other actions throughout the day about five pm there's going to be a massive rally with unions union leaders move on dot org and other groups organizing so we think the numbers will be really big culminating in a giant march across the brooklyn bridge and of course hopefully we won't see the same kind of response by the police on the brooklyn bridge like we did last month when nearly seven hundred people got arrested there but i do think will be a major test for this movement if they can really turn out those numbers despite not having zuccotti park despite the crackdowns it's a much more powerful force than we realize and as we have since day one since september seventeenth we will be there covering it all around the country for now though our to producer losing catherine of thank you well i want to look now at the movement itself what it stands for how police have dealt with it and what's next

the founding editor of the independent had a major role in this movement helping to develop what came to be known as this right here the occupied street journal we had in the studio several weeks ago just before he left to travel to different occupy movements around the country i spoke to him just a short while ago and asked him how it's been and to tell me what's been most interesting about these various movements take a listen. i think a lot of it is the hope that people have this crisis has been going on for about four years now people keep talking about the amount of despair the suffering out there. has really given the lot of people oh so it's taken a dark turn in the last few days with the now we know there's been or david attack on these occupation. about that there were two conference call about u.s. mayors i think it's pretty clear that they were strategizing how to deal with all

these various occupations because we have the huge number of attacks in the last few days that it even is clear to be spreading globally what the protesters. look like they may be just reading all the boards protesters the protests. there was just. so i would really hope that the pace of the air but you know people are on edge because the police and let's talk about those police attacks particularly in zuccotti park early tuesday morning as you were talking about coordinated attacks probably no accident that the police we went down at one in the morning and actions around the country have happened at the same time people are sleeping there's no media but the amount of cops and riot police deployed to deal with these peaceful protesters a lot of people buy me a small mind boggling i mean f.b.i. raid on hardcore criminals don't see this type of manpower why do you think such an aggressive effort was made. well it's a threat i mean this movement is

a threat to the vested interests of the economic elite and of the political elite let's not forget that the bluebirds were something like twenty billion dollars he's one of the richest men in the world sixty seven members of the u.s. senate two thirds of them are millionaires and on average are not worth is two point six billion that's after. all their lives realty in congress and the house it's over forty percent are millionaires these politicians are the one percent. these mayors are the one percent or they want to be part of the what first their their own far basically the same class and they they all cooperate with each other fish and chip huge about the body to do the bidding the corporations so they wanted to end these protests and we also know that basically corporate and

a policy are done in secret so much happened in secret in this day and age we don't even know where the billions of dollars of the military budget. so course they're going to do these attacks and secret secret as well a lot more about exactly how when these attacks have happened i mean a lot of people here are saying they've been denied their rights to exercise these basic liberties. a lot of them asking the question what has happened to democracy or isn't this the land of the free. well you know i don't buy into that there's always been a constant struggle i think that time people were able to want more of a democratic voice but there's always been one person in this country or sometimes the older robert baer in the gilded age the merchant of war none of the anything new and excessive force i think if.

that was a room in new orleans he's been traveling around the different occupy movements that's why his connection was a little spotty a room is the founder of founding editor of the independent. a lot of the issues protesters with the occupy wall street movement are angry about is that too close for comfort relationship between wall street and washington and never before is that more apparent than with information from the new twenty ten census data it appears there have been some changes in the way we do business here in washington the biggest change is how much business is apparently being done here how much money the city now rakes in and how many people are living large as a result according to these numbers washington d.c. now has the lowest poverty rate in the country surpassing even places like tech capital silicon valley california but that is not the whole story and i wanted to take a look at some of these numbers and find out what they actually mean. and the winner is washington the district of columbia where this house is just one of many first

in luxury and not for sale but what happens here and here and here played a major role in some changes in the latest u.s. census data the washington d.c. metropolitan area today has the lowest poverty rate in the country eight point four percent money is a magnet and it's people here to make more money that made clear as well in a survey of median household income with four out of the five wealthiest counties also in the d.c. metro area and its surrounding suburbs one of those places is fairfax county virginia home to the national counterterrorism center the cia and it's located less than twenty miles outside of downtown washington so for those who work inside the city it's a fairly easy commute. and not a bad one when you're coming home to this or this was a fork. sign or even

