Thanks to a little detective work by fellow front-pager BP, we now know the source of Randy Brock’s mediocre website. No, it’s not Burlington, or Williston, or Montpelier, or Rutland, or St. Johnsbury; it’s Indianapolis, Indiana. Specifically, the offices of The Prosper Group, an e-campaign consultancy that serves right-wing candidates. They do websites, e-mail marketing and fundraising, robocalls, etc.

The IP address for Brock’s website is 174.129.24.4. It traces back to the Prosper Group. The same IP address is behind the campaign websites of Michigan Republican Pete Hoekstra*, Indiana Republican Mike Pence, Indiana Republican Richard Mourdock**, and Minnesota Republican Pete Hegseth***, all of whom are PG clients. (Other past/current PG clients include Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell, Scott Walker’s Wisconsin GOP, and nutball Congressman Allen West!)

* Whose moment of infamy came on Super Bowl Sunday, when he ran a blatantly racist TV ad (in Michigan markets) with a Chinese-American actress speaking pidgin English and thanking Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow for weakening America with her careless spending. The ad never aired again, and the actress had to issue an abject apology for portraying a racial stereotype.

***Oops, he lost already.

One more thing: that same IP address is shared by the website of Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, the absolutely 100% (cough) local (cough, cough) grass-roots (cough cough hack hack hack) organization devoted to killing Gov. Shumlin’s health care reform plan. The VHCF website was registered by a Prosper Group staffer in March 2011. According to the Vermont Press Bureau, VHCF was founded in April 2011 — the month after PG registered its website — by Darcie Johnston. The same Darcie Johnston who’s now a top aide in the Brock campaign.

Small world, hmm? Maybe she got a two-for-one deal on the VHCF and Brock websites.

Anyway, the fact that Brock’s website is being run out of an office in Indianapolis explains why (a) the site looks so slick, and (b) it’s so dreadfully short of content and hardly ever updated. Considering that Randy Brock probably has a smaller budget than most of PG’s other clients, I suspect they’ve given him a cut-and-paste template website and are doing little or nothing for maintenance and updating.

It’s sad, really. Brock could have done better for a lot cheaper by hiring some computer-major Young Republican from UVM. and getting himself a WordPress site.

After the jump: is Brock’s campaign a Trojan horse?

This is one more sign of how Brock’s campaign is hard-wired into the hard-right national Republican network, and how little it’s being tailored to the undecided and Shumlin-leaning voters that Brock will need if he’s to win the race. The most recent poll gave Shumlin 60%, Brock 27% and only 11% undecided — so Brock not only has to sweep the undecideds, he has to convince at least 11% of Shumlin’s voters to switch sides.

Hard to imagine him doing that with the campaign he’s running.

So is Randy Brock stupid, or is his campaign about something other than beating Shumlin?

There are those at GMD who think Brock is basically a kamikaze pilot: not meant to personally win, but to inflict maximum damage on Shumlin and his health care plan. That would certainly explain a lot. The way Republicans are talking these days, it sounds like they’ve half given up on 2012 already. It would also make sense with Bruce Lisman’s costly Campaign for Vermont pounding on the liberals and trying to sway the course of public opinion for the long haul.

I lean a bit more toward “stupid” — or, to be more precise, lacking imagination. I think most Republicans are trapped in a Fox News/Rush/Wall Street Journal bubble, in which all their opinions are reinforced and magnified. They can’t see anything outside that bubble, and they don’t realize that their ideas lack broad appeal. Jack Lindley seems to honestly believe that it’s only a matter of time before Vermont voters wake up and smell the free-market coffee. Or smell what the Brock is cookin’.

(Yes, I’ve been waiting a long time to use that line.)

I don’t think the current VTGOP has enough imagination or creativity to do anything else. Now, if Jim Barnett and Neale Lunderville (a.k.a. The Nasty Boys) were still running things, I’d lean more toward the conspiracy theory. To me, the way the VTGOP is generally floundering, I don’t think they’re playing a long game. I think they’re just trying to stay afloat.  

We might learn a lot more on July 15, the first campaign finance report deadline for 2012. If Brock has a bigger-than-expected war chest, especially if it’s stuffed with out-of-state money, then we’ll know that the VTGOP is being bought out by the conservative Billionaires’ Club, and Vermont Republicans have bought into the idea that money can buy them love. If not in 2012, then somewhere down the yellow brick road.  

“I offer some candid, but not libelous, thoughts on some people.”

