VTdigger is carrying a retraction today that bears some discussion. This is not to pile blame on 'Digger for its mistake in posting a press release that was later found to have come from a known hate group, but to consider how easy it is to perpetuate lies and distortions in this era of instant news coverage.
Publisher Anne Galloway explains that the release, which concerned the purported results of a "survey" on attitudes toward undocumented workers, came to VTdigger from what has usually been a 'reliable source.'
The information was distributed by PRNewswire, a commonly used mainstream media information source, and it was also published in The Sacramento Bee.
We received an email from Brendan O'Neill, an activist with Migrant Justice, within minutes of posting the FAIR press release. O'Neill who is an advocate for Mexican migrant workers in Vermont pointed out that FAIR has a dubious reputation. The organization is described as a "hate" group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, based in Montgomery, Ala.
At least Galloway had the good sense and dignity to promptly remove the scurrilous press release and issue a heartfelt apology.
VTdigger is, after all, of somewhat limited resources, and mistakes can happen; but I was curious to see just how many distinct times this "survey" was referenced on Google by different venues.
The answer is: plenty. I gave up counting at forty.
How many times must a lie be repeated before it assumes a mantle of "truthiness" that no amount of daylight can dissolve?
We've focused recently on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's historic conflict of interest. Although the name and peculiar autonomy the Commission enjoys would both suggest that it is a scrupulous servant of the public good, whose sole function is to ensure that all aspects of nuclear energy production in this country are held to the highest standard of safety; it has long been apparent that the NRC is primarily a servant of the industry it is charged with regulating.
In another example of a regulatory agency that seems to be corrupted by its intimacy with the industry it monitors, we are learning that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) spied on the personal e-mail of a group of six of its scientists and doctors who raised concerns to Congress about medical devices approved by the FDA, that might cause injury to patients.
All six of the spying victims have experienced harassment or dismissal since their whistleblower status was discovered through the e-mail surveillance.
This revelation, that the FDA mistreated whistleblowers at the possible behest of industry, comes just as a petition is circulating online to once again demand that the President withdraw his appointment (made in 2009) of a former VP and lobbyist for Monsanto, Michael Taylor, to serve as Food Safety "czar" to the FDA.
It was Mr. Taylor's lobbying efforts that were central to allowing Bovine Growth Hormone (rGBH) to enter our milk supply.
With industry so deeply embedded in our federal regulatory agencies, it begs the question: how far can we actually be from the regulation-free landscape that Republicans have been clamoring for for years?
This interview takes place just before Odum announced his goodbye to the GMD community. It has been tough not to notice, however, that he has been moreprolificthanever. So fret not, as his bid for Montpelier City Clerk does not culminate until Town Meeting Day, John will still be GMD's heart and soul for at least the month of February.
Posted:
On the Huffington Post, 1/20/12 05:18 PM ET
I am mindful that it is an important election year -- and as Vermont's Secretary of State, there is one item of particular distress to me -- the suppression of voter participation in the United States.
Yes, the very basis of our democracy is under siege -- under the guise of preventing voter fraud!
In 2011, legislation was introduced in 40 states to limit voter participation in the following ways:
•mandating photo IDs in order to cast a ballot;
•reducing early voting days -- in some cases from 45 days to 7;
•repealing election day registration;
•restricting student voting;
•repealing voter-verified ballot paper trail for all voting machines;
•restricting voter registration drives by placing obstructive burdens on filing.
Frankly, these changes threaten the very fabric of our democracy.
According to a report by Wendy R. Weiser and Lawrence Norden at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law,
"These new restrictions fall most heavily on young, minority, and low-income voters, as well as on voters with disabilities. This wave of changes may sharply tilt the political terrain for the 2012 election."
These legislative changes also place disproportionate burdens upon other groups including the elderly, overseas, and military voters.
(Note: The balance of this diary is included beneath the fold)
The gun-rights alarmist fundraising scare tactic that will not go away!
Facepalm! Double facepalm! Triple facepalm!
Dear fellow American, Gun-grabbers around the globe believe they have it made.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently announced the Obama Administration will be working hand-in-glove with the UN to pass a new "Small Arms Treaty."
Disguised as an "International Arms Control Treaty" to fight against "terrorism," "insurgency" and "international crime syndicates," the UN's Small Arms Treaty is in fact a massive, GLOBAL gun control scheme.
If passed by the UN and ratified by the U.S. Senate, the UN "Small Arms Treaty" would almost certainly FORCE the United States to:
*** Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally;
*** CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL "unauthorized" civilian firearms (all firearms owned by the government are excluded, of course);
*** BAN the trade, sale and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons;
*** Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun CONFISCATION.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this is NOT a fight we can afford to lose.
I'm helping lead the fight to defeat this radical treaty in the United States Senate and I want your help.
Please join me by taking a public stand AGAINST this outright assault on our national sovereignty by signing the Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey below!
For Freedom,
Rand Paul
U.S. Senator (R-KY)
And the idiocy is here, too. Gun Owners of Vermont (another one of those groups whose survival would seem to depend on fabricating threats where none exist) continues to push this bullshit on their front page.
I may not need to say this, but if I do, write this on your hand so you don't forget it:
Jim Condos is rapidly becoming my all-time favorite elected official.
