Reading the transcript and listening to some of the sound bites from last week’s arguments before the Supreme Court over the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law again reminds that the real issue isn’t about us but them; about the career politicians and not “we the people”; about perpetuating themselves in office, not doing the people’s business.I […]

Remarks by a high-ranking Israeli government official give voice to a policy option that has been widely implied but not discussed openly – the possible assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.Last Thursday, Israel’s security cabinet decided in principle to “remove” Arafat. Implicit in the decision was what that might mean. Arafat has made it clear […]

You can ask Americans to spend $166 billion to get the job done in Iraq and in Afghanistan (that’s $79 billion so far, plus the president’s new request for $87 billion).You can ask us to tolerate modest budget deficits while spending what’s needed to meet a major national challenge.But President Bush can’t ask us for […]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent an alarming message last week about the 660 or so detainees at Guantanamo Bay.The government will hold the majority of the prisoners without a trial or any judicial oversight for the foreseeable future.“Our interest is in not trying them and letting them out,” Rumsfeld said to the Associated Press. “Our […]

Smugglers were able to breach America’s security net and bring uranium into the Port of Los Angeles last week.Luckily, the smugglers work for ABC News and the 15 pounds of depleted uranium posed no threat to U.S. security or the men and women who came into contact with it.This is the second time ABC has […]

How have you been? How are the wives and kids?I’m just writing to let you know that I still think of you often. Mostly when I take off my shoes.That’s standard operating procedure over here at airports now, Osama. Can I call you Sammy?Anyway, that’s just a routine part of life nowadays. You have to […]

Bangor Daily News, Sept.6A year ago, many Mainers learned for the first time that hundreds of Central American men spend their summers toiling in the Maine woods. They learned this after 14 of these men died when the van they were riding in plunged off a remote logging road bridge into the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.In […]

Oh, the oppression, the pain, the forced activity for no gain. Oh, the humanity.Already, we can hear the complaints about Poland teens who will be forced – forced – to apply to college as a graduation requirement. The new policy at Poland Regional High School will require students to submit an application to at least […]

The neocons and their maximum leader haven’t figured it out, but we aren’t going to win the “war on terror.” Or maybe they have. Either way, we’re in Iraq for the long haul.That, it seems, is the import of the president’s request for $87 billion more for Iraq, where weapons of mass destruction, the newspapers […]

Two years ago, we wondered if things could ever be the same, if normalcy would ever return.Slowly, in small steps taken every day, big parts of our lives have returned to normal.Perhaps as an odd testament to the country’s resilience, we have returned our attention to celebrity and the sensational. A kiss on MTV between […]