Political resurrection is routine in Vermont. Peter Shumlin, Ed Flanagan and others stand as examples of politicians who have embarked on “part twos” to their electoral careers after removing themselves – or seemingly being removed – from the political scene. That’s why we should all expect to see Deb Markowitz back whenever she feels up to it, as well as Susan Bartlett. Matt Dunne is a bit more complicated. Despite his two statewide losses, his political career has never exactly “died” necessitating a “resurrection” – he just goes semi-underground for a while. Coupled with his youth, we shouldn’t be surprised to see him re-emerge as well.

A double resurrection? That’s a rarer thing. Doug Racine rose to statewide prominence through the Senate and the Lieutenant Governor’s office before falling from grace with a loss to Jim Douglas for the top spot. Soon thereafter, though, he resurrected himself with a solid show of electoral prowess in his home county and returned to the Senate.

But the conventional wisdom all around has been that this is it – that this gubernatorial election was an all-or-nothing gamble against his political career, and a loss would send him into permanent retirement. You don’t get a third bite at the apple, the thinking went – and I agreed with this thinking.

Now, I’m not so sure.

First of all, Racine overperformed against the conventional wisdom. The media and insider crowd had nearly unanimously written this primary off as Markowitz’s to lose, with possible competition from Shumlin. They were wrong, largely due to an underestimation of the forces brought to bear by organized labor and the VLCV, but also because they generally get stuck on timebound narratives without firm polling data to ground themselves in. Sure, when the media picks up a narrative, they recite it enough until it becomes reality, but that takes time. There’s no doubt that Racine’s lack of competitiveness in the fundraising department cost him at least 200 votes – and with another month of headshaking from the pundits, that number could have multiplied by ten or more – but it hadn’t yet. The media down-talking had impacted the perception of reality, but didn’t have enough time to work its magic on reality itself. As a result, Racine ends up in a virtual tie for first, giving his supporters something to crow about after the bad press.

But second of all is the dynamics of the recount. Despite all the demonstrable, quantifiable ways that the recount is problematic for presumed-candidate Shumlin’s prospects, the fact is that the unity dynamic surrounding the recount is playing out very well among the base. It’s an unprecedented level of kumbayaing that we simply wouldn’t be seeing without a crisis mentality.

And it’s popular because it plays to our fantasies of what we want politics to be, and that’s powerful stuff among the left and the center. Those fantasies and desires were tapped by the Obama administration, sweeping him into the Oval Office. Markowitz tried to tap into some of that vibe in her own campaign, but while no one of the candidates in the primary was capable of doing so, we may now be seeing that all five together can, if for no other reason than that so many people so badly want them to.

And Doug Racine stands at the center of that dynamic. The sole character in the drama who brought us along into the recount universe is likely the one who will personally benefit the most from it. And at this point, to maintain that benefit, he needs to see it through. Although a cease to the recount would, again, be in all ways a tangible benefit to the party, stopping it now could be seen as a disrespecting of the volunteers who are giving their time for the cause – a cuase many see as Democratic Party unity, rather than the simple democratic process.

So Racine will walk away in second place, but with a resevoir of good feeling across Democratic Vermont. If Shumlin loses to Brian Dubie, many will question whether the impact of the recount was to blame – but most rank and file Dems will not see it that way.

Sure, Racine will have to be smart and creative in tapping that resevoir (that he, for the moment, seems to own a large share of) for a political resurrection – he can’t just follow the same path a third time. But the point is, he does have a path to resurrect himself a second time, something I doubt even he would’ve thought possible under the circumstances only weeks ago.

A nice big crowd gathered to hear the Unity Team at Cosmic Bakery in St. Albans this morning, spilling over into Franklin County’s Democratic Headquarters next door when it became much too large to be accommodated in the bakery.  First to arrive were Doug Racine and Peter Shumlin, followed soon after by Susan Bartlett and then Deb Markowitz.  We were told that Matt Dunne will be joining them later on the tour.

The atmosphere was warm and jovial among the candidates, and the hot-spot was focussed squarely on Brian Dubie who just happened to also be in town. According to the Messenger, the format of Dubie’s appearances allowed little time for questions; but the Democratic juggernaut was more than happy to define Douglas’ deputy in the void.

