Careful what you ask, because you might just get it.

Not too long ago, I lamented that:

Like many Democrats and liberals, I’ve complained about the lack of choices in our primaries and the ability of the left to put multiple, serious choices forward in contested primaries. Some years, I’ve had to scream about no one even wanting to run.  

Another GMD reader nails it with his spot-on comment at the Open Thread, —

   We Need A Primary

   [W]e need a full fledged primary to rally the troops and get us engaged in taking out the Governor.

   Deb, Susan, Doug and others would all be fantastic candidates. Everyone should dive in and may the best candidate win. I mean, when was the last time we had a three-way primary for Governor?

   It will make the nominee stronger.

Could not agree more.

We need good candidates running in our primaries, and we need primaries that serve voters by showcasing our best candidates. We will continue to have neither as as long as the primary occurs in the fall rather than before the summer months.

This year, we have several excellent Democratic candidates running for Governor. With several terrific choices, I find myself in the odd situation of NOT being able to vote for people I have supported in the past. I find myself in the odd situation of NOT being able to vote for candidates whom I respect deeply. I find myself in the odd situation of NOT being able to vote for candidates whom I genuinely expect to contribute to a better Vermont future well after August the 2010 primary even if they finish in second, third or forth place.

Just think about that, someone will come in third or forth place in the Democratic primary next month; and my reaction will be, I’m glad that person will be here tomorrow to contribute to a better Vermont. Truth is, we all know that whoever comes in 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th place, we’d all be much better off if they were already Governor today. You can certainly argue that latter point, OR you can be objective and credible; but you can’t do both. Finally, ask and ye shall receive!

I figured out the other day that I’ve known the gubernatorial candidates, collectively, for approximately 88 years. It’s a wide range. One candidate, I’ve known since Richard Nixon was President (Doug Racine – 36 years). On the other end of the scale, I’ve “only” known my next-county-over neighbor Susan Bartlett, and her husband Bill, for a measly decade (or as some would say, this entire century). The point is, between grade school in the 70s and the Great Conservative Recession of the 21st Century, I’ve known, respected, trusted, had beers, played pick-up ball, argued, celebrated or lamented over something with one of these quality people and dedicated public officials at some point. I will always appreciate how fortunate I am today, or have been at different times over the years – to have been a friend, a colleague, an employee, a collaborator on policy/legislation/administrative rules or political strategy, to have campaigned for or with many of these folks for different offices and during different election cycles. Most off all, they have – to a person – honored me with their willingness to listen to me even when they do not agree with me and even when my ideas did not add the most value to a particular situation. Talk about a tough vote.

This background detail is far more personal than my comfort level generally allows, but I wanted to also explain how difficult – truly difficult – this year’s decision is for me. I am supporting Deb Markowitz because she has my unqualified confidence. I am not, however, voting against anyone else in the Democratic primary. The fact is, the five most qualified people to be Governor of Vermont are the five currently running in the Democratic primary. I hope my candidate wins, and I will enthusiastically work to see that the winner of the Democratic primary is our next Governor.  

When picking a candidate, I generally employ the “who is the most liberal person with the best chance of winning” test.  Like many of us, I have used some variation on that test since since the 1980s when I was an 18 year-old casting my first ballot in Burlington.

Deb Markowitz’s commitment to progressive policies and her ability to run for office successfully (and her proven ability to manage an elected office transparently and effectively) make her my choice for Governor. In a year when we are blessed with the opportunity to vote for several committed progressives, trusting a particular candidate to run a winning campaign and then govern effectively, carries even more weight.

The long version, below . . .

Deb Markowitz has committed to a progressive agenda and is running a winning campaign. These are a few of the reasons I’m voting for her:

GOVERNING ABILITY & PRIORITIES —

On core issues critical to helping solidify the middle class and protecting the deteriorating condition of people who work for a living, the Democratic primary field demonstrates commitment  to moving Vermont progressively forward. After eight years of conservative social drift and Republican fiscal squander of our economic opportunities, my confidence is in a Markowitz administration to effectively implement progressive policies needed for a stable, healthy, prosperous and growing middle class.

I appreciated the manner our candidates answered GMD’s open and specific questions. Deb’s response to the following statement about governmental responsibility and the role it plays in helping us shape our political and social culture was particularly reassuring: “Over the past two centuries, politicians ranging from Winston Churchill to John F. Kennedy have repeated or closely paraphrased the following:”

The true test of society is how well it treats its prisoners and old people.  

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons and the test of a society’s quality and durability is measured by the respect and care given its elderly citizens.

Deb Markowitz responded, in part:

I have served on the board of the Central Vermont Community Action Agency for over ten years, and have seen first hand that Vermont’s social service agencies have been successful in reducing generational poverty.  

