I’m busy doing phone banking for the Vermont Democratic Party so I figured I’d throw this up while y’all hide from my call.

Let’s not take up too much front page real estate with this during an election season, but for those who are looking for a distraction, click after the jump for some candid thoughts on the death penalty for lying politicians, mandatory population caps in a Vermont Republic, and some rather ugly misogyny-laced comments about a local woman reporter from Vermont’s fringiest…

(Note: AS expected, the links referred to below have been taken down. No worries, you can download it all right here.)

Some of you will recall the drama that ensued when I started blogging my opinions of the Vermont secessionist crowd’s unapologetic associations with (and frequent promotion of) the neo-confederate movement, which represents much of the most frightening racist, misogynist and homophobic elements in our culture. Not only have the leaders of Vermont’s movement embraced these scary people institutionally (bringing them to Vermont on several occasions for conventions and the like), they’ve casually lent their own platform (Vermont Commons) to individuals prominently featured on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of national racist and antisemitic leaders (people such as Thomas DiLorenzo, Robert Griffin, Franklin Sanders, Donald Livingston). And like their comrades in other states, when faced with those who do not approve of such values, their response has been to aggresively engage in campaigns of personal destruction, without ever addressing the core criticisms. In my case, that meant an ongoing campaign of harassment over the ensuing several years from SVR founder Thomas Naylor, coupled with a strange but steady parade of childish conspiracy theories from his partner, Rob Williams of Vermont Commons.

For my part, I said my piece a while back and moved onto other things. Partly because I have other things that have moved me, but also because, frankly, the whole business makes me sad. Here in the whitest state in the union, so many Vermonters would rather look the other way and roll their eyes at a movement they see as a cute, but crazy uncle who lives in the attic, rather than honestly confront the fact that the Vermont secessionists continue to defend, collaborate with and promote a national network of friends who wouldn’t hesitate to give the Matthew Shepard treatment to people I care about. It’s hard not to be appalled at that. Granted, Rob Williams has been very clever in nurturing this benign tolerance (and not just by co-opting the flag used by the Vermont National Guard). Over the years, he has aggressively courted contributions to his publication from local activists who have no idea their own piece may end up printed alongside the byline of a known neo-confederate racist. More clever, though, is how readily Williams hands out free advertising – sometimes himself, sometimes under the guise of it being an “anonymous gift” – in order to fill the pages with “ads” that create a permanent record branding the names and logos of numerous reputable businesses and nonprofits alongside his movement. This creates an incentive for those folks to look away from the secessionists’ associations, rather than invite criticism onto themselves. It’s very clever, and it’s the kind of approach that has won the open admiration (and emulation) of scarier members of Williams’ club, such as League of the South Founder (seen here on Glenn Beck’s old show with Naylor), Michael Hill.

Still, you may have noticed a flurry of activity on JD’s site, as well as the blog of online anonymous activist “Thomas Rowley” who first publicized the secessionists’ associations. JD has discussed the weird theories that he (and I, actually) is Rowley (as if either of us needs an alias to hide behind…? Perhaps Williams thinks his and Naylor’s multiyear campaign of personal harassment against me was effective after all). Rowley has looked at the secessionist concerns about the “Israeli Mafia” among other things. Both playfully imply they have a source, and have quoted from “leaked” emails.

But it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye I suppose. Not to spend too much time on these guys here, but it’s probably time to come out with the identity of that source – it’s the internet. Rowley noticed some time back that the secessionist crowd had done what is still so frequently done even in 2010; that is, left their complete email correspondence hanging out there on the web for anyone to read. Emails were read, chuckles were had, some eyebrows were raised, and links were shared with local activists as well as some in the national hate group tracking community, and “Tom” and JD took a few days to mess with them a bit before it was decided that there was a responsibility to go up with this. Sitting on it would just get tacky.

It was cathartic to be sure, but it’s time to move on. Where do these emails fall in the long, long history of leaked and exposed emails in the political or activist world? Nothing earth shattering per se, as we’re only talking a tiny fringe group here. There is the same civil war revisionism common to all the regional secession groups in the US on display. But there are some interesting insights into the psychology in play to be had.

