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U.S. Senator Wants to Revoke Funding From City of Berkeley, Calif., for Vote to Boot Marines

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., says the City of Berkeley, Calif., no longer deserves federal money.

DeMint was angered after learning that the Berkeley City Council voted this week to tell the U.S. Marine Corps to remove its recruiting station from the city's downtown.

"This is a slap in the face to all brave service men and women and their families," DeMint said in a prepared statement. "The First Amendment gives the City of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money."

"If the city can’t show respect for the Marines that have fought, bled and died for their freedom, Berkeley should not be receiving special taxpayer-funded handouts," he added.

In the meantime, a senior Marine official tells FOX News that the Marine office in Berkeley isn't going anywhere.

"We understand things are different there, but some people just don't get it. This is a part of the military machine that gives them the right to do what they do, but what they are doing is extreme," the official said.

DeMint said he will draft legislation to rescind any earmarks dedicated for the City of Berkeley in the recently passed appropriations bill — which his office tallied to value about $2.1 million. He said that any money taken back would be transferred to the Marines.

DeMint's office provided a preliminary list of items that would be subject to his proposal:

— $975,000 for the University of California at Berkeley, for the Matsui Center for Politics and Public Service, which may include establishing an endowment, and for cataloguing the papers of Congressman Robert Matsui.

— $750,000 for the Berkeley/Albana ferry service.

— $243,000 for the Chez Panisse Foundation, for a school lunch initiative to integrate lessons about wellness, sustainability and nutrition into the academic curriculum.

— $94,000 for a Berkeley public safety interoperability program.

— $87,000 for the Berkeley Unified School District, nutrition education program.

The Marine official, speaking with FOX News on Friday, said Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway scoffed at the news, but there are no plans for to protest the City Council's decisions. There are definitely no plans to move the recruiting station either.

"To actually put something into law that encourages the disruption of a federal office is ridiculous. They are not going to kick a federal office out of its rightful place there, and this is not going to discourage those young patriots who want to be Marines," the official said.

The Berkeley City Council this week voted to tell the Marines their downtown recruiting station is not welcome and "if recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome guests," according to The Associated Press.

The council also voted to explore whether a city anti-discrimination law applies to the Marines, with a focus on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prevents open homosexuality in the military.

The council also voted to give the antiwar group Code Pink a parking space in front of the recruiting office once a week for six months, as well as a protest permit.

The Marine recruiting office in Berkeley has been open for about one year, but has been the subject of recent protests by Code Pink members.

Another democratic anti-American city government. It sounds to me like the are trying to secede from the U.S. and as such they don't deserve any federal or state funds that they have been getting.

I think I'm in love.  ;D

DeMint for president?

Suits me.  I just want someone in there that is going to do more than just give lip service.  I want the job done and the only way to do it is to oust everyone in there right now.  I did like the comment by Romney, something to the effect; that you can't just put the same folks back in Washington only to sit in different seats!

Unfortunately putting Romney in there would be just the same.

An email forwarded from Senator Jim DeMint (modified to remove links that violate forum rules):

Dear Fellow Conservative,

The City Council of Berkeley last week voted to ask the U.S. Marine Corps to vacate their recruiting office in town, and that if they chose to stay they did so as "uninvited and unwelcome intruders." Berkeley also voted to give the radical liberal group Code Pink a parking space to protest the Marine Corps and urged them to "impede, passively or actively" the work of Marine Corps recruiters.

During debate of the resolution, one council member called the Marines "the President's own gangsters" and "trained killers." Another said the Marines had given the country "horrible karma" and said they had a history of "death and destruction." In a document drafted to support the resolution against the Marines, the council stated: "Military recruiters are sales people known to lie to and seduce minors and young adults into contracting themselves into military service with false promises regarding jobs, job training, education and other benefits."

I do not believe a city that has turned its back on our country's finest deserves $2 million worth of pork-barrel projects. This week I introduced the Semper Fi Act of 2008. The bill would rescind over $2 million in hidden earmarks for Berkeley, California in the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations bill, and transfer the funds to the Marine Corps But I need your help.

I'm currently working with MoveAmericaFoward.org to petition members of Congress to support the Semper Fi Act of 2008. Here are five ways you can help:

    * Sign the petition at MoveAmericaForward.org
    * Tell five people to tell five people about the situation in Berkeley, CA
    * Call the Berkeley County Council Members and tell them to support the troops

Meanwhile, the Marines will continue to bring peace, security, and freedom to the citizens of Berkeley, whether they like it or not. There is a well known slogan outside the Marine Air Base in Beaufort, SC warning passersby of the jets' loud noises. The slogan says, "The noise you hear is the sound of freedom."