As Governor, I will support innovative programs like tangible assets, workforce development and head start that help Vermonters rise out of poverty.

As governor, I will lead the effort to plan ahead so that we are prepared to serve aging Vermonters.  According to the United States Census Bureau, [elderly Americans] will nearly double between 2010 and 2030 . . .  We need to be ready.  As Vermont’s population ages, the demand for accessible housing, quality medical services and first-rate long-term care will grow.

As Governor, I will support services that help seniors stay active, healthy and engaged.  

I will support efforts that keep seniors in their homes.  This is not just important for a good quality of life, but it is less costly than long-term care. . .

I believe that societies are judged, in part, by the way they treat their young – and their old, and by the way they respond to those individuals who violate the social compact. As governor, I will stand up to those who wish to dismantle our social safety net and I will lead efforts to rethink our criminal justice system.

Emphasis added. (psst – If you haven’t already, do yourself a favor and read GMD’s Q&As to our candidates).

As many of our most revered liberal sages have correctly argued: “the best social policy is a good job.” Deb has committed to follow-through with the economic & social policies we must have to reverse the neglect and squandered opportunities of the past eight years. Most critically to 21st Century Vermont, she has accepted the responsibility to invest in resources to educate, to train and to transition our priorities away from the crony corporatism of the last eight years. We cannot take advantage of new and better economic opportunities – from niche agriculture to high tech jobs and renewable energy – if government does not cooperate with us. This will always include protecting the health or our elderly family members and fostering the care and education of our young children. Her emphasis on transitioning economic opportunities and the support of working families to take advantage of them is central to Deb Markowitz’s agenda.

The fact is, we all recognize dozens of issues where the candidates show they “get it.” Conversely, we can all point to areas where we are not sure our candidates are close enough to our view of what is necessary to preserve civil society. I am convinced Deb Markowitz will be the progressive Governor that Vermont needs if it is going to improve the quality of life we have lost and opportunities we are squandering under misguided conservative leadership. I also believe she be the person who continues to listen to and incorporate the views of liberal policy advocates who have been proven right again and again while being shut out of governance when they were most needed.



WINNING ELECTIONS —

In the critical ability to win department, Deb Markowitz stands head-and-shoulders above the other contestants in the Democratic primary.  

Vote Getter: Deb Markowitz is a proven vote getter in a year when winning is crucial (when is it not?). She starts with terrific and positive name recognition. That is key coming out of the primary gate. She came into statewide office beating an incumbent Republican in an election year that offered Democrats no special advantages. She proved she was tenacious campaigner against an incumbent Republican, a year with many of the same dynamics as this year’s election, and she has only become better since then while establishing herself throughout the entire State, and among diverse voting blocks, as a respected State office holder.

Also, her ability to run a large chunk of the State – Corporations, Archives, Professional Regulation, Elections — under less-than-ideal circumstances, and frequently with no general funds (i.e. special funds such as user or license fees with no general taxpayer funded support) has been stellar. She knows how to run, execute and win and has proven it for over a decade now.

Smart Campaigning:  The Markowitz campaign is field work & field worker intensive. This campaign understands that you win with the most votes, not the best commercials or consultants. She is an organized manager who has entrusted her campaign to field organizers who can shake voters out of the trees and get them to the polls.

Raising money: she has built a campaign that can do it and, most importantly, she has established a structural network that will keep it coming during the general election so that she can concentrate on campaigning rather than fund raising. This accomplishment will have enormous advantages against a Republican who will be well-financed and showered with GOP money merely by showing up. She will come out of the primary with the resources to run an effective campaign.

     *      *      *

This year, there is something else . . .

Liberal, effective and proven. Usually, that’s enough. Most years, this is where I stop thinking and start voting. But this year there is something else.

Over the past decade, another equally important criterion has entered my equation. Respect for the rule-of-law is a non-negotiable issue for me. This year particularly, we need someone who will lead by example, AND we need someone who will restore a culture of respect for the rule of law in the many places where conservative neglect has abandoned it.

RULE OF LAW AND TRANSPARENCY:

We have seen an epidemic in government of failure these past few years.  Much of it is directly attributable to secrecy or a lack of transparency. Secrecy is a flagrant act of disrespect by elected officials toward those of us who elect them. A non-transparent culture either leads to failure or is a coward’s tool to cover up an ongoing failure.

We have seen an epidemic of government officials who view their legal requirements and limits as “quaint.” They believe legal obligations are only for those on whom they decide to enforce that obligation. Frequently these officials exempt themselves from our shared legal responsibilities or offer short-cuts to privileged insiders. This despite the fact that our elected officials take an oath to uphold our Constitution and the laws that support it the first minute they begin their service.