Links will be provided, but no doubt this stuff will come down quickly. No worries, though, it’s all downloaded.

There’s a lot up there, but most of it quite benign. There is a little bit of campaign coordination that, without in-kind donation reporting, could well run afoul of campaign finance law. Some fretting about people calling them “racists,” which I don’t think anyone has done. Let me say for my part that there is such a thing as active racism and passively-programmed cultural racism, and certainly anyone who would freely and unapologetically consider leaders of the League of the South to be be their partners in building a Utopian world is at the very least guilty of the latter. I mean… good grief.

But from looking at the back and forth, it seems that most of the Vermonters actively involved in this cabal are more of the tagalong sort than committed to the cause. These are folks very much looking for an alternative politics and who tend to flit from counter-institution to counter-institution, and the “Second Vermont Republic” is just their latest stop. That’s, for example, how you likely get the bizarre disconnect in this document, which is set up as sort of a FAQ for the listserv, but then includes some of the individual candidates and menbers own particularized views of… er…utopia?

Atop the page, it says:

Tension Reduction. Consistent with Vermont’s long tradition of “live and let live” and nonviolence, we do not condone state-sponsored violence inflicted either by the military or law enforcement officials.

…and a bit further down the same page, Washington County Senate candidate Gaelen Brown advocates the death penalty for any elected official who is caught lying (I kid you not):

3. Lying in official duties, to the detriment of the populace, by Elected officials at any level is a capital crime

I guess the meaning of “state-sponsored violence” remains to be worked out in an independent Vermont.

Brown then offers the absurdity of these two statements in succession:

8. Live and let live “bill of rights”

9. Population cap and regenerative organic agriculture

No doubt the reproduction police will acquit themselves in an approriately Vermonty live-and-let-live manner (?!?!).

Again in the same page, gubernatorial candidate Dennis Steele’s first action as head of an independent Vermont would presumably be to engage the new Vermont military (?) to start a war with the United States, given this stated first order of business (emphasis added):

5. Close Yankee and seize all dams.

Then there’s this from Brown on September 1st, which probably speaks for itself:

Personally I believe that it’s likely that NASA has been collaborating

with beings from other planets to mine the dark side of the moon in

exchange for them giving us some of their technology.

(I’ve seen unexplainable UFOs several times and I know a man who works

for Carlisle who says there is heavy investment going on re

infrastructure to mine the moon for titanium, H3 (nuclear fuel), and

other minerals that are rare on earth.) I have also studied the

chem.-trail and HARPP systems/history and there’s a lot of sketchy

activity in this category as well.

But I’m not going to focus on these issues in my campaign.

There is a lot of unfocused rage, bitterness and (often understandable) frustration in circulation, hence the frequent discussions of how to become more engaged with the Vermont Tea Party movement. That rage does cross a bit into the creepy, though. Perennial candidate Dennis Morriseau shares his opinion of vtdigger’s Anne Galloway in terms that are rather disturbing. It’s odd that Galloway has earned their ire, as she has actually done them some favors. She herself has added her own byline to Vermont Commons by entering into an arrangement whereby her own digger pieces have been reprinted there. In fact, during the very month her piece appeared, she penned this article (without revealing her relationship with Vermont Commons, unfortunately), in which SVR founder Naylor was freely allowed to trash me personally over my own opinions of his associations, without any attempt by her made to approach me for the same article (I only became aware of it inadvertently).

Despite this favorable treatment, it wasn’t enough for State Senate candidate Morriseau (who refers to himself as the Vermont Republic’s “Foreign Minister”) who on February 16th of this year had this to say about how Galloway should be dealt with:

Because I savaged her in our first few exchanges.

Now I am making nice.  And she likes that better.  So she is liking me better……

Before I punched her, she did not know me or care a fig……..

Now she sees I can laugh, I am playful….possibly intelligent…and I differ with her……..

She begins to be intrigued.

We have to be lovers to these sorts……  I know that is a little crass….but it’s DO OR DIE time.

And later (May 28th):

No reason for her to breathe OR DO WHAT SHE DOES…..unless she is a SPOOK.

NOBOCY is that venal from stupidity.