            — Former Gov. Jim Douglas on his forthcoming autobiography.

It’s so characteristic of Jim Douglas: he takes a step forward (“candid”) followed immediately by a backtrack to safer ground (“but not libelous”). There’s a tantalizing hint at some last-minute editing to remove some of the more intemperate musings of Our Dear Ex-Leader.

We thought this merited a little investigation. And in a midnight dumpster-diving expedition behind a certain Middlebury residence, a crack team of GMD operatives retrieved a plastic bag full of shredded papers. Then, through weeks of intensive effort, GMD’s Political Investigations Lab* confirmed our suspicions. The reconstructed papers contain passages excised from Douglas’ memoir, each page rubber-stamped “DO NOT PRINT” in red ink.

*Under the direction of PIL chief John Lydon, of course.

After the jump, we present selected “outtakes” for the edification of our readers.  

Well I remember the day I first met Peter Shumlin, then a freshman state legislator. “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat, what a honker!” I thought, as the young Shumlin strode my way, his nose preceding him by some distance and a patently phony smile pasted on his face.  

He stuck out his hand. “Hi, I’m Peter Shumlin. My friends call me Pete, but you can call me Mr. Shumlin!” he laughed. I decided to give him the dead-fish special. He countered by clamping my fingers in a vise-like grip. This, I realized instantly, was not a man to be trifled with.

“Well, hello there,” I said, extricating my hand and trying not to grimace. “I’m Jim Douglas.”

“I know,” he said, glancing over my shoulder. “So, how’s tricks?”

“Oh, fine,” I said. “I look forward to working with you on–”

“That’s great,” he interrupted. “Excuse me, gotta run!”

I’m not normally one for strong language, but I clearly recall the thought forming in my mind: “Christ, what an asshole!”

_________________

People have often asked me what I saw in Brian Dubie, my loyal Lieutenant Governor who never seemed to be around when you needed him. (Not that we ever really needed him.) Simple: I needed a number-two who could easily be outmaneuvered if he tried anything funny.

One day, Neale [Lunderville] and I were in the office going over some scheduling. “We’ve got a bunch of requests for personal appearances,” he said. “Nothing great; no public-works ribbon-cuttings or any good photo-ops.”

“So what do you suggest?” I inquired.

“Let’s send Flyboy,” he sneered. “He’s not doing anything.”

“Not so’s you can tell,” I said, and we shared a hearty laugh.

After Neale calmed down, a thoughtful look crossed his face. “You know, Your Grace” — that was his little term of craven endearment for me — “Someday this Dubie thing could bite us in the ass big-time.”

“How so?”

“Well, what if you decided to retire?” he said. “Or say Bernie Sanders has an embolism during one of his marathon shouting sessions, and you appoint yourself to the Senate? The Party would be stuck with Brian Dubie, and you’d be off to greener pastures.”

“Eh, screw ’em,” I said. “You know what they say: Apres moi, le deluge!”

We laughed again. Those were good times.

_______________________

When I met President Obama at the White House in 2009, he famously asked me how I managed to keep getting re-elected in such a strongly liberal state. “Famously” because, well, I repeat it every chance I get.

At the time, I gave him some fake-humble nonsense about being in touch with the people or whatever. But the real reason is clear: the Democrats were complete bunglers.

Look at the record. I barely squeaked into office the first time around in 2002. I got 45% of the vote, but the liberal electorate was split and I won in the House.

In 2004, the Dems put up Peter Clavelle. What a joke. Then in 2006, Scudder Parker. Sounds like the treasurer of the yacht club. What the heck is a “scudder,” anyway?

2008 was the crowning glory. All I had to do was beat that retread Tony Pollina and the unorganized and underfunded Gaye Symington. Easy peasy.

So now I have a lifelong reputation as a master politician. But when you look at that procession of no-hopers, it’s clear that a potted plant could have done as well. I continually marveled at the Democrats’ inability to get their act together in the Governor’s race, when otherwise they were kicking our you-know-whats all over the state.

And, if truth be told, I didn’t mind that we were losing all those other races. It cemented my reputation as a political genius — the only Republican who could win in Vermont. And because the Legislature usually had big Democratic majorities, nobody expected me to accomplish anything. Low expectations: the secret of my success.  

Slow Sunday night, and I just paid a visit to Randy Brock’s website. Call me a glutton for punishment, I guess.

Couldn’t help noticing Jim Douglas’ endorsement of Randy, which starts off with this sentence.

