Per today’s Rutland Herald:

If Mayor Thomas Lauzon had only trusted his gut Sunday, he wouldn’t have broken his ribs.

[…]

…Lauzon… gamely agreed to participate in a 21st-century re-enactment of the fabled fist fight over the naming of Barre during Sunday’s conclusion of the Barre Heritage Festival at Barre Town Middle and Elementary School.

Can we nominate the Vermont Mayor Lauzon “most likely to lose a hand trying to fix a lawnmower?”

At least there weren’t pies involved.

(h/t to Balloon Juice)

It is with great interest as well as concern that I watch the ever increasing massive head-explosion of the right-wing. Our real problem at this point politically is the portion of Democrats that still give the right-wing political clout, but nevertheless, it's important to keep an eye on the fringiest of the fringe. Hell, even the “birther” nonsense has gone mainstream, with Cranky-ass White Guy Lou Dobbs on CNN giving it credence.

Those of you who follow these things with interest are probably well aware that one of the ways the right-wing was able to hold power for so long was by convincing social conservatives to vote against their interest. You know the drill by now; vote to end abortion, get a capital gains tax cut. And so on.

But the latest, from a the right-wing nutter site, Human Events, must be seen as an example of not only right-wing gay hate, but a not-so-subtle synergystic word spew of defending defense industry pork under the guise of homophobia.

So who knew that fighter jets could stop the nefarious homosexual agenda? Below the jump for the madness…

You can read the entire Human Events email here. It's about a “special message from one of their advertisers”, an organization known as the “Pray in Jesus' Name Project“, which seems to be one of those groups intent on turning the U.S. military into an Army of God. A visit to their site has them making hay about the “Pentagon burning soldiers' Bibles”, giving one the perception that the Pentagon was forcibly burning soldiers' own personal Bibles. But of course, the truth of the matter, expanded on here, is that the said Bibles were in native Afghani languages, and were being used to prosteletyze, a big no-no.

So the latest pile from this group is targeting Sen. Leahy, for attaching hate crimes legislation to a defense bill, the one that will kill the unnecessary defense pork known as the F-22 fighter jet. Apparently, the nutter group fears the hate crime legislation, as they say it might somehow keep them from broadcasting their vile homophobia from the pulpit. They call the hate crimes legislation the “Pedophile Protection Act”. So, make sense of this:

Let's tell them to strip all homosexual rights from the Defense Authorization Act, please fund F-22's, or at least keep the Brownback Amendment which protects pastors reedom of religious speech.

Wow, that's a rather diverse agenda, no? There's even a picture of the Senator talking to a soldier, with the caption, “Leahy to soldiers: No funding unless you protect the homosexuals”. Somehow I suspect if I tried to confirm that he said that, I'd probably at most get a laugh out of it. 

I wasn't able to track down if defense contractors have ties to this organization, but as far as I can gather, it seems to be pretty popular for fundie servicemen who more than likely do view our Middle Eastern misadventures as a modern-day crusade. Sure, it's fringy-as-all-hell, but disturbing, nevertheless, as right-wing fanaticism and the military do not usually make for a good mix when put together, especially if we're actually trying to undo the damage done by Bush and his God-brigade. I take little comfort in knowing what Jesus' warplane of choice is, either. Perhaps they're hoping to use it to bomb San Francisco and Provincetown in an upcoming secret bombing capaign. Good to know the cat's outa the bag now.

Just heard on MSNBC’s morning show … Howard Dean to be hosting (co-hosting maybe?) Countdown for the week starting tonight.

Suck on that, Sarah Palin … The Dean beat ol’ Betcha’ to the telie!

What the…?

Catherine Nelson, vice president and general manager of The Times Argus, announced today that Steven Pappas has been named editor to replace Susan Allen.

Allen, who has served as the paper’s editor since 2006, is staying on with the 10,000-circulation newspaper, serving as its Montpelier reporter.

I wonder what the deal is, here.

This is one of those times when it’s really, really hard to remember why churches don’t pay taxes.