The irony is the Marines are glad to do it and that is why most Americans are so proud of them. The Marines risk so much fighting for us, now it's time us to fight for them.

Sincerely,

Senator Jim DeMint

P.S. We can strengthen America. Change begins with you, so please get involved today and sign the petition.

Think it would be too late to get a Huckabee/DeMint ticket going?

From what I've seen of DeMint's stance on religion, abortion, gay marriage and now this I think that would be an excellent idea.

It's about TIME someone think about doing that to Berkeley !!!



                                   Yours in Yeshua,
                                   Curious

Mayor kicks Marines out of Toledo
Frighten people: 'He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area'

1-24th Marines were scheduled for weekend urban warfare training in downtown Toledo, when Carty gave them the boot

Mayor Carty Finkbeiner on Friday ordered some 200 members of Company A, 1st Battalion, 24th Marines from Grand Rapids, Michigan, out of Toledo just before the unit was supposed to start a weekend of urban warfare training downtown.

The mayor’s spokesperson, Brian Schwartz said, “the mayor asked them to leave because they frighten people. He did not want them practicing and drilling in a highly visible area."

Toledo police said they knew about the training and had approved the unit’s use of the Madison Building and the Promenade Park area. The training was scheduled to start Friday afternoon and last until Sunday. Police said the unit’s presence would have a minimal impact on the city. Police issued a press release earlier in the week saying the Marines would be wearing green camouflage uniforms, operate military vehicles, carry rifles, perform foot patrols,and fire blank ammunition during the exercise.

Schwartz said there was a breakdown in communication between police and the Finkbeiner administration that led to the mayor’s action.

“The Marines drilled here three times during the Ford administration and once under the Finkbeiner administration. After the last visit, the mayor told then police chief Jack Smith, that he did not want the marines back. Smith failed to inform the current police administration of the mayor’s feelings,” Schwartz said.

NBC24 spoke to Jack Smith who recalled that after the Marines last visit, he and the mayor had a heated exchange about  the training.

“He told me he did not want them, as he put it, 'playing war in Toledo,'" Smith recalled. "I told him, as a former Marine, that  if one young Marine’s life is saved because of training he or she received in Toledo, Ohio, then it was worth the inconvenience.”

Smith said if the mayor objected, then he should have been the one to convey those feelings to police. Smith took his run-in with the mayor as an objection to that last visit and not future training in Toledo. As a result, the Toledo police went ahead, granting approval to the 1-24th Marines to conduct the routine exercise. The police notified members of the Finkbeiner administration who were not aware that the mayor objected to units training in Toledo.

When the mayor found out, he sent a member of his staff to tell Marines they could not conduct urban operations in Toledo. The unit was notified about 3:30 p.m. after an advance team arrived in Toledo.   Five buses carrying some 200 Marines traveled four hours from Grand Rapids, only to find out the training had been shot down.

The unit briefly stopped at a another 1-24th Marine base in Perrysburg Township, then returned back to Grand Rapids where training was expected to be held this weekend. A spokesperson for the Marines said they were disappointed by the mayor’s decision especially after the city had been so helpful in the past.

Finkbeiner held a news conference Saturday night to address the growing controversy. Finkbeiner says bad planning and communication breakdowns led to his decision to bar a Marine Corps unit from training in downtown Toledo. Finkbeiner spent much of the twenty minute news conference explaining what he didn't know, and when he didn't know it.

“I don't know when we were first asked,” he says, “were we asked Tuesday or Wednesday of this week?”

Finkbeiner says regardless of when the Marines made their request to train downtown, it wasn’t a good idea. He cited public safety as the main reason the unit, from Grand Rapids, Michigan, couldn't train downtown.

“You want to talk about a potential for panic?” Finkbeiner asked, “ten to fourteen thousand people hearing rapid gunfire going off as they're going out of offices at four thirty, quarter to five in the afternoon?”

He says the Marines' plan wasn't well thought-out, but he offered to have them train at Jones Jr. High School or the Northtown Mall.

“I would have been happy to point out a number of potential sites in our city that would accommodate the same purpose,” he says.

In published reports, the Marines say they were not aware of such an offer. Finkbeiner says his office will investigate where the communication breakdown happened. The mayor wouldn't say whether he would allow the unit to plan any more training maneuvers downtown.

