​During the second week of Occupy Wall Street, way back in October, a march onto the Brooklyn Bridge gave the protesters a much-needed boost of legitimacy. It caused a minor media uproar when The New York Times was accused of changing around what had happened on the bridge. Six hundred and eighty-six people were brought in on charges for their involvement in the event. Four months later, and we're just beginning to see how the courts are going to treat those involved in OWS. The Times reports this morning that "174 of the 686 cases in which charges were brought have resulted in dismissals." It seems that the Manhattan district attorney's office doesn't even want to bother with these cases in any way, shape, or form.

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The third "People's Bailout", a series of singing protests organized by activist group Organizing for Occupation that aims to disrupt the court foreclosure proceedings, took place this morning at 11am at the Queens Supreme Court. Forty-two people showed up for the movement and, in three separate batches, interrupted the auction process by standing and singing "Mr. Auctioneer".

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Sam Levin

Zuccotti Park in January.

​The birthplace of Occupy Wall Street lives on! And so does the anger surrounding the infamous eviction of protestors back in November.

Today, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a brief with the city's Criminal Court arguing that Brookfield Properties, the owner of Zuccotti Park, had no legal authority to exclude people from the public space where OWS got its start.

This latest action is on behalf of demonstrator Ronnie Nunez, who was arrested in Zuccotti Park on November 15th -- after allegedly refusing to leave the park when the campsite was evicted at Brookfield's request. The NYCLU, in its brief, is arguing that Brookfield could not legally evict the occupiers the way it did last year. When private owners agree to create public spaces like Zuccotti Park, they give up their right to treat them as private spaces, the NYCLU says. (A zoning permit granted in 1968 established Zuccotti Park as a "permanently open park" for "the public benefit.")

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Revolutionary Games

The flyer for tomorrow's "Bed-In."

​Valentine's Day, it is now well-established by crushingly overwhelming consensus, is more or less the worst, a vastly successful conspiracy by the Things-That-Are-Pink-Or-Made-Of-Chocolate Industrial complex to boost sales.

Whether you are single, or just allergic to mandatory normative romance, February 14th can often feel like a day to just stay in bed. This year, there's a new way to do just that, with an Occupy-Wall-Street-branded "Bed In" in Washington Square Park.

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​Though the Occupy Movement has certainly not been as much the focus of the collective public eye in 2012 as it had been in the late months of 2011, it still has pockets of activity and is planning for more. Occupiers gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference -- CPAC, for the uninitiated -- to protest what Occupy called on its website "summit of the 1%" There, they were met by vitriol from Andrew Breitbart. In an encounter last night caught on video, Breitbart repeatedly screamed "behave yourself," called the protesters "freaks and animals" and said "stop raping people." The "behave yourselves" comment seemed more than ironic, given the circumstances. Watch the video via Mediaite after the jump. [h/t]

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Sam Levin

Elected officials and nonprofit groups rallied this morning before the mayor announced his budget.

​Announcing the city's annual budget today, Mayor Mike Bloomberg said he would not be increasing taxes and he would not be laying off teachers, police officers, or firefighters. He said it multiple times. Runnin' Scared, watching a live feed of his announcement, counted at least three times. Can you hear him, folks? Just in case you missed it -- no new taxes and no layoffs for uniformed workers.

He went over a lot of other stuff, too.

The preliminary 2013 budget is a $68.7 billion plan with a city-funded portion of $50.7 million.

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Sam Levin

City Councilmen Jumaane Williams and Ydanis Rodriguez disagree with the NYCLU's push to ban churches from using public school space.

​The fight to block churches from using public school space got support today from the New York Civil Liberties Union, which says the policy is a threat to religious freedom.

The Civil Liberties Union is arguing in testimony today that these kinds of arrangements between religious organizations and the Dept. of Education turn schools into churches every Sunday, violating the principle of separation of church and state. This latest move pits them against a group of loud protestors made up of electeds and religious leaders, who have been rallying to keep worship services inside school buildings.

In this case, the NYCLU is going up against a handful of pols whose views are typically aligned with those of the civil rights group.

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Luke Rudkowski

This guy hit a journalist last night.

​Hundreds of people marched through Manhattan last night to protest the mass arrests in Oakland the day before. In some ways, the action was a lot like many Occupy Wall Street marches that have come before -- chanting, weaving through neighborhoods, occasionally sprinting to outflank the police, finally petering out.

But there were some new elements too: More of the protesters wore black and masked their faces, a protest tactic called Black Bloc that makes it harder for police to pick individuals out of the crowd. Snapple-bottles and soda cans were thrown at police. And a well-known video journalist was assaulted by a masked marcher.

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​In a set of unfinished luxury condos, a ragtag group of 100 anarchists and anti-capitalists smoked clove cigarettes and pissed in unworking toilets at an "Occupation Party" Saturday night in Williamsburg.

The cops broke up the party within an hour and sent occupiers out onto Bedford Avenue, where there was chanting and talk of squatting elsewhere, occupying the police precinct, and finding a "chill bar" to hit next. According to a DCPI spokesperson, 4 arrests were made, with charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assaulting a police officer. Six officers were taken to Bellevue Hospital in the East Village and released earlier this morning.

The "Occuparty" drew a mix of cool kids looking for an experience and Occupy Wall Street castaways, who said they hoped this would be the first in a series of "rolling occupations" around the county to "build capacity" for a May 1 general strike.

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via @StephChuang

​Chaos broke out in Oakland Saturday, after Occupy protesters tried to take over the vacant Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, in what they called "Move-in Day," a plan to turn a vacant building "social center, convergence center and headquarters." Hundreds of people were arrested, and three police officers were injured. (The New York Times and Reuters say the arrest count is around 200; The Associated Press via the New York Daily News says 300.) Police used tear gas and bean bag projectiles in the clash. Oakland wasn't the only stage for Occupy protests, though. In Washington D.C. protesters rallied outside the Alfalfa Club dinner, where President Barack Obama was in attendance. Williamsburg had it's own Occupy action last night as well. More on that later from Runnin' Scared's Leah Greenbaum. [NYT, Reuters, AP, ABC]

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