I’m not talking about the math being taught in our local schools (although that’s an issue too); I’m talking about the math public figures use to advance one educational agenda or another.

The primary local culprit has been the Douglas/Vilaseca team. Douglas, for example, used his final state of our state speech to tell us

Employers of all sizes, in all sectors, have made clear what they need to restart the engine of our prosperity: lower taxes; universal broadband and wireless; reliable, affordable energy; a well-trained workforce; and an education system that is top-notch without being top-dollar.

(State of state, 1/7/10)

After telling us about the need for a “top-notch” educational system, Douglas used his follow up comments to talk about defunding the system by way of reducing our tax supports.

Vilaseca? Runs around the state with alacrity parroting Douglas.

Et tu Obama? Of course! (You don’t think it’s coincidental that our right wing guv get’s his mug next to Obama, do you?)

Mr. Obama said he was particularly troubled by the dropout rate. He said 1.2 million students left school each year before graduating from high school, at a cost to the nation of $319 billion annually in potential earning losses.

(Obama Backs Rewarding Districts That Police Failing Schools, NY Times, 03/01/10)

There are a lot issues I have with that comment of which only one is really germane to this post.

Speaking as a three time high school drop out who has successfully self educated in multiple fields, I really don’t see drop outs as being a problem. You’ll find plenty of them who went on to be the happily self-employed. Far from being a drag on the nation’s coffers, this three time high school drop out has been a tax paying citizen since the age of 13.

And “potential earning losses”???????? What the fuck is that?

I would suggest before we bust balls on the schools over standardized math test scores, we bust balls on the likes of Obama, Douglas and Vilaseca for their lack of any realistic numbers and math in their part of the education discussion.

PS. If this sounds like the anti-IRV repeat parrots who keep assuring us if folks had voted other than how they did, the outcome would have been different … well it is. It’s the same concept: baffle ’em with enough bullshit, and the public will sit down in front of the tellie to watch sitcoms.

On tomorrow's City Meeting ballot:

ARTICLE 16. Shall the City of Montpelier vote on a non-binding resolution that states: “The voters of the City of Montpelier advise the Vermont Legislature to pass a bill to replace criminal penalties with a civil fine for adults who possess a small amount of marijuana”. (By Petition) 

The story also made the front page of today's Free Press:

The ballot item is the result of a petition drive led by the Vermont Alliance for Intelligent Drug Laws, which is lobbying for decriminalization statewide. Group founder Nancy Lynch said she, a volunteer from Burlington and two Montpelier residents went door to door and quickly collected nearly 500 signatures. People were overwhelmingly supportive, said Lynch, a Williamstown resident.

A yes vote would send lawmakers a message that there is significant public support for decriminalization, Lynch said. Current law creates criminals out of nonviolent offenders and costs the state millions in courts and corrections money. Decriminalization would be “a no-brainer,” said Lynch, executive director of the Burlington Peace and Justice Center.

As someone with a healthy respect for the intelligence and good sense of my fellow Montpelier voters, I think the chances for passage are excellent.

This clip (2nd of 3) opens up with some discussion of the positive issues-based campaign underway in the Democratic primary for VT Governor. Then we move from the campaign to the issues.  

Doug does a great job of explaining impediments to a statewide single payer healthcare system, without making it sound hopeless. But it is the next section of the interview that I found most helpful.  I must admit I have always had trouble understanding the relationship between the Public Service Board and the Public Service Department. But with Doug Racine’s explanation here of how the two differ and interact, I think I may finally get it.

Part 1 of interview is HERE

Stay tuned for part 3.

Note: This post is neither an explicit nor implied endorsement of any candidate. Just continuing the VTblogosphereTV tradition of introducing sympathetic interviews with praiseful posts.

Doug Racine’s website

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Cross posted from the Worldwatch Institute’s Nourishing the Planet.

Richard Haigh doesn’t look like your typical African pastoralist. Unlike many Africans who grew up tending cattle, sheep, goats, and other livestock, Richard started his farm in 2007 at the age of 40. He quit his 9-5 job at a nongovernmental organization and bought 23 acres of land outside Durban, South Africa.

