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Remember shortly before Election Day 2006 when Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) suggested that if you don't get a good education, "you get stuck in Iraq" (video available here)? Well, last month, famed horror author Stephen King was speaking in front of a group of high school students at the Library of Congress, and he virtually made the exact same statement. For those that can bear it, what follows is another in a long line of liberal media members bashing the military (embedded right, h/t Terry Ann): I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV,...

SAN FRANCISCO: Sheri Parris remembers the year 1968 like it was yesterday. “It was the formative year of my life — the year I went from being an idealist to being a cynic,” says the California-based literature professor. “It transformed me and it transformed my generation. Before ‘68 we thought that change was just around the corner. Afterwards it seemed it was never going to come.” Parris says three events defined her experience of that era. First was the April 4 assassination of Martin Luther King that sparked off major riots in cities around the country. Two months later US...

Bay Area longshore workers are planning to gather Thursday to protest the U.S. war in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially thwarting activity at the region's ports, according to members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Brandon Taylor, an operations manager for GSC Logistics, a warehousing, distribution and transportation company at the Port of Oakland, said today that the company had known about the protests for a few weeks and is planning to get all containers out of the port today and Wednesday in order to prevent halting production. He said the good news is that it is a slow time...

A shadow legal body was set up by the Defense Department to manipulate the prosecutions of U.S. Marines accused of massacring Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005. That’s the bombshell disclosure from the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm that is representing one of the accused Marines, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani. And it could prove to be the most damning piece of evidence showing the political motivations behind the ongoing prosecutions of the Haditha Marines. “The hysteria and media firestorm over Abu Ghraib and the Pat Tillman investigations led to fear of a similar media reaction...

Cindy Sheehan barely fits into her "campaign limo," her sister's blue Hyundai Tiburon. She ducks low to avoid hitting her head on the way in, and her knees are nearly at her chest when she sits, even with the seat rolled all the way back. Traveling over the Oakland Bay Bridge, her campaign manager at the wheel--steering with one hand and scrolling through e-mails with the other--the 6-foot-tall antiwar activist turned congressional hopeful tries in vain to stretch out in the passenger seat. It's raining when they pull into a parking spot near Berkeley City College, where Sheehan is about...

In Denver. Denver is not equipped to handle any convention scenario other than a coronation, and certainly not the most (potentially) contentious national convention in 40 years. It is important to point out that the state of Colorado, and the city of Denver, is currently nearly completely controlled by Democrats at every level of government. This puts these locals in a box, politically and from a law enforcement standpoint. This sets up a scenario similar to Seattle 1999 WTO debacle. I happened to be living in downtown Seattle during that awful experience, and what stands out is that the city...

A reader who witnessed yesterday's anti-war protest sent us several photos of the incident so we thought we'd share a couple of them with you. Milwaukee police arrested four people during the late afternoon march, according to Officer Bobby Lindsey, a department spokesman. At least two of the arrests were for disorderly conduct, Lindsey said. The photos show that a number of paper boxes and trash cans were dumped in the street during the afternoon rush hour at N. Water St. and E. Wisconsin Ave. The march later moved south toward the Historic Third Ward. It was unclear whether the...

A few months ago, a day before one of the occasional marches the Capital sees demanding an end to the Iraq War, I began the descent into the Metro stop near my office, looked up, and saw a number of representatives of Code Pink standing at the railing overlooking the escalator. Or rather, I heard them first. They were screaming at the parade of commuters, at the top of their lungs and in a tone somewhere between simple frustration and righteous anger, "End the war!!!" Well, I thought, that ought to take care of things. Good work, hippies! I kid...

WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. Capitol Police arrested 10 war protesters who began shouting in the Senate gallery Wednesday. The protesters were quickly hustled into a hallway and out of the view of reporters. They had chanted, "The war is immoral! Stop funding the war!"—as police officers grabbed them and physically removed them from a visitors gallery overlooking the Senate floor. The demonstrators wore gauze shrouds over their heads and black shirts that read, "We will not be silent." One member said they represented the "National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance." Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas was speaking during debate on...

