Oppose the Nomination of Roberts!

Tell your Senators to oppose Roberts and any Supreme Court nominee who would overturn Roe v. Wade and limit the rights, freedoms and legal safeguards we have fought for and won.

TAKE ACTION!

As O'Connor's replacement, Roberts would cast the deciding vote on countless matters of individual rights where O'Connor had been a key vote, often in a 5-to-4 split-issues like abortion and birth control, affirmative action, privacy rights, disability rights, Title IX equal educational opportunity, family and medical leave, health care, environmental protection and dozens of other crucial issues for decades to come. For young women, Roberts' votes could determine their access to birth control and abortion for their entire reproductive lifetimes.

Action Needed:

1. Contact your Senators immediately and demand their opposition to Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts, a staunch opponent of women's rights and civil rights.

The Record of Judge John Roberts

President Bush has nominated Judge John Roberts to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1979, Mr. Roberts was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. He went on to serve in the Reagan administration as an assistant to Attorney General Smith and as an associate White House legal counsel. He also served as deputy solicitor general in the administration of Mr. Bush’s father. He was in private practice until 2003 when he was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Many people hoped that Mr. Bush would appoint a moderate Republican in the mold of Justice O’Connor. Unfortunately, Judge Roberts is a solid conservative. While his legal record will be reviewed intently over the course of the next few months, his role in the following cases will likely take center stage.

GAP visits OSU

The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) paid a visit to OSU May 17-18. Headed by Mark Harrington, director of the Center for Bioethical Reform Midwest and Reform America both headquartered in Columbus, GAP is a traveling photo/mural exhibit that, according to GAP, "compares contemporary abortion to historically recognized forms of genocide" such as the Holocaust, Jim Crow lynchings, and the slaughter of Cambodians by the Pol Pot regime. The displays marked "The Changing Face of Choice" and "The Insanity of Choice" included graphic photos of Holocaust and lynch victims labeled "ungentle" and "unwhite" next to bay-bee bits abortion pictures labeled "unborn."

STAR WARS: The Sequel and the Reality

Scholars have long commented on the U.S. government's need for an "endless frontier" - a substitute for the mythologized Wild West. A place Americans can explore, conquer, and dominate, and where riches and profits can be plundered. With the official closing of the continental western frontier in 1890 and the ongoing exploitation of Alaska's resources, space truly represents the "final frontier."

The current Bush administration's plan to weaponize space and seize the new high-tech military "high ground" poses perhaps the greatest threat to humankind in the 21st century. The U.S.'s stated policy, revealed in the U.S. Space Command document "Joint Vision for 2020," calls for "full spectrum dominance" of Earth, both militarily and economically, through control of the moon corridor.

FEATURED ORGANIZATION - Central Ohioans for Peace

Mission Statement

Our mission is to bring together people who believe in using nonviolent methods to build and sustain a peaceful world.

Goals & Intentions

To create environments for study, action, and reconciliation
To generate effective ways of making our voices heard
To support all victims of war, both military and civilian
To hold leaders accountable for advancing peaceful solutions to conflicts

Actions

COFP is an active and visible presence in Central Ohio and elsewhere. With the help of the Columbus Unitarian-Universalist and Mennonite Churches, COFP sent 383 School Kits to Iraq. Relief Kits were also sent. In addition, COFP contributed to a Heifer International Project, and sent a response letter to a Green Peace group in Dresden, Germany.

COFP also cooperates with other local and national groups, including the National Network to End the War against Iraq and the Central Ohio Peace Network.

Freedom for Leonard Peltier

June 26, 2005 will mark the 30th year since the shoot-out at Oglala on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. It was in this conflict between the American Indian Movement and the F.B.I. that three people lost their lives. The subsequent arrest, conviction and incarceration of American Indian activist, Leonard Peltier, is a nightmarish visible sign of social injustice.

The case of Leonard Peltier is a case of political failure, political manipulation, political intervention and political incarceration. Leonard remains a political prisoner in a country that claims it holds none. Leonard Peltier has nearly completed his 3rd decade in a cage in Leavenworth, Kansas. Below, please find Leonard's words as he approaches a fourth decade of this nightmare.

Dear Brothers, Sisters, Friends, Supporters, and All People,

I want to thank you all for your continuing support. These are important times for us all. Now is the time for unification. Only through unity can we overcome. I ask all of us, my brother and sisters, all people, please come together as one and work together hard for the

WAL-MART - The high cost of low price

Robert Greenwald, who produced "Outfoxed" about Fox News, is making a new film, "WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price," which is scheduled to be released this November.

"WAL-MART" promises to expose the mega-retailer in the same way that Greenwald's "Outfoxed" and "Uncovered" shed new light on Fox News and the Iraq War. Wal-Mart's practices are hurting U.S. women and our families, and the National Organization for Women believes it is critical to our future that a vigorous debate on these issues take center stage in this nation. That's why NOW is partnering with Greenwald's Brave New Films and other progressive groups to help make and promote this movie. This movie is a perfect fit with NOW's 3-year campaign to expose Wal-Mart as a "Merchant of Shame" and as a retailer whose greed for profits comes at the expense of women and people of color.

Free Press Heroes

Freep Heroes: Out of Iraq Congressional Caucus

With six out of ten Americans saying the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq, finally four key legislators introduced a resolution in Congress demanding that W begin to bring U.S. troops home. The sponsors are Rep. Walter Jones, (R-NC), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and Neil Abercrombie (D-HI). Just two years ago, Jones was spearheading the movement to rename Capitol Hill cafeteria French fries "Freedom Fries." Their heroic and historic resolution gives hope that the militarist and war profiteers going by the name "Bush junta" can be directly challenged.

The Free Press Salutes Backbone campaign

"Cruelty 101" taught at OSU

The Ohio State University (OSU) is hosting a course that many physicians consider a pointless exercise in cruelty. Nicknamed "Cruelty 101," the course attempts to instruct students in spinal cord injury research methods. Unfortunately, students will not be focusing on the newest in vitro cell biology, neural cell imaging, and clinical research techniques. Instead, OSU neurologists are teaching the students how to systematically injure the spinal cords of rats and mice using a weight dropped on the animal's exposed spinal cord and then to put the animals through behavioral tests and surgical manipulations.

Over the course of the three-week class, the 269 injured mice and rats are subjected to additional surgeries, invasive laboratory procedures, and physically demanding behavioral exercises before they are killed. The course is funded in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The university states that the class teaches a "standardized" methodology for inflicting spinal cord damage.

An evening with Rod Parsley

The spring of 2005 has been a banner for Columbus' tele-revivialist cum spiritual adviser to the Republican Party, Rod Parsley, Pastor of World Harvest Church in Canal Winchester; interviews in James Dobson's daily online news commentary Citizen Link and Chuck Colson's Breakpoint; features in Charisma Magazine, the Scaife owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Columbus Dispatch, the Other Paper and the Newark Advocate; and citations in the New York Times and Dallas Morning News.

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