There’s been a lot of activity here lately, but I think this deserves some attention.  Recently, Jack McCullough penned the piece Burlington Free Press calls out O’Brien’s partisanship.

In it, Jack notes that:

Dave O’Brien didn’t have much credibility to begin with, but the key is that the whole world is now seeing that Dave O’Brien’s loyalties are to the Douglas/Dubie administration and their wealthy friends, and not with the people of Vermont.

O’Brien chose to respond, without actually responding:

So I do not have any close wealthy friends, nor do I do the bidding of any.  I have no affection or loyalty to Entergy, they just happen to own this facility that is so integral to the state.  I defend the idea that the facility should continue to operate, and in my role as a consumer advocate I have seen Senator Shumlin and many others distort the record and many people are taking what they say to be the whole story and that is unfortunate.

Note that O’Brien doesn’t actually respond to what Jack said.  He pretends that Jack made reference to O’Brien’s wealthy friends, without seeming to understand or care that the “wealthy” reference was to Douglas’ friends.  O’Brien claims to have no loyalty to Entergy, but the issue was not about Entergy as much as it was the Douglas administration and a partisan agenda.

I’m going to quote another snippet of O’Brien’s comments:

The science of the tritium release is entirely the opposite.  The Health Dept has not once found any indication of a threat to the public health and safety.  Are their motives also somehow corrupted by greed and therefore not informed by sound science and the ethics of the medical field?

Now here’s the thing: I’ve written about the word “threat” before.  The claim of there being no “threat” is inaccurate and misleading.  The term he should be using here is “imminent threat.”  But the very existence of a plant that has pipes and tubing in places that the owners failed to acknowledge even existed, that has leaks that take months to discover?  That is a real and genuine threat.  Failure for that threat to manifest itself?  That’s just dumb luck.  

I will quote one more item from O’Brien:

Firstly I am looking at a far more extensive set of information on VY than the general public.  What is reported in the media is a mere fraction of the record, it is a drive by treatment.  I would say that if people were to base their ultimate opinion on VY based on what is reported in the media well apprehension would be natural.  So keep in mind I have much more info and technical input from a team of experienced energy professionals (all democrats and quite liberal), but why is it so hard to accept that someone can a different opinion?

So this is something I find interesting: what O’Brien is claiming here is that he is sitting on secret information about Vermont Yankee that is kept hidden from the public.  This may or may not be true, but it is extremely convenient to be able to tell everyone “if you only knew what I knew we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”  We know that Entergy LA is pushing hard to keep VY open (this may be so that they can more easily find a buyer) so I find it very hard to believe that they would refuse to release information which would increase public perception that the plant is safe and reliable.

People can agree or disagree that the plant should be open.  That’s our choice, but the simple truth is that we’ve had nearly a decade of a Republican administration who refused to lift a finger to prepare for the eventual closing of this plant and to set in motion a plan to keep Vermonters employed should it close on schedule. They could have put resources into preparing for both possibilities.  Instead, they set up a scenario designed to promote the idea that closing VY would be anti-Vermont and anti-jobs.  It’s a form of political blackmail that I truly hope will be shown to be a complete failure come November 2nd.

This sort of reckless disregard for the future of Vermont is not only incompetent.  It’s dereliction of duty on the part of the Douglas administration.  

If O’Brien wants to defend that, that’s obviously his right, but when a public official tries to serve as an apologist for this sort of mendacious hostility towards the state of Vermont and its long-term interests, We The People have both the right and a moral obligation to call him out on it.

I’ve got a number of video segments up on my YouTube channel now, covering issues you’d expect like Vermont Yankee, education and corrections, etc, but there are two that I’d like to highlight.