Today, and from now on, I ask myself: “who will do the people’s business effectively AND who will do it while also respecting the rights of people who are ‘not in the room’ when policies are put into place?”  Who can I trust to respect the rule-of-law and ensure their administration does the same? Who can I trust make transparency a priority?

I have heard Deb’s heartfelt commitment to this essential aspect of running an effective and trusted administration. She has earned my trust because I have witnessed her commitment to open government first-hand.

Here is but one small example of many. Most GMDers are familiar with the Douglas/Dubie administration’s attempt to circumvent Vermont sensitive wildlife protection statutes by allowing all-terrain vehicles riding and trail-cutting in publicly owned and legally designated fragile “natural areas.” After learning that the Douglas/Dubie crowd had ordered and secretly written illegal administrative rules with no public notice, the administration excused its abandonment of State law with a spurious claim that its bogus regulatory scheme will only allow ATVs on established crossings near highways or to connect already existing trails in non-sensitive protected areas “at ANR’s discretion.” This, however, is not what the proposed rules said and represented only a fraction of what the proposed rules allowed.  

As was the case many times before this one example, the current administration’s tactic was to adopt a controversial, or incompetent or illegal policy in secret or to hide from public view aspects of failed governance. In the example of the the ATV regulations, the administration’s acts and policy were INTENTIONALLY kept secret from the legislature until after ANR submitted rules for final approval. Our conservative Republican administration instinctively believed that it was perfectly reasonable to hide a furtive project until the week AFTER the General Assembly adjourned for 2010. How convenient?

The cynically imposed ATV regulations are not the worst example of deceit and disrespect for our laws, or the abandonment of our core democratic values. Rather, I picked this particular shunning of open government because it is recent and ongoing as of July 2010.

The Secretary of State’s Office is responsible for staffing or overseeing over 20 statutorily distinct state agencies from an administrative rules perspective. This means it either directs, or is responsible for staffing, departments with their own rulemaking authority (i.e., legislatively created regulatory law-making power).

It is policy in the Secretary of State’s office to announce the intent to adopt new regulations even before the process officially starts and well before public notice is legally required. Deb Markowitz has encouraged this transparent culture and overseen this approach dozens of times during her tenure. It is policy to circulate drafts of proposed new laws, sometimes multiple drafts or just outlines, within regulated communities and affected individuals well before an agency or department even submits new draft rules for official public comment (for example, most State agencies that issue professional licenses — the Vermont Board of Veterinary Medicine or Architecture or the agency that regulates all pharmacies and pharmacists — must write the laws governing how Vermonters interact with these professions). In other words, affected citizens are invited into the process, are TOLD of the process, when the State Agency begins to consider new regulations, not AFTER the agency has finished them.

I could go on (and I have).

The major point is this: I’ve seen Deb Markowitz effectively manage a large chunk of state government in a completely non-partisan fashion. I also trust her to use some of the best political skills I have ever witnessed to reverse the illiberal drift of Vermont’s executive branch and protect the opportunities Vermont has to offer for all of us, not just the insiders who have fed at the trough for the past eight years. I trust her to win this November, and I trust her to follow-through starting next January.

———-

(Please Note: Several of us here at GMD are making individual endorsements and this represents my personal endorsement. GMD is not endorsing any of the candidates in the Democratic primary for Governor)

VtDigger has a story about Challenges for Change. According to a new report, the state is already $10 million in the hole.

 You remember Challenges for Change, right? That's the bill of goods the Douglas-Dubie administration sold the legislature (or the legislative leadership eagerly bought) to enable them to pretend that they could save $38 million in this year's budget, thereby saving everybody the pain of raising that amount in real dollars, like program cuts or revenue increases.

We're now on Day 20 of the fiscal year, and we have already lost $10-15 million of that $38 million in savings.

Two questions:

1. Does anyone have a plan for what to do next?

2. Is anyone surprised?

   A labor agreement for the Champlain Bridge project that was actively opposed by the Douglas/Dubie administration has been put into affect by the principles anyway.

The PLA (Project Labor Agreement) between the general contaractor, sub-contractor and building trade unions spells out pre-hire terms and conditions of employment on the job. This framework standardizes wages, benefits, schedules, safety requirements and work rules and is said to speed completion of the initiative on time, on budget and without strikes or lockouts.  

A press statement said: “The PLA will accomplish what Governor Douglas was sadly unwilling to do – guarantee local residents an opportunity to land a job on this $70 million project,” said Vermont Building and Construction Trades Council President Jeff Potvin. “Labor will not be imported from elsewhere to build one of the largest infrastructure projects in our region’s history.  The general contractor stands to save up to $3 million because of a PLA – cost savings that could have been realized by taxpayers if our Governor had done the right thing.”

