President Bush debuted a $2.4 trillion budget Monday.The initial reviews are not good.The budget projects reducing the deficit from this year’s record $521 billion to $364 billion in 2005, but it doesn’t include any money for Iraq or Afghanistan. The emergency $87 billion appropriation passed last year doesn’t go beyond Sept. 30, but the need […]

The media maketh and the media taketh away. So say the political pros running the recently revamped Dean campaign.As Democratic candidates head into another busy day of nomination politics, the self-proclaimed Deaniacs are up in arms over the hatchet job that they say has been performed on their candidate by Big Media.Maybe they make a […]

With primary season in full swing and every news channel oozing with pundits’ certitudes, this is an embarrassing thing to admit.But here goes: I am a columnist who is missing the “prediction” gene.As best I can tell, this is a rare affliction among political commentators. And you’d think, as with any disorder, that my condition […]

Police officers in Auburn should feel vindicated.Finally, after months of questionable legal maneuvering, the city released the results of an investigation conducted by a Portland law firm into the events surrounding the arrest of Mayor Norm Guay in August.In our reading of the report, the police acted appropriately. They had reason to believe the mayor, […]

CONCORD, N.H. – “I’ll be honest with you about something,” Sen. John Edwards tells a group of employees at a leather-goods manufacturing shop here, as if he is about to let slip a secret he rarely confides to anyone – despite the presence of dozens of TV cameras. “I don’t think I can change this […]

The 31st anniversary of Roe vs. Wade recently was played out with familiar theatrics. “Thousands” marched against abortion in the cold streets of Washington. In the evening, believers in the morally obtuse cult of “choice” chose a warm hotel ballroom in which to celebrate their success in reducing a baby to a meaningless blob with […]

Bangor Daily News, Jan. 24Gov. John Baldacci can be forgiven for feeling like he is living the movie “Groundhog Day.” In the governor’s case, the repeated winter day has him preparing to give a major speech while at the same time feverishly trying to broker a deal to save a paper mill and the hundreds […]

A showdown is coming.It’s “High Noon,” but instead of a western sheriff facing down a deadly outlaw, it’s members of the Legislature shooting it out with a nasty piece of federal law.No doubt, lawmakers in Augusta who have proposed a new bill to fight the No Child Left Behind Act would like the comparison to […]

The voice on the tape is unnerving. Afraid, calm and doomed.American Airlines flight attendant Betty Ann Ong was on board Flight 11, one of the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center. Moments before the crash, Ong was able to call the airline and describe what was going on.Although the content of the […]

If you own a house in Auburn, you pay taxes.If you own personal property in Auburn, you pay taxes.If you’re a quasi-governmental body, you get a free pass.Why?Why should the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments receive special treatment?Current state law says AVCOG must pay property taxes. The organization owes the city more than $25,000 for […]