Does Congress want to take an Easter break? The American People have used many different tactics to try to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have camped outside the Bush Ranch in an attempt to get a conference with the president. He refused to meet with them.The people have petitioned Congress and even changed its balance of power. Still, Congress votes to continue funding the wars, and on the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War which has killed almost 4,000 Americans and over a million Iraqis, Congress plans to be on vacation. Except that a...

SAN FRANCISCO, Actor Sean Penn and Peace Activist Cindy Sheehan will headline "Iraq: 5 Years Too Many", an event marking the fifth anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq. Also featured will be Reverend Gregory Stewart, Senior Minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church; Matt Gonzalez, former President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors; and Justin Raimondo, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com. The program will begin at 5pm on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin Street (near Geary) in San Francisco. After the speakers finish, attendees will march to the War Memorial Auditorium on Van Ness...

No love fest for Rove Lauren Sieben - The Daily Iowan Issue date: 3/10/08 Section: Metro Karl Rove protesters didn't stop at picket signs and chants to express their anger over the former Deputy Chief of Staff's UI appearance Sunday night. Local protest group Seeds of Dissent and the UI Antiwar Committee held events protesting Rove's appearance at the IMU. Seeds of Dissent hosted a pre-Rove protest event at the Mill, 120 E. Burlington St., and the Antiwar Committee held a press conference and protest in the IMU prior to Rove's lecture. The Antiwar Committee specifically protested Rove for his...

I'm dancing on the top deck with a 71-year-old feminist and psychotherapist whom I've come to think of as the Twirler. We've spent two days attending seminars on The Nation magazine's Alaska cruise; we've talked about the Bush presidency and prison reform and single-payer health care. Now, at almost midnight, my fiercely intelligent and opinionated new friend is putting all the heady political talk behind her by bodily twirling. "If I start to get dizzy, then I twirl in the opposite direction," Charlotte tells me as the live band revs up its throbbing Motown beat. "I won't fall." "Good, please...

I agree with J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s (does he have a shorter name ?) recent column that progressives are left with an embarrassment of riches—two credible, serious candidates, either of whom would be a good choice for president. We are in a win-win position having two Democrats running for office against an opponent, John McCain, who has little or nothing compelling, professionally or personally, that would make someone vote for him besides his service in Vietnam. What might derail a Democratic victory would be unfair and untrue attacks on the part of the candidates and the unspoken competition that exists between...

The improvised explosive device went off at approximately 3:45 a.m., shattering glass and twisting the building's metal frame. Some will dismiss this as just another attack on our troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. But, the attack didn't take place in the Middle East – the attack against our troops took place here on American soil. The bombing of the military recruiting center located at Times Square in New York City is still under investigation. Police report a hooded individual leaving the scene on a bike just prior to the bomb's explosion. Eight Democratic politicians received letters providing a warning of...

MY INVISIBLE FRIEND dropped by the other day, fresh from her poetry group in Berkeley. I'm not sure why she doesn't just move over there because she does something in that city nearly every day. On Mondays, she is on campus to protest the war, on Tuesdays, she marches in front of the Marine recruiting office and on Wednesdays, she pickets the largest employer in town because it is the largest employer in town, so it must be corrupt, polluting and unfair to its workers. And on Fridays, she works the phones in some storefront raising funds for obscure left-wing...

Maybe we need to change it from Bush Derangement Syndrome to simply American Derangement Syndrome: The hot fashion accessory [at Sunday’s Oscar ceremony] was apparently orange ribbons and bracelets in solidarity with terrorist suspects in Guantanamo: Out on the red carpet, Paul Haggis (the director whose “Crash” won Best Picture in 2006) said he didn’t know what accounts for all these deeply dark, brooding, troubled films. But isn’t it obvious, he asked, flashing an orange ribbon on his lapel. Orange, why orange? “It’s Guantanamo,” his Max Azria-clad wife, Deborah, said, showing off her orange bracelet, which read: “Silence + torture...