Susan Bartlett pointed out Dubie’s lack of experience and weakness on economics.  When it comes to budget, says Susan,

“Dubie knows nada.”

Deb Markowitz pointed out that, although Dubie is all over spending cuts to education, he’d allow taxpayers to support religious schools.

Doug Racine very graciously stated for the whole group that Peter is the presumptive nominee; but no matter what the outcome of the recount, they are united in  a single vision for Vermont as a community.

As the presumptive nominee, Peter Shumlin gave the wind-up speech listing five areas in which the united Democratic campaign intends to challenge Brian Dubie and bring Vermont to renewed prosperity:

.Healthcare.  It’s not a privilege but a right.  Universal coverage will free business of a key limiting factor.

.Creating a tax structure that works for everyone’s benefit.



If we want to see Vermont run on an economically sound basis, Peter concluded,

“Let’s have someone who has actually run a business do it.”

After a few more minutes of schmoozing with the Franklin County faithful, and lots of questions from the press, the four boarded a big white Winnebago for the brief journey to their next whistle-stop in Shelburne.  Camp songs and s’mores anyone?

The Winooski Education Association teachers will stage a walkout next Wednesday unless the school board returns to the bargaining table in good faith. For three years going, the Winooski teachers have worked without a contract, and have been subject to unilateral changes in working conditions without the benefit of their collective bargaining rights. In this day and age (and in this economy), it’s awfully unusual to see union leadership recommend a strike – and then to see rank and file approve one. It’s a testament to how bad things have gotten that the teachers feel like they have no other choice. From a Vermont NEA press release:

“For three years, the teachers of Winooski have worked without a contract. For three years, the teachers of Winooski have worked hard to collaborate with the school board on a deal that is good for teachers, good for the community and good for students,” said Brent Litterer, a negotiator for the WEA and its spokesman.

“The school board, however, has remained uncooperative, headstrong and unwilling to fully invest in the process.”

Litterer said that the men and women who teach Winooski’s children did not make this decision lightly, and they still hold out hope that a strike can be averted.

If you don’t remember, this is the school board with that had at least one member who has a history of taking marching orders from Glenn Beck (and of having his way with policy), so don’t hold your breath waiting for a good faith process.

Information on opportunities to help with a picket line or in other ways as it becomes available.

Brian Dubie is very proud of having his name attached to a 26-page document. Just ask him. He calls it his “Brian Dubie 26-page plan for the future.” It is 26 pages of pure plan. Read it. All 26 pages. Of plan.

And then, I guess, the Dubie campaign decided to make it a commercial:

Long weekend’s over for most of us, so here’s a minor sanity moment for those of you who have to go back to a crazy job today, as well as those of us who are still looking for any job, even a crazy one, to go back to:

Have a good day, everyone.

Civil-Liberties Watchdogs Say Proposed Cordoba House Islamic Cultural Center Near New York’s Ground Zero Is Likely to Come Under Intense U.S. Government Surveillance Once It’s Completed; ACLU Sues FBI for Information on the Bureau’s Surveillance of Muslims in California and Elsewhere; FBI Says No Probable Cause — or Warrant — Is Required for Such Surveillance

As controversy over a proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque to be built two blocks from New York’s Ground Zero continues to rage, new concerns are being raised by civil-liberties watchdogs that the planned Cordoba House and other Muslim houses of worship across the country are being subjected to intense U.S. government surveillance. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act seeking information on the FBI’s probe of Muslims in the San Francisco area. For its part, the FBI says that no suspicion of wrongdoing is required for the agency to conduct such surveillance. (Photo courtesy Getty Images)  

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EDT Tuesday, September 7, 2010)

By WILLIAM FISHER

Inter-Press Service

(Published under a Creative Commons license)

The bitter controversy over the building of an Islamic community center and mosque near the site of the terrorist attacks in New York on September 11, 2001 is sparking new fears of government snooping on Islamic holy places — which it now claims it can do without a warrant.