Just over at Pam’s House Blend on my regular blog scan, and here’s what Louise from Maine has to stir us up:

The anti-marriage folks in Maine, who, if you’re not following this, flog their bigotry by paying people from Michigan to gather signatures for a referendum against Maine’s Marriage Equality law, are out-fundraising the Equality Maine folks better than 2 to 1 between April 1 and July 5. Almost half the money came from Roman Catholic Churches or organizations (most of the rest from NOM — of “Gathering Storm” parody fame —  and Focus on the Family, with just $400 from actual Maine residents. Of course, much of that time was before the law passed.)

The Diocese of Portland gave “Stand for [Het] Marriage Maine” $100k in actual money and over $10k in “in-kind’ contributions, Louise reports.

The Knights of Columbus forked over $50k. And Catholic Charities in Evansville, Indiana donated a thousand bucks, as did the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, NM.

As Louise aptly points out, aren’t these the same folks who are closing parishes and selling church properties? Aren’t these the same folks who say their parishioners’ donations go to charity work? to food and clothing and shelter for the poor and destitute? One might also wonder who is paying the salary for the Diocese spokesman who “has taken leave” to work for SFMM.

So the spokesbigot said the $100k was from a special fund donated to the Church for “this kind of activity.” And quite likely the donor got a tax deduction for it. And wouldn’t have if the donation had gone directly to the the anti-marriage PAC — as one commenter on the thread pointed out. Tantamount to money laundering.

Okay,maybe it’s time to not let people have tax deductions for donations to churches. The church may not have to pay taxes, but any donations they receive should be after-tax dollars.

The last time the Catholic Church was right about something, it was draft counseling in the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and Liberation Theology (when, for once, the Church was on the side of the campesinos and not the landowners — think Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador).

Just a few photos from the week, none of birds:

Mystery dragonfly:

Consider this an open thread.

Echinacia bloom, close-up:

Very large frog, with bug on shoulder (close-up here):

Toadstool, with water dripping off:

Mystery butterfly:

Mystery bug:

I’m not going to editorialize on this issue one way or another for a variety of reasons, but I found the following on YouTube this morning and thought it quite an interesting encapsulation of the conflict playing out on the ground. No doubt it will be fodder for interesting discussion.

So here is – from the YT description – video from “Near the end of the 2+ hour meeting between the community of Ira, Vermont and proponents of Vermont Community Wind Farm, an 80 MW “concept” of Per White-Hansen, with public relations person Jeffrey Wennberg”, presented without comment…

whoops you did it again

you continue to respond to the caricatures dancing around in your head instead of external reality. More proof: My understanding of the label “redneck” is not someone who has a love of cops, quite the opposite.  I was not using labels at all and I certainly can’t understand how you could think I’d project the redneck label on to you. I actually attach a lot of anti-authoritarian qualities to the label “redneck.” Apparently you were responding to “the voices” and not me. You’ve done another double backflip projection with faulty premises thrown in as a flourish.  what a mess, I’m done.

There it is in all its disgusted hostile glory: a reply I wrote but never posted. The sad online version of a letter never sent.

I’m glad I never posted it. I had noticed while reading the thread attached to  Jack McCullough’s “You’re under arrest” that one member was making it very difficult to stay focussed on the facts of the case by creating hypotheticals, and questioning the veracity of undisputed facts. I called him on it in a very straightforward manner. He replied, I shot back with some snark, he got long winded and obnoxious, I wrote the above, thought better of it, and walked away with my head held high. Plenty of other members continued to school him and eventually the thread calmed down.

A conversation I had with Bill Simmon helped me walk away from the keyboard. Here he discusses a dilemma of political blogging: either it can become a like-minded echo chamber, or a futile effort to persuade the unpersuadable. We begin by discussing Seven Day’s designation of his candleblog as “non-political,” some background on the daysies reader’s pick awards, political blogging, a shout out to Dohiyi Mir.  Then he shares a bit on how he and Steve Benen determine content for their radio and online show Poli Sci-Fi Radio. This segment closes out with a consideration of the Nerd Life.