No race this year is as important to the future of Vermont than electing Randy Brock governor.

My inner grammarian let out a loud guffaw.

There are a total of three — count ’em, three — endorsements on Randy Brock’s website. They are from Jim Douglas, Phil Scott, and Brian Dubie. Speaking of the ex-Lt. Gov., his endorsement begins with this curious sentence.

I wish I could be with you today, but my work takes me out of state.

This endorsement was first delivered at Brock’s campaign kickoff — and, indeed, Brian Dubie was absent due to the urgency of his “work.” The rest of the endorsement is perfectly acceptable. So why in God’s name did Brock’s genius staffers fail to simply omit that first sentence? It makes absolutely no sense.  

Overall, the new improved Randy Brock website appears to be unchanged since it was unveiled with a big splash about three weeks ago. The endorsements are the same sad uncorrected threesome. The listing of Events still includes only three “meet and greets” at the homes of supporters; if Brock is giving any speeches, nobody’s bothering to post them on his website.

The “News” page is similarly bereft. The last entry was on May 25, and it’s a link to a Vermont Press Bureau article about Brock’s health care plan. I guess he’s making no news.

And yes, the home page still opens up with that stupid “bears in the woods” ad.

Apparently, nobody’s minding the store at randybrock.com.

I do note that Brock is making progress on Twitter. Painfully slow and boring progress, to be sure. He’s up to 89 followers. Wowee. His Tweets are infrequent and dull; things like “Hope I see you at the Memorial Day parade,” or “Here’s a link to my interview on VPR.”

Yep, Randy Brock… building a bridge to the 20th Century.  

 This past week has been big for online zombie searches. Following a genuinely gruesome face eating attack by a disturbed (to say the least) man in Florida “zombie apocalypse” became the third most popular search term online. The original Florida story was soon followed by equally horrid headlines from New Jersey, Maryland, and Canada. As these stories seemed to rapidly accumulate from out of nowhere the Center for Disease Control was compelled to issue this statement.

“CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead," said CDC spokesman David Daigle, adding: "(or one that would present zombie-like symptoms.)"

Only last year they had used the term zombie apocalypse in a tongue-in-cheek teaser for publicity about emergency preparedness.

Also as a result of the ebb and flow of search- hungry traffic, the humor site Cracked.com (the self described; sort of popular comedy website that publishes silly, informative list articles {garnished with dick jokes}) had its best days for traffic ever. This traffic spike, according to senior Cracked.com writer Daniel O’Brian, shows the media is seriously broken.  

One insane news story catches everyone's attention with an impossible to ignore headline ("Man Shot to Death by Police While Attempting to Eat Another Man's Face").Once that happens, any online journalist hungry for traffic is going to look for similar stories around the world (of which there are always plenty, because there will always be disturbed people in the world), and try to find a link between their story and the crazy popular Miami story. Because then they're not just running a story about "a man in Maryland who ate another man's heart and brains," they're writing a story titled "Another Trend in the Bizarre ZOMBIE EPIDEMIC THAT'S SWEEPING AMERICA!"

That's just smart journalism. You hitch your story to a more popular story and try to connect them. This doesn't mean that people weren't murdering and/or eating people in horrific ways two years ago; it just means we weren't looking for that kind of story back then.

However the New York Times – safely behind a pay wall –  hardly reported on the original story and didn’t use the “Z” world at all. But check out O’Brian’s entire rant – it isn’t totally cracked.  

It’s been a long while since I’ve gotten out to do some urban exploring (or, in the following example, rural exploration). Me and the sweetie recently had a Catskills weekend, hitting up the old “Borscht Belt”, the term given to the region where in the middle part of the 20th century, many Jews from New York City and surrounding areas would come for vacation and leisure. With the advent of cheaper airfares, the resorts, such as the Tamarack, The Pines, and Grosssinger’s, among others, eventually saw business decline and they went out of business. With the exception of Grossinger’s (unless I’m missing something), they’ve all been torn down or burned down. The Tamarack, which we wanted to visit, burned down last month, on my birthday.

On the northern part of the Catskills, in the area between the Catskills and the Adirondacks, lies the small town of Sharon Springs. Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, when the “restorative health spa” craze was all the rage (and, in many cases, on par with patent medicines in terms of actual efficacy), Sharon Springs was quite the hotspot, with its natural sulfur springs.  The town was replete with massive hotels and boarding houses,many of which, after the Holocaust, catered to an immigrant Jewish clientele.