This past April as bids for the bridge project became available Vermont Agency of Transportation spokesperson John Zicconi claimed;

with the bid-opening happening tomorrow, it's far too late in the process to introduce a PLA now. Doing so, he said, would push back the project schedule and prolong the ferry service that costs Vermont about $30,000 a day to operate

At the time Vermont Secretary of Transportation David Dill carried Douglas’ Springtime fear mongering even farther saying Vermont contractors have told his agency that the requirements would either force higher bids or, more likely, keep them out of the bidding process altogether.  

Yesterday the AOT spokesperson sang a much different song when reacting to the agreement. He softened his pitch, never mentioned, and apparently no reporter questioned him about the missed potential $3 million cost saving for the state taxpayers mentioned in the announcement.

Its all water under the bridge.

Zicconi said Monday: the state doesn't see the Project Labor Agreement as a problem; they just did not want to be a part of it. "We always knew it was a possibility that the contractor coming in may want to engage in a PLA and we were always fine with that," he said. "We just did not want you dictate to that contractor who is an employer how they should do business because every contractor handles these things differently." Zicconi said the labor unions will help Flatiron find the skilled workers they need, quickly.

Tea Party Express Founder and Chairman Accuses NAACP of Being Bigots for Denouncing Racist Elements Within the Broader Tea Party Movement, Ignoring His Own Well-Documented Record of Bigoted Rants and Raves; Meanwhile, New Black Panther Party ‘Scandal’ — Hyped for Months by Fox News and Other Right-Wing Media — Is Exposed As a Politically-Motivated Hoax

IN DEEP DENIAL OF HIS OWN BIGOTRY — Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams, seen here during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, has come under increasing fire for making a series of highly inflammatory remarks that have been denounced as bigoted. But Williams is not only unapologetic, he’s actually accusing his critics of being bigots themselves, while ignoring his own well-documented rants. After the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil-rights organization, passed a resolution at its annual convention condemning expressions of racism within the broader Tea Party movement, Williams fired back, accusing the NAACP of being racist. Meanwhile, an alleged scandal surrounding claims that the New Black Panther Party engaged in voter intimidation — hyped by Fox News and other right-wing media outlets for months — has been exposed as a politically-motivated hoax aimed at inflicting racially-charged damage on the Obama administration. (Photo courtesy CNN)

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EDT Tuesday, July 20, 2010)

NOTE TO READERS: This column is taking a two-week break after this issue, while I go on vacation. It will resume on Tuesday, August 10.

By SKEETER SANDERS

Stubborn. Bullheaded. Tart-tongued. Full of himself. A bigot.

These are some of the things that critics of Mark Williams, the founder and chairman of Tea Party Express, one of several groups in the broader conservative Tea party movement,  have been saying about him in recent months.

To that, you can add one more: A [bleeping] hypocrite.

The acerbic Williams has accused the nation’s oldest civil-rights organization, the NAACP, of bigotry — totally ignoring his own well-documented record of making highly inflammatory and bigoted statements.

Meanwhile, an alleged scandal in which the Justice Department was accused by conservatives of downplaying allegations of voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party — which the Fox News Channel and other right-wing media outlets had been playing up for months — was exposed as a politically-motivated hoax aimed at inflicting racially-charged damage on the Obama administration.

WILLIAMS RIPS NAACP FOR CONDEMNING ‘EXTREMIST ELEMENTS’ IN TEA PARTY

Williams had the gall to accuse the NAACP of being “professional race-baiters” after delegates to the NAACP’s annual convention in Kansas City passed a resolution last Tuesday condemning “extremist elements” within the Tea Party movement and calling on the movement’s leaders “to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist language in their signs and speeches.”

Addressing convention delegates, NAACP president Benjamin Todd Jealous said that his organization “has no issue” with the Tea Party movement itself. “We believe in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in a democracy,” he said. “What we take issue with is the Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements.”

Taking direct aim at Tea Party movement leaders, Jealous continued, “The time has come for them to accept the responsibility that comes with influence and make clear there is no place for racism and anti-Semitism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry in their movement.”

NAACP CITES SLURS AGAINST BLACK AND GAY LAWMAKERS AT TEA PARTY RALLY

In a statement posted on its Web site, the NAACP said the resolution was passed “after a year of high-profile media coverage of attendees of Tea Party marches” across the country “using vile, antagonistic racial slurs and images” against President Obama. Photos of some Tea Party protesters’ racially inflammatory anti-Obama signs were posted with the statement.

The NAACP statement also made reference to a Tea Party protest on Capitol Hill in March against the passage of the health-care reform bill, in which a black member of Congress, John Lewis (D-Georgia), was called the racist N-word and an openly gay member of Congress, Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), was branded the six-letter homophobic F-word.