First, responses to our crisis in agriculture:

Second, responses to our crisis in healthcare:

Um…does anybody notice differences between the unknown independent and the three incumbents (I include Ron Allard in the rightmost chair because he had served several terms before)?  I think we face a stark choice in Fletcher, Fairfield and St Albans Town next Tuesday.  No matter what, being a 2 seat district, we’re going to have at least one conservative Rep who is mired in the failed ideas of the past.  I hope people will help me be the balance to provide forward thinking solutions.

todd

With Latest Polls Showing a Tightening of Scores of Midterm Contests, Republicans Have Failed to Take Into Account the Growing Numbers of Non-White, Heavily Democratic-Leaning Voters While the GOP Is Becoming What the Democrats Were as Recently as the 1950s: An Almost Lily-White, Southern-Dominated Party

REPUBLICANS TURNING INTO THE NEW DIXIECRATS — Regardless of how Republicans fare in next week’s midterm elections, the party faces a crisis of long-term survival as the nation’s population becomes more and more racially and ethnically diverse. By continuing with the infamous “Southern Strategy” hatched by Richard Nixon’s campaign more than 40 years ago that alienated blacks and is now driving away Latinos, the GOP is turning into an almost all-white, Southern-dominated party, even as the white proportion of the U.S. population is shrinking, according to the Census Bureau. Unless the GOP expands its appeal to non-white voters, it will inevitably fall into permanent minority status by mid-century, if not sooner. (Image courtesy Photobucket.com)

(Posted 5:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday, October 26, 2010)

By SKEETER SANDERS

For months now, the Republicans and just about every media pundit across the country have been virtually crowing about how the GOP will take over both houses of Congress in next week’s midterm elections.

Historically, with the notable exception of the post-9/11 election of 2002 — when the dominant issue was national security and the “war on terror” — the party in control of the White House has suffered losses in every midterm congressional election since 1934.  

But according to the latest round of pre-election polls, many key races have tightened — some rather dramatically — and are now rated too close to call.

It now appears that the Democrats are within striking distance of at least blunting the GOP advance — if not keeping control of Congress — which could make for a very long election night next Tuesday.  

Powering the Democrats’ late surge is a massive get-out-the-vote effort by the party aimed at African-Americans, Latinos, Asians and other non-white voters who are comprising an ever-growing segment of the electorate, as well as by exploiting a growing disgust among moderate voters with an unprecedented multi-million-dollar blitz of highly negative — and in many cases, outright inflammatory — TV and radio ads by “independent” groups on behalf of GOP candidates.  

President Obama himself has embarked on a cross-country blitz of his own, becoming the “campaigner-in-chief” exhorting the millions of young people who voted for him in 2008 to vote to preserve the Democrats’ congressional majority in 2010.

The contests for the House and Senate aren’t the only races where there is a last-minute Democratic surge. Several contests for governor are showing the Democratic candidate coming from behind to either surge into the lead or turn the race into a neck-and-neck contest — and in one state in particular (New York), the Democrat is on track to bury his GOP opponent in an overwhelming landslide.

ADS URGING LATINOS IN NEVADA NOT TO VOTE TRACED TO GOP OPERATIVE

Adding to the late Democratic surge is a backlash by Latinos against what they regard as an anti-Latino assault by Republicans and their conservative allies.

In Nevada, a series of Spanish-language TV and radio ads urging Latinos not to vote in protest of Congress’ failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform has been met with open derision by Latino community leaders. The ads were paid for by an organization that calls itself “Latinos for Reform” — which was quickly exposed as being led by Robert de Posada, a conservative pundit and a former Republican Party official.

“Don’t vote this November,” an announcer on the ad says in Spanish. “This is the only way to send them a clear message. You can no longer take us for granted.”

De Posada fiercely defended the ads, insisting that “We’re saying to people, you need to look at the record of the candidates and understand that in a civic engagement situation, you have the options of not necessarily voting. You should not be told you have no option but to support the lesser of two evils.”

SPANISH-LANGUAGE TV NETWORKS REJECT THE SPOTS

Both of the nation’s two major Spanish-language TV networks, Univision and Telemundo, have refused to broadcast the ads, with Univision saying they run directly counter to the network’s own non-partisan public-service campaign encouraging Latinos to participate in the electoral process. The network also yanked the radio spot from its Las Vegas station within hours after it went on the air.  

“Univision will not be running any spots from Latinos for Reform related to voting,” a network spokesman said in a statement. “It is also important to clarify that while Mr. Robert de Posada has on occasion provided political commentary on Univision, representing one of various points of views, he is not in any way affiliated with Univision. Univision prides itself on promoting civic engagement and our extensive national campaigns encourage Hispanics to vote.”