Some columns write themselves. Some are a struggle and leave me confused, conflicted and a little angry. This is one of those. It started out as a tongue-in-cheek look at the recent action by the city council in Berkeley, Calif., to oust the U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office and brand the Marines “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” I planned to compare the situation in that strange city with our fairly-liberal-but-not-ridiculously-so approach here in Corvallis. Then I started doing research. I learned that an anti-military organization has access to our high school students equal to that of the U.S. Armed Forces. The...

Since the Marine Recruiting Center in downtown Berkeley was locked Friday morning when the World Can’t Wait protesters arrived around 7:30 a.m. aiming to shut it down and risk arrest, the group and its allies from Code Pink and ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and Racism) went to Plan B. They held a press conference, demonstrated and called out to passing motorists with chants such as, “murder, rape, torture war, that’s what they’re recruiting for.” They chanted beyond the time that their 2 p.m. sound permit ran out, as noted in a press release sent out by the Berkeley...

The City of Berkeley, California HATES the military - all branches and they have absolutely no respect for anyone wearing a military uniform. Mayor Tom Bates and the Berkeley City Council have officially taken that stance. There is no other way to look at it. They can deny it all they want to, but there is no hiding from the public record. Here is the proof. On 29 January 2008, the Berkeley City Council voted to tell the U.S. Marines that its Shattuck Avenue recruiting station "is not welcome in the city, and if recruiters choose to stay, they do...

Berkeley, Calif., has always been considered a Mecca for hippies. Their staunch anti-war views and liberalism have been allowed to flourish there, and when the Marines opened up a recruiting station in the heart of Berkeley, the women who belonged to CODEPINK began choking on their vanilla lattes and vegan muffins. According to its Web site, CODEPINK "is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq, stop new wars and redirect our resources into health care, education and other life-affirming activities." While I may believe in some of their viewpoints, the insanity they...

BERKELEY, Calif. -- As hundreds of protesters on both sides of the Iraq War debate demonstrated in Berkeley Tuesday, the city's mayor told officials with the Marine recruiting office in town they should not expect an apology. "I think it's unwanted," Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates said. "I think it stands (that) we didn't want them here and they came here. And (they are) unwelcome, you know we'd like them to leave voluntarily. So I don't think an apology is in order." At first glance the statement appears to be a "flip flop" from the statement Bates made last week, when...

YORBA LINDA – The first Amendment was alive and well today, Presidents' Day, as demonstrators for and against the war in Iraq displayed signs along Yorba Linda Boulevard, in front of the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum. The larger group, a dozen strong, set up on a corner waiving signs criticizing the war and handing out slices of "Bring Them Home-made Pie" to passersby. A man driving a yellow Hummer honked at the group and gave it a thumbs up. They responded in kind. One of the demonstrators, Pat Alviso, waved a sign with a picture of her son. "He...

"Has there ever been a more repugnant example of political pandering than John McCain’s decision to vote against a bill banning waterboarding, putting hoods on prisoners, forcing them to perform sex acts, subjecting them to mock executions, or depriving them of food, water, and medical treatment? That’s right, John McCain, the former POW who has long been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s disturbing embrace of extreme interrogation techniques. But that was before his desperate attempt to win over the lunatic fringe that is running the Grand Old Party. Earlier this week, I showed how outdated the image of...

BERKELEY, Calif. (KCBS) -- Protesters have returned to the Berkeley Marines recruiting center just a day after a showdown between anti-war and pro-military demonstrators before the Berkeley City Council. This time, several dozen members of the peace group CodePink urged people to make love, not war. The Berkeley demonstration is one of 20 “Kiss Don’t Enlist” protests across the country. ”Polls show that the majority of Americans are opposed to the war, and this has given people a chance to really come out and show that. And it’s kind of fun to make out, instead of making war, right?” said...