A second black congressman, Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri), was spat upon by a protester as he was walking toward the House wing of the Capitol Building. Fearing an assault, Capitol Police immediately hustled Cleaver into the building and subdued his would-be assailant. The person was later released after Cleaver chose not to press charges.

WILLIAMS CALLS NAACP ‘OLD FOSSILS MAKING A BUCK OFF SKIN COLOR’

In an interview on Wednesday with National Public Radio, Williams branded the NAACP “professional race-baiters . . . who make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It’s time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history,”

That same day on CNN, Williams went further. Asked if the Tea Party movement should tell bigots that they’re not welcome, Williams replied, “Racists have their own movement — It’s called the NAACP! They’re a bunch of old fossils looking to make a buck off skin color!”

In a highly inflammatory posting on his blog, Williams wrote what he said was a “satirical” letter to the nation’s 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, from Jealous, in which Williams sought to take issue with the 100-year-old NAACP’s continued use of the now-outmoded term “colored people” in its formal name — the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People — even though the organization has been popularly known and referred to by the media simply by its acronym for the last 30 years.

“We Colored People have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing,” Williams wrote. “Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!”

Williams concluded his “satire” with the following: “Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong!”

WILLIAMS TRIES TO DRAW ATTENTION AWAY FROM HIS OWN RECORD OF BIGOTED REMARKS

If Williams was trying to be cute, he failed miserably. He also failed in his apparent attempt to draw attention away from his own record of making highly inflammatory, bigoted remarks — a record that is well documented, despite his best efforts to sanitize it.

(Williams took his “satirical” NAACP letter off his blog site, MarkTalk.com, after it was reported by the mainstream media — but not before the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters copied the letter in full and posted it on its own Political Correction Web site.)

Indeed, so well-documented is Williams’ record of bigoted comments that his claims that the NAACP is a bunch of “professional race-baiters” is utterly without credibility — and at the same time reveals how deeply in denial he is about his own bigotry.

WILLIAMS SLAMS MUSLIMS, SAYS THEY WORSHIP A ‘MONKEY-GOD’ . . .

He’s certainly an anti-Muslim bigot. Williams made that abundantly clear in May, when he touched off a furor by blasting a proposed mosque and Islamic cultural center to be built in New York near Ground Zero, the site of the 2001 terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and killed more than 3,000 people.

The New York Daily News, citing a blog posting on his MarkTalk.com Web site, reported that Williams branded the project “a monument to the 9/11 terrorists” and wrote that Muslims “worship the terrorists’ monkey-god.”

The 13-story glass-and-steel building, which includes a 500-seat theater and athletic center, is under construction just two blocks from the where twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed on September 11, 2001, when two hijacked California-bound jetliners crashed into them and exploded in massive fireballs of jet fuel.

. . . ALSO HURLS INVECTIVES AT JEWISH POLITICIAN — AND THE PRESIDENT

Williams was just as incendiary in his condemnation of a New York politician, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who is Jewish and supports the planned mosque. Williams branded Stringer “a Jewish Uncle Tom who would have turned rat on Anne Frank for the price of an approving glance from Hitler.”

Stringer promptly fired back with a blast of his own at Williams, vowing that he’s not going to take “faith-based filth” from anybody.

“To use words around my religious beliefs, to use words calling me out about my faith, is just absolutely despicable,” Stringer told the Daily News. “This [mosque] is about tolerance and respect for diversity. He [Williams] can spew his hatred — and we’re going to hit right back. You don’t let people like this gain any ground.”

Williams has also made inflammatory anti-Muslim remarks about Obama — despite all evidence that the president is a Christian — calling Obama “an Indonesian Muslim-turned-welfare thug” and a “racist-in-chief.”

He’s also referred to the president as an “enemy of America,” lumping him with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — despite the Obama administration’s increasingly get-tough policy toward Iran’s nuclear program — the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and even former President Jimmy Carter, whose recent book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, has come under sharp criticism by supporters of Israel as being biased in favor of the Palestinians.

So deep is Williams’ apparent Islamophobia that he’s even stepping down from his post as chairman of Tea Party Express to devote full-time to his drive to stop the construction of what local media in New York refer to as the “Ground Zero Mosque.”

ALLEGED ‘SCANDAL’ OF NEW BLACK PANTHERS EXPOSED AS PARTISAN HOAX

Meanwhile, the conservative Republican vice-chairwoman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, in an extraordinary interview published Friday by Politico.com, accused her fellow Republicans who hold a majority on the commission of a clear partisan bias against the Obama administration in their investigation into the Justice Department’s handling of allegations of voter intimidation by members of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP).

“This doesn’t have anything to do with the [New] Black Panthers; this has to do with [the GOP majority’s] fantasies about how they could use this issue to topple the [Obama] administration,” said Abigail Thernstrom, who was appointed vice-chairwoman of the commission by President George W. Bush.

