Swamp Gas, October 10, 2007

by Frank James

Republican presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney pointedly attacked each other over their fiscal records in their former jobs as New York's mayor and Massachusetts's governor, respectively, while Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator, got through his first debate relatively unscathed.

The Bush Administration is split between hawks, led by Vice President Cheney, who believe Israel had credible enough intelligence to justify its September air strike in Syria on a suspected nuclear site with North Korean ties, and those who are more skeptical, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who also believe, unlike the hawks, that the U.S. should maintain its posture of keeping lines of communication open to North Korea and Syria.

The fight between Democrats and Republicans over the state children's health insurance program has devolved into a fracas over the 12-year old boy the Democrats used to illustrate the program's importance, and become an object lesson in the trouble that can befall real people when they become part of partisan political politics.

The strategy of a successful trial lawyer who is running a campaign heavy on religion in an effort to unseat the popular Gov. Haley Barbour in Mississippi, demonstrates how much Democrats feel they must mimic Republicans to have any chance to win in southern states.

Private guards working for an Australian-owned private security contractor shot and killed two women in Baghdad, increasing tensions over such shootings of civilians in Iraq amid the Blackwater USA controversy.

The Supreme Court declined to review the case of a German citizen who alleges he was illegally kidnapped in Macedonia in 2003 and, through a practice called rendition, sent to a Central Intelligence Agency "black site" in Afghanistan. In refusing to hear the case, the high court implicitly sided with the administration's use of the so-called secrecy shield.

An investigation by the Government Accountability Office indicated widespread abuse at "boot camp" facilities used across the nation to punish juvenile offenders.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign is hoping to take advantage of an Iowa law that will allow 17-year olds to announce their candidate preferences at the state's caucuses in early January. In trying to harness such voters he's flying in the face of the trend of young people not voting in substantial numbers.

First Lady Laura Bush warned the Burmese military-led government it had days to act before President Bush placed additional sanctions on the regime which recently cracked down violently on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks.

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill that would mete out stiff penalties to contractors found to have engaged in war profiteering and defrauding the Pentagon, a bill meant to crack down on the type of fraud that has repeatedly occurred during the Iraq War.