Yikes.

The complete archive, for the moment, can be found here. Again, in the long, ongoing history of leaked emails and communications left hanging on the web, the Vermont secessionists’ blunder merits barely a footnote. It is, though, a reminder that this group is among the last we would want shaping society – and among the first likely to collapse under its own zaniness at any given moment.

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

Jon Stewart’s March to Restore Sanity on Oct 30 to combat Fox News nonsense sounds like fun

I’m trying to rent a bus to leave Montpelier on 1029 at 6:00PM, go to DC and return starting at 6:00Pm on 10/30.  Similar to Obama inauguration trip.  I don’t know the cost yet, and it will depend on how many want to go.

If anyone is interested, please let me know and I’ll send particulars:  kimcheney@myfairpoint.net

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

I was at the debate tonight.   There was a packed house.  I filmed the whole thing and I’ll have some pieces of it on my blog.  Wanted to share a couple things for now…

Dubie brought an “entourage” with him.  Folks in Dubie tshirts.  Someone who knows a lot about this stuff told me they are getting paid.  They brought a stacks of lawn signs with them. First they put all the lawn signs out right in front of the entrance to the convention center.  There must have been 40 or 50 of them, and one HUGE one that took several people to hold up.  If you were driving by the Sheraton, you’d think there was a Dubie convention going on there, not a REV conference.  I gave them a piece of my mind.. I told them you can’t win an election with lawn signs.  I told them it was ironic that given the administration’s lack of support for renewables, that they were putting up all these signs in front of a rewnwable energy conference.

Then the debate took place.  More on that later. The one thing I want to mention is at the end, when Dubie was thanking everyone he couldn’t remember the name of Renewable Energy Vermont.  Everyone chuckled.

Then all his fans with the signs went back to the front doors.  They stood there with their stacks of signs, expecting to give them all away to people on their way out.  But guess what, NO ONE took one!  It was hilarious!  Every single person walked right by them.  One person I saw took a sign, but he walked a bit into the parking lot and he just dropped it on the ground, stepped on it, and left it there.   I know… littering is bad… but it was kinda comical.

more soon

Tom Salmon’s slippery evasion of responsibility has recently come under discussion here at GMD, and it seems to be attracting attention in the mainstream media as well.  As the Bennington Banner discovered in an interview they conducted with Tom Salmon this week, the current auditor accepts no responsibility for missing the five year-long embezzlement practiced by a state employee which targeted the Department of Children and Families’  “Reach-Up” program.  Says Salmon:

“While that was being identified, our auditors in our office were doing a look at another payment system, $8 billion in payments over a 24-month period. So the argument that we weren’t attentive — we were actually in the field, we just weren’t looking at that particular system,” Salmon said. “Unfortunately, the Newport thing was going on and not being caught. Vermonters need to know that we’re on it. We’re not reacting to Newport because while that was happening, we were doing the same work somewhere else.”

Say what?

Mr. Salmon’s opponent in the upcoming election, Doug Hoffer, fairly points out that the state auditor should be able to attend to more than one audit situation at a time.   The embezzlement took place over a period of five years, beginning two years before Salmon took office, and continuing for three years hence.  Even if the office might be excused for missing it for one or two years, it is baffling to understand why Salmon doesn’t see that he failed to fulfill his obligation as Auditor by allowing it to continue for a full five years.

In response to Mr. Salmon’s rationalizations to the Banner, Mr. Hoffer had this to say:

In my view, Auditor Salmon made some comments that deserve additional scrutiny.

The Banner’s reporter noted my suggestion that the five-year long embezzlement scheme should have raised red flags in the Federal Single Audit.

First, the implication is that the Auditor’s Office can only do one thing at a time, which is absurd on its face.  Moreover, the Single Audit (which missed the embezzlement scheme) is done primarily by consulting auditors from KPMG under contract to the State Auditor.  So regardless of what the Auditor’s staff were doing at the time, the Single Audit was taking place and it is the State Auditor who is responsible for and oversees the work of the consultants.  Note also that the explanation offered was for one year and ignores the fact that the embezzlement was a multi-year scheme.  What is the Auditor’s excuse for missing it the year before?  And the year before that?