Some Berkeley business owners say they have received such a negative response from the recent City Council resolutions against the Marine Corps recruiting center in Downtown Berkeley that they may withhold city taxes in protest. Last week the council declared that the center was "unwelcome" in Berkeley and sought to aide Code Pink, a group that organizes regular protests outside the center, by reserving a parking space for the group in front of the center, among other actions. Since then, the resolutions have elicited a nationwide response. Last Thursday, United States Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said he would attempt to...

Society for years has endured the freakish antics of Berkeley dwellers. Naked people streaking in the streets; smelly hippies begging for money as they sing drunken renditions of '60s anti-war songs; adults sitting in trees like a bad zoo exhibit. But the Berkeley City Council and instigators from the extreme left have crossed the line this time. The council Tuesday night passed two anti-military, anti-American resolutions and agreed to send a letter to the city's only Marine recruiting office saying the military are "uninvited intruders." This is treasonous, hateful behavior that steals the First Amendment rights of the Marines, the...

One morning last August in San Francisco, six women in pink sweaters marched up a hilly boulevard towing pink roller bags full of shoes. They unzipped the bags in front of Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi's house, dumped the shoes on her lawn, and went on to arrange loafers, pumps, and pink glittery sandals like hawkers at a yard sale. Anchoring their display was a pair of combat boots, placed on Pelosi's doorstep. The boots, like the other shoes, had been pulled from a dead body in Iraq—the body of Casey Sheehan, in fact, whose mother, Cindy, is running as an Independent...

Today Barack Obama earned the endorsement of MoveOn, one of the largest grassroots membership organizations in the United States, after clobbering Hillary Clinton by 40 percent in Internet balloting. Obama led the final tally 70.4% to 29.6%, clearing the supermajority required for the endorsement. MoveOn, which has never endorsed a presidential candidate before, boasts that it has 1.7 million members in Super Tuesday states. The group has over half a million members in California alone – roughly one out of ten primary voters in Tuesday's largest state. "We've learned that the key to achieving change in Washington without compromising core...

Brattleboro Town Officials Harassed Over Bush-Cheney Arrest Petition BRATTLEBORO, Vt. -- Town officials in Brattleboro are being inundated with complaints from across the country about a decision to let voters decide whether arrest warrants should be issued for President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Town Clerk Annette Cappy said the "nastiness" of the calls prompted the town office to stop answering its phones Monday. One message from a Minnesota man said he'd like to see terrorists cut off the heads of some Brattleboro officials. Brattleboro police said they will prosecute anyone whose messages cross the line and...

For four years, a list of alleged Republican positions -- "What You Have To Believe To Be a Republican Today" -- has been circulating on the Internet and forwarded in countless e-mails. In this presidential election year, it is important to respond to these charges. If people want to vote for a Democratic president, they should not do so based on falsehoods about Republicans. Given space limitations, I cannot respond to all of them. I have decided to respond to the 13 most significant. "What you have to believe to be a Republican today": 1. "Saddam was a good guy...

Congressman Dennis Kucinich says he will introduce articles of impeachment against President Bush for deceiving the American nation. The Democrat said Wednesday that he would introduce the articles on January 28, the day US President George W. Bush is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union speech. "We already know the State of the Union," Kucinich said. "It's a lie!" "[The] Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003," the 61-year-old congressman quoted the Center for Public Integrity's...

They come so frequently, it's hard to get worked up, but there's a dead giveaway this time. The teaser for the piece reads, "At the risk of sounding like an apologist for the Islamic Republic..." The author is Hooman Majd, who accuses the Pentagon of manufacturing the incident with Iran in the Gulf this week. The Pentagon's version of the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday morning, involving U.S. Navy warships and Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boats is, at the very least highly suspicious. On Tuesday, the Navy released video footage and an audiotape to back its claims...