One of the many sulfur springs in the town.

Much more, and slideshows, below the jump.

Unfortunately, after the craze died out, as well as with the increase of competing options brought on by cheaper airfare and extravagances like Disneyland, the town went into a long decline, and almost all of the boarding houses closed up, where they sit around the town in various states of disrepair. Some are half collapsed, some have burned, and a few are still structurally sound, but who knows for how much longer? The town is trying its best to revitalize, due to its location to Cooperstown and Howe Caverns, among other things.

Two of the less decrepit boarding houses were the Hotel Columbia, and Hotel Adler. I could see both of them from the B&B we were staying at. The Columbia was the more modest of the two, so we looked at that, first:

One of the things we noticed and read about was how, when the hotels started getting less and less visitors, they’d close down the highest floors. Eventually, they stopped maintaining them, too. We saw beer cans in a janitor’s closet on the top floor that were the old steel kind that you had to open with a churchkey. Considering those were over 40 years old and the hotel was open until the 90’s, that’s a long time for a janitor’s closet to be ignored.

Next up was the Hotel Adler, which I believe was the biggest and most well-known. It closed in the mid-2000’s. It was humongous, as you can see from the slideshow below. The colors in this place were amazing. It’s like they redecorated it in 1973 and never bothered to again in the remaining three decades it stayed open. In the entire basement was a bunch of spa tubs, at least 40 or so.

What is tragic about these places is, even though they are structurally still salvageable for now, there is no incentive to do so, given their massive size. As nice as Sharon Springs is, there simply is no need for a massive hotel there, let alone two or three more. A few years ago, a group of Korean businessmen bought the Adler, the Columbia, the Imperial Springs, and a few other properties in town, with promises of rebuilding and revitalizing them. Somewhere along the way, they must have realized the folly of their decisions, as all of the properties sit in a state of decay, a reminder of a very different time. I will not be surprised at all to find out in the next few years that the Adler and/or Columbia have burned to the ground. That’s how these things often pan out.

Before getting to Sharon Springs, we went to Grossinger’s Resort, the last of the great Borscht Belt resorts. In its heyday of the 1950’s and 1960’s, it was the place to be:

Although there is a country club/golf course that is still in operation, the remaining buildings of the resort lie in an advanced state of decay. It’s been picked pretty clean in terms of what’s been left behind, but it was still most certainly worth the trip. Both of the massive swimming pools are still in there, as well as the clubhouse and the beauty salon in the basement of the indoor pool room. The indoor pool was something to see, as the ferns and mosses were growing along one side of it:

There’s a lot more on Grossinger’s here:

Wonderful Borscht Belt Memories

Catskill Archive

Grossinger’s 1919-1986

There’s also more on the Adler and Columbia here:

Kingston Lounge: Hotel Adler

Kingston Lounge: Hotel Columbia

Sharon Springs Spas

So a judge has ruled against Franklin’s tradition of starting Town Meeting with a prayer. The decision has reverberated across Vermont all the way to Brattleboro, which might be the last place you’d expect to open Town Meeting with a religious invocation.

You’d be wrong.

Longtime Brattleboro Moderator Tim O’Connor points out that Brattleboro residents have been starting their annual town meeting with a prayer since 1753.

What’s more, O’Connor has no plans to change unless the Franklin ruling is upheld on appeal.

“Until there is a final ruling by the Supreme Court I think there is a place for it,” said O’Connor. “‘In God we trust.’ That’s what the Pledge of Allegiance says. Anyone who doesn’t want to participate doesn’t have to come in until after it has been said.”

This is Brattleboro? Noted haven for hippies, socialists, nudists, and strolling heifers? I guess this is Brattleboro. To be fair, it’s said that the Bratt prayers are “ecumenical,” but that doesn’t help the atheist, agnostic, or the person who simply prefers a separation between church and state.

According to the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, about a dozen communities open Town Meeting with a prayer. And the judge’s ruling is not binding in other counties, so O’Connor is within the bounds of the law.

But still. Brattleboro?

Local activist Marilyn Hackett was successful this week in her long-running suit seeking an injunction against the conduct of an official prayer at the Franklin Town Meeting.

Rejecting a number of bogus procedural challenges and some equally spurious arguments by the town, the Franklin Superior Court ruled that including prayers at the beginning of a town meeting violates the Vermont Constitution's prohibition on compelling anyone to "attend any religious worship, finding that "The court rejects the town's suggestion that the history of prayer at town meeting renders it non-religious and concludes that the prayers at issue constituted `religious worship'".

