Taking on Rumsfeld in Court begins

Two of The Supremes, a peace collective, united with two courageous women of Code Pink to form the Rumsfeld 4 today in D.C. Superior Court. Katie, myself, David and Mari went before two different judges for status hearings regarding the D.C. charge of Disorderly Conduct and the Federal charge of Unlawful Entry.

Regarding the Disorderly Conduct charge, David who has a pending trial in regards to the March 20th action at the Pentagon selected to sign an agreement to avoid this judge trial. He will do 40 hours of community service -- two organizations he is considering working for are TASSC and Amnesty International. Katie, myself and Mari will appear in court on this one on September 28th. The judge assigned to us will be Pamela Diaz.

Regarding the Unlawful Entry charge, all four of us need to go before the same judge we saw today for an additional status hearing to discuss the legal necessity of a trial. Unlawful entry, because of its maximum sentence requires a jury trial. This status hearing will be on the morning of July 7th. David and I are pro se with an advisor. Mari and Katie have counsel.

If you want to learn more about what's going on in detail (and already know us personally), talk to either David and I face to face. For privacy and mutual confidentiality concerns, I will not discuss internal reasoning or strategies online or via phone.

The Supremes were founded in February 2005, when three peace-loving anti-torture activists were arrested on the lower steps of the Supreme Court protesting the U.S. Government's use of torture in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Interestingly enough, the Dorthy Day Catholic Worker newsletter slid through Rumsfeld's door slot featured an article on torture at Guantanamo Bay, along with a hand-written note from Katie.

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Guantanamo put on trial -- May 27th

In eight days, Eve Tetaz, a 76-year old retired D.C. public schoolteacher, will enter a courthouse in Washington, D.C. and engage in the legal debate over the fate of America's detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The name of Noor Muhammad has never appeared in an American criminal court. On May 27th, Tetaz will change that.

On that day, she will appear at the Washington, D.C. Superior Court as Noor Muhammad. Tetaz was arrested, along with 78 others, at the U.S. Supreme Court on January 11, 2008, protesting the denial of habeas rights to and the torture of inmates at Guantanamo. Like her fellow protestors, Tetaz took the name of an inmate during her arrest. (See the January 13 Washington Post article "Activists Pose as Guantanamo Prisoners")

Tetaz says she felt compelled to participate in the protest at the Supreme Court because detainees are being tortured at Guantanamo. "Torture is a terrible crime and sin against humanity," she said.

Thirty-four of th…

Steve Mihalis, a great friend and man of peace

May we all take up the cause as Steve did, and perhaps more importantly in the *manner* that he did.

I spoke with Steve by phone a week before he passed. He was in a whole lot of pain and the drugs were not helping. I forced back tears, as I was talking with him. The conversation was too brief, as was the time I knew this great guy. As I ended the conversation, I said "Steve, you know what? There's a whole lot of us in D.C. who love you." He just responded that he loved all of us, as well.

I had been arrested with Steve a handful of times, as we resisted the empire's wars and its unjust detaining and mistreatment fellow human beings. He always arrived in DC with a smile and open arms for a hug and a kind word, or two, or three.

Steve never had an unkind word for anyone. He became very involved with the National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance over the last four years, and that's how I got to know him better.He always provided this wonderful source of positive ene…

A Proposal for We The People to Institute Positive Change

Hello sisters and brothers, subjects of the United States Empire, it has become clear the elected representatives on Capitol Hill no longer truly represent us and our best interests, but rather are serving their elite major campaign contributors. They serve the interests of the extreme rich and large corporations, certainly not the average American worker, student, or retired individual.

In order to improve our government, we, a collective of dedicated social justice activists, propose three demands to those who have power to legislate within the Federal Government. We list those demands here, and will then discuss how to make sure they pass into the law of the land:

1) Universal single payer health care, something that nearly all other developed nations of the world already possess for their citizens. We, as human beings, have a right to good health and to never be financially crippled in this pursuit of our own well-being. We demand that Congress pass House Resolution 676 and a Sen…

Inside the Belly of the Beltway Beast

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