Thernstrom told Politico that her conservative colleagues on the commission made their political aims crystal clear “in the initial discussions” of the Panther case last year. “My fellow conservatives on the commission had this wild notion they could bring [Attorney General] Eric Holder down and really damage the president,” she said.

Thernstrom has strong conservative credentials. She is a tough critic of affirmative action and of “political correctness” — especially on matters of race. An adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Thernstrom is also member of the board of directors of the conservative Institute for Justice and is a frequent guest on “Fox News Sunday.”

ALLEGED SCANDAL STEMS FROM 2008 ELECTION DAY INCIDENT IN PHILADELPHIA

The alleged scandal stems from an incident on Election Day 2008. Poll watchers found two NBPP members standing outside of a polling station in an African-American neighborhood of Philadelphia. One of the two was a credentialed poll watcher, while the other was brandishing a police-style nightstick baton.

From there, the details get murky. The man with the nightstick was subsequently identified as a member of the NBPP, a militant, Texas-based black-nationalist organization. Founded in 1989, the NBPP, contrary to its name, has no connection with the original, California-based Black Panther Party of the late 1960s and early 1970s co-founded by Bobby Seale and the late Huey Newton.

Chris Hill, a Republican poll watcher, said that voters had been complaining about intimidation by NBPP members, but the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office said it had not received any such complaints, according to WTXF-TV, the local Fox affiliate in Philadelphia. The nightstick-wielding man was escorted away by Philadelphia police, but no charges were filed against him.

Hill then contacted Rick Leventhal, a correspondent for the national Fox News Channel, and repeated his earlier claim that the two NBPP members were intimidating voters. Fox News aired the story — which was quickly picked up by Breitbart.com and other right-wing media — and has been trumpeting it repeatedly ever since.

FEDS SUE NBPP, BUT LATER HALTS CASE — ANGERING CONSERVATIVES

In January of last year, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against the NBPP and three of its members alleging violations of the 1965 Voting Rights Act stemming from the incident at the Philadelphia polling station. The lawsuit named NBPP members King Samir Shabazz, who had brandished the nightstick, and Jerry Jackson as defendants. A default judgement was entered against Shabazz and Jackson after they failed to appear in court.

In May of last year, Justice Department officials, over the vehement objections of prosecutors who were working on the case, ordered the lawsuit dropped — prompting accusations by conservatives that the orders came directly from Attorney General Eric Holder and that they were racially motivated, as Holder is black.

INTIMIDATION OF WHITE VOTERS ALLEGED — IN AN ALL-BLACK VOTING PRECINCT!

As the controversy continued to build — driven by Fox News, The Washington Times, radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing media — J. Christian Adams, a former Justice Department attorney, testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and alleged that the case was dropped because the Justice Department “did not want to protect the civil rights of white people.”

There was one major problem with Adams’ testimony: The polling station at the center of the controversy was located in an all-black election precinct — a fact that Thernstrom caught almost immediately.

In a scathing July 6 article published in the online edition of the conservative National Review, Thernstrom blasted what she said was a lack of evidence to substantiate the allegations of voter intimidation.

“After months of hearings, testimony and investigation, no one has produced actual evidence that any voters were too scared to cast their ballots,” she wrote. “Too much overheated rhetoric filled with insinuations and unsubstantiated charges has been devoted to this case.”

Thernstrom ripped her conservative colleagues for charging that “the Philadelphia Black Panther decision demonstrates that attorneys in the [Justice Department’s] Civil Rights Division have racial double standards. How many attorneys in what positions? A pervasive culture that affected the handling of this case? No direct quotations or other evidence substantiate the charge.”

NBPP IS DESPISED BY ORIGINAL BLACK PANTHERS

Although the claims of voter intimidation were exposed as false, the NBPP nonetheless remains a highly controversial organization with very few fans — and is deeply despised by the surviving members of the original Black Panther Party, who adamantly insist that the NBPP is illegitimate and have even taken it to court.

The Huey P. Newton Foundation, founded by former original Panthers David Hilliard and Newton’s widow, Fredrika Newton, has vociferously objected that the new party “denigrates the [original] Party’s name by promoting concepts absolutely counter to the revolutionary principles on which the [original] Party was founded.”

The NBPP continues to use the Panther name and logo in spite of a permanent injunction obtained by the original Panthers in 1997 prohibiting the NBPP from using either. NBPP founder Aaron Michaels has been equally contemptuous of the original Panthers, branding them “has-been wannabes” and rejecting the injunction. “I don’t give a damn what judge issued an order,” Michaels said. “Nobody can tell us who we can call ourselves!”

Both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have identified the New Black Panthers as a hate group, “based on the anti-white, anti-gay and anti-Semitic views its leaders have repeatedly expressed.”

