Protests Continue on Final Night of Democratic Convention

12:01 a.m. | Updated CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Five days of marches at the Democratic National Convention brought confrontation and compromise between protesters and the police, and there was a bit of both on Thursday, the final night of the convention.

As delegates packed Time Warner Cable Arena to hear President Obama’s acceptance speech, a crowd of about 100 protesters marched from their “Occupy the D.N.C.” encampment in a nearby park to the streets a few blocks from the arena, holding signs, chanting and at times sitting down in the middle of intersections.

They never got near the crowds gathered inside the fences that surrounded the arena. And from the moment they left Marshall Park, protesters were buffered on either side by rows of police officers using bicycles as barricades. The police eventually followed them back to the park, but there were no confrontations and no immediate word of any arrests.

A group of protesters later burned copies of the presidential oath of office before returning to the camp.

“It’s been a learning experience,” said John Murdock of New York, a member of the Occupy Wall Street movement who participated in the marches in Charlotte. “We’ve got to evolve.”

“Are we effective at this point? No, we’re outnumbered and easily mocked.”

That’s one of the messages he will deliver when he returns to New York and participates in the Sept. 17 one-year anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

In Charlotte, there was a sense of accomplishment on both sides.

“I’ve been very pleased the entire week,” said Michael Zytkow, an Occupy Charlotte organizer. “The eyes of the political universe are on Charlotte, and regular people stood up and proved the convention is really on the streets.”

The five days of protests resulted in 25 arrests, including 10 on Thursday.

“I think it’s gone very well,’’ said Rodney Monroe, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief, as he walked ahead of the protesters. “I think everyone has been doing a great deal of communication and organizing with one another to clearly understand what each’s intent has been throughout the week, and I think we’ve been able to accomplish each of our goals. I’m happy with that.”

The thousands that were projected to come here did not materialize. Still, there were protesters from across the country on site, and enough marches and protests to make a statement, if not a mark, on this convention.

Through the convention, no two companies were targeted more than Bank of America and Duke Energy, which have their headquarters in Charlotte.

Protesters began on Sunday when more than 90 groups combined for the Coalition to March on Wall Street South, the name given to Charlotte because it is the No. 2 financial services center in the country behind New York. The police estimated 800 protesters that day, though organizers said the number was higher. There were two arrests on Sunday, but only one was a protester.

There have been few clashes with the police along the way, though on Tuesday, the first day of the convention, about 200 protesters were blocked from marching for about two hours before being allowed to proceed. There were 13 arrests that day, including 10 undocumented Hispanic immigrants who sat in the middle of an intersection and refused to move.

No arrests were made on Wednesday.

The police confirmed six were arrested on Thursday afternoon and charged with impeding traffic after they sat in an intersection in front of the Duke Energy Center, a few blocks from the convention site. Four more were arrested in two other incidents.

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Final Approval by House Sends Jobs Bill to President for Signature

The 380-to-41 House vote added a final exclamation point for the JOBS Act, which passed the House overwhelmingly early this month and easily passed the Senate last Thursday. Because the Senate amended the House version to add some investor protections, the House had to take it back up for a vote before sending it to the White House.

“The bipartisan JOBS Act represents an increasingly rare legislative victory in Washington where both sides seized the opportunity to work together, improved the bill and passed it with strong bipartisan support,” said Representative Eric Cantor, Republican of Virginia, the House majority leader and the primary architect of the package.

The JOBS Act started as a cluster of minor bills that had bipartisan support and little opposition. Many of them originated at the White House out of the recommendations of Mr. Obama’s jobs council, a group of business and labor leaders whose final report made few waves.

But with the economy still looming large in the 2012 campaign, Republicans and Democrats — Mr. Obama among them — found it advantageous to pump up those modest measures into legislation promoted as a significant effort to hasten the recovery of the labor market.

“As the clock moves relentlessly toward November, people are going to have to show results,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a supporter of the measure.

The JOBS Act would designate a new category of “emerging growth” companies that could conduct initial public offerings of stock while being exempt from certain financial disclosure and governance requirements for up to five years. It would also provide a new form of financing to small companies. Through crowd-funding, or the sale of small amounts of stock to many individuals, companies could solicit equity investments through the Internet or elsewhere, raising up to $1 million annually without being required to register the shares for public trading with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Supporters see it as a breakthrough for entrepreneurs who hope to build an enterprise around sometimes offbeat ideas without having to sell them to larger companies.

But a few detractors worry that the measure will bring back the “boiler rooms” of the 1990s Internet stock bubble, where hucksters peddle stock tips to unwitting amateur investors. Pension funds, the lobby for older Americans AARP and the chairwoman of the securities commission had opposed aspects of the bill.