He says abandoned buildings like Jones Jr. High or the mall would have to suffice, if they want to train in Toledo. Otherwise, he suggests they take a cue from Hollywood, and build their own training campus where they can conduct their exercises away from the general public.

In Berkeley, CA they are so pro gay that they don't want the recruiters there because of the military "Don't ask don't tell" policy.

I think this is a bad trend getting started. There are too many liberals in powerful places. These towns should have to get their own military force in place. Why should they be protected by the very servicemen and women they are kicking out of their towns??

Both of these towns should be a shamed of themselves.

Not only is Berkeley pro-gay but even more so than that they are anti-war. They are convinced that there is no good reason to go to war nor to defend ourselves with any sort of force. They think that they can reason their way around any enemy. Actually what they are is like sheep that just lays down and lets the wolf overcome them while all their bleating does nothing to even slow the wolf down. In fact their bleating encourages the wolf to be more persistent.

We all need our sacrificial lambs to let the rest of the heard get away :D

Yeah, maybe we need to move them and their peace signs out to the front lines so our Soldiers can back off from there. It might save the lives of a few Soldiers?

Naw, they would just be in the way and get more of our Soldiers killed that were trying to save them.

I think if they want to protest then we should give them a free flight to Pakistan, Isreal, Iran, Syrai, Iraq, and a host of others in which conflict is going on....let them stand in the streets and wave their peace banners.....  15 minutes in a fox hole will change their entire perspective.

Showdown in Berkeley over Marine recruiting
Demonstrators pour into town ahead of tonight's City Council meeting

Berkeley is hunkering down for what is expected to be its largest and most raucous protest in years as hundreds of demonstrators from near and far pour into town for Tuesday night's City Council showdown over a Marine Corps recruiting station downtown.

Protesters from all sides of the debate over the Iraq war - from the anti-war Code Pink to groups supporting the troops and the war - have promised to spend the day in front of old City Hall, drumming, singing, chanting and exchanging barbs with bullhorns.

"Nothing has really gotten the press or the world's attention about war protests like this has," said Lisa Rubens, historian at the Regional Oral History Office at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library. "There's been this wonderfully out-of-proportion, knee-jerk response. It's clever, inflammatory and symbolic."

The council, at the request of members Betty Olds and Laurie Capitelli, is scheduled to decide tonight whether to revoke a letter it approved two weeks ago telling the Marines they are "unwelcome intruders" and should leave their post, which is one block from the UC Berkeley campus.

Some groups protesting the council's earlier action want it to go further - by apologizing to the Marines and revoking permits to allow Code Pink a parking space outside the recruiting station on Shattuck Square and the use of a bullhorn at its weekly protests there.

Anticipating big and rowdy crowds, the city is advising staff members who work at Maudelle Shirek City Hall to leave by 3 p.m. and keep public meetings to a minimum. The city also is setting up barricades so staff can get in and out of the building safely and is beefing up police, fire and paramedic services throughout the day.

Code Pink activists got an early start on the demonstration by camping out Monday night on the lawn at City Hall. About 60 activists, including a few of the tree-sitters from UC Berkeley's Oak Grove, danced, sang, listened to jazz and drank carrot juice as they pitched their tents for the night.

"This is a great gift to us to be able to ignite a national debate," said Medea Benjamin, Code Pink spokeswoman. "We're drawing a line in the sand on Shattuck Avenue and saying the war stops here."

Berkeley has hosted big and rowdy war protests for decades, but today's activities are the first anyone can remember that are drawing demonstrators from multiple and extreme sides of an issue. Code Pink, which once organized a breast-feeding playgroup at the Marines station, will share the City Hall lawn with AM radio hosts, the American Legion and outraged veterans from across the nation.

"It's an indication that the '60s are not completely dead in Berkeley," said Charles Wollenberg, chair of social sciences at Berkeley City College and author of "Berkeley: A City in History." "The tragedy is that the issue of the war seems to have gotten lost. The issue instead has become Berkeley itself, and I don't think that's what the City Council had in mind."

Councilwoman Linda Maio, who led the charge to tell the Marines they weren't welcome in town, agreed.

"We did not expect it to explode like this," she said, adding that the council received more than 24,000 e-mails on the topic. "But we'll take the heat and the attacks. Even though we're under a lot of pressure, I think it's fair to say this war is a misuse of our young people. And we'll stand up for that."

This is hardly the first time Berkeleyans have taken on the U.S. military.