Second, the suggestion that the Auditor was attentive but was simply looking at a different system is just a diversion.  This was not an either – or situation.  It is irrelevant what the staff was doing at the time because the Reach Up program is covered every year by the Single Audit, which (as was mentioned) is done by consultants under contract.  

Third, the reference to “payments over a 24-month period” could lead a reader to think that the audit that supposedly kept them from the embezzlement scheme took 24 months.  That is not the case.

Mr. Salmon tried to reassure us.  “Vermonters need to know that we’re on it. We’re not reacting to Newport because while that was happening, we were do the same work somewhere else.”

The effort to avoid responsibility is troubling because we don’t know if Mr. Salmon has taken any steps in-house or with the consultants to review the procedures that failed to see any red flags.  How can Vermonters be persuaded that the Auditor’s Office is “on it” if no one acknowledges the problem or explains how it will be corrected?  Finally, one wonders why under these circumstances the State Auditor is “not reacting to Newport”?

There’s a big, beaming piece from Rutland Herald/Times Argus Publisher John Mitchell today, proudly launching the new paid subscription system for online content from the struggling independent newspapers he runs. He goes through the frustrations – rising costs, more people accessing content for free online than paying for it. All important, all a concern.

But here’s the thing – paywalls don’t work. They just don’t. The Argus/Herald is coming into this game very late, and this subscription thing has repeatedly been tried and been a total bust. Just because people would like to read something, doesn’t mean they’ll pay for it. The New York Times, the LA Times, even online sites like Salon – all famously tried and dropped their own paywalls after reporting an up to 97% drop in online traffic!

So I’m sympathetic – really – but this is still old style thinking. Slap a pricetag on it. Whatever the solution is, it aint that simple – just as media itself is no longer as simple as it was in newspapers good ol’ days. This is especially true with Anne Galloway’s vtdigger on the scene, operating under a completely different business model and providing both solid content and even more raw, undigested information that the Argus and Herald do, either online or in print.

No, the good ol’ days are gone – which is not to say that the new days can’t be good too – or even better – but subscription paywalls are demonstrably not the right tool for the right job, and I don’t know if struggling operations like Mitchell’s can afford to learn the hard way. They need to be worried about reinventing the wheel, rather than continuing to try the square wheel their comrades have repeatedly discarded.

So what do they do? I dunno. I have some ideas from a new media perspective. They may be as limited and problematic as ideas like the paywall that come from an exclusively legacy media perspective.

It’s a shame we can’t get together, compare notes, and pool experience and ideas to come up with new solutions. Unfortunately, as Herald/Argus editorial is so fond of reminding their readers, new media folks are little more than “blogmaniacs,” (for instance, see here and here – at least, see that second link while you can). And what possible good can come from breaking bread with a maniac?

In the meantime, I give this paywall business 6 months to a year.

(Note: Blogger Morgan Brown offers his more comprehensive thoughts on this in his own diary)

*Updated* (with the usual edits)

More and more commercial news media or newspapers of various forms are heading toward creating a fee to read or, more commonly referred to as a paywall model of one sort or another, for either select content or most if not all of their content. Others, including within Vermont, have already established such.

The free online versions of such news media or newspaper Websites as they currently exist include a revenue-generation model in the form of paid ads on its pages. The fee versions will probably offer the same as well, the only difference will be people will have to be paid subscribers in order to view its content.

Unless online edition readers can gain access to additional quality content that makes it well worth paying for a subscription, it is most likely only those with enough disposable income to afford such will be able to gain access and, those who cannot afford to do so will lose access to content that had been available up until paywalls were or are put in place.

These news media sources or newspapers may gain some online subscribers for the paid content area of their Website, however could also end up losing numbers of visitors who use to visit as well as bring others to content of mutual interest and, whom might have clicked through onto paid ads as well.

Even for those who can afford to subscribe to the fee versions of these news media sources or newspapers, one would be less prone to e-mail, tweet or blog about and link to such content if one’s family members, friends and peers or followers and blog readers cannot gain access as well, unless they paid for it of course.

