Welcome to the Daily News Drop, you’re one-stop news source! We bring you the news of the day in one concise post. Here are today’s batch of stories!

Occupy Wall Street

Police Arrest 80 at Protest The Occupy Wall Street Protest, that has entered its ninth day, has been a dynamic event that obviously has staying power. With many disparate motives behind the protest (but the common factor being a general displeasure with the direction that Wall Street has steered the nation), it was unclear whether this protest would last that long at all. To this point, the police have arrested 80 people as a tactic to dampen the spirits of the protesters. It has been unsuccessful to this point.

Hedges: “Hope of America Lies with Protest” Chris Hedges, noted liberal scholar and reporter, stated in an interview that he thought the Occupy Wall Street protest was “really where the hope of America lies.” He went even further to say that the protesters should be described as Conservatives, because they are protesting against the radical changes instituted by the wealthy. A movement like this needs positive publicity like this, and not like…

NY Times: Protest Misguided The New York Times was much less flattering of the movement. The mood of the protest leans more than a little on the silly. Instruments are used often and activities like ‘protest yoga’ have been planned. The Times takes these examples as reasons to call the protest itself misguided. Let’s be honest, progressive protests are almost always weakened by jumbled messaging and infighting, but the fact that these protesters were willing to take action against such a powerful target should inspire us to plan and enact more and bigger protests, not be seen as a failure.

Herman Cain Wins Florida Straw Poll… For Some Reason For weeks, the GOP race has been a two horse race between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. Then, at the next ‘most important poll in the world,’ (The Florida Straw Poll) both lose to Herman Cain. The Pizza Guy. To be fair, Michele Bachmann won the last straw poll in Iowa. Voters have to pay to cast a vote, so the democratic process is weird to say the least. Still, the GOP race is quite a mess, and racists might not have anyone to vote for in the 2012 election… so there’s that.

GOP Jobs Disconnect Florida Gov. Rick Scott is guilty of what so many GOP politicians have been guilty of in these tough economic times. They harp on unemployment as a horrible thing that is entirely the fault of Democrats, all while they strip the federal governments of as many jobs as they can. They see no hypocrisy in this. Rick Scott decried the high unemployment in Florida while he (single-handedly) laid off 15,000 government workers. Really?

A Reasoned Look at Race’s Role in 2012 Election Melissa Harris-Perry wrote an interesting piece for The Nation positing that the large drop of support that Barack Obama has withstood from white Americans has a lot to do with race. She bases this on the fact that Bill Clinton received nearly the same percentages of support from all demographics in his re-election even though he had fewer legislative accomplishments than Obama. I don’t think I buy it – we have very high unemployment, our media is a completely different beast than it was in 1996 (There is a robust liberal blogosphere now and not just a right wing noise machine), among many other factors.

Unrest in Yemen Might Lead to Power Shift Violence has been raging in Yemen since the Arab Spring began, with the Yemeni President (Ali Abdullah Saleh) refusing to relinquish power. Saleh has now allowed early elections, which seem to be the first sign in a potential power shift. Now if we could only coax Syria into the same situation…

And we conclude our post with a happier story to lighten the mood…

Barcelona Bans Bullfighting With the last bullfight in Catalonia for the 2011 season, a ban on the sport was enacted in the region of Spain. Reactions have been mixed – 180,000 individuals signed the petition which led the legislature to pass the ban. Though the last season sold out the arena (20,000 seats) to watch the killing of six half-ton bulls. I think this is a great sign. The ‘sport’ itself glorifies death and the slaughtering of animals. This is a victory in the war on animal cruelty.

Thanks for reading and staying informed! Keep checking back to The Progressive Playbook for more insightful progressive commentary as well as more Daily News Drops!

Sources: The Raw Story, The New York Times, Talking Points Memo, Think Progress, The Nation, Al Jazeera English, BBC News