He wanted to totally change his life.

Today, he runs Enaleni Farm (enaleni means “abundance” in Zulu), raising endangered Zulu sheep, Nguni cattle (a breed indigenous to South Africa that is very resistant to pests), and a variety of fruits and vegetables.

Richard is cultivating GMO-free soya, as well as traditional maize varieties. “All the maize tells a story,” he says. Like the sheep and cattle, many maize varieties are resistant to drought, climate change, and diseases, making them a smart choice for farmers all over Africa.

This sort of mixed-crop livestock system is becoming increasingly rare in South Africa, according to Richard, because of commercial farms that rely on monoculture crops rather than on diverse agricultural systems.

Richard likes to say that his farm isn’t organic, but rather an example of how agro-ecological methods can work. He practices push-pull agriculture, which uses alternating intercropping of plants that repel pests (pushing them away from the harvest) and ones that attract pests (pulling them away from the harvest) to increase yields. He also uses animal manure and compost for fertilizer.

But perhaps the most important thing Richard is doing at Enaleni doesn’t have to do with the various agricultural methods and practices he’s using. It’s about the “stories” he’s telling on the farm. By showing local people the tremendous benefits that indigenous cattle and sheep breeds, and sustainably grown crops, can have for the environment and livelihoods, he’s putting both an ecological and economic value on something that’s been neglected. “Local people don’t value what they have,” says Richard, because extension agents have tended to promote exotic livestock and expensive inputs.

In addition, Richard asks himself “what can we do that is specific to where we live?” In other words, how can we promote local sources of agricultural diversity that are good for the land and for people?

Richard is also helping document the diversity on his farm. He’s been sending blood samples to the South African National Research Foundation to help them build a DNA “hoof print” of what makes up a Zulu sheep. This sort of research is important not only for conserving the sheep, but for helping to increase local knowledge about the breeds that people have been raising for generations.

As a result of his conservation work, Richard and Enaleni Farm have been recognized by Slow Food International, which wants to work with the farm and local communities to find ways to ensure that the Zulu sheep don’t disappear.

Richard hopes to share his knowledge about agriculture with local farmers, teaching them how to spot and prevent disease in indigenous sheep, as well as explaining agro-ecological methods of raising food.

Nearly 300 Bills Have Passed in House Since Current 111th Congress Took Office Nearly 14 Months Ago — Many With Broad Bipartisan Support — Only to be Tied Up by Unprecedented Brick Wall of Republican Filibusters in Senate; Minority Party Has No Constitutional Authority to Hold All Legislation Hostage by forcing 60-Vote ‘Super Majority’ in 100-Member Chamber

To say that the Republicans in the U.S. Senate are engaging in an unconstitutional abuse of power by blocking virtually all legislation proposed by either the Obama administration or the Democratic majority in Congress is not just political grandstanding. Nearly 300 bills that have passed in the House since the current 111th Congress took office 14 months ago have been blocked in the Senate by Republican filibusters. There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the minority party in the Senate any authority to hold these bills hostage by forcing a 60-vote “super majority.” (Chart courtesy McClatchy Newspapers)

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EST Monday, March 1, 2010)

(Updated 9:00 a.m. EST Tuesday, March 2, 2010)

===================

By SKEETER SANDERS

===================

In a scathing editorial published two weeks ago on my blog site, The ‘Skeeter Bites Report, this writer argued forcefully that the minority Republicans in the U.S. Senate were engaging in an unprecedented — and unconstitutional — abuse of power with their blanket use of the filibuster to block passage of virtually every piece of legislation proposed by the Obama administration and the Democratic majority in Congress.

“Senate Republicans . . . are vowing to use their newly-bolstered filibuster power to stymie virtually every domestic policy initiative that [President] Obama proposes,” the editorial thundered. “To say that this would paralyze the Senate would be a gross understatement. This is nothing less than a declaration by the Republicans of an insurrection against the administration and the majority party in Congress intended to make it impossible for the president to govern effectively.