The American Civil Liberties Union, the Asian Law Caucus and the San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper are suing the FBI in U.S. District Court in San Francisco over the agency’s failure to respond to a five-month-old request for information on its investigation of Muslim groups in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The groups are seeking details under the Freedom of Information Act of any surveillance the FBI has carried out since 2005 on area mosques and Islamic centers, as well as information on the recruitment of Muslim school children into the agency’s Junior Agent Program.

ACLU ATTORNEY: FBI SHOULD TARGET SPECIFIC SUSPECTS, NOT SPY ON ALL MUSLIMS

Julia Harumi Mass, staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, told IPS that the FBI “should focus its resources on targets for whom it has specific facts that support a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, rather than using undercover informants to spy on people in their houses of worship.”

She added, “The lawsuit we have brought is one seeking records, so that we — and the public — can evaluate the FBI’s policies and practices to make sure they enhance national security without undermining our civil liberties.

“We have not sued for any misconduct other than failing to provide governmental records as required by law,” Harumi continued.

FBI: NO SUSPICION OF WRONGDOING NEEDED FOR SURVEILLANCE

But, according to the FBI itself, the agency needs no suspicion of wrongdoing before it initiates surveillance.

In a July 28 letter addressed to Senate Judiciary committee members Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) and Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) — following the testimony of FBI Director Robert Mueller — the agency said that suspicion of wrongdoing was not necessary to launch an investigation against an individual or organization.

“No particular factual predication is required” for the initiation of a preliminary investigation, according to the FBI’s operational guidelines.

FBI’S POSITION BLASTED AS ‘DRAGNET’ APPROACH

“This is intelligence gathering run amok,” said Shahid Buttar, executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. “The FBI is saying it can initiate surveillance without a reason.”

“This is a dragnet way of uncovering information and a dramatic step backwards in the history of civil rights,” he charged.

“The FBI has made an admission that we’ve known all along: That the agency is allowed to surveil without any suspicion of criminality,” according to Nura Maznavi, counsel for the Program to Combat Racial and Religious Profiling at Muslim Advocates, an affiliate of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers.

PLAINTIFFS ACCUSE FBI OF RACIAL PROFILING OF MUSLIMS

Muslim Advocates, the ACLU, and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee are among the organizations claiming that the FBI’s guidelines use race as a basis for determining whether to initiate surveillance, thereby unfairly targeting Muslims.

But Mueller told the Senate Judiciary committee that race and religion could not be used as sole criteria for initiating an investigation of a person or organization.

Maznavi and Buttar have accused the FBI of initiating investigations in Muslim homes and mosques that they characterized as “general fishing expeditions” that could lead to clues about other members of the community.

The FBI also visits people at their jobs, said Maznavi, adding that such surveillance impacts a person’s reputation at their place of employment.

The agency also frequently sends informants into mosques, Maznavi alleged, pointing to two high-profile cases in California and Florida. Such a practice makes congregants suspicious of one another and promotes fear within the community, she said.

FBI MAY BE VIOLATING FOURTH AMENDMENT

The basis of the FBI’s contention is unclear. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guards against unreasonable searches and seizures. It specifically requires search and arrest warrants be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause.

The ACLU of Northern California made its initial request for records under the Freedom of Information Act in March, according to their complaint. The plaintiffs hope to persuade the U.S. District Court to force the FBI to process their FOIA request and release the records immediately.

The plaintiffs first sought out the FBI records after area Muslims contacted the ACLU and the Asian Law Caucus with concerns that the Bureau was scrutinizing their activities and attempting to recruit “informants and infiltrators,” according to the ALC.

In a statement, the group said the FBI had failed to produce its records despite admitting in March that media attention on the investigation of Muslim groups entitled his clients to expedited processing of their FOIA request.

“The lawsuit is about transparency,” said Somnath Raj Chatterjee, a pro bono lawyer for the groups.

In 2009, it was revealed that the FBI used paid informants and agents provocateurs in U.S. mosques. The American Muslim community says this news sends a devastating message to community leaders and imams who have worked diligently to foster greater understanding between law enforcement and their communities.

Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the Justice Department began rounding up Arabs and other Muslims and — mistakenly — anybody who looked “Middle Eastern,” including Sikhs from South Asia, according to a 2008 report by the Center for Constitutional Rights.