Thus, while gaining a certain amount of income from paying subscribers, these news media sources or newspapers could lose income on the other end and it could prove to be a wash, if not a net loss (no pun intended).

In addition, the haves will have access if they pay for such and, the have-nots will lose out because they cannot afford to pay for it, unless they go to the library and are able to read the print edition there.

What this paywall trend will most likely bring about is for the community and weekly newspapers that have viable print editions (some of which are free) as well as full online editions and, do not charge for access to their online content (since the ads bring in plenty of revenue), will continue to grow in greater popularity and will also be able to feature more and better quality content.

The dailies as well as those weeklies or monthlies based on the older business model, who cannot manage to afford to keep up, will be forced to downsize more and more, which has been happening already, both elsewhere as well as also within Vermont.

The fact is that news media sources or newspapers that are more about business or the financial bottom line than they are about providing quality news and rich, meaningful content will continue to decline.

While those that are more about providing quality news and rich, meaningful content, than they are about business and their financial bottom line, will continue to grow and thrive. This is proving to be true all over and it seems will remain so.

This will also help to foster the growth of citizen media sites and various blogs, most of whom do not have feewalls, yet might generate revenue through paid ads and the like, including through tip jars. There are many examples of blogs that have grown a healthy readership and do well because of it.

In fact, many within traditional media attempt to blame these sites and blogs for their woes, even though many of them were in trouble both long before such emerged as well as, even after these sites or blogs appeared on the scene and became well established, for much different reasons.

Among the reasons people create or are drawn to visit such sites and blogs is due to these providing something traditional media either had little interest doing in a quality manner or not being engaging or interactive enough to allow people to feel they have a real and meaningful voice on matters of concern and interest to them.

As far as myself goes, especially for all the many news media sources or newspapers I visit when access to such content of interest is free, I certainly cannot afford to pay for paid subscriptions for the fee area of these online versions.

Yet, even if I were somehow able to afford to do so for some, tweeting or blogging links to content within these paywall areas would not make sense, because most of my followers or blog readers would not have access unless they paid for it. This would actually cause me not to bother to do so, since a lot of my visiting and reading is part of the social networking model of news gleaning and sharing I do for the various advocacy efforts I engage in solely on a volunteer (unpaid) basis.

That is my two cents on the subject, what is yours?

(cross-posted from Vermont Watch, here)

*Note*: made several, mostly minor, edits for the purposes of clarification and readability; last updated on Friday, October 1, 2010 at 4:25 AM (ET).

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( – promoted by odum)

Good Afternoon GMD!

This is our second TV Spot.  Our first can be found here.

Despite the series of dangerous accidents at Vermont Yankee, Brian Dubie actually wants to keep it open another 20 years.  

Anyone interested is more than invited to join the discussion with us in the comments here at GMD, on Facebook and on Twitter

( – promoted by odum)

It’s amazing to me that, to date, the Vermont press has given Lt. Governor Dubie a free pass on his oft repeated claim throughout this campaign that he is “a union man.”

While it’s true that Dubie is a member in good standing with his union, the Allied Pilots Association (APA is a small independent union representing American Airlines’ pilots), his inaction and silence over the past few years-as his boss, Governor Douglas, was slicing and dicing state government-did little to bolster his claim that he’s a union man. Dubie’s lack of solidarity with his VSEA brothers and sisters is especially appalling when you look at the issues confronting his own union.

A search of the APA’s in-house magazine, and we excerpt the following:

•From APA Secretary Treasurer’s column in Jan. 2010 Flightline magazine:

“We often think of APA as the entity tasked with negotiating increased pay and benefits on our behalf. An equally important but sometimes overlooked role for APA is defending and preserving the benefits we have already negotiated and achieved over the years. American Airlines pilots enjoy one of the richest benefits packages in the industry, consisting of medical, disability, life insurance and pension benefits. These valuable benefits are undoubtedly worth defending, preserving and saving;”

•”Management expends a great deal of effort on communicating with us during contract negotiations. The chief goal of management’s communications is to lower our expectations by generating anxiety and concern. Using a powerful in-house communications team as well as expensive outside consultants, working internally through chief pilots and externally through the media, management will continue to exert pressure on APA pilots and attempt to derail our pursuit of a restorative contract;” and