a for sale sign in sight big houses are needed after all for those with big bank accounts we're seeing more and more d.c. of our military contractors coming to washington d.c. about telecom and a lot of wall street firms or bring up offices here you had a lot of big issues happen in these last three years health care reform financial reform that brought in insurers wall street types all kinds of people who are looking to make the process work for their bottom lines chris freights is the lobbying correspondent for the national journal and says big companies put big bets in washington because they almost always pay off if you're a huge company if you're able to take the ten million dollar investment and find a tax loophole that saves you a billion dollars a year that's a very smart investment. on the streets of washington these have become a familiar sight and it's no wonder i watch news found there has been a seventy three percent increase in government owned limousines in the last two

years from two hundred thirty eight in two thousand and eight to four hundred twelve in two thousand and ten. a few miles south and east it is a different set of wheels you are more likely see the city bus. the people who live here more aware of the other extreme statistic that came out of last year's census that d.c. has the highest rate of those considered the worst of the poor and those who live at fifty percent or less of the official poverty level i think is a boundary is a line drawn somewhere. ok separate the any cost to your river here could be that line the proverbial train tracks where life on the other side is almost another world and where many have been pushed to after getting priced out of their homes that. afford a ring is going on today when everyone else i mean i'm only. even

here people are getting pushed further outside with even more and more widespread use to call this chocolate city you know and. you know what i mean so when they follow our lead original study and come they did transforming the u.s. capitol into a microcosm of the nation where the gulf between rich and poor continues to deepen in washington christine for is now. all right so this notion of a system failure not just the message on occupy wall street many people here in washington who by the way are part of that broken system are also trying to make some changes namely in the way government spends its money tasked with making those fixes the super committee six republicans and six democrats from both house and senate but the clock is ticking and either those members are being extremely tight lipped or things are not moving forward as quickly as expected and that line by the way november twenty third for them to come to

a deal where fiscal times staff writer jennifer de paul has been covering the super super committee since its inception and she told me why things are taking so long to get done. well you know part of the reason is right now there have been these secret behind door meetings and right after the past two weeks democrats republicans and separately each have their own proposals one isn't good enough the other one isn't good enough so they're sort of in limbo right here last night penciling where the co-chairs were saying that republicans have gone as far as they can on revenues this morning the other co-chair patty murray was saying that they're just not going to accept any proposals that have tax cuts for the the wealthiest people in america so there is this it's come down to how dominance and taxes which have been stumbling blocks before and that's what i wanted to say you know i don't want to oversimplify what's going on here but. this isn't rocket science to some extent i mean most people in america think that these people were tasked with coming to the table to decide what to cut and where to raise taxes but

it seems to me you know and of course that we don't know a lot about what's exactly going on behind these closed doors but some are saying there is a civil war brewing within the republican party in terms of those on the super committee and some of those more realistic who say we have to allow some tax increases somewhere and those who are going to stick to their guns and say no means no no where oh what's going on with the republican party what can they do next well i think you're right about the civil war brewing there and the fact that. there are some republicans who do realize that revenues need to be part of this stuff their package and there's just no way other way around it and other republicans are sticking by their entire tax pledge that they gave to americans for tax reform grover norquist and so there is sort of this given take very in you're right there is this battle and so it really time will tell in the next week you know if republicans can move past that one of the complications here is certainly the outside influence that's going on i mean i would assume that if you're

a lobbyist in d.c. these are the people that you want to lobby lobby heaviest because they are going to have a lot of power in terms of what gets cut what gets to stay a lot of these. numbers are extremely influential already people like max baucus john john kerry they've been in office for decades now. how can these people be slated with even doing this based on the dollars that have come in i mean it seems to me this is a little bit like the fox guarding the hen house i mean you're right there i mean especially the health care industry they're one of the leading lobbyists on this for you know on the committee but you know i think that the members are committed they know they have to get this in or we have a rising deficit that's getting out of control. hopefully they can get it done you know within the within the week has it been difficult to cover this john i mean as a reporter you know you're you're supposed to cover this and it's so tight lipped it is and to be honest i don't think really anyone knows what's going on except he's in these meetings even staffers aren't even allowed in the meetings and you

know one or two staffers per person it's very secretive and i know that's been a big concern since the committee started is this. transit you know part about the super committee but i do think one thing is interesting is that you know in the deal that we had over the summer and the government shutdown the stakes this time aren't as high you know we're not going to the government's not going to shut down there isn't going to be a fall it's uncertain really if there's been a credit downgrade but you know and i think that's why you know congress is going up to the eleventh hour and that was tough for the fiscal times jennifer depart and that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we covered go to our usa and check out our you tube page it's youtube dot com slash r t america you should also follow me on twitter at christine for is out i'll see you right back here and a half hour. do you like are you sure which in the world go online and target.