Only a few days before the March 5th date Tom Salmon set to announce his plan to run against Senator Bernie Sanders some Vermont Republicans are fishing for other candidates.The Times Argus’ David Delecore reports

According to Barre Mayor Tom Lauzon, officials in the Vermont Republican Party have suggested he consider running for governor or the U.S. Senate next year, and he hasn’t closed the door on either possibility.  

“The answer is: ‘Yes, I am considering it,’” he said Monday when asked about the possibility he might run as a Republican alternative to Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Mayor Lauzon says he is considering the governor’s race too but makes it clear the senate is his choice.

“The Senate race attracts me because people say it can’t be won and I think it can,” he said

After mentioning the obligatory period of soul searching the Mayor sets a date of June 1st for his decision.  

A little more subtle and from the sidelines but very much in the mix, our man Salmon might want to note the significance of new VPR commentator former Gov. Jim Douglas’ choice of the national deficit for his debut topic. He addresses the national budget, his association with the Domenici-Rivlin Commission from the Bipartisan Policy Center and speaks of the need for national leadership on this issue in the senate.Naturally he modestly reminds us of his leadership here in Vermont on this very issue.

The always sentimental Douglas shares his immediate thoughts upon first seeing his granddaughter in her crib:

Welcome to the world, I said; your share of the Federal debt is $50,000.

Sweet, but not what might immediately come to most people’s minds.  

Oh nooooooo! Those who can most afford to pay a little more might get a tax hike!

Oh how the wealthy hate taxes,won’t they all leave?

What? What’s that? Oh, it’s barely even on the table yet?

Wow, with all that screaming I thought someone was in real pain…    

Thatcher Moats of the Vermont Press Bureau reports  

In an effort to ease the impact of proposed budget cuts on vulnerable residents, a group of Progressive and Democratic lawmakers announced a plan Thursday to increase taxes on the wealthiest Vermonters.

Offered as an alternative to continued cuts in critical state services Rep. Chris Pearson, Rep. Susan Davis, Sen. Dick McCormack and Sen. Anthony Pollina as part of a broader plan have proposed a tax hike on those earning more than $171,000.

Under the plan, the top income tax rate would increase from 8.95 percent to 10.45 percent and the second highest tax bracket would increase from 8.8 percent to 9.8 percent, said Pearson.

 

Before the anguished screams get too loud please note what Sen. Dick MCormick points out about this plan

not a scheme to “eat the rich,” but a method for going where the money is.  

“The people who will pay this if this passes will be rich after they’ve paid their taxes,”

forever or at all?  

Vermont State Senate Pro Tempore John Campbell quoted in Vt.buzz

Would Vermont legislators ever consider flight?

“No,” Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell, D-Windsor, said Monday. “I hate to see any legislator walk off the job like that,” he said. “The legislative process is about discourse and about coming up with solutions.”

I don’t know exactly how the question might have been phrased but how about say ‘maybe‘ at least.  

Republican Leader Senator Bill Doyle agreed and said no also to a walk-out.  

Blogging, says the New York Times, is on the wane. Facebook and Twitter reports the Times are now the preferred online choice for the younger generation.  

The Internet and American Life Project at the Pew Research Center found that from 2006 to 2009, blogging among children ages 12 to 17 fell by half; now 14 percent of children those ages who use the Internet have blogs. Among 18-to-33-year-olds, the project said in a report last year, blogging dropped two percentage points in 2010 from two years earlier.

It seems like only yesterday, but it was way back in 2004 that Merriam-Webster declared “blog” the word of the year.  So many people began blogging — to share dieting stories, rant about politics and celebrate their love of cats — that Merriam-Webster declared “blog” the word of the year in 2004.  The article leaves the impression there is little between cat blogs and the Huffington Post.  

Newspapers may be feeling a little gleeful at this waning development because for some newspaper people blogs are the handy target for their own complex reasons of decline. However its just evolution as one expert says of the Facebook,Twitter and blog situation.

“Rather than being competitors, they are complementary […]“There is a lot of fragmentation ,but at this point, anyone who is taking blogging seriously — they’re using several mediums to get a large amount of their traffic.”

 

There is a distinguished touch of gray showing around blog banners. A 2010 study showed an increase of 16%, six points in a two year period with 34 to 45 year olds who use the internet to blog.  

Coming soon: Tom Salmon fun-run?

