BUSH CAMPAIGN OFFICIAL RESIGNS President Bush's New England campaign chairman stepped down Friday after the Democrats accused him of taking part in the jamming of their telephone lines in New Hampshire on Election Day 2002. "The Democrats' allegations against me are without merit," the official, James Tobin, said in a statement. "But to avoid any harm to the campaign from their underhanded tactics, I elected earlier this week to step down from my voluntary position with the campaign." Last s...

"I think the price is above what's justified by the fundamentals of the marketplace," John Snow said. "It's out of line with the fundamentals, and there will be a movement back toward the fundamentals, which means a lower price." John Snow, Secretary of the Treasury, is George Bush's point man on the economy who seems to think (noting the quote above) that oil is overvalued relative to the supply and demand in the worldwide economic system. The oil market this morning reacted to this ...

The first debate was very interesting to watch but there was something that I saw the first time that took several days of pondering to understand. Why was Bush so fidgetty, perhaps squirmy is the word in the first 22 minutes? What was going on that made him so out of touch with what he was supposed to be doing (i.e. grabbing the initiative) that allowed Kerry to beat him so soundly? Now we know from 9/11 that Mr. Bush is not one to get overly emotional about crisis situations. We saw h...

There is so much information coming out of Iraq that Americans are becoming bored with the daily stats on how many bombs blew up and how many casualties and deaths occured. We are constantly amazed by the neocons marching men like Allawi in front of the camera and Congress to speak words written by a Bush speechwriter reassuring us that things are getting better. We have the protestations of Donald Rumsfeld who says elections aren't perfect so getting 50 to 80% of the people involved in the...

My wife and I were talking with some friends this weekend and the discussion turned to the election. The other couple, who are good people and whom we care greatly about astonished us by saying that they believe that if John Kerry is elected that the Bible will be banned from public places. It took me a moment or two to "process" this as it was so extreme a statement I knew they couldn't have made it up themselves but had to be a "talking point" from some conservative radio or tv program th...

Another day brings still another set of reports from across the political spectrum, including FOX news this morning on the deteriorating situation in Iraq. More deaths (American servicemen numbering now into the thousands, the Iraqi death toll reported to be over 30,000) and reports of beheadings and hostages taken. A Canadian Report last night (CBC) said that less than 15% of Iraq is under control of either the Americans or the Iraqi interim government and that fighting was too widespread ...

Politics is very much the "art of the debateable." Every one is entitled to an opinion and the way we settle the conflict over viewpoints is an election (coming right up, one long election night!). But before you take the conservatives at their word over all the wonderful things we are saying we do in Iraq, I have a website you should visit. Link is a site run by soldiers, featuring stories from soldiers predominantly now returned from Iraq. The reason you should hear "their storie...

It has been my contention for sometime now that the news media (both old and new) has lost touch with reality in terms of how it portrays the news as "90% spin and 10% questionable reporting" giving Americans and the world a distorted picture that is neither "fair or balanced." The upcoming debate on foreign policy (September 30th) may well be a spotlight event for the distortion that so plagues what we have to base the most important decision many people make every 4 years. So, without...

Vladmir Putin, Czar of Russia announce today sweeping measures designed to centralize his authority politically and is stating that "terrorism" is now the number 1 problem in Russia. He said "Over the 15 years of its new life, civil society in Russia hasn't really awakened," Izvestia said. "And the president has decided that in conditions demanding fast, effective, and often urgent decisions, it's better not to have such a society -- because the authorities are uncertain of the results of wa...

Probably the most heavily scrutinized individuals in the history of politics are George Bush and John Kerry. Not a day goes by that someone doesn't e-mail me a political cartoon on one or both. They are, if you looked at them the way their critics do, personifications of evil and good, Christian and unholy, ready to lead us into battle or ready to run for the hills, ready to take on the challenges that face us in terms of social security, education, terrorism, the black plague and children ...

There are 2 months before the national elections and one of the two main issues is American Foreign Policy, especially as witnessed in Iraq. The Bush Administration notes that since 9/11 we have destroyed the dictatorships in Iraq and Afghanistan and tightened American security to lessen the threat in the United States. I'm not sure how we will know we are safer (regardless of how many times the President tells us to think it) until terrorists are actually caught in some stage of trying to ...

I attended a recent showing of "Outfoxed" which was billed by those that I had heard speak of it as a left wing attempt at bashing Rupert Murdoch and Foxnews for right wing bias in editting the news to fit the propoganda mechanism that is the current right wing administration. There were descriptions that included "poor quality filming and camera work" as well as "editting issues" that made the film in part unwatchable. However, the film raises several issues that should be considered rega...

Quite often in my conversations on-line the topic of terrorist attacks comes up because around the country it is a unifying theme about how we live our lives today. People are somewhat to very concerned that before the election there will be an attack. They have surmised (rightly or wrongly) that homeland security is very difficult to do, that there are holes in the safety net that protects us and they think Al Qaeda must make a statement soon in order to remain relevant as a "topic of disc...

(I wrote an article "There Ought to Be a Law" to express the opinion that I felt that maybe our society should pull back a bit on making sports such a central feature of our kids life and provide a level playing field for maybe (if their parents chose) getting them involved in Sunday Schools by making Sunday mornings sports free. Many respondents (and I appreciate all views, even those 180 degrees opposed to mine) expressed outrage about interference into their lives by doing something like...

(This article reflects my sense of anxiety over what is a religious issue in a sense. However, I decided to put on the Politics Forum because it is about using laws to promote values in society.) Recently a long time friend invited me to a meeting of the education committee at my church. I no longer have children (well, she's 25, so, sort of, but not really) and spend most of my time in trying to encourage young families whom are seeking God to come and see what our church is all about...