Today, Iowa is the center of the political universe, but for only a day. Right here in Minnesota is where the next president will be chosen. I know the conventional wisdom: Candidates who hope to capture their party's nomination must make an early splash in Iowa or New Hampshire, or at least in Florida's primary on Jan. 29. As a result, it's thought, the GOP convention in the Twin Cities later this year will merely anoint a nominee chosen months earlier, in the sort of anticlimactic, scripted coronation we've seen for decades. This year, I predict, things will be different....

NEWARK — The fourth annual American Muslim Voice peace convention brought many speakers of various backgrounds to provide a blueprint for protecting civil rights in the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era. Visitors at the Chandni Restaurant in Newark on Sunday evening cheered and listened to guest speakers, such as anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, Muslim convert Brandon Mayfield and Ron Takaki, an ethnic studies professor at University of California,Berkeley. The conventions theme was building a beloved community, which included topics such as Fighting for the American Constitution and America, One Nation under God? These topics were discussed by a group of panelists...

TAMPA, Florida -- Public school districts in two Florida counties are refusing to allow members of a peace organization to counter the presence of military recruiters by talking with high school students about alternatives to joining the military, according to a spokesperson for the group. The Manatee and Sarasota county school districts “are saying that we can’t go on their campuses because we aren’t offering any sort of information on postsecondary opportunities,” said Don Thompson, co-chairman of the Coalition of Concerned Patriots, a Florida-based peace group. “But that’s an excuse because we tell the students that the Job Corps and...

Virtually ignored by the establishment media, the famous antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan officially kicked off her campaign to unseat Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the opening of her campaign headquarters yesterday in San Francisco. The date of her headquarters opening coincided with the date John Lennon was assassinated in New York 27 years ago. Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, hoped his passing would be remembered by people everywhere imagining a world of Peace and Love. Former Board President Matt Gonzalez, former Union Local 10 Secretary-Treasurer Clarence Thomas and former mayoral candidate Ahimsa Sumchai attended the campaign kickoff event. Note the “former” status...

I had to look up the word "conniption." I wasn't sure how to spell it, but I'm sure that the likes of Code Pink, MoveOn, and other far left anti-war groups had a collective conniption fit last week. One of their poster boys, John Murtha, quit toeing their line. Surely what followed were the same fits of rage I've seen them have before. In September at a Washington D.C. rally as Senator Joe Lieberman began to address a group of pro-mission vets and Gold Star Families, several members of the anti-war groups charged toward the stage with seemingly unrestricted fury,...

Like noxious bugs swarming over a crumbling tenement, followers of Ron Paul have invaded the blogosphere. Their target is anyone who dares to criticize their hero. Bloggers have dealt with them in various ways. Some have tried banning them outright. Others allow readers to engage them in back-and-forth debates that can easily take a thread to several hundred responses. I used to find the Paulites annoying, but recently I had a revelation: Far from being scorned, Paul’s rabid fans should be welcomed and encouraged. We should do everything we can to make certain they keep pushing their man, sending him...

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 29 (OneWorld) - U.S. war veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have announced they're planning to descend on Washington, DC this March to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in Iraq. "The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like." Iraq Veterans Against the...

This guy is becoming even more of an idiot than I thought. It's ok to want out of Iraq, but it's another thing to lie about it in order to get votes. He was properly smacked by McCain for his comments. To which Ron Paul supporters tried to boo McCain, but were drowned out with cheers for McCain as McCain schooled Paul on the facts of Vietnam. I will post video as soon as I have it, and the latest numbers of a decline in violence in Iraq. Which Paul says is because the Brits are pulling out of Basra....