Within hours of Univision’s decision, its rival, NBC-owned Telemundo, told the Associated Press that it, too, would not broadcast the spots. De Posada’s group had planned to run the ads in Nevada, Florida, California, Texas and Colorado from now through election eve, but was forced to scuttle the plan after Univision and Telemundo gave the ads the thumbs-down.

De Posada told ABC News that although he has halted purchasing airtime for the ads, he intended  to push forward with the spots on the Internet, including YouTube. He also plans to file a complaint against Univision and Telemundo with the Federal Election Commission.

Under current law, TV and radio stations cannot edit or refuse political ads paid for by candidates’ campaigns, but they are free to accept or reject ads by outside groups.

‘DON’T VOTE’ ADS ‘OVERT ATTEMPT AT SUPPRESSING LATINO VOTE,’ SAYS LULAC

The ads were roundly condemned by Latino community leaders and even by some Republican candidates. In a statement issued last Tuesday, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the nation’s oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization, branded the ads “cynical” and an overt attempt at suppressing Latino voter turnout.

“This is overt voter suppression, and it’s ugly,” said LULAC President Margaret Moran. “It is precisely because of this latest voter suppression tactic that Latino voters should vote.”

President Obama also slammed the ads during a roundtable with reporters from Spanish-language media. “I think it is terrible,” he said. “It is a cynical political ploy to try to drive Latino votes to benefit a Republican candidate in Nevada who would never vote for immigration reform.”

The campaign of Tea Party-backed Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle condemned de Posada’s ads — but only after her Democratic opponent, incumbent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, blasted her for not denouncing the ads sooner.

“No ad should ever discourage voters from voting or expressing their opinions at the ballot box,” Angle’s spokesman Jarrod Agen said in a statement to ABC News.

The Angle campaign issued its statement a day after Reid, speaking on the campus of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, ripped into Angle’s initial silence on the matter. “Can you think of anything less patriotic and more un-American?” Reid asked a group of students after casting an early ballot. “It’s the American thing to do – to vote. How can she [Angle] possibly not speak out against what they’ve done?”

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF GOP STILL FOLLOWING NIXON’S ‘SOUTHERN STRATEGY’

The episode is but the latest in what this column asserted back in April is the GOP’s wholesale writing off of the Latino vote — a continuation of the party’s infamous “Southern Strategy” that alienated African-Americans more than 40 years ago — driving both voter blocs firmly into the Democratic column.

But the GOP is writing off non-white voters at its own peril, for the strategy is also transforming the Republican Party into what the Democratic Party used to be before the 1960s: An overwhelmingly white and deeply conservative party whose voting base is most heavily concentrated in the Deep South and Rocky Mountain West.

There are some who argue that today’s GOP is turning into “the New Dixiecrats,” a reference to the conservative Southern whites who bolted from the Democratic Party in 1948 in protest of the party adopting a civil rights plank at its national convention and later formed the segregationist States’ Rights Party, better known as the “Dixiecrats,” who ran with Senator Strom Thurmond as its presidential candidate.          

FLYING UNDER THE RADAR: THE BROWNING OF AMERICA’S POPULATION

Amid all the heat of the 2010 election campaign, one fundamental factor that is likely to have a determining effect on next week’s vote — and every election thereafter — has been flying under the media radar: The changing demographic face of the American electorate.

In his inaugural address, President Obama referred to America’s changing face when he said, “Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans . . . What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.”

Even before Obama’s election, the shift was already becoming evident: America is becoming browner, as non-white Americans become a greater and greater proportion of the U.S. population and white Americans conversely contract toward losing their majority status by mid-century, according to the Census Bureau.

Already, the white proportion of the U.S. population has fallen from 75.7 percent in 1990 to 71.6 percent in 2000, the Census Bureau reports. With the results of the 2010 Census still to be made public, the bureau estimates that the white proportion has fallen further to 65.8 percent today — barely a two-thirds majority — and projects it will shrink to barely 60 percent 15 years from now.

NON-WHITES ALREADY EXCEED 40 PERCENT OF NATION’S UNDER-18 YOUTH POPULATION  

Already, non-whites comprise more than 40 percent of the youth population of America under 18 years of age, according demographer William Frey of the Brookings Institution. And they comprise an outright majority of the youth population in eight states: Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Texas.

