LOL!!!! And Cheer!!

by **sunny** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:42 pm

You gotta love these grannies! <a href="http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/nation/14394318.htm">www.grandforks.com/mld/gr...394318.htm</a> ___________________________________________________ Members of anti-war `Granny Peace Brigade' reject plea deal BY HELEN PETERSON New York Daily News NEW YORK - Waving canes and white-knuckling their walkers, 18 unrepentant anti-war grannies nixed a plea deal Thursday before going on trial for rallying outside a Times Square recruiting station. The women, all facing disorderly conduct charges in Manhattan Criminal Court, refused the last-minute deal in which prosecutors offered to dismiss the cases if they stayed out of trouble for six months. The war in Iraq "is wrong as all getout! And we're against it, and we'll do whatever it takes, whatever we can do to stop it," Marie Runyon, 91, said, waving her cane before entering the courthouse. Their attorney Norman Siegel said the aging agitators spurned the deal because "they felt they didn't do anything wrong." They face up to 15 days in jail if convicted of disorderly conduct in connection with the Oct. 17, 2005, rally, in which they sat in front of the station. Police Officer Miguel Cruz identified Runyon when asked on cross-examination by defense attorney Earl Ward if anyone was blocking the door. "I can tell you this one was," Cruz said, pointing at the silver-haired grandmother. "Did you see her with her walker?" Ward asked. "Yes," Cruz said. Cruz also exchanged smiles with three of the women he had arrested. They giggled when he identified them in court. All 18 women are expected to testify. As Thursday's procedure wore on, defiance gave way to naps for some of the grannies, many of whom wore black T-shirts with the slogan "We will not be silent." Earlier, NYPD Lt. Kevin Lee said he twice ordered the women to disperse, but they refused. "After the second order was issued, I then signaled my officers to move in, help the ladies up and take them into custody," he said. He conceded they were cooperative, polite and pleasant as they were being arrested. In opening statements in the nonjury trial before Judge Neil Ross, prosecutor Amy Miller said the case "is not about the war, it's about disorderly conduct" and blocking foot traffic. Siegel said the women, calling themselves the Granny Peace Brigade, went to the recruiting center to enlist so that their grandchildren would not have to fight. But the door was locked, they said, so they sat. He denied they blocked the door.

by **blanc** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 4:39 pm

hooray. no wonder they want a flu epidemic.

by **StarmanSkye** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 7:21 pm

"In opening statements in the nonjury trial before Judge Neil Ross, prosecutor Amy Miller said the case "is not about the war, it's about disorderly conduct" and blocking foot traffic." That's what 'they' do -- remove consideration of a protester's motive and state-of-mind in determining whether a given action of civil disobediance has a moral and legal basis -- but motive and state of mind are recognized as crucial in determining guilt or innocence in cases of murder, manslaughter, self-defense, theft, and contract fraud -- and likely many other instances I can't think of off the top of my head. The absurdity reveals the enormous self-contradiction and fraud of American 'values', that sitting on a sidewalk, blocking traffic in front of a military enlistment center is 'disorderly conduct', but apparently it's OK that the US has been and is involved in a horrific invasion and war of occupation in a foreign land that clearly violated US and International Law, was predicated on deliberate lies and conspirational falsification of information, in which monstrous warcrimes have been committed routinely and with full knowledge and authorization of the military chain-of-command, in which an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 innocent men, women and children have been murdered and at least an equal number greviously injured, and some 14,000 (min.) people are currently imprisoned, most without being charged with anything and many being held in secret, and many likely being tortured and subjected to cruel and degrading treatment. How low we've sunk -- even the half-assed excuses for the Vietnam war weren't so abysmally defective. IMO: The Grannys are showing-up the Generals and Majors and Captains and Lieutenants with acts of courage and integrity that put these officers to absolute shame. My hats-off to 'em! Also -- I hadn't seen that they'd refused the 'deal'. Way to go. Starman

by **sunny** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 1:30 pm

<a href="http://1010wins.com/pages/29628.php">1010wins.com/pages/29628.php</a> At that, the packed courtroom erupted in applause.

by **Sepka** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 2:15 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>"In opening statements in the nonjury trial before Judge Neil Ross, prosecutor Amy Miller said the case "is not about the war, it's about disorderly conduct" and blocking foot traffic." That's what 'they' do -- remove consideration of a protester's motive and state-of-mind in determining whether a given action of civil disobediance has a moral and legal basis -- but motive and state of mind are recognized as crucial in determining guilt or innocence in cases of murder, manslaughter, self-defense, theft, and contract fraud -- and likely many other instances I can't think of off the top of my head.<hr></blockquote> The prosecutor is always going to try to frame consideration of the case in the manner most favourable to a conviction, just as the defense will try to get jurors to consider the issues in such a way as to force them to acquit. That happens in mass murder trials just as much as it does in littering trials. That's a generic failing of the English "confrontational" style of justice. As I so often end up saying around here, that's not evidence of a conspiracy, but simply the way that the system is designed to work. If you're arguing that the system seems poorly designed to lead to justice, I'd have to agree with you there. It probably worked fairly well a few hundred years ago, when everyone in court with the probable exception of the judge was from the same village, and they all knew one another and could judge judge the case based on both personalities and events. Over the years, lawyers have managed to elaborate it into a sort of sporting contest, in which some facts are completely ignored, some are given extra weight, and the case is treated as an abstract event, completely separate from the history of the defendant's and plaintiff's lives. The idea seems no longer to be to produce a fair verdict, but simply to follow the rules for their own sake. I'd much prefer to see some variant on the Napoleonic system, with both sides cooperating to bring all possible evidence to light for the consideration of the court. -Sepka the Space Weasel