“This is a flat-out abuse of power that imposes a tyranny of the minority,” the editorial continued, “a tyranny that is clearly unconstitutional and violates the most precious tenet of democracy: That within the parameters set by the Constitution, the majority rules.”

In the two weeks since that editorial was published, solid evidence has emerged to back up that conclusion.

NUMBER OF FILIBUSTERS SOAR SINCE OBAMA’S INAUGURATION

For starters, the McClatchy Newspapers, in an analysis on the performance of the Senate since the current 111th Congress took office 14 months ago, reported that Senate Republicans “are using the filibuster to limit and often derail Democrats’ initiatives, paralyzing the Senate and making it nearly impossible to accomplish even the most routine matters.”

McClatchy noted that in the more than 13 months since President Obama took office, the number of filibusters — and the cloture votes to kill them — have risen dramatically. And they have come on a range of issues so broad as to be without precedent. To date, there have been 42 votes to invoke cloture, of which all but four were successful.

McClatchy estimates that if the partisan warfare continues, by the time the 111th Congress ends its term in December 2012, there could be as many as 153 cloture votes — an all-time record high.

After Thursday’s health-care reform summit between Obama and congressional leaders, in which both parties essentially dug in their heels, there is absolutely zero evidence that the warfare won’t end any time soon. On the contrary, it is certain to solidify even further.

The bickering has tied up the Senate in knots — and the GOP minority has made it abundantly clear, both privately and publicly, that a filibuster-proof 60-vote “super majority” will be required to pass “not only major Democratic programs, but also many routine proposals.”

The 100-member Senate’s 58 Democrats and two allied independents — Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut — ostensibly lost their filibuster-proof majority on February 4 with the swearing-in of Senator Scott Brown (R-Massachusetts), although Brown quickly broke ranks with his fellow Republicans to cast his first vote in favor of a $15 billion job-creation bill.

CONSTITUTION DOES NOT AUTHORIZE ‘SUPER MAJORITY’ TO PASS BILLS

However, the Senate Republicans’ determination to impose a 60-vote requirement in order to pass bills is not supported by the Constitution. The filibuster is a creature of the Senate itself. It is employed under the internal rules of the Senate.

Under Article I of the Constitution — which spells out the legislative authority of Congress — each house is free to create its own rules for parliamentary procedure. But Senate Rule 22, which establishes the filibuster, is neither part of the Constitution nor is it a statute.

Nowhere does the Constitution grant the minority party in either chamber of Congress any authority to impose a requirement that a super-majority of votes be reached in order to pass legislation.

To the contrary, in only three instances does the Constitution specifically require a super-majority: the passage of amendments to the Constitution itself; the ratification by the Senate of treaties; and the override of presidential vetoes of legislation approved by Congress.

In each case, a two-thirds majority (67 votes in the 100-member Senate, 290 votes in the 435-member House) is required.

290 BILLS PASSED BY HOUSE STALLED IN SENATE BY GOP FILIBUSTERS

That Senate Republicans have imposed an unconstitutional “tyranny of the minority” was made even more evident last Tuesday, when House leaders made public a list of 290 bills that passed in the lower chamber — only to be stalled in the Senate by the Republicans’ blanket use of the filibuster.

Many of those bills passed the House with broad bipartisan support, including a critically-needed measure aimed at bolstering the security of the Internet. That bill passed by an overwhelmingly bipartisan majority of 422 to five.

Another is a bill to crack down on predatory mortgage lending. That measure passed in May by a 300-114 margin, with 60 Republicans voting “aye.”

Still another is a measure to stimulate job growth by increasing opportunities for small-business entrepreneurs. That bill also passed the House in May by a whopping 406-15 margin, with 159 Republicans voting in favor.

In September, the House passed, by a lopsided 406-18 — with 161 Republican “ayes” — a measure to prohibit increases in medicare part B premiums charged to millions of senior citizens who do not receive their annual cost-of-living increase in their Social Security benefits.