As Green Mountain Daily gets more popular, it seems that we are experiencing an increase in antagonistic posters. I generally try not get involved with the nattering nabobs of negativism and instead offer support to commenters I agree with. But sometimes I get pulled into that “someone on the internet is wrong!” compulsion and tend to feel like “why’d I waste my time” afterwards. I’m impressed with how members here can engage the hostility dispassionately, or with humor, or with relentless debate. GMD has a strong and just community police squad and it helps maintain the integrity and legitimacy of this place as a lefty forum. So I understand the need to school a fool. But I’d still like to hear about how people deal with that “someone on the internet is wrong!” feeling, maybe some personal guidelines or philosophy on engaging antagonistic commenters. It is clear that people approach the question from many angles, and that is part of why this place gets so lively.

Thoughts?

although he’s found plenty of others to pander to:

White House aides say the administration is concerned about three centers of serious opposition from House Democrats: the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats who are worried about the cost of a public health care plan; the freshmen and other Democrats from high-income districts who are concerned about taxes for high-income Democrats, and the anti-abortion Democrats who are concerned about federal funding going for abortion services, and whether health care providers can opt out of certain procedures.

(Obama: Health care reform means changes in treatment for the better, CNN, 07/22/09)

So which of the three above mentioned groups are you in?

——-

Update: Tweet the following on Twitter, and get all your friends and family to tweet it, too:

@ChuckGrassley Public option = $256B in savings. Your plan = $32B in added cost. http://bit.ly/VDBH4.  Public Option, now.  #health_care

——-

More than 70% of Americans want a public health care option, but the health insurers and others who profit from the current “death by spreadsheet” system are fighting tooth and nail against us.

There are two paths for action, both of which are needed, to get the message across to our elected leadership in Washington.

Path One – Call People in Key States and ask them to Contact their Congressional Delegation

Those making deals with insurers and others to weaken health care need to hear from their constituents (aka: the people who can vote against them in the next election). They need to hear every single day, and the way to make that happen is to make sure their constituents know that these fine folks are planning to vote against the constituents’ wishes.

The Organizing for America Neighbor to Neighbor tool is the key tool for this path. You’ll need and Organizing for America account, if you don’t already have one, but it’s an easy sign-up.

Look for this button when you go there:

Click it, and on the page that appears, choose the state of one of the key legislators. Those states and legislators are listed in the table on this page.

Path Two – Call Key Representatives and Senators Directly

——-

Update: Tweet the following on Twitter, and get all your friends and family to tweet it, too:

@ChuckGrassley Public option = $256B in savings. Your plan = $32B in added cost. http://bit.ly/VDBH4.  Public Option, now.  #health_care

——-

This path is slightly less effective than when constituents call, BUT is still needed in order to let these particularly important folks know that we’re all watching and that campaign funds from us might just find its way to their opponents next time out, if they ignore us on this issue.

Over the fold is a complete repost from today’s DailyKos diary by slinkerwink on the subject. It provides a little background, contact info, and talking points.

We can sit by and despair over how “it’s never going to happen” or we can do our best to make it happen despite the odds. I’m for the latter option.

Get Busy!

slinkerwink’s diary:

Late last night, I wrote over at FireDogLake about a call to Rep. Woolsey’s office to ask her to stay in, help fight for health care reform for us all, and not to go on vacation. Well, guess what the answer was from her office? Here’s the report straight from one of our kossacks here:

Did it, called everyone and a email to the WH. cannot get thru on phone. line is continue to be busy. Lynn Woolsey’s office tried to tell me Congresswoman needs to go home and listen to her voters. I told her that they need to get this done before going on vacation. We are all voters and the voters have spoken.

Apparently Lynn Woolsey thinks it’s okay for Congress to delay the passage of health care reform by insisting that Members of Congress have the right to go on vacation to “listen” to their constituents. So, why is the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus ready to go on vacation and allow this bill to be held hostage by the Blue Dogs? Please call her office at 202-225-5161, and report back with answers if you can.

