In Yemen:

At least two people have been killed and more than 300 injured after Yemen security forces stormed a protest site where thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators have been camped out for weeks, demanding the ouster of the country’s leader.

In a pre-dawn raid on Saturday, police are said to have used tear gas and hot water mixed with gas to disperse the demonstrators.

Meanwhile, a teenage boy was killed in separate clashes between security forces and protesters in the city of Mukala.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from the capital Sanaa, said that the situation remains tense, and that the opposition is accusing the government of committing crimes against the protesters.

“They also say the raid will speed up the revolution, and that president Ali Abdullah Saleh must go now before [he] faces the wrath of the people,” he said.

Also on Saturday, at least three students were injured when security forces opened fire at protesters in the city of Taiz, where residents had gathered to demand that Saleh be put on trial.

The clashes come after tens of thousands of protesters marched on the streets of the capital on Friday, drawing record crowds in a continuing push to demand the ouster of Saleh, who has been in power since 1978.

For better formatting, links, and comments, read the original post at FireDogLake.

Pick up the cry!

by Anthony Noel

Borrowed from the Jefferson Airplane classic “Volunteers,” my headline neatly summarizes what I’m asking each of you to do in this post: Pick up the cry!

Last fall, you – MyFDL readers – chose ten prospective opponents to Barack Obama in the 2012 Democratic primary. You spelled out five relentlessly Progressive platform points, each of which stands in stark contrast to the compromised “progressivism” this president and his corporate-owned, hapless party have force-fed Americans for more than a generation. You even gave this fledgling effort a name: the New Progressive Alliance.

The FDL family of sites was officially neutral during the effort’s founding and remains so, but gave the effort a place to grow – when other purportedly “progressive” sites were banning readers and diarists who dared even suggest the Democrats have sold out their principles to the highest bidder.

Since the nominations and voting last fall, a few volunteers have continued to work on the effort. Last week, they received via e-mail a “sneak peak” at the very first NPA Update. We now share it below, right here – where nearly 150 of you participated in the NPA’s founding.

We’re all frustrated about the sorry state of America and the lack of voice given to Progressive policy objectives at the national level. Those ideals, time and again, are shown in nationwide polling to be overwhelmingly supported by the American people. And certainly, it is great when we “Look what’s happening out in the streets” – in the Mideast and our own Midwest – to borrow another line from The Airplane.

As anti-democratic, anti-union action flows from Wisconsin to Michigan, filmmaker Michael Moore called what’s going on “a class war on the people of this country by those in power and the tools that they have bought and paid for, who now serve in these legislatures.”

He went on to say “This is our moment. This truly is our moment. Everybody, up off the couch right now.”

Watch the incredible interview below:

From Abby Zimet of CommonDreams.org:

Protester Tom Spellman, “Scott Walker is going to go down in history as one of the greatest union organizers there ever was.”

In a bold, idiotic move, Governor Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republican State Senators (minus one), have flaunted Wisconsin law and passed “non-economic portions” of the original budget bill that would have needed a quorum to pass. Acting with impunity like dictators before them, and billionaires at their back, just might have been Walker’s third Mubarak moment. The people of Wisconsin are now moving swiftly to both recall the Republican Senators who went along with a such a mess, and to re-occupy the Capitol building like it were there Liberation Square.

Watch this report from Democracy Now!, and live streaming of what’s happening at the Capitol building below the fold:

The Pentagon is out to make an example of Bradley Manning. In the “age of Wikileaks”, the most dangerous threat to American world dominance is our own people, with insider access, deciding to blow the whistle of the abuses they witness. Now being charged with “aiding the enemy”, 23 year old Manning is facing the death penalty for allegedly “knowingly giving intelligence information to the enemy”. For exposing US military murder of innocent civilians, Bradley Manning is now himself facing murder at the same hands. In this supposedly Christian nation, the killers are us. The killing — with our munitions, our aircraft, our hands, our tax dollars — continues:

Thanks to Rudy Perkins for sharing this first-hand account of his weekend trip to Madison

On Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011, I took part in the latest of the large demonstrations at the Madison, Wisconsin State Capitol building against the attempt by Republican Governor Walker to strip collective bargaining rights for many of the public sector unions in the state and to launch sharp cutbacks.  The late afternoon demonstration surrounded the Capitol with large contingents of union members, Wisconsin families, and progressive activists  — maybe 50,000 to 75,000 demonstrators in all, with more still arriving when I left, as dusk and a new dusting of snow began to fall across the city.

It’s quite possible that organizers hit their 100,000 target by day’s end.  Certainly tens of thousands of demonstrators filled the streets, curb to curb, completely surrounding the Capitol on the four long city blocks that surround the state house square.  Several thousand more demonstrators circled on the sidewalk at the base of the Capitol building, or stood on its wide steps or on the snow-covered slope of the Capitol lawn.  Hundreds more continued the occupation inside the Capitol building.

The other day I called Governor Walker’s appearance on a prank phone call — showing the world the corrupted state of affairs inside the halls of power here in the U.S. — his “Mubarak Moment.”

I think today he’s done it again. Walker’s Mubarak Moment #2 was today’s attempt to close down the Capitol Building, giving protestors a 4pm deadline to leave.

Check out Ben Brandzel’s live feed of what’s happening in the Capitol Building. I think it’s possible that Walker’s curfew might have sparked the defining battle, like that over who controlled Tahrir Square.  Whose House?! OUR HOUSE!

The fraud that Scott Walker and the billionaire-funded Tea Party movement represents is slowly unraveling before our eyes. Their magic show has stumbled, and like Hosni Mubarak and Muammar al-Gaddafi, their worthless lies are being exposed. All elected officials who want to play the role of the Wizard of Oz, keeping us from looking behind the curtain, should take heed. Now is the time for honest dialogue and debate about where we stand. No matter what political stripe you color yourself — Green, Blue, Red, Black Tea or whatever — it’s time for some hard truths to emerge. And it’s time for people to start standing up for common sense collective problem solving. United we stand, divided we fall.

It will be interesting to see whether they go through with this charade, whether Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity will really go ahead with an ad campaign designed to turn the tide against the public employees and their supporters. It was dumbfounding to see Mubarak and Gaddafi take to the airwaves so many times in such a clueless, tone deaf manner. The clearer these billionaires want to create a frontline of fraud, the better for the people fighting such an unholy alliance of greed and government.

Now Madison police chief Noble Wray is calling on Governor Walker to explain his comments that he looked into sending infiltrators into the crowds in Madison. Time to throw this guy out of office.

If you want to watch the incredible “prank” phone call that outs Walker’s naked allegiances, you can watch them below the fold.