In Hawaii, the president’s native state, non-whites are an outright majority of the state’s total population, with Japanese-Americans alone comprising 52 percent of the state’s residents. Frey projects that non-whites will become the majority of the youth population nationwide within the next decade.

“[Latinos] accounted for 50 percent of national population growth since 2000, compared with 14 percent for Asians, 13 percent for blacks, and 17 percent for whites,” Frey reports, adding that while the white U.S. population is projected to fall into minority status by 2042, its preschool population is likely to fall to that status by the end of this decade.

Meanwhile, the U.S. population as a whole is getting older, as the 78-million-strong Baby Boomers — born between 1946 and 1964 — are inexorably approaching senior citizenship. But the older the age group, the whiter is gets; an overwhelming 80 percent of senior citizens are white, Frey reports.

These twin developments will inevitably create a serious cultural — and political — gap between the older and younger generations that Frey predicts will be much wider than the cultural war between the Baby Boomers and their World War II “GI Generation” parents in the 1960s.

GOP IS BLANCHING WHILE AMERICA TURNS MORE COLORFUL

Nowhere is the widening gap between mostly-white older America and multiracial younger America more evident than in the political sphere. The 2008 election revealed just how stark the divide is, with young voters — especially non-white and racially-mixed young people — strongly preferring Obama, and older voters — especially white seniors — breaking solidly for Republican John McCain.

Throughout the 2008 campaign, rallies for the Democratic candidates drew substantially multiracial crowds, while turnout at rallies for GOP candidates were  almost exclusively white, including a town hall-style meeting for McCain and several rallies for then-GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, in which several attendees openly expressed racist or anti-Muslim viewpoints about Obama.

‘BLANCHING’ OF GOP ACCELERATES WITH RISE OF TEA PARTY MOVEMENT

That pattern has since accelerated with the rise of the Tea Party movement, which has proven to be a major force to be reckoned with inside the GOP. Demographic surveys found that the Tea Party movement is virtually devoid of participation in it by non-whites.

Likewise have been this year’s Republican primaries. In state after state, the results found that turnout was overwhelmingly — in some states, almost exclusively — among white voters, as African-Americans continued to shun the GOP in droves, and Latino turnout nosedived to record-low levels — the latter the clearest sign yet of a backlash by Latino voters — even conservative Cuban-Americans in South Florida — against Republicans over the volatile issue of immigration.  

As non-white Americans become a greater and greater proportion of the nation’s population and electorate, the GOP is facing a stark choice: Either expand its electoral appeal to non-white voters, or else find itself relegated permanently to minority-party status — or even electoral oblivion, replaced by a new party — within the next 20 years.

# # #

Volume V, Number 42

Copyright 2010, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

( – promoted by odum)

During Saturday evening’s WCAX gubernatorial debate, when questioned by Mark Johnson once again about the issue of state police Taser stun guns, included within his answer Brian Dubie mentioned that these weapons were among those considered to be nonlethal.

WCAX gubernatorial debate archived video (stun gun question at 28 minute mark), here.

Why, when even Taser International and also many police departments using these weapons these days are no longer making such claims amidst growing evidence that have proven otherwise over at least a half-dozen years, is Brian Dubie insisting that Taser stun guns are nonlethal? Could it be that he is either mis or ill informed on the subject?

Maybe Brian Dubie should attempt to sell his nonlethal stun gun theory to the families, friends and colleagues of the victims who were alive until they had been tasered by stun guns at the hands of police both across the nation as well as elsewhere within the world.

Let us only hope no one has to die within Vermont after being tasered by police in order to finally convince Brian Dubie and others that Taser stun guns are actually potentially lethal, something which others have found out after it was far too late to do anything to prevent such tragedies.

