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***EXCERPT*** Toting house plants, pink pajamas, drums and organic veggies, protesters in Berkeley began settling in Monday for an around-the-clock protest at the Marine Corps recruitment center this week... "We wanted to step up the pressure," said Medea Benjamin, ... "Baghdad has a Green Zone. We wanted to create a really, really green zone with plants and bicycles and films about ecology." A few dozen protesters are expected to camp out until Friday on the sidewalk in front of the Marines center ... But they're likely to run afoul of the Berkeley Police Department when they unroll their sleeping bags....

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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...

(excerpt from last part of story...) We are an independent nation with an all-volunteer fighting force. We must maintain a military or be allied with those who do. Marines fight by order of the president. They have no power to change political policy here or abroad, so to insult them as a group or as individuals in such a hate-filled manner is misdirected at best. It’s not “their war,” and it should be remembered that they serve when and where they are asked to fight. The Berkeley community has a tradition of respecting free speech and the rights of others....

Tom the Red Environmental Wacko and Fraxinus the Tree Hugger It was a dark and stormy rainy drizzly night. It must've been raining Bacardi because Tom the Red Hunter seemed a little inebriated. He babbled something about favoring high mileage standards for cars, the dictatorship of the SUV, the exploitation of the subcompact, and the class struggle for parking spaces. I was appalled. We argued heatedly about CAFE standards, the Caribou, ethanol, and the like. But there's no arguing with someone who's had too much rain to drink. I quickly alerted everyone, "Do NOT drink the rain!" At least...

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...

BERKELEY, Calif. -- After a bombing at a Marine recruiting center at Times Square in New York City, Bay Area military supporters came to Berkeley City Hall Thursday to express concerns that the city's Marine recruiting center could suffer a similar attack. Melanie Morgan, a former talk show host at KSFO radio in San Francisco and member of the conservative grass roots political organization "Move America Forward," said she and her group are very concerned. ...continued... [Councilman] Wozniak told Morgan and her group that he felt the situation warranted extra security. "We would not want something like this to happen...

Attacks against military recruiters and their offices are growing around the United States, spurred by anti-American anarchists who thrash the centers, assault and batter people, and intimidate those who want to serve their country. Attackers throw rocks, chain themselves to doors, punch and kick, spray paint graffiti, break windows, yell, and generally vandalize recruiting centers across the nation in repeated attacks. "Counter Recruitment" UNC Video-02/05/08Code Pink, an anti-war group that gave more than $600,000 to terrorists’ families in Iraq, is calling for anti-military agitators to escalate attacks on U.S. Government offices where the military work with potential recruits on their...

Apparently Women In Black (WIB) and Code Pink (CP) has lied and scammed the Rape Crisis Intervention Services of Carroll County, MD (RCIS). WIB was NEVER licensed to show the Vagina Monologues. Someone complained to the makers of VM about what happened and discovered this. The original show was to last at most an hour and a half. The WIB and CP scam went on for well over an hour before the VM even started. Second, WIB has never paid Carrol Community College (CCC) for their security. Now CCC has asked the RCIS to pay. Third, WIB told RCIS that...

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...