GOP ALSO BLOCKED CONFIRMATION OF SCORES OF OBAMA NOMINEES

But legislation isn’t the only thing that Senate Republicans have been tying up for months. They’ve also stymied the confirmations of scores of nominees to high-level positions in the Obama administration by placing holds on their nominations — preventing the Senate from holding confirmation votes.

The Republicans did an about-face and allowed confirmation votes on the president’s nominees only after Obama threatened to take advantage of Congress’ week-long Presidents Day break to invoke his executive authority to make recess appointments.

The Senate confirmed 27 of the president’s nominees on February 12 after Obama made his threat in a testy exchange with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) during a White House meeting with congressional leaders.

An unusually high number of nominees to top positions in the Obama administration — 63 in all — “had been stalled in the Senate because one or more senators placed a hold on their nomination,” the president said in a statement. “And so . . . I told Senator McConnell that if Republican senators did not release these holds, I would exercise my authority [under Article II of the Constitution] to fill critically-needed positions in the federal government temporarily through the use of recess appointments.”

HOYER BLAMES SENATE GOP INTRANSIGENCE FOR PARALYSIS ON CAPITOL HILL

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Maryland) put the blame squarely on Republicans for the ongoing paralysis in the Senate.

Appearing on MSNBC, Hoyer accused the Senate Republican leadership of having decided that “failure and gridlock are to its political benefit, and as a result, we’ve had more requests for cloture or filibuster votes than at any time in history.”

The result, said Hoyer, is that the blanket filibusters by GOP senators “has brought, in effect, the Senate’s ability to do its business to a standstill sometimes and to a slow walk at others.”

SENATE GRIDLOCK A FACTOR IN BAYH’S RETIREMENT

And that paralysis is a major reason why Senator Evan Bayh (D-Indiana) has decided not to seek re-election. In an op-ed column published February 20 in The New York Times, Bayh wrote that the filibuster, which “historically . . . was employed to ensure that momentous issues receive a full and fair hearing” has instead “come to serve the exact opposite purpose — to prevent the Senate from even conducting routine business.”

Bayh noted that the Senate last fall “had to overcome two successive filibusters to pass a bill to provide millions of Americans with extended unemployment insurance.” Even though there was no opposition to the measure — it passed unanimously, with two senators absent — “some senators saw political advantage in drawing out debate, thus preventing the Senate from addressing other pressing matters.”

Historically, filibusters have been employed in the Senate most often to block passage of reform legislation, ranging from the civil rights acts of the 1950s and 1960s to the post-Watergate clean-government measures of the 1970s.

It was as a result of massive public outrage against the use of filibusters to block reform bills aimed at curbing abuses of government power under the administration of President Richard Nixon in the 1970s that prompted a change of Senate rules in 1975 to to reduce the number of votes required to kill off filibusters from 67 — the same two-thirds majority required to override presidential vetoes, ratify treaties and pass constitutional amendments — to the present 60.

But who would have thought back then that a move aimed at curbing abuses of power by the executive branch would one day pave the way for abuses of power by the minority party in the legislative branch?

‘MINORITY TYRANNY’ AN AFFRONT TO REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

What was originally intended to protect the minority party’s right to debate and push for a compromise on legislation is now being used by the minority party to totally stymie the agenda of not only the majority party, but also that of the president.

This wholesale use of the filibuster by minority Senate Republicans is totally without precedent and is in no way supported by the Constitution.

Indeed, the U.S. Senate is the only freely elected legislative body in the world in which the minority party can thwart the will of the majority party, unless the majority party can muster 60 votes. It is an affront to representative democracy and the clearly expressed will of the American people who voted for the majority party   in the last general election.

The time is past due for the majority Democrats in the Senate to break the logjam by either invoking the reconciliation process to get those 290 House-passed bills to the president’s desk for his signature, or by invoking the so-called “nuclear option,”  in which Vice President Joe Biden, in his constitutional capacity as president of the Senate, declares the GOP’s blanket filibuster unconstitutional.