# # #

Volume V, Number 29

Copyright 2010, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

Auditor candidate Doug Hoffer's campaign comes out of the gate with a laser directed at both his primary candidate and the Republican incumbent – and it may well be sharp and tantalizing enough for the semi-engaged legacy media to sit up and take note. From a press release: 

Democratic candidate for State Auditor Doug Hoffer today said the July 15 campaign finance reports of Ed Flanagan and Tom Salmon are plagued with errors and that both candidates should file amended reports to clear up the confusion.

“For another office we might think of this as merely unfortunate,” Hoffer said. “But the State Auditor is called upon to inspect the financial reporting of state agencies. I think at a minimum candidates for Auditor should be able to properly complete these simple forms.”

The press release is remarkably thorough, even including links to the filings cited by Hoffer. If this gets any coverage, it could prove a powerful line of attack. Below the fold is the rest of the release.

According to documents available on the Secretary of State’s website, Ed Flanagan’s current campaign finance report is the latest in a series of incorrect and contradictory reports.

· A handwritten note on Flanagan’s July 15 2010 report refers to $27,087.15 in available funds “FROM PREVIOUS CAMPAIGNS.” Going back at least six years, there is no record in any of Flanagan’s previous campaign finance filings documenting this carryover.

· Flanagan’s July 15 2009 report was stamped received by the Secretary of State on June 24, 2010, eleven months late. Flanagan’s signature on the report appears to read July 15, 2010. Again, a hand-scribbled notation refers to previous campaign funds carrying over, but going back at least six years, there is no record in any of Flanagan’s previous campaign finance filings documenting this carryover.

· All six of Flanagan’s 2008 campaign finance reports (dating from July through December) appear to be signed on April 30, 2009. These range in tardiness between 4.5 and 9 months.

· Dating all the way back to Flanagan’s 2006 campaign finance statements, the amount “$0” is listed for carryover from previous campaigns.

· Flanagan’s December 2006 report shows total contributions of $37,708.36 and total expenditures of $32,610.32. No subsequent report reflects the apparent surplus funds.

· Flanagan’s October 27, 2008 report (signed on April 30, 2009) includes mysterious contributions totaling $2,300 for that period but no future reports (which are cumulative in nature) include this. In fact, neither Flanagan’s November 14, 2008 or December 15, 2008 report lists any amount under total contributions for the campaign to date.

Hoffer says that Republican State Auditor Tom Salmon also appears to have erred in his recent campaign finance report. Hoffer said Salmon had details of contributions and expenditures which should not have been included because they had previously been reported by Salmon in his July 15 2009 report – a year earlier. The Secretary of State’s forms are very clear about this.

· In last week’s finance report, Salmon detailed 14 contributions over $100 for the reporting period on page 3, totaling $7,150, but on page 2 reports only $2,200 of these contributions. Eleven of the contributions were previously reported in his July 15, 2009 report.

· Salmon says on page 2 of the report that total expenditures for the period are $2,167.17, but the detailed listing of expenses on page 4 is $3,262.65. It includes two payments previously reported in July 2009.

· Double-counting contributions, even on one page of the report, can give people a false impression of fund-raising success. In fact, Salmon’s proper contributions since July 2009 included only three above the $100 mark (and only one in 2010).

Hoffer suggested that both Flanagan and Salmon should file amended reports to make sure there’s no confusion about their campaign finances.

“These are not transparent filings in my opinion,” Hoffer said. “These are the types of mistakes that give auditors and CPAs headaches.”

Links to Finance Reports from Senator Flanagan

July 2010 report http://vermont-elections.org/elections1/71510flanagane.pdf

July 2009 report (submitted http://vermont-elections.org/elections1/flanagane71509.pdf

December 2008 (submitted April 2009) http://170.222.200.108:8080/isysquery/9dbef326-52eb-490b-aa45-935ec4493171/19/doc/flanagane121508.txt

November 2008 (submitted April 2009) http://170.222.200.108:8080/isysquery/9dbef326-52eb-490b-aa45-935ec4493171/18/doc/flanagane111408.txt

October 2008 (submitted April 2009) http://170.222.200.108:8080/isysquery/9dbef326-52eb-490b-aa45-935ec4493171/17/doc/flanagane102708.txt

August 2008 (submitted April 2009) http://170.222.200.108:8080/isysquery/9dbef326-52eb-490b-aa45-935ec4493171/21/doc/flanagane82508.txt

July 2008 (submitted April 2009) http://170.222.200.108:8080/isysquery/9dbef326-52eb-490b-aa45-935ec4493171/20/doc/flanagane73108.txt

July 2007 http://170.222.200.108:8080/isysquery/9dbef326-52eb-490b-aa45-935ec4493171/24/doc/flanagane71607.TXT earlier reports available on the Secretary of State’s site

Links to Finance Reports from State Auditor Salmon

July 2010 http://vermont-elections.org/elections1/71510salmont.pdf

July 2009 http://vermont-elections.org/elections1/salmont71509.pdf

 An apparently well meaning man from the NRC was in Vermont last week holding meetings on what could be described as a listening tour.  

