The Clean Campaign Pledge that was signed by both candidates in the Indiana 9th district. I feel it was a total set up by Baron Hill and his people.

I think it is terrible that the minister in the newspaper (Byron Bangert) who was condemning Mike Sodrel for breaking the clean campaign pledge, has a big reputation for condemning President Bush and many others. He says he has a bipartisan outlook. After reading much of his information on the internet, I think it is extremely unfair for someone like him to be a part of the clean campaign program.

Here's his quote from the Herald Times in Bloomington, Indiana (http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2006/08/19/news.new.1155960010.sto:)"As a politically nonpartisan group, we do not espouse any particular political philosophy, nor do we support any particular candidates," said Byron Bangert, one of the group's members. "The primary visible public role we wish to take in the current congressional campaign is one of calling for a clean campaign.
Byron Bagert, a member of Monroe County Religious Leaders, the group that got the candidates to sign the clean-campaign pledge, said he is disappointed in Sodrel's ad. He said it has the tone of "a negative personal attack."

Here are just a few of Byron Bangert’s statement made to the public. There are more, but I think these will give you a good feel for him.
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2005/11/10/digitalcity.1110-HT-A11_RDS20940.sto
In the absence of an omnibus bill to "set the world right," I would vote to impeach George Bush and Richard Cheney for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" - and it wouldn't be for their misdemeanors.

Byron Bangert, Bloomington

http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2006/06/03/religion.0603-HT-A5_VCG02290.sto
This is not the place to bewail the gross stupidity of the present administration, the U.S. Congress and everybody else who thinks the way to make the world safe for democracy is to turn it into a bunker or an armed camp. It is the place to ask about the shriveled state of our souls and the pervasive fearfulness that makes us acquiescent in the face of the atrocities our government now perpetrates in the name of freedom.

http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2006/03/04/religion.0304-HT-C4_LJB04434.sto
This guest column was written by Byron Bangert, a minister at large with the Presbytery of Ohio Valley. He resides in Bloomington.
Just married, one week shy of 24, I arrived to begin my internship with a large mainstream Protestant church in southeastern Ohio, only to discover that the pastor was hospitalized with double pneumonia. While he recovered, I quickly discovered how mean-spirited some religious folk can be. Some church members didn't like him (probably found him too liberal), doubtless hoped to get rid of him and tried to take away his travel allowance, observing that he was not using it during his convalescence (never mind his mounting medical bills). Talk about kicking somebody when they're down! Ever since, I've had few illusions about ostensibly religious people - they include some of the best, and some of the worst.
So I am dismayed but not surprised that most current administration leaders seem bent on kicking people when they're down. Their behavior is damnable. There's nothing magical about tax cuts for the wealthy and spending cuts for the needy (touting the virtues of the "invisible hand" masks a multitude of market failures and political sleights-of-hand).
There is something inherently cruel, cynical and sinister about an administration that professes to be compassionately conservative while advancing a radically unmerciful agenda. Privatized "social" security, private health-savings accounts, basic neglect of Katrina's victims, cut-backs in Medicare and educational spending - all policies calculated to discredit government, if not further debilitate precisely those citizens who are already disadvantaged because of circumstances of birth, illness and other factors largely beyond their control.
I'm not claiming that current leaders are without good intentions - but where does the proverbial pavement lead? Good intention without regard for realities is abominable. Ideology reigns. Washington's culture of incompetence and deceit bespeaks a perverse lack of understanding, if not a systematic intent to destroy public institutions.

The more fundamental problem, in any case, is the arrogance of top leaders and their obliviousness to their own self-deceptions. They may think they're doing the right thing, or at least the thing of most benefit to themselves. They cannot fathom the evil that they wreak. Blinded by self-righteousness, or self-interest, the result is the same: unmitigated disaster for the body politic, beginning with the most vulnerable.

That intern year, a heart attack claimed the pastor the week he returned to work. Two days later, four youths and their teacher perished in a boiler explosion. God's wrath? Hardly. (The wrong people died.) It was a hellish time. Looks like now is another.

http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2005/12/22/digitalcity.1222-HT-A11_RDS21869.sto
In the news this week, a federal judge barred a Pennsylvania public school district from teaching intelligent design in biology class, saying the concept is creationism in disguise. Today's Question: What do you think of the judge's decision?
The judge mostly got it right: Claims of intelligent design are not scientific claims and should not be taught in science class. In my view, evolution cannot exhaustively explain life, but it remains a metaphysical question, beyond the scope of science, whether there is divine influence in the creative evolutionary process.
Byron Bangert, Bloomington
As you can see, there is no way this man can look at the 9th district congressional race with a bipartisan outlook.

Amy Bernitt
Bloomington, IN
Office/Home: 812-333-6739
Cell: 812-325-6638