The court also ruled that the prayer at town meeting violated the constitutional provision that "nor can any person be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of religious sentiments, or peculia[r] mode of religious worship." The court held that to establish a practice that required Ms. Hackett to remain outside of the meeting room while part of the meeting was being conducted, simply because the town insisted on the prayer, would deprive her of the right to attend the entire meeting.

The town's argument that the prayer does not constitute religious worship is of particular interest here. Whether it's "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance, "In god we trust" on coins, or religious invocations at the opening of sessions of Congress, those who want to impose their religion on others are fond of arguing that these are not true religious statements, but simply neutral acknowledgements of the religious beliefs of the majority of the population. One wonders, of course, why the religionists fight so hard to keep them if they are not there to express their religious beliefs, or whether they would so willingly accept a change to "under allah" or "In allah we trust".

As a result of its decision, the court granted Ms. Hackett a declaratory judgment that the town's practices have violated her constitutional rights, granted her a permanent injunction prohibiting the prayer at town meetings, and will be holding another hearing to determing whether to award her damages. The full decision can be read at the ACLU web site.

Congratualtions to Marilyn Hackett, the ACLU, and ACLU volunteer attorneys Bernie Lambek and Julie Kalish! 

[UPDATE: I had dinner Friday with the plaintiff, Marilyn Hackett (and a dozen other Franklin County lefties, Democrats and Progs at our regular “first Friday” beer and burgers drop-in confab).

Hackett also said that the reporter for the Associated Press, among other media representatives, asked her what religion she “is.” “I refused to answer. I told them that that is irrelevant, that the whole point is not to mix religion and government, and it doesn’t matter what religion I might practice,” she said. ~ NanuqFC]

The news has been unavoidable: former Governor Jim Douglas is publishing an autobiography. In it, he promises reflections on past and current issues, as well as “candid, but not libelous” observations about noteworthy political personalities. This tempting hint has sent the political press into a mini-tizzy of anticipation. Vermont Press Bureau: “Douglas to offer insights in new book.” “Douglas will deliver the inside dope on his eight years in the state’s top elected office.”

Ehhhh, I’ll believe it when I see it. Has any politician, ever, written a memoir that was worth the paper it was printed on? I can’t recall any. And somehow I doubt that Jim Douglas, a man known for maintaining a moderate image (stressing image) in all things, will be the one to snap that streak and write a truly memorable political memoir. Nope, can’t see it.

And I anticipate with a shudder the Queen Elizabeth Book Tour to come, complete with fawning interviews and friendly press coverage. I expect plenty of sage bemoaning of today’s harsh partisanship and the drawbacks of one-party dominance in Vermont (especially when it’s not his party doing the dominating). It’s gonna be like a five-mile slog through a chest-deep sea of Malt-O-Meal.

Funny how the timing worked out: the book will appear, and Douglas will run his victory lap, just as the 2012 campaign is heating up. Amazing coincidence, no?

I have no plans to buy or read Jim Douglas’ Malt-O-Memoir, but I might be convinced otherwise if I knew that he’d actually been candid and frank about certain things.

(Things  which, I’m sure, will be ignored or glossed over in the actual book.)

So here’s what I’d like to see, and I invite your suggestions in the Comments. Maybe we can entice Smilin’ Jim to make some last-minute additions.  

1. Why did you leave the Republican Party a smoking wreck? You are typically portrayed as a savvy politico who managed to consistently win as a Republican in a blue state. But, aside from keeping your own ass in the big chair, what did you actually accomplish? During your tenure, the VTGOP lost ground in the Legislature. It failed to produce a new generation of leaders (with the possible exception of Phil Scott, for whom you deserve no credit at all). When you decided to step down, the Democrats had five first-class gubernatorial candidates, while the Republicans had nobody but Mr. Excitement, Brian Dubie.

And in a historically great year for the Republicans nationwide, your party got absolutely smoked in Vermont. Brilliant.

One year after you left office, your party was so short of money that it couldn’t pay its Executive Director. So he quit. And in 2012 it’s had to rely on recycled “talent” like Jack Lindley, Randy Brock, and possibly even (oh, the infamy) Jack McMullen, while scrambling to field a ticket with any credibility whatsoever. Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Don Turner is merely hoping not to lose any more ground in the Legislative elections.