A similar protest occurred in 1959, when UC Berkeley students protested the mandatory ROTC classes on campus. As a result of the demonstrations, the military classes were no longer required for all male students. The victory emboldened students to conduct one of the nation's first Vietnam War teach-ins, and by the late 1960s Berkeley had become a center of campus anti-war activism.

One regular at Berkeley demonstrations who will be noticeably absent from today's rallies is Country Joe McDonald, a Navy veteran and Vietnam-era peace activist famous for singing his "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag" at Woodstock in 1969. He says he will sit this one out.

The issue has very little to do with the Marines and a lot to do with political grandstanding and NIMBYism, McDonald said.

"The council said the Marines can't recruit here, they should recruit somewhere else," he said. "And if there's a problem, we still want you to help us. It's astounding. It allows everyone to make fun of Berkeley again."

He said protesters on both sides are driven by "civilian guilt."

"Most people yell and scream about this issue because they're trying to show how patriotic they are," he said. "At this rate, Berkeley's going to be a damn noisy place."
Council to meet on Marines letter

The Berkeley City Council meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Maudelle Shirek City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley. An overflow crowd is expected for discussion of the Marines recruiting center, which is expected to begin about 9 p.m. For those who don't get inside, the city will broadcast audio from the meeting from loudspeakers outside City Hall.

Marines refuse to retreat, Berkeley backtracks

New York Times best-selling author and military analyst Buzz Patterson believes the city of Berkeley, California, is backtracking from its hard stance against a Marine recruiting station because they were afraid of losing $2.3 million in federal funding.

The recruiting center opened about one year ago and quickly became a target in the ultra-liberal city. On January 29, the city council voted 6-3 in favor of a resolution telling the Marines they were not welcome in the city, and if the recruiters chose to stay, they would do so as "uninvited and unwelcome intruders."
 
A group Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill who were outraged at the resolution devised a plan to yank $2.3 million in federal funding from Berkeley programs. Lt. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson (USAF-Ret.), who took part in some pro-military counter-rallies at Berkeley, says he is pleased that apparently the mayor and two members of the council got the message.
 
"When the Republican senators and congressmen threatened to take $2.3 million away from the city of Berkeley, that got the very liberal city council's attention," says Patterson, "because $2.3 million is a lot of money. So they are now backtracking on that [resolution] because they see their pocketbooks being depleted."
 
Patterson believes the council took hard-line action to try to intimidate the Marines into leaving. "Berkeley ... has made [the Marines'] existence there very, very miserable. It just reeks of anti-Americanism and anti-military sentiment there," he adds. "And I think the Berkeley city council sends a very clear signal hoping the Marine Corps would actually voluntarily move out -- which they're not going to do."
 
The city of Berkeley plans to discuss softening the tone of its resolution at its Tuesday night council meeting.

Hmmmm "uninvited and unwelcome intruders" oops thats the wrong thing to say to a Marine. ;D  They stay out of spite, for that comment.


Let them lose the money, there "Rich" in money anyway.......

Marines find Ramadi more welcoming than Berkeley
California city officials would banish them

"The Marines are unwelcome here." These weren't the comments of a banana republic dictator or the rantings of a religious radical. These were the words of Tom Bates, the elected mayor of Berkeley.

It's difficult to match up the animosity of the residents of Berkeley, Calif., USA, with the residents of Ramadi, Anbar, Iraq. I met Ramadis who were so happy to have the Marines among them that they literally hugged and kissed them on the streets. Children made high-five signs when they saw Marines of the 3rd battalion 7th Marines on patrol and residents insisted they come in to drink chai and eat goats the hosts were willing to kill in their honor.

One resident grumbled the Marines of the 2nd battalion 5th Marines never stayed long enough after dinner. Iraqis are very hospitable and dinner can last several hours and long into the night.

Of course, Ramadi was no cakewalk. In 2005, the Marines told of having to run during the entire patrol. A moving, erratic target made it harder for an eager sniper to pick off a Marine. That was a tough time for the 3rd battalion 7th Marines Kilo Company, as told by Cpl. Tar Po.

Po was born in Burma. His family fled that Southeast Asian nation because of the political situation. Thanks to an aunt, the corporal's parents moved the family to California when he was just five years old. Po sailed through the school system until he hit a few bumps in his teenage years.

"I was hanging out with the wrong crowd," said the corporal, in his early 20s. He participated in the JROTC to join the Navy, but decided to join the Marine Corps after meeting a gunnery sergeant who impressed him.

"He kept me out of big trouble," said Po, who later confessed that he wanted to join the Corps to "blow things up." His teenage years were turbulent and the corporal still regrets putting his parents through so much grief. He joined the Marine Corps on an "open contract" and eventually became a 0311, "a grunt", a rifleman.