Last year he toured the state, patiently explaining in town after village, the purpose and process of open meetings. Having attended one of those tutorials in the Town of St. Albans I can tell you that he was nothing if not thorough.
The purview of the Secretary of State may not be very sexy, having to do, primarily, with the minutia of law; but as I have learned through painful experience, corruption of the local process is at the very heart of many of the problems we later spend years (and fortunes) trying to sort out.
The excessively liberal use of Executive Session has long been a debatable issue here in Franklin County. Minutes from meetings are typically punctuated with cryptic moves to Executive Session, citing only the statute under which the presumptive move is being made.
Little attempt is made to identify what is the actual business of the Executive Session beyond what is revealed in a resulting decision.
I recently obtained the minutes of a City Council meeting which immediately commenced with one of those broadly-based statutory motions into Executive Session. Return to open session was soon followed with a second Executive Session; so that the reader was at a complete loss as to the rationale or responsibility for decisions that emerged from the meeting.
Exactly whose interests are those obfuscations protecting? Certainly not those of the citizens.
Finally, it seems that the culture of opacity in our local decision-making process has gone too far .
Condos... wrote (that) the district had failed to give a true indication of what happened at a Jan. 3 meeting and a motion to go into secret session that night was worded improperly.
The Free Press inquiry was based on lacking minutes when the board was considering discipline against a teacher and a student for a deer hunting incident on school time.
I have absolutely no connection to the school or to anyone involved, and wouldn't even speculate on whether the decision the Board reached was appropriate; but I will certainly bear in mind the School Board's lack of transparency the next time I step up to the ballot box.
No doubt Secretary Condos' name will frequently be taken in vain this weekend here and there around St. Albans, where boards and councils rarely face challenges when they do things 'their way.'
This is just to say that there remain many St. Albans residents who congratulate you, Secretary Condos, for a job well-done.
Got a story for you. It was during the Democratic primary wars last Presidential election and I was working in Fall River, MA doing talk. I was running the board for a guest host, and serving as a co-host at the same time.
This guy was a big time PUMA and was, on nearly every appearance on the station (he'd come in more or less once a week) would bash Obama like the most rabid of right wingers, using their attack points and dog whistles. The birther crap was about the ONLY thing we didn't get out of this guy, but Jeremiah Wright Gawd Damn America Bill Ayers Secretly A Muslim yada yada yackity smackity ad nauseum.
So here we are, at the end of hour two of a two hour excursion, and I'm about hitting my tipping point. It was already acrimonious in there, I was flipping his attacks back in his face and the calls were breaking mostly my way.
Mostly.
I think there was about 20 minutes left in the show, and I'd already gotten the "Shut up, this is MY show" treatment from him a few minutes back.
So finally the hostility was dying down, in spite of the fact that his hour topic was "Is America ready for a black President?"
Which didn't set real well with me. I had my knives out, of course.
So we'd just cleared a caller off the phone and he and I are going back and forth and he was playing the "experience/red phone 3am" game, and referred to Obama's Presidential run as "presumptuous."
"Presumptuous?" I asked him.
"Well, sure!" he said defensively.
I smiled and said, "You mean, 'uppity'? Don't you?"
That was too much, I guess. "Are you calling me a racist? How dare you call me a racist!" and stripped off his headphones.
"10:43, and we'll be back with your calls in seconds."
The guy actually stormed out of the control room and I had to finish the show on my own.
Which was fine.
But...did I actually think that Obama's election would usher in a post-racial America? No, of course not......but I never dreamed we'd fall this far.
"Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization," Mehlman said at the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong."
This came out a couple of days ago, but my eagle eye only spotted it today. Press release from the state Ag department, as seen on Vermont Digger:
The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets announced today that the Mobile Poultry Processing Unit has been sold to Lila Bennett and David Robb of Tangletown Farm in Middlesex. The unit was sold via an online auction site, and after a competitive bidding process, the final sale price was $61,000.
Lila and David are regular vendors at the Montpelier farmers' market, and they also do a meat CSA program. Their purpose is to raise and sell local, humanely-raised meat, and they do a really good job.
I'm happy to see the state's processing in their hands, because I'm sure they will use it to further their mission and help other similarly-minded farmers get their products to market. I wish them all the best.
The definition of "liberty" -- a concept much beloved of our Founding Fathers* -- has undergone a severe narrowing in recent years. Free-marketers, Randians, Tea Partiers and Wall Streeters, the Koch Brothers, big-haired Congressmen Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, and their local brethren such as El Jefe General John McClaughry and the oleaginous Rob Roper, have done their level best to take this noble and free-flying concept and shackle it to the pure pursuit of financial advantage.
*Mothers having been persona non grata in the smoky taverns of Revolutionary-era discourse, and considered -- along with any person of dark-hued skin -- fundamentally ineligible for the blessings of liberty).
If these folks had their way, we'd all be "free" to make as much money as we could. Let loose from burdensome regulation and taxation, we would rise ever upward on the Ladder of Success. (And somehow, the LoS won't topple when all of our weight is gathered on the top rung.) The flood tide of capital would right all wrongs, cure all ills, and allow humanity to reach its full potential.
Color me unconvinced. In their definition of "liberty" I see oppression. And lest you think me overwrought, let's look at what a lifetime of such "liberty" would entail.
(After the jump: life on the hamster wheel, the big lie of "the opportunity society," and the true meaning of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.)
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