For any Vermonter looking for early spring signs of a Salmon run this may make a splash. It appears Tom Salmon is game for a run against Senator Bernie Sanders next year. An internet search of owned domain names shows that one   Salmon, Thomas of Railroad St. Saint Johnsbury Vermont is currently the proud registered owner of salmonforussenate.com  

Salmonforusenate.com was registered January 19th 2011 and lasts until January 2013. The 19th of  last month must have been a busy day for our man Salmon as the Burlington Free Press also reported he would announce his final decision on this year’s ‘birthday’ of the US Navy See bees, March 5th.

No turning back? With date set and his domain name tucked under his arm he has set himself floating down the path to become the authentic self-utilizing power along the lines of excellence of his dreams.

note: Salmonforuspresident.com is still available for now

After the events in Egypt a closer look might be taken at proposed US Senate legislation unoffically called the internet kill bill. Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Tom Carper (D-DE) have co-sponsored a bill (introduced in 2010) that might give the President the power to disconnect the internet. It is unclear if the President might already have this power under decade’s old legislation passed after Pearl Harbor.  

Whether killing the internet is even possible is still debatable. However by reconfiguring network routers and making it difficult for them to reach IP addresses the Egyptian government effectively did to some degree kill their internet. Not quite a kill switch but a kill system that disrupted communications between those organizing and participating in anti-gov protests.

In a statement after the events in Egypt Senators Lieberman, Collins, and Carper released a statement defending the bill saying in part 

“they will ensure that any legislation that moves in this Congress contains explicit language prohibiting the President from doing what President Mubarak did.”

However Sen. Lieberman’s earlier statements offer little similar reassurance. This is from  a 2010 interview where he  claims critics are spreading “total misinformation” about the bill while he uses a less than comforting example to describe the law's function 

“We need the capacity for the president to say, Internet service provider, we’ve got to disconnect the American Internet from all traffic coming in from another foreign country… Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in a case of war. We need to have that here, too.”  

The internet kill bill joins so much other senate legislation good, bad and ugly that is stalled in the Senate. It may also be broken into bite sized pieces and added to spending bills. Many of the barriers are turf battles about which groups (DHS or military?) should have authority over civilian cyber security rather than issues of personal freedom and rights.  US, county and local government IT officials note the problems an internet shutdown might cause. Law enforcement relies heavily information flowing from the internet and would have to rely on radio during a shutdown. Also some municipalities have emergency management on twitter feeds.  

Former President George W. Bush has canceled a trip to a charity event in Switzerland where he was to speak about freedom and offer reflections on his presidency. It was unclear if he was to be paid for his speaking and reflecting.   The AP reported that a spokesman for next week’s event said “The calls to demonstrate were sliding into dangerous terrain.”

On what would have been his first trip to Europe after leaving office Bush might have had quite a greeting. Mimicking the time in Baghdad 2008 when at a secure news event George Bush was assaulted with a shoe thrown by an Iraqi journalist, protest rally organizers wanted demonstrators to bring a shoes to the event.  

It seems a very small price to pay for starting a war and authorizing torture (allegedly, says the Washington Post story).

However the Post mentions another bit of potential trouble for our former “decider” President, perhaps more serious than facing crowds armed with shoes for throwing. Amnesty International and the Center for Constitutional Rights are requesting a criminal investigation by Swiss prosecutors over Bush’s admission in his recent memoirs that he personally authorized water boarding torture.

The Center for Constitutional Rights said in a statement that they had planned to bring the complaint under the Convention Against Torture* on behalf of two of men, Majid Khan, who remains at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Sami al-Hajj, a former al-Jazeera cameraman who was released in May 2008. The 2,500-page complaint will not be filed in court, but will be released Monday at a media event in Switzerland.

* The U.N. Convention Against Torture was signed by Pres. Reagan in 1988

The Swiss maintain Bush would have immunity, but the Center for Constitutional Rights says no such immunity exists under the Convention Against Torture and plan to persist. Similar charges were thrown out against former Bush Sec.of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

“Whatever Bush or his hosts say, we have no doubt he canceled his trip to avoid our case,” the center’s statement said. “The message from civil society is clear: If you’re a torturer, be careful in your travel plans. It’s a slow process for accountability, but we keep going.”

Vermont’s own Auditor Tom Salmon got a little mention outside of Vermont on Politico.com the other day and, what the heck, I may as well share it here.  

