Inside the Belly of the Beltway Beast

Rep. Kucinich and eight other brave members of Congress are currently suing President Obama for Peace. Their case states that the commander-in-chief is in violation of the War Powers Act when it comes to the War on Libya. Obama absurdly contends that our military is not engaged in "hostilities" when it bombs buildings and kills people in this North African nation. Therefore, the pres claims the law does not apply. The War Powers Act was passed in order to further clarify Article 1 of our Constitution (that Congress and the President need to make such war-making decisions jointly). Passed in 1973, it was designed to check unlimited presidential military actions. Sadly, it has been ignored by presidents and Congress for at least a couple decades now. I doubt this lawsuit, although a very honorable step, will gain much ground. If folks haven't noticed things have not gone well for the peace and justice movement for the last few years... The American people, however, are gett...

There has been a call put out to the entire peace and justice movement to assemble in Freedom Plaza (downtown DC, along Pennsylvania Avenue), and to not leave until the U.S. Government begins withdrawing all it military forces from Afghanistan (this will be at the same time our nation completes a decade of war in this Third World country) and begins to redirect war funds to desperately needed social programs and protections for the environment. The original organizers are encouraging people not to leave until the demands are met. I think this does need to happen. But I also realize that those leaving their homes and camping out on the concrete slabs of Freedom Plaza will need support. They will need food and water brought into them. Folks will need to begin to organize themselves, as did the courageous protesters in first Egypt and Tunisia, and now currently in Spain. So will it last longer than a couple days, will the mass media largely ignore us? Again, I will repeat, this needs to h...

I have neglected my blog for too long. Work at the LoC is going well, although not very exciting. I did pass the criminal background check during the last month, and they know all about my past arrests and convictions. Here is a pic of a lotus at Lake Artemesia where I walk Bruno nearly every day. My current activism remains almost exclusively focused on courageous whistle blower, Bradley Manning (now moved from Quantico to more humane Leavenworth). The prosecution and persecution of Bradley and other whistle blowers reveals the repressive nature of Barack Obama’s presidency. Although he claimed “hope” and even pushed “government transparency” during his campaign, the reality of his time as president has proven to be the opposite. We (the Bradley Manning Support Network) had a tele-press conference for Bradley (exactly one year after his arrest) recently which featured Pentagon Papers’ Daniel Ellsberg and WikiLeak’s Julian Assange. It proved to be wildly successful. Here are a couple n...