Mike Ferner

June 13, 2006
By Mike Ferner

Over 500 people in the packed hall applauded eagerly when Dr. Bob Bowman stated he was an advocate of doctor-controlled, single-payer health care for all.

They cheered louder still when the congressional candidate from Florida’s 15th District pledged that his first piece of legislation submitted in the U.S. House of Representatives would be articles of impeachment.

But they simultaneously jumped to their feet and roared approval when he leaned over the podium and said he was running with a group of Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, Independents and non politicians “…who are all united by one thing. We want to bring our troops home from George Bush’s quagmire in Iraq and expose the lies that allowed him to send them there, including 9/11.”

March 20, 2006
By Mike Ferner and Scott Blackburn

Washington D.C. — By a vote of 348-71, the U.S. House of Representatives voted March 16 to spend 67,000,000,000 dollars more for open-ended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite the fact that a growing majority of the people they represent believe the war is wrong.

In an eleventh hour effort on March 15 to appeal to the conscience of the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, six peace activists took their case to his office on Capitol Hill where they read the names of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians killed in the war, and negotiated with Hastert’s staff for a meeting with the Illinois congressman.

March 14, 2006
By Mike Ferner

Washington, March 14 — Last Wednesday evening, the House Appropriations Committee voted to throw another $67,000,000,000 at the murderous work in Iraq and Afghanistan. That night members of the committee, righteously indignant and nearly unanimous, gave President “Bring ‘Em On” Bush a loud slap in the face.

Whoa! You mean the most powerful committee in Congress voted 62-2 to stop funding our national war crimes orgy? Of course they did…and then we all lived happily ever after.

Mar 3, 2006
By Mike Ferner

WASHINGTON — Fifteen persons were arrested Wednesday in front of the White House after winding their way for two hours through the streets of the nation’s capital, demanding the U.S. stop torturing detainees in military prisons.

Members of Witness Against Torture began their protest at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, continuing to the Capitol and the Department of Justice, and ending at the White House where U.S. Park Police carried out the arrests. Speakers called on officials in each of the buildings to cease planning and executing policies that have injured and killed people in prisons such as Guantanamo Bay, Bagram in Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

February 28, 2006
by Mike Ferner

Holding a banner that read, “GOD FORGIVE AMERICA,” seven peace activists were arrested yesterday in front of the White House, in a civil disobedience protest against the war in Iraq.

Arrested by U.S. Park Police were Brian Terrell, Ed Bloomer, and Elton Davis, all from Catholic Worker communities in the Des Moines, Iowa area, David Goodner, University of Iowa student, Eileen Hansen, a Catholic Worker from the Winona, Minnesota, Jeff Leys, co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV), and Bernie Meyer, a retired social services worker from Olympia, Washington.