Further reading on the subject (and merely the tip of the iceberg):

• Tasers “are now recognized by Minneapolis police as potentially lethal”, here (via Star Tribune);
• Use of ‘nonlethal’ force may be a factor in many deaths, here (via St. Petersburg Times);
• Amnesty International 12/16/2008 report on Tasers and industry ‘non-lethal’ claims, here;
• Taser Settled 10 of 52 Cases It Said Were Dismissed, here (via Bloomberg);
• Training incident spurs Taser lawsuit, here (via Lawrence Journal-World);
• Autopsy links Taser to Cardall’s death, here (via Salt Lake Tribune);
• Watsonville man shocked by Taser, injured in 2006 reaches $2.85M settlement with stun-gun maker, here (via Santa Cruz Sentinel);
• Safety: In Stun Gun Training, Officer’s Spine Is Fractured, here (via NY Times);
• Cops raise Taser safety claims: Metro officers hurt during training sue company, say warnings didn’t suffice, here (via Las Vegas Sun);
• State trooper from Grafton suing over Taser injury, here (via Worcester Telegram).

People’s Forum on Healthcare, Kids & The Economy

With local candidates for the Legislature respond to critical issues facing Vermont families

When: 6:30pm, Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Where: Williston Central School (off Williston Rd/Route 2)

What: The final forum in this statewide series of 15 candidate forums being organized by Vermont Workers Center – Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign, Vermont Early Educators United – UPV/AFT, and the Vermont Center for Independent Living across the state. Every legislative candidate on a ballot was invited and hundreds of incumbent legislators and challengers participated in this unprecedented forum series which drew around a thousand total participants.    

Each forum has three sections:

1. Healthcare: Developing a healthcare system that works for everyone

2. Early Education: Affordable childcare, access to quality early education and raising the standards in the profession.

3. The Economy: Access to jobs and the impact of cuts to public services on Vermonters.

Local members from the sponsoring organizations will present on each issue area and candidates will field questions. There will be snacks and refreshments.

The forum will have Chittenden County Senate candidates and Burlington and Winooski candidates for the House of Representatives from South Burlington, Williston, Richmond, Shelburne,Charlotte,  Hinesburg, Bolton, Jericho, Underhill and St. George.  The fourteen forums were held Montpelier (Sept 30), White River Junction (Oct 5), Essex Junction (Oct 6), St. Albans (Oct 7), St. Johnsbury (Oct 12), Rutland (Oct 13), Brattleboro (Oct 14), Morrisville (Oct 17), Middlebury (Oct 18), Bennington (Oct 19), Barre (Oct 19), Newport (Oct 20), Burlington (Oct 21) and Randolph (Oct 25).  The next big event for the Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign is a rally scheduled for the first day of the legislative session delivering thousands of petitions calling on the new legislature and administration to move forward with the new healthcare system designs currently underway based on the success of Act 128 and the hiring of Dr. William Hsiao.

More info on Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign: www.workerscenter.org/healthcare

Hallenbeck reports:

Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to campaign in Vermont for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin the day before the election, Shumlin campaign manager Alex MacLean said Monday.

Biden, a former U.S. senator from Delaware who was elected vice president in 2008, is set to hold a noon-time rally next Monday in Burlington at a location to be announced, MacLean said.

Heh. Might be fun. Biden’s pretty entertaining.

Talk about an explosion of activity in the nuts and bolts world of elections, as Vermont Attorney General Bill Sorrell’s office has sued both the Republican Governors Association and the “Green Mountain Future” organization, for which the Democratic Governors Association is a funder. Both are running political ads in the state.

The charges against GMF I have little information on at this point, although it looks to be akin to the first issue the AG has with the RGA (more on that below).

The RGA, however, has countersued the Attorney General, and that’s because the charges against them, as well as the investigation, are (for the moment) at a different level.

The letters from the AG’s office to the RGA have two themes. The first is, frankly, a bit embarrassing. Much as I’d like to say it has value, it reads like yet another case where the Attorney General’s office doesn’t seem to understand the law it’s supposed to be enforcing, in some very fundamental ways. The AG has concluded that the RGA is essentailly in violation of its nonprofit status and should be filing as a Vermont Political Action Committee. Sadly, they don’t need to, as the AG’s office is clearly screwy on this one. It’s true that if an organization expressly advocates for a candidate, the jurisdiction of that election (in this case, Vermont) can regulate its behavior – thing is, the RGA hasn’t done that. Their ads are all about how cool Brian Dubie is, but they stop short of telling viewers to vote for him. The AG office’s letter of October 19th alleging a violation, therefore, ignores established Supreme Court precedent, whether we like it or not – and the issues the office has with Green Mountain Future are in a similar vein. The AG’s office is going way out here in trying to claim regulatory authority.