So Jim, if you’re such a brilliant politician, why did you completely fail to build a strong Republican Party or an influential conservative movement capable of appealing to the voters? Why did Vermont become the bluest state in the nation under your watch?

2. Why did you inflict Jim Barnett on our state? Barnett, for those who don’t recall, was Jim Douglas’ attack dog. A man who professes to admire Karl Rove and seeks to emulate him in political tactics and strategy.

As it happens, a succinct review of Barnett’s career came out this week on the Huffington Post, and it makes appalling reading. (HuffPo’s interest was sparked by Barnett’s current gig, running Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown’s re-election campaign.)

You, Jim Douglas, brought this shitweasel out of the Bush White House to run your campaigns and head the VTGOP. Barnett quickly made a bunch of enemies with his over-the-top, no-holds-barred style.  The HuffPo piece notes that…

Barnett coarsened the political dialogue in Vermont with his persistent and vitriolic attacks. “This is a tone we haven’t seen from Republicans until Jim Barnett got here,” said Vermont State Senator Jim Condos, when Barnett orchestrated malicious attacks on Democratic state senate candidates.

Barnett earned himself a variety of telling nicknames: “mad dog,” “Republican attack dog,” one of “the Nasty Boys,” a “sharp-toothed political snapper,” the “the ferocious political attack pooch,” “the evil twin,” “Barnett the Bad Cop,” “the Pit Bull” who “is always in attack mode,” a “White House protégé,” and a “Karl Rove character.” Eventually, Barnett built such a terrible reputation for himself that he had to flee the state.

(The embedded links are to the work of the late great Peter Freyne, which is well worth revisiting.)

You, Jim Douglas, introduced this guy and his political viciousness to our fair state, and turned him loose while you sailed blandly above the fray, basking in your nice-guy reputation. And now, in puffing your forthcoming memoir, you dare to criticize “the polarization we see today,” and tell the Vermont Press Bureau that “there has to be a return to collegiality, to compromise, to centrism.”

Here’s a promise. You explain why the VTGOP went on the critical list as soon as you left office, give a thorough explanation for hiring Jim Barnett and letting him do your dirty work, and even take responsibility for your significant role in polarizing our politics, and I’ll buy your goddamn book.

So there’s what I’d like to see — and won’t — in Jim Douglas’ Ode To Self. Now it’s your turn in the Comments: what do you want Jim Douglas to explain?  

Awww, some bruised fee-fees over at Campaign for Vermont, the “nonpartisan” policy shop that’s obviously and blatantly conservative to anyone with a brain who spends five minutes reading their website or listening to their radio ads.

It seems that those dastardly folks at Vermont Digger committed an act of journalism. It took a long hard look at CFV and its founder/funder Bruce Lisman, and published a story pointing out the obvious: that CFV is conservative, that its policy positions are closely aligned with the Republicans’, that all its attacks are against the Democrats, that Lisman is spending a whole lot of money and nobody knows what his real ambitions are.

And that gave Tom Pelham a sad.

Pelham is the main source of nonpartisan lipstick on the CFV pig, having served in Democratic and Republican administrations and as an independent state rep. He read VTDigger’s Lisman article and wrote a piece castigating Digger for “poor journalistic technique.”  The writer’s offenses included (1) failing to report what a nice guy Bruce Lisman is, (2) focusing on the political angle of CFV and interviewing political figures, and (3) pointing out that Lisman was a big-time financier at a time when Wall Street had its biggest meltdown since 1929.

Horrors!

There were a few factual errors in the original Digger story, but the thrust and the main points are completely inarguable — if inconvenient for CFV’s public image. So let’s take Pelham’s complaints one by one, shall we?  

1. Bruce Lisman is a nice guy. Pelham complains that the story didn’t touch on Lisman’s broad charitable activities as evidence of a man who simply wants the best for Vermont.

Sorry, Tom, but this was an article about Lisman and CFV as emerging political players in the state. When writing a story about political impact and implications, you don’t touch on the Vermont Symphony or the Boys and Girls Club. Lisman’s charitable activities are as irrelevant to the story as his hobbies. Does he collect stamps? Vermont needs to know!

2. CFV is nonpartisan, but Digger portrayed it as conservative. Pelham blames this on the writer’s dependence on political sources who evaluated CFV in partisan terms.

Well, Christ on a cracker, it doesn’t take Jake Perkinson or Kevin Ellis to point out that CFV promotes conservative causes. As I said earlier, all it takes is a brief perusal of CFV material.CFV may be an independent group, but there’s a nearly total overlap between its priorities and those of the VTGOP. If it was a Venn diagram, it’d basically be two circles on top of each other.