Remarking to Politico.com on his impending decision to challenge US Senator Bernie Sanders, Salmon explained that he is 65% in.

"Right now, I am 65 percent in. When I hit 75 percent it will commence exploratory.”

 He continued attempting to clarify his position:

I am not attached to the 2012 outcome, my odds, or my political career. I don't need to be senator, or governor, or stay put as state auditor — I need to be an authentic self-utilizing power along the lines of excellence. I am deeply concerned that we address risks of economic, political and spiritual significance through a new brand of leaders that communicate effectively from the sincere center.

That 68-word quote from Politico.com was picked up at Slate by David Weigel, who carefully lays out the daunting practical challenges Salmon might face, then throws it aside and says:

But let's ignore all that. Let's focus on Salmon's completely incomprehensible quote. It sounds like a No Labels manifesto translated into Laotian and back into English.

He declares Salmon’s quest The most doomed campaign of 2012.

I might differ only with Weigel’s English-to-Laotian-to-English theory. I think Salmon’s phrase “I need to be an authentic self-utilizing power along the lines of excellence” reads more like self-help-comic-super-hero-patois. Commence exploratory! Kapow!

Go for it!

Is he getting better and better or what?  

Vermont casino gambling, it’s a zombie of an idea that lives on in good times and bad. Tom Salmon last floated the idea but now Vermont lawmaker Rep.Ron Hubert in a Burlington Free Press article says he too thinks its time to start a conversation about legalizing casino gambling  in Vermont.

Despite the fact that more competition and the long recession have driven casino revenues to lows nationally for several years he says:

“I thought there was certainly no harm in getting the conversation started”

Why? Well customers at his market

“…head to the Mohegan Sun and Akwesasne Mohawk casinos in nearby states. They grouse about how Vermont loses out on their businesses [sic] by not having casinos.”

Rep.Hubert has support for this bill from sixteen other reps, most of them are republicans.

Ideas under consideration include floating casinos on Lake Champlain or in trains out of White River Junction.  

Casino revenues  are down for their fourth straight year in Atlantic City due to competition from neighboring Philadelphia, New York and Delaware. Connecticut casinos laid off 300 workers in the past year to cut costs due to five year drop in gambling.This increased profits for one quarter despite continued low overall revenue. Iowa opened casinos in 2006 and they are suffering stagnant revenues. An attempt by the state of Iowa  to increase their tax on casinos is causing threats from casino operators of cutbacks, job losses and ultimately closure of these gambling operations which are heavily in debt.  

No harm in getting this conversation started? Here in Vermont the chairwoman of the house committee which received the bill notes worries about casinos may complicate the efforts of the Abenaki to gain tribal recognition.  

Tactful permitting! Surprisingly, Hubert sees Vermont’s development and permitting laws, normally maligned  by Republicans  offering a check on casino development should  it be allowed.

“With Vermont’s permit regulations, there should be sufficient constraints to make sure any casino is tactful, he said.  

Ethan Allen Institute’s popular monthly newsletter features a quote that is raising eyebrows and law enforcement officers are looking at it according to the Vermont Press Bureau.  Here is the quote referred to from the Ethan Allen newsletter online;

Debate report: In a December 1 cable TV debate with EAI's Energy Education Project team (Meredith Angwin and Howard Shaffer), VPIRG energy spokesperson James Moore emphatically declared that the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant "hasn't killed anyone YET".

One unnamed viewer observed that "I also haven't killed anyone YET,but I am thinking of James Moore as a candidate.”[added emphasis]

Vice President of Ethan Allen Institute John McClaughry reacted with surprisingly little sensitivity to this given the recent shootings in Arizona. Showing little consideration that this quote might be troublesome to others.“Lighten up, fellas, Talk it over with your shrink is what I say.”

A far cry from his faux-folksy “Thanks for listening” which is McClaughry’s trade mark signoff on his VPR commentaries.    

Tension and emotions must be running high with the pro VY crowd. Earlier this month in a Vermont pro-nuclear blog, Meredith Angwin’s YesVY, the author recommends a new blog supporting nuclear power whose argument claims to demolish the "views" of an anti-nuclear writer.  She recommends, oddly, that the pro-nuclear blog be read and followed to their source with a gun and a camera.

Read Charles Barton's posts. Follow Barton with gun and camera, as he tracks Jacobson's errors to their source.