Enough is enough! Either way, this “tyranny of the minority” in the Senate must be brought to an end — now.

# # #

Copyright 2009, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

The mojometers took a brief holiday allowing for the focus on Vermont Yankee and the buildup to the Senate vote, but now they’re back, subjective and impulsive as ever (but hopefully a little less wordy, although we’re not off to a very good start, eh?).

We’ve got a little time to make up for, but we’ll keep it brief nonetheless. Below the fold, if you will…

Peter Shumlin. He shoots, he scores. It’s not simply the Senate VY vote that puts the Shumster high in mojo land, its the magnitude of the win. After Entergy’s media push and Susan Bartlett’s pushback threatened to scuttle the vote, Shumlin didn’t just deliver the votes, he absolutely clobbered the bill. Don’t think rank and file Dems didn’t take notice.

Nevertheless, the Senator from Windham isn’t quite pegging the meter, as all those comments, cartoons and jabs about this Yankee stuff just being about politics were clearly striking nerves. Whether primary voters will remember, whether they’ll care, or whether it proves to be a genuine weak spot will remain to be seen.

Deb Markowitz. Markowitz gets a big boost from the WCAX head to head polls as the only Dem prospect who polled ahead of Brian Dubie. Margin of error? Sure, but so what? And an additional “so what” to the fact that a close analysis suggests that it may largely be due to higher name recognition, the fact is, that poll was primary gold for her and her campaign is pushing the point to reinvigorate what was looking like a little campaign stagnation. And the GOP continues to help her with that message with yet another feeble press attack that seems to send the message that she’s the candidate they’re really afraid of (and boy, do I mean feeble. Rather than bother with it, here’s the link.) All of this pretty much overwhelms the negative of not doing as well in the primary poll leaked to GMD as it would seem she should at this stage.

Doug Racine. Racine backs off a bit from “hot” status, as he played only a supporting role in the all-consuming Yankee saga, but stays well into positive territory because of his second-strongest (with all the margin-of-error caveats) showing on the CAX poll – and particularly the fact that that leaked primary poll still suggests he’s the one to beat among the rank and file Dems.

Matt Dunne. By all rights, Dunne should be neutral at best, given his being left on the outside of the Senate’s Yankee battle. But he did yeoman’s work keeping his name in the mix as much as humanly possible (including being a presence on site during the vote), and his follow-up supporter emails had a strong grassrootsy, adovcatey energy about them. Most important, though, is that both the WCAX poll and the leaked primary poll make it mathematically clear that Dunne is a player in this game, which should quiet any remaining skeptics.

Susan Bartlett. I won’t rehash the “what was she thinking” diaries. Suffice to say, Bartlett’s approach to the Yankee issue have gone over about as well with the primary crowd as one would think, at least in the case of those that I’ve heard from. The only question is whether her last minute 180 for the final vote, along with her uniquely well-spoken and press-repeated floor statement, did more to keep her out of the primary icebox than the appearence of a high-pressure flip-flop. I’m gonna bet that it did, and keep her out of ice cold territory.

Brian Dubie. This VY vote really seemed to leave Dubie out in the cold. He had nothing to contribute during the discussion (when he wasn’t hiding from it entirely) and seemed like a confused observer during the Senate vote, while his Democratic rivals were trying to outdo themselves in looking like gubernatorial material.

Dubie has been spending his time addressing sympathetic, GOP oriented crowds and not really saying much, and a look at his rejiggered campaign website under “issues” adds to the feeling that this is a guy who wants to stay as far away from the issues as possible.

In fact, the totality of his “issues” page is the most simplistic of GOP repetition: tax cuts, roll back the social safety net (he comes right out and says that, even, which is kind of amazing) and deregulate everything.

Given that last one, its no wonder that he hid from the Yankee debate, given that you couldn’t have a better poster child for the need for government oversight of big business than Entergy.

Arg. So much for trying to be less wordy.