Carol Fisher, an activist with "The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime," will be sentenced this Friday, June 2 at 10 am in the courtroom of Judge Timothy McGinty, on the 21st floor of the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland.

Ms. Fisher was convicted on April 28 of 2 counts of assaulting police officers in Cleveland Heights for putting up posters which read "Bush Step Down."  This case been covered in the Cleveland Free Times, Sun Press, the Plain Dealer, along with radio shows and blogs all over the country.  For background on the case, go to:

http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1635&Itemid=61

She is facing a maximum of three years in jail with a fine of several thousand dollars.  After the guilty verdict, Judge McGinty told her, "When you come to the sentencing, be prepared to apologize and admit you were wrong, or bring your toothbrush - you are going to jail."  Judge McGinty repeated these threats to her attorneys yesterday.

"It's a national disgrace that President Bush has yet again bowed to the far-right extremists," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese

WASHINGTON - In a column for the conservative magazine, The Weekly Standard, Executive Editor Fred Barnes broke the news that President Bush has decided to bow to the weeks of demands from the right-wing extremist groups and hold a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House to reiterate his support of the Federal Marriage Amendment. According to Barnes, the Rose Garden press conference is scheduled for Monday, June 5, a day before the Senate is expected to vote down the Constitutional amendment.

"It's a national disgrace that President Bush has yet again bowed to the far-right extremists. Instead of addressing the real challenges facing American families -- from record high gas prices, bankrupting health care costs and an endless and costly war in Iraq -- the President will further divide this country and put the far-right extremist's interests ahead of the American people's well-being," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.

Editor's Note: Founding editor of the Free Press, Steve Conliff died today, June 1, of cancer. His alternative and underground writings pre-date the founding of the Free Press in 1970. Conliff had just compiled the first seven volumes of the Free Press for an anthology book project for CICJ Books. We will get his work in print as soon as possible. Our condolences go out to his wife Suzie Bird-Conliff and his family, particularly his son Byron who has worked closely with the Free Press this year. The following article is re-run to highlight one of the reasons Conliff is a legend in this town. Yippie, what a great life!

Steve Conliff's website

Read Steve's last remarks to the Free Press Awards Dinner

On pies and Rhodes
May 1, 2001

Green Party candidates who submitted more than twice the legally required number of petition signatures to get on this fall's Ohio ballot are being stonewalled by the state's infamous Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who has expressed personal contempt for the Greens' gubernatorial candidate, Bob Fitrakis.

Blackwell served as co-chair of the Ohio 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. As chief administrator of the statewide ballot, he delivered Ohio's 20 electoral votes---and thus the presidency---to George W. Bush in a bitterly contested election riddled with charges of intimidation, fraud and theft, electronic and otherwise. Nearly two years later, the charges that the election was stolen continue to escalate.

Blackwell is now Ohio's Republican nominee for governor. His Democratic opponent in the fall, 2006, vote is U.S. Congressman Ted Strickland. A moderate Methodist minister from southern Ohio, Strickland currently holds a slight lead in the polls over the extreme right-wing fundamentalist Blackwell.