Unfortunately, this silliness is allowing the RGA to use it to cloud the second issue, which is more damning and potentially has implications for Vermont, in that the countersuit amounts to an unprecedented power play over a State government by the arm of a national political party.

More after the flip, along with a pdf of the RGA’s suit, filed by former GOP Secretary of State candidate Chris Roy

The AG’s second letter from October 22nd gets into the meaty stuff. In that, Assistant Attorney General McShane makes broad demands for all communications between the RGA’s “Green Mountain Prosperity” PAC, the RGA and the Dubie campaign. They want information on the sharing of poll data, including copies of any communication the RGA plans to run between now and the election. Pretty sweeping stuff that’s clearly an information dragnet supporting a more serious investigation.

Here’s what’s really extraordinary, though. The RGA (through attorney Roy – man, good thing he ain’t gonna be Secretary of State, eh? Geez!) wants an injunction to prevent the AG from proceeding with any civil or criminal investigation of them. They claim he’s incapable of fairly investigating, because he is an elected Democrat, which is a spit in the eye of Vermont’s fundamental governmental structure. The RGA would have Vermont throw that structure out the door, at their demand, and allow the Governor (who I believe also is a partisan elected official, if I’m not mistaken) to appoint some sort of independent counsel a la Ken Starr.

They got nerve, at any rate. And unfortunately they muddy this more serious issue by calling out the AG’s office for their blown call on the former point.

But here’s the thing – the RGA says they want a judgment on their request within 60 days, even though the election is only a week away. WTF?

Well, they could be flailing. They could also be filing the suit just to discredit the action of the AG in the press, except that they really did no press on this suit, so they weren’t exactly trying to trumpet it. More likely it’s just a delaying action, either by good old fashioned legal red tape, or by virtue of the explosive threat to the Attorney General’s authority and Vermont’s constitutional autonomy. The AG has indicated its intention to deal with issues like this before the election, and it looks to me like the RGA knows it’s in big trouble and it wants the whole issue put off until it won’t do Dubie any damage.

And it needs to be said that Vermont isn’t the only state where they’re engaging in these shenanigans. In a previous diary, I referenced their checkered history of ignoring campaign finance laws, but it’s not just history. Right now in Hawaii, this is the story:

Democratic Party Chairman Dante Carpenter and lawyer Tony Gill claimed the Aiona campaign shared polling and other information with the RGA, which was then used to produce its “rise and shine” television ads that appeared between Aug. 5 and Sept. 24. Similar RGA-financed ads recently began airing.

Under state statutes, the RGA’s efforts on behalf of a Hawaii candidate are to be independent of that candidate’s campaign, the Democratic Party officials said.

They alleged that the RGA violated the law by acting “in concert or cooperation” with Aiona’s campaign committee.

[…] An exhibit accompanying the Democratic Party’s complaint showed that the RGA accepted a contribution from Aiona’s campaign for $31,039 on June 21, the same day that the RGA donated research worth the same amount to Aiona’s campaign, according to the RGA’s contribution and expenditure report filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

Familiar, isn’t it? It’s exactly what they’re doing in Vermont. Seems to me the term for such an large scale engagement in illegal activities is racketeering, but I digress…

Consider the implications of the RGA engaging in activity they know to be illegal and attempting to strong-arm the Attorney General and force a whole new way of handling legal matters in the state. If Brian Dubie is elected, it will be under that cloud.

And if he gets a plurality of the voter but is below 50%, that illegality is damn well good reason for the legislature to question the validity of that plurality. Talk about ill-gotten gains.