(In the process, Pelham sullies the reputation of Vermont Pundit Laureate Eric Davis as an “armchair observer” who has “never met Bruce Lisman,” which we at GMD will not stand for. Eric Davis is a Vermont institution, harrumph, and criticizing him is akin to pissing on the Ethan Allen statue in front of the Statehouse.)

3. Bruce Lisman was a saint of Wall Street. Or, as Pelham puts it, “there is nothing to be found that taints Bruce’s career in financial markets.” Which reminds me of an old Calvin Trillin piece about a scuzzy politician who should use the campaign slogan “Never Been Indicted.”

I have no reason to believe that Lisman was involved in collateralized debt obligations or credit swaps or mortgage merry-go-rounds or any of the other hyper-caffeinated financial products that almost killed the global economy. What I do know is that he was immersed in that world for virtually his entire adult life, and he is very much a product of Wall Street. This is the real issue with Lisman: not that he himself was responsible for the crash, but that his views are a product of a fatally flawed system.

Two pieces of evidence, previously reported on this site, from Lisman’s 2010 speech in Burlington.

Lisman referred to the Wall Street meltdown of 2008 as “this thing that happened,” this “Darwinian asteroid,” this alien force that came out of nowhere and hit without warning, and was obviously nobody’s fault. This is complete horseshit that could only come from a Wall Streeter.

Lisman also referred to “capital at risk,” i.e. money invested in a business, as “the most precious thing in the galaxy.” Which is just plain obnoxious. He further asserted that because capital is so precious, we must cut taxes on capital gains and corporations. And, he later said, we should raise income taxes on poor and working-class Americans because “you’d want everyone to pay something in.” (Ignoring the fact that poor people pay lots of taxes, just not income taxes.)

If that isn’t the world-view of a Wall Street lifer, I don’t know what is.  

In sum, Mr. Pelham, the Digger story may portray CFV in a way you don’t like, but that doesn’t mean the story is wrong. It just didn’t serve your agenda. And I shed no tears for Lisman or CFV; they can buy all the good publicity they want.

And they have. And they will.  

(The following is my little politically incorrect way of paying tribute to what Obama has seemed to have accomplished.  It seems very ‘quiet’ out there in Anti-Gayland.  And J. C. Penney is doing a Gay Father’s Day ad.  It looks like the assholes are on the run, or, at least, in the closet.  Let us hope that many, if not all, the things I mention below actually happen.  This country, and the world, would be a healthier place.  But watch out for co-opting and hypocrisy.  It’s Wall Street’s little way of making a quick buck, diluting real politics into carnival, and then flushing it all down Capitalism’s toilet, which the EPA does not regulate.)

BREAKING NEWS…Gays Are IN…Reuters…3.17 seconds ago

Since Barack Obama finally came out of the closet to support Gay Marriage, a new trend seems to be emerging almost reminiscent of the commercialization and exploitation of the Hippie/Music/Drug culture and the Feminist Movement of the late sixties and early seventies.  It seems apparent now that Gays are IN.  And major corporations and the institution of Pro Football, no less, are jumping all over the place to cash in on this new American culture.

Walmart recently announced it will be adding a Gay Section to most of its stores nationwide, featuring clothing, tattooing, piercing, and other items that will be called Gay Chic.

Not to be outdone by Walmart, J.C. Penney has announced it will be coming out with its own line of Gay Fashions in its Fall catalogue, along with Gay Home Furnishings, and Gay Toys for kiddies.

Along with Gay Bars, across the country now, Gay Stores are springing up everywhere.  There are Gay Craft Stores, Gay Music Stores and Bookstores, Gay Foods Stores, Gay Pets Stores, Gay Corner Stores, and Retro-Gay Stores.  And also a new chain of stores opening called the WannaBeGay Store, whose flagship store will open in Montpelier, Vt. this Winter.  Also In Montpelier, Vt. (which is now considered to be the Gay Capital of the USA), it is rumored that an upscale downtown cafe will be brewing its own micro GayBrew draft on site, eventually to bottle it for sale across the country.  And a coalition of Montpelier female artists and writers will be copycatting Montpelier’s New England Culinary Institute (NECI) with what they will call NELI, the New England Lesbian Institute, in which Gay Culture and something called Gay Channeling will be taught along with other college level (Gay) courses.  It is also rumored that NELI will offer courses to ‘straight’ people, such as Gay Speak, Gay Manners & Etiquette, Gay Walking, Gay Drinking and Gay Driving.