Amy Borrus, a spokeswoman for the Council of Institutional Investors, an investor watchdog group, said small companies — the focus of the new bill’s relaxed regulations — are particularly prone to fraud and accounting scandals. Senators did add some investor protections, but not enough, she said.

“We may rue the day this bill passed,” Ms. Borrus said Tuesday.

Under the JOBS bill, companies with up to $1 billion in annual revenue would be free to ignore — for their first five years as a public company — regulations that were put in place after the end of the dot-com bubble and the collapse of Enron.

Among them are requirements to hire an independent outside auditor to attest to a company’s internal financial controls and restrictions on how financial analysts interact with investment bankers in promoting a company’s stock.

The bill also allows some companies to advertise for investors in almost any medium, a provision that skeptical regulators contend will mainly benefit the sale of worthless securities by brokerage firms.

Senate Democrats did add some investor protections that were ratified Tuesday by the House. Senators added a provision to ensure that any company using crowd-funding methods must still file some basic information with the securities commission, including the names of directors, officers and holders of more than 20 percent of the company’s shares, plus a description of the business and its financial condition.

Companies seeking to raise $100,000 or less must also provide tax returns and a financial statement certified by a company principal; those raising up to $500,000 must provide financial statements that are reviewed by an independent public accountant.

The Senate also inserted requirements that intermediaries seeking to help companies raise money through crowd-funding must register with the commission, make sure investors are advised of the risks they are taking, and take measures to prevent fraud.

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Obama, DNC raise $68M in final 3 months of 2011 (AP)

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama hauled in more than $68 million for his campaign and the Democratic Party during the final three months of 2011, a show of force that allows him to compete — for now at least — in the new reality of freewheeling outside political groups.

The latest infusion of money, announced Thursday, adds up to more than $220 million in 2011 for the president's re-election campaign and the Democratic National Committee, putting Obama far ahead of other Republican presidential candidates. In most years, it might amount to a substantial fundraising advantage, but a flurry of super PACs and big-dollar independent groups have changed the rules of campaign money.

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said in a video to supporters that they collected more than $42 million for the quarter, with the DNC bringing in more than $24 million, along with $1 million for a joint fund to help state parties in key states. That beat an internal goal of $60 million combined for the quarter.

It came a day after the campaign of Republican front-runner Mitt Romney said it had raised $56 million for the primary through Dec. 31, including $24 million during the final three months of 2011.

Yet, even with the current money advantage over Romney and the rest of the GOP field, Democrats are hoping to remain competitive with Republicans because of the dominance of outside groups.

GOP-supportive super PACs have raised tens of millions of dollars this primary season, notably the Romney-leaning Restore Our Future and American Crossroads, which has said it plans to raise more than $200 million this election cycle. American Crossroads has ties to Karl Rove, a former political adviser to President George W. Bush,

Later this month, the outside groups are expected to disclose how much they have collected during the past six months, figures that will shed more light on their influence.

"We face some daunting odds ... to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars," said Vice President Joe Biden, in a primary night address to New Hampshire Democrats. "These guys have these super PACs now on the Republican side that will spend hundreds of millions of dollars in attack ads. We're not going to have those hundreds of millions of dollars in super PACs."

Republicans counter that Obama is more concerned with his re-election campaign than with his job of running the country, pointing to his fundraising edge on the GOP field. Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said "the White House may try to pretend the president isn't focused on his re-election, but Americans know he's more interested in campaigning to save his own job than creating jobs for our country's unemployed."

The president's campaign has watched with concern as the outside groups have escalated a race for political money and roiled the Republican primary season, most notably the campaign of Newt Gingrich.

The former House speaker built a lead in Iowa only to watch it erode under a $3 million tidal wave of negative ads launched by the outside group supporting Romney, who eventually won a razor-thin victory in the leadoff caucuses. Gingrich finished fourth.

Restore Our Future has reserved $2.3 million in air time in South Carolina ahead of the states' primaries, while a pro-Gingrich group, Winning Our Future, has said it plans to spend $3.4 million on ads attacking Romney for jobs lost while he served as a top executive at private equity firm Bain Capital. Winning Our Future's effort was bankrolled by casino owner Sheldon Adelson, who gave $5 million to the pro-Gingrich super PAC. Outside groups backing Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum have also exerted influence.

Crossroads, for its part, says it is largely holding off ads until the general election, to counterbalance the anticipated flood of money from donors to Obama and the DNC.

Democratic-leaning groups like Priorities USA Action, founded by former Obama advisers, have not spent nearly the same amount as their GOP counterparts. Through late July, Priorities USA Action and sister organization Priorities USA had raised more than $5 million and has spent roughly $320,000 on ads and media-production costs opposing Romney, federal filings show.