So that’s a snapshot, but only an initial one. There is a lot of information in the RGA’s filing, attached below – including what looks to be some information about what they may have in the pipeline. I encourage folks to take a closer look and post on what they find. May be nuthin’, may be lots…

(Here’s a link to the full document)

Talk about opportunities lost. The mind boggles when you stop and consider some of the things that could be different if we’d had a green Governor in Vermont over the last few years. Of course, we can never really quantify the decisions that were not made, the initiatives not undertaken, because citizens and activists knew they wouldn’t get past square one, but beyond that there are some very specific things we can point to that might have been different:

• We could have bought the Connecticut River Dams. This is a doozy. What an opportunity to affordably take control of our energy future. The dams, now owned by Trans Canada, could have given us public control over the generation of up to a quarter of our energy needs cleanly.
• We might have moved on the recommendations of the Climate Change Commission. Remember the Climate Change Commission? A lot of work and thought went into the recommendations from a fairly diverse body of members including environmental and business interests. All for nothing, as it turns out. With none of the recommendations implemented, the report is gathering dust on the Governor’s shelf.
• Energy planning, anyone? No plans, no strategic thinking, no nothing. Aside from whether or not Vermont Yankee closes in 2012, what exactly is the plan when it does close? What if an accident forces it’s closure? Is there any consistent plan for wind development? The administration has been encouraging biomass interests to come into the state, but it’s all wild west; there’s no schema in place to keep these folks from bumping into each other and problems could well be looming because of it. Think how far along we could if we’d had a green, forward-looking Governor who took these issues seriously.

That’s just a start. There are a couple others that jump immediately to mind that probably deserve a little more fleshing out than the above. Others? Where should we be in 2010?

Visit votegreengov.org and take the pledge to vote green in 2010! (a reminder that the posts explicitly promoting votegreengov – and those posts only – are being done as part of my working with LCV for the tail end of the election season)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

To understand this piece, you need to hear this part of the debate, starting at around the 33 minute mark, which I embedded in this previous piece.

The whole exchange lasts a little under four minutes.

There are two questions, and they’re yes or no questions, asked by Shumlin of Dubie:

• if a bill arrived at your desk restricting a woman’s right to chose, would you sign it, and;


• do you oppose abortion in the cases of rape and incest;

A lot of candidates are willing to answer these questions Dubie, however (like his running mate, Phil Scott) seems to hover around the issue like a fly trying to figure out which piece of fruit is the moldiest, yet still worried about getting smacked down in flight.

Len Britton, apparently, doesn’t want to answer the question at all.  If he has any opinion on abortion, he’s hidden it well enough that I can’t find it.

Beaudry, on the other hand, is willing to be quite specific:

Furthermore, Beaudry shared his views about the ongoing abortion controversy. He proudly stated that he is a “pro-life” candidate, with the obvious exceptions of rape, incest, and cases where the mother’s life is in danger. He also said that he is being fully endorsed by the Vermont Right to Life Political Committee along with gubernatorial candidate Brian Dubie.

Now– I’m pro-choice and have been for most of my adult life, but I know people who are anti-abortion, and I don’t necessarily think badly of them for that– I get where they’re coming from.  While I think that politicians often use pro-life issues in a fairly cynical fashion as wedge issues, they are able to do so because of the chunk of population that honestly believes abortion to be amoral.  

I’m not posting to argue that point.  More than a decade ago, I just gave up on arguing with people about abortion.  I can’t think of any case in the last fifteen years where I’ve had a discussion in which someone changed their mind about it, so I’m not here to discuss that.

I’m here to discuss integrity.  

There’s a history in this country of a stealth campaign on the part of activists on the religious right since the 1970’s.  They’d float school board candidates who would conceal their agenda until in a position of power.  That’s how you end up with situations such as a school in Connecticut attempting to hold a graduation in a Christian church.

I want to be clear: this is not about Christians or Christianity.  This is about a group of activists who are intentionally using stealth techniques to get into office by obscuring their extremism.  This is why, until this year, candidates like Christine O’Donnell and Sharron Angle, rarely had any electoral victories at all, even in primaries: they were too openly crazy to win anything.  

In Vermont, this embracing of wingnut right-wing idiocy has yet to manifest itself in a serious fashion, so our candidates who support extreme views need to be careful enough not to allow those views to see the light of day lest it leave them scorched and maimed.  

So let’s be clear about this: when a candidate refuses to answer a question about whether or not he thinks abortion is acceptable in the case of rape and incest?  There’s virtually nothing to lose by saying “I think that’s a perfectly acceptable exception” unless he is (a) strongly beholden to pro-life extremists or (b) is a pro-life extremist himself.  

There is no reason not to answer that question unless you don’t have the simple integrity to stand by what you believe.  

Cowards.  Every damned one of them.