You know what happens if they allow health care reform to be delayed until after the August recess? These Members go home, they get hit by hundreds of TV ads from the murder-by-spreadsheet industry, and they get phone calls from angry voters about “socialized health care.” Then they come back, scared to pass real health care reform, so they end up passing health care reform that may not include a public option or a national insurance exchange. The stakes are very high this week.

We have to keep up the phone calls from yesterday. We’ve got to let Members of Congress, the Democratic leadership, and the White House know that we don’t want them to go on vacation in August until they deal with health care reform FIRST. We can’t have them be scared by the Blue Dog Democrats and the lying Republicans into cutting back subsidies for Americans, getting rid of the national insurance exchange, and putting in state-based co-ops into the health care reform package.

Please keep up with the phone calls to the Democratic leadership, the three chairmen of the House committees, the leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the members of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and the White House today!

We really can’t allow the Blue Dog Democrats to kill the public option, cut back subsidies for the middle-class, have state-based co-ops, and state-based insurance exchanges. That would cut down the effectiveness of this bill, and the Blue Dogs know it. Also, we’re not going to be calling the Blue Dog Democrats on the spreadsheet today. I’ve been told they just don’t listen to phone calls from “liberals.” Skip the ones that are highlighted in red for now today.

Here are the talking points below:

I’m calling to thank [Name of Member] for supporting the House health care plan, and for supporting the public option and the national insurance exchange. As an American who’s faced denials of claims and has been facing higher insurance premiums, the public option and the national insurance exchange is NECESSARY to hold down the costs of private insurance and give us the kind of care we need. Please DO NOT vote for any amendments during the mark-up process that would weaken the public option and the national insurance exchange! I’ve been hearing that the Blue Dog Democrats want to cut back subsidies for my family, that they want a fake state-based co-op plan, and have a trigger on the national insurance exchange by having it as state-based insurance exchanges at first. What they want is unacceptable for me and my family. Don’t give into their demands. I’m an American who needs the choice of the national insurance exchange and the public option.

CALL Speaker Nancy Pelosi at (202) 225-4965 and try her local office at (415) 556-4862 if you can’t get through.

CALL House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer at (202) 225-3130

CALL House Majority Whip James Clyburn at (202) 226-3210

Can you please CALL these THREE chairmen in the House of Representatives, with your concerns about the Blue Dog Democrats trying to block health care reform and ask them NOT to listen to the Blue Dogs or give into their demandsl?

Ways and Means Committee Chair Charlie Rangel (202) 225-3625)

Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (202) 225-2927)

Education and Labor Committee Chair George Miller (202) 225-3725)

And DON’T FORGET TO CALL THE DEMOCRATIC MEMBERS OF THE ENERGY AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE with the talking points above.

Also, don’t forget to call the co-chairs of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and ask them to take a strong stand against the Blue Dogs’ actions by asking the House leadership not to give into their demands to weaken the health care reform bill, and especially the Medicare-like public option in the bill.

CALL Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chair of the CPC, at 202-225-2435

CALL Rep. Lynn Woolsey, co-chair of the CPC, at 202-225-5161

And don’t forget to CRACK THE WHIP on the rest of the Congressional Progressive Caucus so they stand as a strong voting bloc in opposition to the Blue Dog Democrats!

Right now, we really need you to CALL the White House with the talking points and tell them that the Blue Dog Democrats must UPHOLD the majority view of Americans who need a strong, robust Medicare-like public option, and not to give into their demands to weaken the public option in health care reform!

CALL The White House at 202-456-1111 and E-MAIL THEM with the talking points above, and ask for Congress to stay and work on health care reform instead of going off on vacation!

Can you also please help nyceve, Jane Hamsher, me, and others in this fight for health reform by donating? We’re working so hard on this issue, day in and day out.

And donate to dotPAC as well? They’re running Facebook ads against the Blue Dogs about their opposition to health care reform. They’re doing a great service for us progressives in this fight.

Please RECOMMEND this diary so others can see the phone numbers and call today!

Also, let me know how the calls are going today! Please report back about your calls if you can.