“If they had one issue, they could be a very powerful operation,” Menino said today after a policy speech at a Back Bay hotel. “They don’t have one issue; they have several issues.”
While Menino’s administration has battled with Occupy Boston in court, Menino has spoken in support of the economic and social justice issues championed by the protesters.
“It’s issues that middle America cares about,” Menino said. “But until you focus on one, use your energy on one, you are not going to have any wins.”
The five-term mayor also defended himself and other mayors around the country. Menino said the focus of the protesters should be at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., not at their local city halls.
“You know, mayors can’t do much about what they are talking about,” Menino told reporters after speaking to the Boston Chamber of Commerce today. “It’s Congress and the US Senate that can make these decisions, but nobody is talking to them at all.”
In DC, hundreds of demonstrators blocked intersections during an Occupy "block party on K street". An estimated 50 to 70 people were arrested, according to the Washington Post, mostly on charges of obstruction of a public highway.
Protesters filled K Street as a cold rain fell, chanting the now-familiar slogans of the Occupy movement while slogging through puddles and blocking intersections along K Street between 14th and 16th streets. They blocked intersections with newspaper boxes, wooden pallets, office furniture and tents. Tempers frayed. Horns blared.
Occupy DC protesters marched and chanted this week in front of the Podesta Group, the lobbying firm co-founded by John Podesta, Bill Clinton's former chief of staff, as curious employees took pictures of them from behind the windows above. Other protesters have gone to Capitol Hill to disrupt and chant in front of congressional offices and even at Charlie Palmer Steak, a favorite restaurant of the DC elite.
Meanwhile Occupy Boston found a judge ruling against them in Suffolk Superior Court, "denying their motion for a preliminary injunction that would protect them from eviction from their downtown encampment", according to the Boston Globe.
Boston protesters had been protected from eviction by a temporary restraining order which prevented Boston police from removing them, however the order was lifted today, leaving them vulnerable.
From the Globe:
Judge Frances McIntyre also vacated the temporary restraining order that had protected them for the past few weeks, said Norman Huggins, assistant clerk in Suffolk Superior Court.
"Plaintiffs claim that their occupation of the site and the community they have established thereon are protected by the First Amendment. They seek a preliminary injunction against their removal by the defendants. But the injunction is denied because, while Occupy Boston protesters may be exercising their expressive rights during the protest, they have no privilege under the First Amendment to seize and hold the land on which they sit," McIntyre wrote in her 25-page decision.
Boston mayor Tom Menino has previously said he had no plans to evict protesters, but on Tuesday he appeared to be losing patience with the city's occupation, telling reporters the group were "aiming their fire at the wrong place".
"Mayors can't do much about what they're talking about. It's the Congress and the Senate but nobody's talking to them at all. They come at mayors," the Boston Herald quoted Menino as saying.
A statement on Occupy Boston's website said there would be an emergency general assembly at 7pm to "discuss what we plan to do going forward".
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