ABQjournal: Election 2004: A Look at Nuclear Issues By John Fleck, Journal Staff Writer

John Kerry and George W. Bush offer voters a clear choice on what has become the central national debate about the future direction of the U.S. nuclear arsenalâ — the question of whether to pursue a new nuclear bomb designed to destroy underground enemy bunkers. …

Bush’s administration is pushing for the design of a new nuclear bunker-busting bomb. …

“There is a clear military utility to this weapon,” Bush’s top nuclear weapons program manager, Linton Brooks, told a Senate committee in March.

Kerry opposes it.

“This is a weapon we don’t need,” Kerry countered in a June 1 campaign speech in Florida, “and it undermines our credibility in persuading other nations. What kind of a message does it send when we’re asking other countries not to develop nuclear weapons, but developing new ones ourselves?”

ABQjournal: Campaign Issues 2004: Candidates Differ on Energy Production, Efficiency By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer

Listen to President George Bush and Sen. John Kerry talk about energy issues and you might wonder what the difference is between the two candidates.

Both presidential candidates are pledging to tackle America’s dependence on foreign oil, reduce gasoline prices and expand domestic oil and natural gas production without harming the environment. …

But the candidates do part ways.

Bush is putting a heavier emphasis on increased domestic production, and a cornerstone of his plan to get more oil flowing is opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other federal land in the West to drilling. …

Kerry has been a vocal opponent of ANWR development in Alaska and once threatened a Senate filibuster on the issue.

Kerry’s energy plan focuses on dramatic improvements in fuel efficiency, clean fuels and renewable energy— including ambitious goals of 20 percent of fuels from clean sources and 20 percent of energy from renewables like wind and solar by 2020— with the help of billions of federal dollars.

“There is no way possible for our nation to drill its way out of this predicament,” Kerry said May 25 in Portland, Ore. “We have to invent our way out of this predicament.”

Bush proposes more modest investments and does not support large increases in fuel-efficiency standards. He has not set a renewable energy production target. And he blames Congress for stalling progress on his initiatives by not passing an energy bill. [mjh: Republicans control Congress] …

Kerry’s energy plan calls for a major reduction in the amount of gasoline used in America— both by improving vehicle fuel efficiency and by dramatically increasing the use of alternative fuels. …

Bush also wants to increase gasoline supplies by expanding oil refinery capacity with the help of changes in Clean Air Act regulations, now tied up in court challenges, that would allow refineries to upgrade without being forced to install new pollution controls but also without increasing emissions.

Christian Science Monitor Blog | Notebook: At the Conventions

On the last night of the Republican National Convention, I left Madison Square Garden and went outside to gauge the mood on the streets. It was easy to see that the tension from Tuesday night had returned.

As I walked just outside the Garden, a police captain with a bullhorn started yelling at a group of about five protesters, and told them that if they wanted to protest, they had to go to the designated protest area on 9th Ave. Four of them started to move in the direction indicated, but one of the protesters started to walk in the other direction. [It’s important to note here that lots of other people were moving in the same “other” direction at the same time.] The police captain yelled even more at the young man. Then the police captain roughly pushed a barricade out of the way and moved aggresively towards the young man.

Suddenly 50 other cops appeared out of nowhere. The young protester had literally not moved an inch since the captain had yelled at him the second time. He hadn’t raised his hands, or made ANY kind of threatening gesture. It was totally the reaction of the police captain that the police themselves had reacted to. You would have thought the young man had pulled a rocket-propelled grenade from his backpack.

The young man just smiled, shrugged and moved in the direction that the captain had indicated. He probably didn’t need to aggravate the police in the first place, but the reaction to his decision to “disperse” in the wrong direction was, in my view, WAY out of proportion.

Bush Secrecy Introduction

‘Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix.’ Harry S. Truman

Harry Truman understood the importance of open government in a free society. George W. Bush does not.

From the first days of his administration, President Bush has taken steps to tighten the government’s hold on information and limit public scrutiny of its activities. … Here, Public Citizen chronicles and documents the administration’s obsession with secrecy, as well as the steps we, and others, are taking to fight it. … In the long run, we don’t think Americans will put up with a government that operates on the principle of keeping them in ignorance. The more light we shine on these actions, the less likely they are to succeed.

USATODAY.com – The GOP doesn’t reflect America By Michael Moore

I’ve often found that if I go down the list of ‘liberal’ issues with people who say they’re Republican, they are quite liberal and not in sync with the Republicans who run the country. Most don’t want America to be the world’s police officer and prefer peace to war. They applaud civil rights, believe all Americans should have health insurance and think assault weapons should be banned. Though they may personally oppose abortion, they usually don’t think the government has the right to tell a women what to do with her body.

There’s a name for these Republicans: RINOs or Republican In Name Only. They possess a liberal, open mind and don’t believe in creating a worse life for anyone else.

So why do they use the same label as those who back a status quo of women earning 75 cents to every dollar a man earns, 45 million people without health coverage and a president who has two more countries left on his axis-of-evil-regime-change list?

I asked my friend on the street. He said what I hear from all RINOs: “I don’t want the government taking my hard-earned money and taxing me to death. That’s what the Democrats do.”

Money. That’s what it comes down to for the RINOs. They do work hard and have been squeezed even harder to make ends meet. They blame Democrats for wanting to take their money. Never mind that it’s Republican tax cuts for the rich and billions spent on the Iraq war that have created the largest deficits in history and will put all of us in hock for years to come.

Staying angry: Eight loathsome things about the GOP By Michael Manville, Freezerbox

I’ll vote for Kerry because for all that is wrong with the Democrats, the Republican Party is something else altogether. What was once the Party of Lincoln has become the party of obstreperous children, alternately pouting and bullying, dismissive of complicated problems that aren’t easily resolved and fixated instead on the simplistic and the irrelevant. …

This false face of moderation is one of two grand lies perpetuated by the national GOP. The second lie is victimhood, capital-V Victimhood, forever, victimhood. The party of big money and big business laments endlessly that it is marginalized and persecuted, that the government works continuously against it, that the press distorts and ignores its positions. Only sheer repetition could make this scenario plausible. … Thus a spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert says with a straight face, “it’s extremely difficult to govern when you control all three branches of government.” …

Gott mit uns: On Bush and Hitler’s rhetoric By Bob Fitrakis, Columbus Free Press

President Bush told Texas evangelist James Robinson that “I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can’t explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen . . . I know it won’t be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.”

With 49.3% of New York City residents in a recent Zogby poll believing that some people in our government knew of the 911 attack in advance and allowed it to happen, the President as right-wing evangelical prophet is under siege in his Madison Square Garden bunker. Convention watchers should take careful note of the theocratic nationalist rhetoric at the Republican convention this week.

When was the last time a Western nation had a leader so obsessed with God and claiming God was on our side?