by * » Fri Apr 28, 2006 3:05 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr> hooray. no wonder they want a flu epidemic.<hr></blockquote> oh, they'll get those grannies one way or the other - Plan B is already in the works in case the pandemic fails to materialize as scheduled: "The vaccine adjuvant, MF59, that NIH proposes to add to flu vaccine given to the frail elderly, is not licensed in the U.S. as safe for human use. MF59 contains squalene, which can cause autoimmunity. Some ill Gulf War veterans, who were given anthrax vaccine and other experimental vaccines, have tested positive for squalene antibodies even though the U.S. Department of Defense denies putting the adjuvant MF59 in anthrax and other vaccines given to soldiers. The tragic consequences of experimenting on America's elderly population by giving them annual flu vaccinations laced with MF59 will be that, when they develop lupus, rheumatorid arthritis, asthma or die, it will be written off as old age and unrelated to the squalene injected into their bodies via flu vaccines. The elderly with as yet unidentified genetic factors that make them exquisitely vulnerable to squalene-induced autommunity or death will be the first to go down. The suggestion that the notoriously ineffective flu vaccine be made more toxic by adding squalene to a brew that already contains mercury is nothing more than a callous disregard for human life. If Americans do not understand what is being done to them in the name of disease control and take action, they will be forced one day to be injected with squalene containing flu vaccines whenever the Secretary of Health declares an emergency. Go to www.nvic.org and click on "Liability Shield Given to Pharma" and read NVIC's letter to Senate staffer Col. Robert Kadlec." <a href="http://whale.to/vaccines/nvic7.html">Experts Say Elderly Need Better Flu Shot</a>

by **antiaristo** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 3:36 pm

Been picked up by the Guardian <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Meet Bush's latest enemy in the war on Iraq: the Raging Grannies of Tucson, Arizona 'Peace grannies' part of growing anti-war network Elderly women tried to enlist in place of young Oliver Burkeman Emma Brockes New York Saturday April 29, 2006 The Guardian Three years after the start of the Iraq war, one thing New York police do not lack is experience in dealing with protesters - so when they were called to a disturbance at the military recruitment centre in Times Square last October, it sounded like just another routine demonstration. Instead, they found 18 elderly women, many in their 80s and one aged 90, blocking the entrance and demanding to enlist in place of young men. They called themselves Grandmothers Against The War, and after they ignored polite requests to move on, police had no option but to arrest them, making sure the handcuffs weren't too tight, and cart them off - complete with canes and walking frames - to the holding cells. They were finally acquitted yesterday, after a trial that caught New Yorkers' imagination, even as it seemed to agonise the prosecutors saddled with the job of arguing that the "peace grannies", as they became known, should be jailed. At the height of the proceedings, Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist who became a celebrity for camping for months outside George Bush's Texas ranch after her son was killed in Iraq, showed up to lend her support. The women are part of a growing network of American anti-war groups made up of senior citizens, including the Raging Grannies of Tucson, Arizona, and Grandmothers for Peace International, who use the positive social stereotype attaching to grandmothers - and the reluctance of the authorities to come down too hard on them - to further their cause. Banners held by sympathisers outside the Manhattan courtroom read "Arrest Bush, Free the Grannies" and "Can't whip the insurgents? Whip Grannies!" "I'm very happy," Joan Wiles, 74, who founded Grandmothers Against The War two years ago, said yesterday. "Our goal was to put the war on trial, and I think we did that. Mission accomplished." Ms Wile, a former cabaret singer and songwriter who wrote the original music to Lynn Redgrave's 1975 film The Happy Hooker, said she had protested only twice before in her life: once in the 1980s for nuclear disarmament, and then in 2000 in the Million Mom March, which demanded tighter gun control. Their experience in detention, where they were kept two to a cell for several hours before being released, had been "very unpleasant", she said. But the arresting officers, who in some cases had to hoist the protesters delicately up from the ground in Times Square, had been "absolutely darling". Their profile got a significant boost when the case was taken on by Norman Siegel, a veteran New York civil liberties lawyer. "I think the grannies really resonated with the public," he said. "First, everybody has a grandmother. And second, these are very accomplished women who are incredibly passionate, intelligent, witty and charming. My strategy was to put every one of them on the stand so that the judge and the public could see who they were: people of conscience." That strategy led to amusing scenes in the courtroom, in which it sometimes seemed as if the youthful judge and prosecutors were being cross-examined by the defendants. One defendant, Judy Lear, was asked by district attorney Amy Miller if she really would have moved out of the way had someone wanted to enlist that day. "I'm a very polite person," she responded sternly. Ms Miller hastened to agree. "I'm sure you are," she said. The peace grannies intend to march with Ms Sheehan in a demonstration in New York today, and plan a second demonstration in Washington on Mother's Day, May 14 in the US. Prosecutors insisted that the case was a simple public order matter that should not have been turned into a civil liberties issue. But Mr Siegel was blunt: "Once they decided they were going to put the grannies on trial," he told the Guardian, "I said: 'Look. Let's put the war on trial.'" It was a matter of some frustration for Ms Wile that the women had technically won their case, which was tried without a jury, not on arguments connected to the right to protest, but on whether or not they had been blocking the recruiting-centre door. She refused to be drawn on what other factors might have swayed his decision. "The judge was charming and funny," Ms Wile said. "Whether he was influenced by the fact that we were grandmothers, I couldn't say."<hr></blockquote> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1764096,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/usa/st...96,00.html</a>

LOL!!!! And Cheer!!

LOL!!!! And Cheer!!

granny power

Re: LOL!!!! And Cheer!!

Grannies are not guilty!

Re: LOL!!!! And Cheer!!

Re: granny power

Everyone loves a granny with balls

Who is online