Watching Dean on TV celebrating 3rd place

in Iowa embarrassed me. Watching John Edwards speak after his surprise 2nd-place finish was refreshing and hopeful. Edwards spoke to America during his 7 minutes of coverage by all the networks. Dean

Martin Luther King was a true American hero

and champion of our basic rights. Without him we would be a more backward country today - and perhaps have more internal violence. He showed the way for whites as well as blacks towards a society of e

Screwed up city bureaucracy is exposed

by Tim Paxton. He posted this to the Lake Whatcom discussion group and has given permission for posting here. I phoned the city attorney’s office and asked the name of this attorney in Tim’s report. T

Northwest Citizen is firmly for Howard Dean

for President. The most important single reason is that I think he can beat George Bush. I’m independent, never having belonged to either party. Some of my best liberal friends insist I’m a closet con

The second issue of The Town Crier is out

The online edition has the same articles as the four-page tabloid. It would help if the editor would put dates with the online articles so we know which are current. Editor James Johann prints an anal

Posted mid January at bottom of home page

About 240 citizens check NwCitizen each day and regular readers check about once a week. Over 4,000 unique - different - citizens check this site every month. Examining where you come from reve

Find your way - and please use it

We read that 35 US soldiers were “hit” in Iraq yesterday. When our Bellingham Herald does print war casualties on the front page, the choice of words seeks to minimize the tragedy. Hit. Did someone pu

Did you feel the earthquake at 4:11 pm

this afternoon? A small 2.7 intensity quake under the southern part of Chuckanut Mountain, about 4 miles south of Fairhaven, jolted us. You can check the earthquake site for details.

Does FoxNews lie and distort the news

to fit their conservative agenda? Yes. On a daily basis. Here is a nice example.

“Dean Attack on Kerry Farm Vote Backfires” reads the headline of a Jan 2 article suggesting Dean has accused Ker

The dismantling of civil liberties

I see the Bham Herald has taken to printing US war dead on the back pages. Maybe some directive came down from Gannett headquarters telling all 80-some Gannettoids to print this awkward bad news in th

Check the War and Peace links

May I urge you, gentle reader and patriotic American, to check the War and Peace website links on the right. Look for articles that may give you more facts and information on what our country is doing

The capture of Saddam Hussein today

is the end of one chapter and the beginning of another for Iraq and also for the United States.

If your reaction to reading those words is “dahhh” then pause a moment and consider what you thin

How much did George W know before 9/11

about the impending attack? Enough to have stopped the attack? The widow of a fellow killed in the attack has refused the $1 million from the government and is suing George W and his advisors. And she

Obviously a no-win situation

I urge you to visit the independent websites that report on events in Iraq. Independent being those not owned by US corporate media, such as CNN, Fox, MSNbc, etc. The independent War and Peace sites a

Their Blood is on Bush’s Hands

Here is a link to an excellent Flash-style animation about soldiers dying in Iraq.

Lack of environmental enforcement

of some local developers is plain to see in this photo essay at the Lake Whatcom website. The WA Dept of Ecology has enforcement folks tooling around in their spiffy pickups, but no enforcement for th

Suspicious activity

Today’s Herald has a human interest story about Greg Grant who hired sniper John Muhammad for yard chores a year ago - just a couple weeks before his rampage of killing. This past week, Greg testified

New weekly newspaper - Northwest Independent

• is out and on racks throughout Bellingham and Whatcom County. Pick it up. Give it a chance. It is actually going to try and report local news - city hall and the court house and the issues that affe

The Port has reversed itself

and has hired a private fueling firm for the airport, according to today’s Bham Herald. Remember a couple years ago, summer of 2001, the port terminated Alpha Aviation, saying the Port would run fueli

An analysis of the election results

by Paul de Armond is posted. Paul examines the returns and gives his perspective on what the numbers mean. His is not your conventional approach.

Paul runs the Public Good website and is active

A fun ‘Dean for President’ event

It was all fun, very brief, and is how big things get started. Of course they enjoyed the cake after, even without Dean.

The Northwest Independent News,

a weekly newspaper based in Bellingham, will start publication next Thursday, Nov 20. It will strive to report local news. Amazing. It will be a tabloid and be distributed throughout Whatcom County. Y

We salute our veterans today.