Here in Vermont NRC Chairman Jaczko was told that the NRC had a credibility problem with regard to Vermont Yankee and its myriad of safety issues. He [Jaczko] said there is a "trust gap" between Vermont residents and the NRC.  

What better illustration does the NRC need of what could be fixed, credibility wise than  the report  from his agency, released days after his visit, of VY’s 65 “relevant” and “non relevant” cracks in the thirty year old plants steam dryer.  

The report filed earlier this month with the NRC by Entergy was given the traditional soft entry into the news flow on a quiet Friday afternoon. A relevant explanation of these two cracking classifications, “relevant” and “non-relevant” was not available.

No relevant change in procedures at the NRC, kind of incredible.  

BRATTLEBORO —A recent inspection of Vermont Yankee’s steam dryer, considered a critical indicator of aging and stress at the nuclear reactor, showed only one new crack, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said late Friday afternoon.  

The new crack brings the total to 65 cracks in the steam dryer. At the same time, Entergy said it reevaluated 39 cracks identified during the 2008 refueling outage which had been determined as “relevant” at the time, and were now “non-relevant.”  

Neither Entergy nor the NRC could explain the difference between “relevant” and “non-relevant,” saying technical staff were unavailable Friday afternoon.

The Summit yesterday was very nice– not sure how many people we had, but most of GMD’s front page crowd was there, including Odum, JD, Jack, myself, Sue, Maggie, Caomhin and BP.  Mr. Baruth was there to host everything.  I brought my banjo and played a bit, and had a lot of nice conversations with people, some of whom I’d met before and some of whom I hadn’t.  Steve Benen was there, and was polite enough to let me rant on about things for about two minutes as if he knew what I was talking about before I asked him if he had any idea who I was, which was very cute and kind of funny.  

Among the candidates for the Governor’s race, Racine, Shumlin and Bartlett showed.  Dunne had told me the day before he wouldn’t be able to make it since he was at Solar Fest after doing a charity run in the morning, and Markowitz just didn’t show (Publisher’s note: Apparently, the Markowitz Communications Director was there, but I had no idea either. Er… next time, make sure some of the folks on the masthead know yer there if yer hoping to get acknowledged, eh?).

Steve Howard, Doug Hoffer, Jim Condos were there.  Dunne had two of his staffers attend and they were a lot of fun to chat with.

Mostly, though, I wanted to make this a post summit open thread.  Other GMD folks should feel free to edit this to include their own comments and/or photos.  I know there’s a group shot of GMD out there somewhere, and if anyone wants to move the two candidate photos above beneath the fold and put the candidate photos up instead, that would be totally cool.  

What can be more wasteful of fossil fuels and more polluting than the totally frivolous racing at thunder road? It pollutes the air, it infringes on the peace and quiet of many near and not so near residents and who knows what other detrimental effects it has?

So what is the solution?  Only electric cars should be allowed to drive round and round in circles. Or only vehicles using vegetable oil as fuel with noise reduction mufflers. Or the tax on fuel used in these modern day gladiator pits should be taxed at 1000%.

And Phil Scott wants to be Lt. Gov.

Yes, Vermont is the pristine environmentally pure state.

[See VoteBoots.Com for more information about my campaign for Lt. Gov.]

 All politics are local somewhere.

Vermont Lt. Gov. candidate Brian “Pure Vermont” Dubie’s contracted media company goofed.  

Harris Media of Texas, one of Dubie’s out of state handlers, has Republican clients all over the country.  Among them are Texas Sen. John Coryn, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and newly elected Virginia Gov. Bob MacDonnell.  

This election cycle Harris is managing campaign work in Wyoming, Wisconsin, and Vermont. Last week they accidentally posted a Wyoming  policy statement to another  client’s Wisconsin webpage.  

A spokesperson for U.S. Senate candidate Ron Johnson of Oshkosh Wisconsin says they are seriously considering whether they want to continue using Harris Media’s services.  

Harris mistakenly posted a policy statement on Johnson’s Wisconsin web site pledging to promote tourism and cut down on wolves in Wyoming.

“I have the right plan to deal with the wolf problem and bring management of these predators under the control of the people of Wyoming,” the statement reads.

Johnson spokeswoman Kristin Ruesch said that the statement was mistakenly posted by an employee of Harris Media, which handles Web sites for both Johnson and Colin Simpson, a Republican candidate for governor in Wyoming whose campaign had prepared the statement.