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BERKELEY (CBS 5 / KCBS) ― The protests that continue in Berkeley over the U.S. Marines recruiting station come at a hefty price tag for the city. Protests have been held every Friday for months outside the Marines' recruitment center on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. "It supports the war by continuing to pull people into the war machine," said Jennifer Kitter, a Code Pink member, and regular at the protests. Now, starting March 10, Code Pink is planning a 24-hour a day protest for an entire week, to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Berkeley City...

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...

Gael Murphy, of Washington, D.C. checked in to Canada Free Press (CFP) yesterday to correct the errors of my ways on one Medea Benjamin. “Medea Benjamin doesn’t hate the Marines. She doesn’t want them to go to Iraq to risk their lives in an illegal, immoral, corrupt and endless occupation,” Murphy wrote in her email. “Ask the Pentagon Inspector General. The violent and disastrous Iraq policy is not the soldier. The Bush Administration should declare an emd (sic) to the US military occupation immediately, withdraw all the troops and contractors in a safe and orderly manner as swiftly as possible,...

The co-founder of the Orange County chapter of Code Pink is right. I should not have described the anti-military protest group in a recent column as being simply "venomous," a word that means "spiteful" or "malicious." Instead, I should have described Code Pink as "venomous and dishonest and untruthful and ignorant."

BERKELEY, Calif. (KCBS) -- The protests that continue in Berkeley over the Marine’s recruiting station come at a hefty price tag for the city. Protests have been held every Friday for months outside the Marines recruitment center on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. ”It supports the war by continuing to pull people into the war machine,” said Jennifer Kitter, a Code Pink member, and regular at the protests. The city manager says Berkeley police are spending $20,000 each time such a protest is held, to make sure that the demonstrators don’t get physical with each other. ”I’m supporting the troops, all...

Excusing Berkeley by: Bethany Stotts The Berkeley City Council's decision to declare its local U.S. Marine Corps recruiting office “unwelcome and uninvited intruders” has sparked considerable controversy throughout the nation. With S. 2596, also known as the Semper Fi Act, now in the Senate and with 12 cosponsors, this controversy seems to have intensified, prompting news articles critical of Senator Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) proposed “retaliation.” Should the legislation pass, the city of Berkeley would lose $2.3 million in earmarks. The threatened loss of $975,000 (a subset of the total amount) for the University of California Berkeley’s Matsui Center for Politics...

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, who can turn the air blue when shouting chants against American Marines called out for the Marines in front of Marine Recruiting offices in Berkeley yesterday. Eamon Kelley, the young Marine who is featured in Move America Forward’s TV commercial that ran on Fox News earlier this week, could hardly believe his own ears when Benjamin called on the Marines for help. Kelley, who is recovering from back surgery, spent his day in Berkeley, where CodePink continues with Berkeley council’s blessing, to keep a virtual blockade at the recruit center, expanding its efforts to harass...

Doctor Raoul learned this afternoon that the Berzerkistan (aka Berkeley) Chamber of Commerce is going to place a large thumb in the eye of the Revolutionary Communist Party and the Marxist Code Pink groups tomorrow, at the Chamber's annual Crab Feast fundraiser, by honoring the USMC recruiter in charge of the Berkeley recruiting center that has been targeted by these radical groups. On the Berkeley Chamber website it is evident that Chamber members and leaders are not at all happy with the City government's actions against our military: The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce supports the men and women of our...

Some College Republicans from San Francisco State filmed this video of one of the city-of-Berzerkeley-approved protests at the USMC recruiting center. I guarantee you will LOL about at least one of the insane comments by the Pinkos.The rest of the 1 minute and 49 seconds will just p*** you off.

BERKELEY - People who are angry at city leaders for their anti-military stance are taking it out on businesses - canceling hotel rooms, restaurant reservations and theater tickets. They are writing letters to the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce outlining their plans to boycott the city. And they are steering clear of downtown shops because of the weekly anti-war protests that in recent weeks have become increasingly volatile. Two weeks after the Berkeley City Council refused to apologize to the U.S. Marine Corps for calling them "uninvited and unwelcome intruders," Berkeley businesses are feeling the backlash from people who don't want...

A coalition of anti-war groups is vowing to protest this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Denver under the rubric “Re-create ’68,” prompting criticism from some on the left who are loath to revisit what they see as a disastrous time for both the anti-war movement and the Democratic Party. Capping a year that saw the assassinations of both the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, the 1968 Democratic National Convention erupted in violence as thousands of Chicago police officers, supported by U.S. Army troops and National Guardsmen, battled in the streets with activists protesting the Vietnam...

"I guess she learned this childish tactic from her kids," countered David Almasi, executive director of the conservative National Center for Public Policy Research."What's next? Holding her breath until her face turns blue? Lawmakers should not be intimidated into action by force, graft or inane publicity stunts," Almasi told Cybercast News Service. ...well...at least America's Twinkies are safe for the time being. There was a time when Americans marched and protested with respect, honor, and integrity. Today, we get Code Pink and in general a carnival-like atmosphere rather than a Martin Luther King march. This is a sad story though....

Code Pink Fasts for Cheney's Impeachment By Monisha Bansal CNSNews.com Staff Writer February 25, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - Hundreds of anti-war protesters are on a hunger strike, trying to urge House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) to begin impeachment proceedings against Vice President Dick Cheney. "I'm really concerned that the Bush and Cheney administration have committed so many impeachable offenses," Leslie Angeline, a member of Code Pink told Cybercast News Service. Angeline and her followers are urging the Judiciary Committee to take up articles of impeachment introduced by former presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) in April. In November, Kucinich...

The predictions for Washington DC this evening were for unrelenting sleet and freezing rain. The temperature in this area during the winter floats at around the freezing point, usually going below freezing at night and warming during the day. When precipitation moves in this means rain during the day and sleet and freezing rain at night. Between this and a few inches of snow, I'll take the latter any time. But you get used to it. Perhaps having learned their lesson several years ago in an incident whereby they did not predict a storm and we got hit hard, the...

he brouhaha sparked by the Berkeley City Council these past couple of weeks demonstrates again that you can be within shouting distance of one of the world's great educational institutions and still be terminally stupid. The council, as almost everybody not in a deep trance must know, voted to send a letter telling the U.S. Marine Corps to, in effect, get the hell out of town. The particular target was a Marine recruiting office on Shattuck Square. Predictably, that got the right-wing bloggers knee-jerking right back, sending them into paroxysms of righteous indignation. It also – and justifiably – upset...

Early last week Buzz Krohn of Columbia, MD discovered That guy called me Horse pucky! That's the nicest thing [sniff] anyone's said to me in a long time! a fundraiser was planned at a nearby community college featuring an awards ceremony honoring members of Code Pink. Trooprally posted this thread to alert FReepers. Buzz played the biggest part in gathering info and getting the counter protest organized. The ceremony and fundraiser was organized by the local chapter of Women in Black. What grand honor were the WIB bestowing on Medea Benjamin, Jodie Evans, and Gael Murphy? VAGINA WARRIOR AWARDS!...

In late January, the Berkeley city council voted 8-1 to declare the Marines working at a local recruiting office “uninvited and unwelcome intruders,” proceeding to express wishes to have said office removed from the city. The resolution further stated that the City of Berkeley applauded residents and organizations that “volunteer to impede, passively or actively, by nonviolent means, the work of any military recruiting office located in the City of Berkeley.” This action is disrespectful and inappropriate. The United States Marine Corps includes some our bravest and most dedicated service men and women. Regardless of whether or not one agrees...

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. -- 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...