And the worlds of science and the environment have now recognized the impact of what President Obama has put in motion.  Sources tell us a study group of ecologists at MIT will soon be coming out with a paper that will examine what it calls Gay Sprawl as a solution to Global Warming.  The paper supposedly alleges that Gays have the lowest carbon footprints on the planet, and in some cases, negative carbon footprints.  And that Gayness itself may emit some certain yet unidentified element into the atmosphere that can restore the Ozone Layer.

Meanwhile, in Idaho, an anthropological–environmental group will soon be releasing a report in which, it is said, Sasquatch (Bigfoot) is identified as an eons old species of Alien Gay Humanoids from a far away galaxy which colonized Earth after the extinction of the dinosaurs, and which possibly mated with prehistoric mankind here.  According to those reliable sources of ours, the report states that, with Gayness now sweeping the nation and perhaps the whole planet, Sasquatches, which have lived in fear of prejudices towards Gays, will now be coming out of the panoply to intermingle with humans, and that many of these Sasquatches will be moving to Vermont to form, what our sources again tell us, a Third Gay Vermont Republic.  (See Smithsonian Magazine, Feb., 2006, for info on First and Second Gay Vermont Republics.)

There has been some backlash, however, to all this surge of Gayness from a group of straight single men called the Right Hand Coalition, based in Passaic, New Jersey.  This group is now demanding that their very own civil union partners be recognized and given the same status and health benefits Gays in civil unions and marriages are receiving.  Abel Peckerpaw, the group’s spokesman, put it this way:  “My right hand here has been a partner to me all my life.  It’s never let me down.  Never cheated on me.  Never left me.  Never had a headache or a period.  It’s my Civil Partner, as the Gays say, and I and my group demand our rights!”  Peckerpaw also said that another men’s group called the Left Hand Coalition will soon be making the same demands, and that heavily endowed males will be forming their own ‘activist’ group called the Both Hands Coalition.

Also, a militant Gay group called The Social Anarchists For Revolutionary Fruitcake Party has put out this statement:  “We caution true Gay Americans to beware of the co-opting of Gayness by Wall Street.  Remember the Hippie Movement, the Women’s Movement, and, God help us, the Jesus Freak Movement.  There seems to be a lot of hypocrisy and out-and-out jaded commercialism going on here.  Black people, women, Hispanics and workers are still oppressed by this co-opting weapon, although we are told this is not the case.  That is a lie.  And the powers that be have made it politically incorrect to say so out loud.  I warn Gay Americans to watch out for all this commercial embrace of the Gay Movement.  Wall Street tends to go for immediate profit at the expense of everything and everybody, and then move on to make money on the next trend it helps to create.  How would you like it if, say, in two years, Wall Street asked for a Gay Bail-Out?  What would happen to us?  Perhaps that’s the point of all this?

But it seems nothing will stop the trend towards All Things Gay in this country.  And there are reports leaking out of China that Gays will soon be gathering in Tiananmen Square, and that ‘top secret meetings’ between Gays in Gaza and Gays in Israel’s Mossad may soon lead to an end of conflict there and the establishment of an independent Gay Palestinian State, the world’s first Gay Nation.

Meanwhile, back here at home, those old reliable sources (who are also Gay) tell us that McDonald’s will soon come out with the McDude and the McLesie, two Gayburgers.  Also, that the NFL will meet Gays halfway by having Arni DiFranco do the 2013 Super Bowl Halftime.  That Mitt Romney will pick a Gay VP, and that Joe Biden will respond by turning Gay.  That President Obama will declare Oct. 11th, National Gay Day, replacing Columbus Day to placate GAIM, the Gay American Indian Movement.  That Neil Diamond will put out a CD in November called: “Have A Gay Christmas.”  And that, also in November, in Montpelier, Vt., a certain man-about-town there named PeteySweety will be renaming his famous Twelve Days Of My Birthday to the Twelve Gays Of My Birthday, in honor of some of the Montpelier women he’s been attracted to over the years who were, of course, all Gay, or turned Gay after Petey bought them flowers.

All in all, Mr. and Mrs. All-American Americans, 2012 is going to be quite a year for Gayness.  And don’t forget about Venus.  Things like that are just too coincidental to ignore.

Gay Night and Gay Luck.

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.