Like many young men and women recruited during a time of war, Po had no illusions. Most of the people I spoke to in Iraq and Afghanistan had joined after the start of hostilities. They signed up during a time of war.

We were standing in Ramadi, the sun was beating down hot and we were in full battle rattle. After loading up the vehicle for a convoy we headed for the chow hall, a makeshift building where Marines served meals out of robust Mermite containers. It was going to be a long day.

"I wanted to come to Iraq," said Po in a quiet voice that made him seem younger.

Choosing to come to a war zone is difficult enough for war protesters back in Berkeley to understand, but it makes sense to any military recruiter. To Po's generation, the generation whose parents posted "Baby on Board" signs in their rear window, the idea of risk and danger are not only appealing, for the few, there is a yearning to rise to a challenge so as not to fall to mediocrity.

Po got his share of danger when on Oct. 11, 2005, while rolling down Michigan Avenue, his convoy was hit by a pressure plate IED. .

After such a severe injury, Po could have left the Marine Corps. He could have gotten out and no one would have blamed him. His scar was an impressive gash across his arm, there were marks from the needle surgeons had pushed in and out of his skin. But Po chose to go back.

After only a couple of weeks in country, Po was injured again during a patrol. His arm was split open. Within hours, he was out of the country, on a military flight to Germany, at least that is what he was told. He actually doesn't remember much until he got back home to California.

It's one thing to go into the "unknown" to test one's limits, this is the motive for many who seek adventure or just want to see what they can stand. It's quite another to be wounded seriously and head back to a war zone.

At home, Po spent much time recuperating, but rest wasn't always on his mind.

"I really felt that I had let the other Marines down, like I wasn't doing my job."

The events that changed the corporal's life weren't strictly limited to his wounds.

"I respect my parents more than ever, they were there for me the whole time. I'm sorry I put them through so much."

After surgeries, therapy and much pain, the next question was obvious.

"No, I've never regretted becoming a Marine. It's one of the best experiences of my life."

Down the Bay from Berkeley, the Fremont Marine recruiting station is next to a shopping center, and just a stone's throw away from the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Station. This is an affluent area nestled near a chain of hills that run along the San Francisco Bay. If you visit the recruiting station, you'll see a few Marines hanging out with a couple of "poolees", young men and women who are about to join the Marine Corps. These are the ones who have passed the battery of tests that the majority of applicants will fail.

"Of every 10 people who are interested, only about three are qualified," said Staff Sgt. Felton C. Williams, the U.S. Marine Corps recruiter for the Fremont area. After completing the first part of the process, the screening, the poolees will become recruits at Marine basic training. Anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of those recruits will not finish the initial training.

Groups like Code Pink and The World Can't Wait shouted for a ban against the Marines and yet young men and women will seek out the Corps, looking for something they can't find elsewhere.

"It's business as usual. We aren't planning to move that office," Gunnery Sgt. Pauline Franklin said Monday. "We've been recruiting qualified men and women for 232 years. That's not going to stop now."

"We failed our city," said Gordon Wozniak, who was one of three council members who voted against the original declaration. "We embarrassed our city."

"It hurts to see what some of the people back home, saying the war is pointless," said Po wincing, the gash on his bare arm impossible to hide. It was a bright sunny day in Ramadi and we were about to convoy to a meeting at the city council. In fact, we were going near the road where Po was wounded.

"They just don't know," said the corporal. If anyone had the right to complain about the presence of Marines in a city, surely it was this young Marine who was on his second tour.

Who will defend the citizens of Berkeley should they come to some danger? The answer is those same Marines who are willing to be wounded and still return to duty. After a couple of days and a bit of pressure, the mayor of Berkeley and most of his city council members have capitulated in defeat. Fortunately, as "intruders" the Marines are made of much tougher stuff. If the Marines were able to tame Ramadi, a city that was proclaimed the religious capital of al-Qaida in Iraq by members of that organization, the Marines won't be swayed by a couple of people protesting.

Despite all the commotion about Berkeley, there was an upside to this story.

"More people inquired about becoming a Marine officer," said Officer Selection Officer Captain Richard Lund with some hesitation. Not everyone who wants to become a Marine can, but those who do, like Cpl. Tar Po, truly are the few.

 ;D   ;D   ;D   ;D    ROFL!

So, the actions of the Berkley NUTS have enhanced the recruiting efforts! BUT, their funding still needs to be cut.