Moving from Burlington to Montpelier (and on a non-election year to boot) may have predictably dropped turnout from the 80-90 range down to around 30-40, but a fun time was still had by all.
Some pics follow on the flip, courtesy of others with still cameras...
Are you fed up with a Congress and a president who:
...want to take your wealth and redistribute it to others?
punish those who practice responsible financial behavior and reward those who do not?
admit to using the financial hurt of millions as an opportunity to push their political agenda?
run up trillions of dollars of debt and then sell that debt to countries such as China?
want government controlled health care?
want to take away the right to vote with a secret ballot in union elections?
refuse to stop the flow of millions of illegal immigrants into our country?
appoint a defender of child pornography to the Number 2 position in the Justice Department?
want to force doctors and other medical workers to perform abortions against their will?
want to impose a carbon tax on your electricity, gas and home heating fuels?...
...If so, help organize and/or participate in a Taxed Enough Already (TEA) party in your community on July 4.
No doubt local organizers will again attempt to suggest that their local events are in no way tied to or influenced by the national movement, with its clearly articulated conservative agenda and its plain genesis in the GOP media infrastructure. All those other demonstrations in other states, as well as the Fox News reports are simply coincidences. The fact that these demonstrations are petrie dishes for nasty displays of bigotry is either ignored or not their problem. The blatant hypocrisy displayed by the fact that none of these people got off their duff during the excesses of the Bush era? Well... they just don't talk about that.
This is not to say there aren't plenty of people involved who think they are doing the right thing, but there's a point at which willful blindness does entail a degree of moral culpability. In this case the blindness comes with being used as meat puppets for a mega-corporatist agenda to reduce regulations and tax burdens on the biggest, richest exploiters in the nation - the very ones who bear ultimate responsibility for the financial cliff working people are in the process of being driven off.
In today’s Fair Game column, Shay Totten reports on two House districts now represented by Democrats where Republican operatives have been making mysterious calls. In the districts represented by Megan Smith (Killington, Mendon) and Robert South (St. Johnsbury), voters reported getting what were clearly push-poll calls. GMD reported the calls in Megan Smith's district last week, and now we know from Seven Days that it's happening in at least one other district. In both cases the questions on the so-called surveys were targeted to isues that would likely be sensitive to voters in those districts.
So what's the big deal? The big deal is that the Republicans admit that they're push-polling.
With most observers assuming that Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin will join Senators Doug Racine, Susan Bartlett and (unofficially as yet) Secretary of State Deb Markowitz in the running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Racine continues his strategic campaigning (campaign staffer Mark Larson's impact, perhaps?). His first big move was to start openly building bridges with Progressives, keeping Markowitz from owning the "electability" meme by framing it on finances alone. Now, with the goodwill and support among the GLBT community accumulated by Shumlin with his leading role on marriage equality and his recent boycott of a DNC fundraiser as an act of solidarity with gay and lesbian activists slighted by the Obama administration, Racine is moving to shore up his own bona fides among this important voting bloc. From a press release:
In an open letter to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Vermonters and their allies State Representatives Bill Lippert, Suzi Wizowaty and Steve Howard announced their decision to support Sen. Doug Racine in the 2010 Governor's race today.
"As legislators, and members of Vermont's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, we appreciate Doug's leadership on issues that affect all Vermont families, including our families," said Rep. Wizowaty...
...In their letter, the three legislators recount then Lieutenant Governor Racine's early support for marriage equality. In 1999, Hawaii had just overturned its decision on marriage, Vermont was still awaiting a decision in Baker v. State, and a mailing signed by Hawaiian legislators warning against marriage equality had just been sent to every Vermont home. A scathing Free Press editorial at the time accused Lt. Governor Racine of being irresponsible and inviting "warfare within Vermont's borders and unprecedented assault from without."
"In the face of this political risk, almost every major Vermont political leader remained silent. Doug, however, publicly declared his belief that our families should be treated equally under the law," states the letter from the legislators.
Hmm. "Almost every Vermont political leader." A little poke at Racine's rivals? Careful, folks.
Howard also gives Racine an early endorsement in Rutland County, providing a beachhead for more buzz outside his home region. Complete release is below the fold.