Their intentions were to serve our country and they did as they were told and went where they were sent. Our presidents do not always use them correctly, sometimes using them for adventures that have

Election News

Brett Bonner sent out his concession statement last night, shortly after the auditor posted the final 7,000+ absentee ballots. It shows class by the fellow who waged a positive and forthright campaign

Levys should be for extra programs

Shame on the Bellingham Weekly. Page 3 of today’s paper has “The Slate” with photographs taken at Mark Asmundson’s victory party on Tuesday night. They asked Mark supporters what Brett would do

It is really hard to replace an incumbent

Those not sure just vote for the person in office, preferring a sure thing to an unknown. I give my respect to those who took the challenge and ran against entrenched incumbents. Especially Brett Bonn

Day of our decision.

County Auditor Shirley Forslof will have the election results posted online as soon as or even before the printed copies are brought out her office door to those of us in the courthouse rotunda. First

You would never learn that from the Herald

Sunday’s Herald front page story on the mayor’s race again showed us how to skew reporting to favor your candidate. John Stark does this type of reporting on a regular basis. His story lists controver

For what it is worth,

here are my recommendations for the election.

The basic values that I apply are for elected officials to have honesty and provide open government that is accountable to the citizens. We can all

The huge gap for news in this community

Will be posting election recommendations today. Have not had time for some good posts the past week.

Reliable rumor has it that another weekly newspaper will start publishing in early November

No one in a position of responsibility will touch it

So the Public Disclosure Commission is investigating Foster without any complaint. Yet they pretend to not know of flagrant violations of the PDC laws being committed by Mark Asmundson as Mayor - to w

Another perspective on County elections

I’ve just posted up a commentary by Stephen Trinkaus on all the local elections. He gives the perspective of a liberal activist - one who has participated in the local process and knows what is happen

On the levy, low-cost rentals and the Mayor’s gag order.

Today’s Herald devoted much of the first section of the paper to promoting the levy tax for EMS services, under the guise of reporting the issues. They printed two big graphs showing increases of resp

What closed-door deal has Mark made with Foster?

That is the question making the political rounds this afternoon. Foster Rose, who came in third in the primary election for mayor, today endorsed Mayor Mark Asmundson for reelection. Foster’s voters h

This is the piece that this election deserves

Tip Johnson has written the best analysis of the mayor Mark’s record that will appear anywhere. Tip, a hero to local environmentalists and liberals, takes an honest and courageous look at Mark Asmunds

The Police Guild believes Terry did this

The Bellingham Police Guild will endorse Don Hansey today for city council. Their executive board voted 100% last night to endorse Hansey and not Bornemann. To most political observers this will be a

Attempted extortion by the Mayor

The City Council yesterday evening showed their disdain for public process and for state laws against using city facilities for promoting campaign issues. And in their afternoon session they bowed to

Very quietly, more and more liberals are

telling me they are voting for Brett Bonner for mayor. Some very prominent ones - but they are not going public. Why not? Fear of retaliation.

Why are they against Mark? Two reasons in general.

The political junkies around town

are abuzz about the trap Brett Bonner stepped into on Tuesday evening at the Labor Council. Dave Warren blindsided Brett without even allowing an introduction. They jammed questions at him, and baited

Mayoral Debate

The two differed strongly on several issues. The differences between them are becoming more apparent and this should continue for the next two weeks.

Brett continues to develop his Lake Whatcom

Election Commentary

Port Commissioner by Sheri Ward
So what happened to all the heat among contenders for this race? It was only a few short weeks ago… (<a href=”http://nwcitizen.us/oldsite/elections/2003/ben

Remember the ‘Truth Squad’?

We need one to follow Asmundson during the next three weeks - and to nudge the Herald to do minimal checking of facts before publishing. I’m referring to Friday’s post below, where it was noted how St

A far superior and more objective analysis

If you’re a liberal and just figure you’ll vote for Mark for mayor, then read Tip Johnson’s analysis of the two candidates. Compared to John Stark’s report in this morning’s Herald, Tip gives a far su

A “Cadillac” system

Mayor Mark is in trouble with young liberal activists - just the voters who normally would support a liberal mayor. But they are remembering his presiding over police and court abuses that targeted yo

Very qualified local political observers comment

I am posting commentary on the election races by several very qualified local political observers who have agreed to write up their views of selected debates, candidates and issues. The first one i