In the months after the attacks, some 5,000 men were held in detention without charges, most without access to lawyers or family members. There were no prosecutions and no convictions of any of these people, according to the CCR report.

Some, who were in the U.S. with expired visas or who had committed other immigration infractions, were deported.

# # #

Special Report Copyright 2010, Inter-Press Service. Published under a Creative Commons license.

The ‘Skeeter Bites Report copyright 2010, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

Jason Gibbs is allegedly running for Secretary of State but when the bulk of his ideas in a recent press release involve correcting what he sees as problems with the legislative openness it makes for a transparent swipe at his opponent.  

To read his proposals for transparency as Secretary of State one would be forgiven for getting the impression that office dictates only rules for the legislature.

Maybe an old habit of hitting the legislature just dies hard for the Douglas protégé and former executive branch communication spokes-flack. Gibbs, an administration insider is perhaps as much or even more the heir apparent to Douglas than gubernatorial candidate Dubie.  

Also mentioned in the Labor Day press statement is a favorite principle of innovation of his, to reduce(government) reliance on taxpayers .

“…the best way to achieve these results is to make government more efficient, more productive, and a more valuable partner in the creation of economic

activity.”

But no matter how many out of the box ideas explored it still costs money to run the Secretary of States’ office.  He often highlights his brief time at Forests and Parks where he had the ability to lease and sell State Forest resources to mitigate costs. What resources are available to be leased or sold by the Secretary of State?

The federal Mineral Management Service that oversees and inspects oil rigs relied on royalties and fees from the industry it regulated and was a valuable partner in creation of economic activity. We can see how well that worked.  

Worthy of note also are six really gee-wiz-outside-the-box ideas that must have originated in the mind of the guy that was so overzealous at promoting Vermont State Parks he got kicked off Facebook for abusing the email list rules.  

Gibbs said the Secretary of State can also explore opportunities that will enhance civic participation by:  

• Publishing voting information and dates on all tax bills and correspondence sent to Vermonters.

• Partnering* with cell phone carriers to send text messages to Vermont cell phone subscribers**.

• Utilizing the Vermont Lottery to scroll voting messages at retail locations as well as print the voting dates on lottery tickets.

• Printing voting information on hunting and fishing licenses.

• Asking regulated utilities to include voting information on billing inserts.

• Deploying the Agency of Transportation solar-powered “variable message boards” along roadways to display voting information leading up to elections.  

*Partnering as in paying a fee to them?

**Given the cell phone coverage here in Vermont under Douglas’ years old e-state initiative this idea might reach only a half dozen people.  

 Double dip or just a long slow climb out of recession some job conditions are likely to remain in place. Problems faced by hourly, low-level workers and others struggling to make ends meet on reduced or uncertain hours are unlikely to go away as the recession ends. The extended period of high unemployment has driven down wages for some low skilled outsourced services. It was reported that some outsourced jobs, such as call centers have become as cheap to fill in the US as in India.  

An AARP bulletin based on recent bureau of labor statistic says The number of people working less than they would like, due to their hours being cut back or their inability to find a full-time job, held steady at about 8.6 million.  

In addition to being susceptible to reduced, irregular and fluctuating hours, hourly and part time workers are sometimes not eligible for employee benefits from employers. Part-time workers may not receive unemployment benefits when laid off.  

“Certainly the current recession is contributing to underemployment, as evidenced by the proportion of American workers classified as ‘involuntary part-time,’”

said Susan Lambert and Julia Henly in their forthcoming paper, “Work Schedule Flexibility in Hourly Jobs: Unanticipated Consequences and Promising Directions.

”. The Census Bureau uses the term for those who work less than 35 hours a week because they could not find a full-time job or those who work reduced hours due to “slack demand.” In November 2009, 9.2 million workers fell in this category, the highest level in recorded history

People are talking about it.

A series of four regional forums are planned this Fall by the White House on the issue of workplace flexibility in low wage and manufacturing sectors.

Researchers Henly and Lambert expect the needs of workers for stable adequate hours and benefits will be discussed.

An increasingly large part of the work force has a stake in these job issues.  

It’s been a really good week for birds and birding.