•From a May 2010 APA press release on Spirit Airlines labor problems:

“We are well acquainted with the challenge our Spirit Airlines colleagues face,” said APA President Captain Lloyd Hill. “They are dealing with a management team engaged in delay tactics and intent on extracting further employee concessions, which has unfortunately become a familiar refrain throughout the airline industry. “As professional aviators, we cannot permit the industry-wide ‘race to the bottom’ mentality that prevailed during much of the past decade to continue,” he said. “We therefore pledge our support to the pilots of Spirit Airlines as they attempt to conclude their contract negotiations amicably and without inconvenience to the airline’s customers.”

And a quick search on YouTube revealed several recent videos reporting on unrest within the APA ranks because of management proposals to cut the workforce. In one video, it’s reported that Dubie’s own union is promising quick legal action to stop the cuts and APA leaders vow to fight management tooth and nail.

So the question for Brian Dubie is, if you are the union man your purport to be, why did you not join in solidarity with your VSEA brothers and sisters when they were fighting the exact same battle as  you and your APA brothers and sisters? As a proud union man, did you make any effort at all to work with VSEA to stop your boss’ wholesale cuts? Did you advise Jim Douglas that, as an APA member, you know what it’s like to be trapped in a race to the bottom? Did you try and get him to rethink cutting the nearly 1,000 state employee positions he did?

It’s one thing to crisscross Vermont proclaiming you’re a “union man,” but as any good union member worth his/her salt knows, when it comes to labor disputes, actions often speak far louder than words.

If Mr. Dubie is elected governor, I trust he will put his money where his mouth is, especially when he sits down to look at our state’s hundred-plus million deficit and begins hearing from his apparatchiks about how we need to keep cutting services and jobs and leave wealthy Vermonters and the state’s Rain Day funds alone.  After all, it’s pretty clear what your union, the APA, will do if American Airlines proposes new staff cuts.

You can’t have it both ways Brother Dubie. A true union man/woman would have stood in solidarity with VSEA in its fight against Gov. Douglas’ cuts, or with any other Vermont union members’ facing the same management tactics and demands as American’s pilots.

What’s your excuse for sitting idly by Mr. Union Man?  

Just a few weeks earlier, former Republican Congressman Mickey Edwards — an old-line conservative and current critic of Tea Party Republicanism — had commented at The Atlantic that Obama appeared to be shying away from idealism in foreign policy and embracing his “inner Kissinger.”

“Obama’s ‘Kissinger’ revealed itself first,” Edwards wrote, “when his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton went to China and declared that bringing up the unpleasantness of Chinese human rights violations would serve no useful purpose. … One cannot know whether the soft line taken toward China, Sudan, Russia, and other violators of human liberties will in the end dominate Mr. Obama’s foreign policy decisions. But neither can the early signs be ignored. For the moment, it appears, Henry Kissinger is back.”

(Activist berates White House, Clinton for honoring ‘war criminal’ Kissinger, RawStory, 09/30/10)

How’s that “hopey-changey” thing workin’ out? Oh no … that’s not all folks.

In a stunning alliance between Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans, Senate Democratic leadership quietly agreed Wednesday evening to block President Barack Obama from making recess appointments while senators return home to campaign for midterm elections, according to a Congressional newspaper.

(Democrats agree to block Obama nominees, RawStory, 09/30/10)

And yes, there’s more for the weasel welch regarding his alliance with the reactionary, radical, right wing racists in the weasel’s assault on ACORN – based entirely on proven lies that to this day the weasel welch stands by:

[reactionary, radical, right wing racist] activist James O’Keefe, best known for his heavily-edited videos of employees at the anti-poverty ACORN, is now alleged to have planned to turn the same tactics on news network CNN.

The plans, however, blew up in his face when the executive director of his Project Veritas tipped off CNN correspondent Abbie Boudreau before O’Keefe could lure her onto what CNN describes as “a boat filled with sexually explicit props” and record her reaction to his “sexually suggestive comments.”

(Fake ACORN pimp’s group cans executive director over failed CNN sting, RawStory, 09/29/10)