I began by asking myself the question linked inevitably to the survival of the United States as a trusted nation in the 21st century: Why can't America admit defeat? What is it in the American psyche that seems to dictate the necessity to be proven not only right, but superior in dealings with the outside world? I have lived the better part of 40 years in Japan, a country whose nationalistic ardor and patriotic zeal once easily matched that of the U.S. If the Japanese government has not sufficiently apologized for the utter brutality their nation inflicted in Asia and...

There is quite a lot of interesting, but wild, speculation running around the blog-o-sphere, progressive circles and just plain dinner conversation these days about whether BushCo will allow a peaceful and constitutional transfer of Executive power in the ’08 elections. Unless or until George Bush appears on our TV boxes one night, wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie with his hands sweatily clasped in a desperate death grip on top of his desk in the Oval Office, telling us that some catastrophic event, whether man-made or natural, has just occurred somewhere, and he must, for the...

Senator John F. Kerry already has a Democratic opponent for his U.S. Senate seat. He is not from the party's right since there is barely anyone sitting in those seats in blue Massachusetts. Kerry's antagonist is Ed O'Reilly, a Gloucester lawyer who, according to the Wednesday Boston Globe, is targeting Kerry from the anti-Iraq war left. And, lo and behold, he wants to know the truth about Kerry's military record and has questions himself about the Swift Boat record and the Swift Boat ads. Besides, like a lot of the senator's tormentors, he is suspicious about whether Kerry is really...

Apparently, America's greatest patriot was on Loonwaffle/Trooferville's favorite radio show today with the King Nutbar himself, although I'm not sure if anyone grabbed audio. If you want to listen to the rebroadcast stream, go here. I don't feel like it. Have fun.

More than 600 people came out Tuesday afternoon for a rally held by presidential hopeful Ron Paul. Paul, the Texas representative who's gaining attention for his online and grassroots support, spoke to the crowd about ending the war in Iraq, limiting government regulation and gaining economic stability. "We don't need to sacrifice," Paul said, drawing applause from the audience. "What we need is freedom to make our own decisions."

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan was awarded the 2007 Thomas Merton Award last night for her work within the peace and justice community. Sheehan was unable to attend the ceremony at the Sheraton at Station Square, but accepted the award in absentia. Sheehan began her career in activism after her son, 25-year-old Spc. Casey Sheehan, was killed during a mission in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Since that date, Sheehan has called for the country's leaders to end the war, recall U.S. troops and hold themselves accountable for the decisions that sent the troops to Iraq. Sheehan was forced to cancel...

State field director predicts second, even first in Iowa It seems like when we're young, we like to break a few rules.  Staying out a little too late, sneaking a drink before that official legal age, or backing a candidate who's outside the established mold (YEEEEEAH!) Several of those dynamics were on display Saturday at Olive Court, a notoriously wild tailgate spot three blocks from Iowa City's Kinnick Stadium.  It was here, just a year ago, that John Kerry was infamously photographed with a beer bong.  And into the anarchy marched the Ron Paul revolution. Ron Paul wasn't imbibing...

The meeting of Ron Paul activists was well under way when organizer Steven Talcott Smith offered the kind of basic advice you probably wouldn't hear at a gathering of any other Republican presidential candidate's supporters. "By the way," Smith told the Internet-driven "meet-up" of about 40 people at a library west of Boynton Beach, "by the end of this year everybody in this room should plan to be a Republican." Florida's Jan. 29 Republican primary is, not surprisingly, limited to registered GOP voters. But a Republican pedigree or a familiarity with the elections process cannot be taken for granted with...

The ardent supporters of Rep. Ron Paul, the iconoclastic Texas libertarian whose campaign for the presidency is threatening to upend the battle for the Republican nomination, got word yesterday of a new source of outrage and motivation: reports of a federal raid on a company that was selling thousands of coins marked with the craggy visage of their hero. Federal agents on Thursday raided the Evansville, Ind., headquarters of the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Code (Norfed), an organization of "sound money" advocates that for the past decade has been selling a...