David Axelrod, the Obama campaign's senior strategist, said the emergence of the super PACs represented a "concerning dynamic" for Democrats, likening it to facing "the secret air force and have them carpet bomb relentlessly."

"The prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars of negative ads raining down on us is not a prospect that I relish," Axelrod said in a conference call with reporters last week. But he said Obama was "thoroughly known to the American people," making him less susceptible to negative attacks.

With the prospect of a deluge of money opposing the president, Obama's campaign has tried to bat away suggestions that it will raise more than $1 billion, a substantial boost from the $750 million it raised in 2008. Messina said in the video that the lofty figures have created "a challenge that keeps coming up. Too many Obama supporters think we don't need their money or they don't need to give now."

"The billion-dollar number is completely untrue," Messina said.

Obama's campaign has emphasized a large number of donors and small donations generated from online giving. Messina said the campaign and DNC had generated 1.3 million donors, with 583,000 people giving during the most recent quarter. More than 98 percent were for donations of $250 or less and the average donation was $55, he said.

The money will help build Obama's organization, pay for a massive advertising campaign and let his advisers prepare for the upcoming campaign, a point the president emphasized at a large Chicago fundraiser on Wednesday night.

"If you're willing to work even harder in this election than you did in that last election, I promise you change will come," Obama said. "If you stick with me, we're going to finish what we started in 2008."

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Associated Press writer Jack Gillum contributed to this report.

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Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter at http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

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Pelosi flexes muscle as House Democrats prepare for final debt ceiling negotiations (The Ticket)

(Alex Brandon/AP)

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has so far played a minor, background role in the negotiations between President Obama and congressional Republicans over raising the debt ceiling. But she sought to change all that Friday, in a private meeting with Obama to drive home her earlier pledge to oppose any deal that cuts the nation's entitlement programs.

Pelosi emerged from a meeting with House Democrats Friday to announce that they remain "firm" in their commitment to keep Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare free from cuts.

One day earlier, Pelosi made clear that many House Democrats fervidly oppose the White House's bid to place cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on the table during the debt-ceiling talks. Republican leaders, meanwhile, say they won't proceed with negotiations unless such cuts are included, together with provisions to restrain the future growth of government spending.

"We do not support cuts in benefits for Social Security and Medicare," Pelosi said. "Any discussion of Medicare or Social Security should be on its own table. I have said that before. You want to take a look at Social Security? Then look at it on its own table. But do not consider Social Security a piggy bank for giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country."

It isn't surprising to see the former Speaker flex a little muscle. Through all the big deals negotiated between Republicans and the White House--even the one that extended Bush-era tax rates, which happened while House Democrats still held the  majority and Pelosi was Speaker of the House--she often found herself sitting on the bench, waiting to be called into the game. Now the country is faced with a dilemma that will need her to help fix it--and she's understandably squeezing every bit of leverage she can out of the situation.

The details of the deal are still pending, but both parties are examining ways to reduce federal spending by $4 trillion over the next  10 years. Obama earlier this week said he would consider including the entitlement programs in those cuts, an admission that has received little support from his party.

Members of the House Progressive Caucus have remained the most vocal about their opposition to the deal. Caucus leaders sent a letter to Obama Thursday urging him to strip entitlements from the negotiations, or risk losing Democratic support.

"Not only am I not going to vote for it, I am going to whip my caucus as hard as I can to persuade them not to support it," House Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Keith Ellison told the Minnesota Post.

Rank-and-file members are also primed to go to battle over entitlements.

"You want a fight?" said Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) recently during a press conference. "If anybody in this building wants to take on Social Security—privatize it, change the benefits by altering the Consumer Price Index or by any other method—know this: You've got a fight on your hands."

Still, at least some Democratic lawmakers actually do support at least one of the measures Garemendi cited: reducing benefits by indexing them to the Consumer Price Index. As  Talking Points Memo reporter Brian Beutler points out, congressional Democrats have indicated some backing for an approach to altering Social Security in a way that would reduce benefits without the measure necessarily qualifying as a "cut." By pegging the Cost of Living Adjustments to a lower inflation estimate, Congress could, technically, reduce spending for the program and avoid at least some of the political fallout that would come with deeper outright cuts to the program.

Of course, since the exact details of the deal remain behind closed doors, much of the talk at this point is mere posturing. The true moment of reckoning will come for both sides as more concrete details surface over the next few days.

It's still unclear whether House Speaker John Boehner will even be able to secure votes from a wide majority of Republicans. So for this thing to pass, it will need every Democratic vote it can get. And Pelosi knows it.

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