Correction: Harlan Sylvester did not sponsor the fundraiser for Salmon, as was reported to me. Shoulda confirmed that before posting. My bad. -odum
Remember during the height of the budget conflict between the Legislature and the Governor when Auditor Tom Salmon Jr. attempted an ill-advised grandstanding stunt by inserting himself (rather inartfully) into the process? Salmon offered himself as mediator (having, of course, no qualifcations to serve in that capacity and stepping far beyond his purview as State Auditor) in the midst of a debate that legislative Dems were managing quite well without him. By trying to play the role of wise father figure and casting the debating parties as self-interested partisans who needed to compromise further than the Dems already had, Salmon played into the hands of Governor Douglas, who tried (and failed, thankfully) to use Salmon's play to his own advantage.
Well, as with the repetition of his casinos-on-the-ski-areas notion, Salmon seems recklessly oblivious to bad buzz, and is at it again. Last week he sent an email to Senator Shumlin, Speaker Smith, Secretary of Administration Neale Lunderville and Douglas Chief of Staff Tim Hayward trying to shove his way into the Joint Fiscal Office's process of identifying cost savings by suggesting he might be cheaper than the consultants budgeted into the process. In the email, he reportedly demands to know what the status of the process is, as well as any so-dubbed bi-partisan crisis planning (?) underway.
O-kay. A politician with clear and rather blunt political ambition would be a better arbiter than neutral professionals with hands on experience in such matters. Frankly, I'm finding myself a bit concerned about Salmon's perspective on reality.
Vermont... has not yet sent in its application to the U.S. Department of Education for its share of stimulus money.
States have until July 1 and Vermont expects to receive $77 million from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund...
Vermont's application was held up due to the budget fight between Gov. James Douglas and the Legislature, and Tom Evslin, the state's chief recovery officer, said his staff is working to get the application in on time.
"We could not finish this until the budget was finalized. We could not have done this any sooner," Evslin said Monday.
So let me get this right: the governor's pissing match with the legislature had the potential to completely eliminate our deadline for the Fiscal Stabilization money?
The National Industrial Recovery Act of '33 created the Public Works Administration (PWA). Yesterday, I enjoyed going to the 100th (or so) Hamburger Summit in Montpelier at recreation field/pool build by the PWA in the 30s. My kids go to camp there now and I spent many a summer day at that rec. field and pool in grade school growing up in the 70s.
There is a plaque commemorating the PWA work which generated this valuable public & community asset. It was built four generations ago when my kids' great grandparents lived in that neighborhood and witnessed the infrastructure being built. It has served the community well for 7 decades generating everything from employment to memories to teaching kids how to swim and play baseball.
I recommend BP's Post, which made me think about this. BP writes about Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. Gregg apparently cannot stand truth in advertising or being honest with taxpayers about where government is spending their money. Gregg is a fiscal radical who has spent a political lifetime feverishly searching for treasonous acts of class warfare to inflict on anyone who works for a living. When I read BPs post, it made me think of all the social, community and economic benefits generated by this valuable Montpelier project and how these economic success stories upset him more than anything else democracy does for us.
The PWA and my grandparents' generation were rightly proud of the work performed by the PWA and other programs. Their work pulled this country out of the Depression and the United State's and world's worst (prior to the Bush administration's) financial meltdown's. Like today, their Depression was caused primarily by corporate over-regulation of the democratic sector of U.S. society.
I honestly don't remember what I was doing forty years ago today, and I don't remember anything about this until I read about it later in the Voice. Still, as we look back, it's clear that the Stonewall riots were, in their own way, as significant as Rosa Parks refusing to get off the bus.
It's worth watching this video of people who were there.
What follows is almost five hundred words, plus pictures and graphics, on the apparent boom in sales of guns and ammunition, all starting "Soon after President Barack Obama was sworn into office", and supported by interviews of gun selers and buyers, statistics, and this juicy quote:
What's missing? How about any discussion of what Obama has said, either during his campaign or since he took office, about what he proposes to do about guns?
How about any discussion of how the NRA and other right-wing organizations have been pounding the "Obama's gonna take your guns" drum ever since he started running, and have never stopped?
I guess analysis and reality-based reporting would be too challenging for them. Maybe they figure it's "fair and balanced" to report on the myth that Obama is about to take people's guns away, but it would be biased to correct the myth.
I've subscribed to a daily newspaper my entire adult life, but the Free Press doesn't make it easy.
