Imagine that. Reality at odds with spin. WMD. Iraq. Bush. Competency. Economics. McCain. Statistics. Crime. Jordan.

I have no idea why crime was down that last week. Maybe because the Oakland police had been corralled; ordered to lie low after running amok. And Perhaps because all of Oakland was happy to see the police humbled, if just for a few days. Maybe it was just a statistical blip. Maybe all three. Who knows?

But what we do know is that crime had not increased, and in fact decreased 19%, Statements to other effect by the Oakland Police and by the City Administration were, simply put, bullshit.

Want to bet that statements by the City Administration and the Chamber of Commerce around that same time to the effect that Occupy Oakland was causing business losses in downtown Oakland were the same flavor of bovine droppings? Hold your money -- no one would take the other side of that bet.

The fact of the matter is that a couple hundred Occupiers, press from around the globe, curiousity seekers and Occupy non-campers were regularly hanging out around the Plaza in downtown Oakland. You can bet your bottom dollar that restaurants, coffee shops and snackeries in the immediate area, even including the disgusting Burger King across Broadway, had their business increase, not decrease.

This dissembling started even earlier. As reported on Brad Blog



The Oakland Police Department is walking back widely reported comments offered by its Interim Chief, Howard Jordan, at an Oct. 25 televised press conference (video posted below) that law enforcement "had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks... ...we have been unable to unearth evidence to support Jordan's assertion that the police initiated the assault in order to defend against either projectiles or any other threat of imminent violence from demonstrators. In fact, the video evidence included in our report reveals that law enforcement officials had determined to use tear gas on the crowd long before any threat was posed by demonstrators.

The worst of it is that the lying is just the tip of an iceberg of misconduct and abuse that goes back decades. And people wonder why there are ongoing

Fuck The Police

marches in Oakland.

