Howard Dean has said it. Baruth has said it. Markos has said it. It seems to have dawned on everyone with the news this morning that nothing – nothing – progressive activists have fought for in the health care reform “compromise” that’s about to trump both the already passed (and currently being debated) Senate bill, as well as the House bill – will survive. All that will remain after all that work will be a bill essentially written by one man: Joe Lieberman.

And let’s be clear, he has done so with the full backing of the Obama administration. The denials trickled away as multiple sources confirmed that Obama attack dog Rahm Emanuel personally delivered marching orders to Senate Leader Harry Reid: give Lieberman whatever he wants. Consider this list from Firedoglake of what we’re looking to get:

1. Mandates every American buy expensive insurance from private companies without the choice of a public option

2. Severely taxes middle class health care plans, rather than wealthy individuals

3. Insurance premiums will increase in cost $1000 a year

4. Increased health care costs

5. Insurance companies will be exempt from anti-trust laws, inhibiting competition

6. A sweet, sweet deal for PhRMA with no ability to negotiate for Medicare drug prices

Monopolies granted on new biologic drugs so they will never become generics

7. NO public option

8. NO medicare expansion

I think many of us have independently had the epiphany today at all the bad news. For my part, I’ve been where I’ve been for months on this; a bill with an individual mandate and without a public option will make a bad system worse. I’d planned on writing this up this evening, and find myself just one of many, many voices spontaneously saying the same thing. The monstrosity barreling our way goes against Democratic Party principles. It goes against Republican Party principles. It is a Connecticut for Lieberman Party bill, recognizing only the “principle” of Joe exercising power, and Rahm getting some sort of twisted notch on his belt.

This is not better than nothing. This is worse than nothing. If the powers that be are determined not to deliver meaningful reform, then at least drop the mandates and some of the the regressive taxes and you’ll be left with a wimpy bill, sure – but that will be a bill better than nothing.

This thing should die. Senators Leahy and Sanders owe it to working and middle class Vermonters not to chain their limited incomes to the unchecked whims of the insurance companies. Both should step up and indicate that if the Lieberman bill comes to a vote, they will vote against cloture.

or is it they simply don’t really disagree?

It’s official … Obama, Reid and the rest of the DC Dems are busy throwing in the towel on any honest definition of health care reform (or even change for that matter).

There will be no public plans, no expanded Medicare … nothing but a HUGE tax increase on everybody intentionally designed to funnel hudreds of billions of dollars into the pockets of the already glutted private insurance industry.

And yes … Sanders and Leahy are just as guilty. After all they’ve stood by their men retreaters-in-chief Reid and Obama.

If Sanders wants my vote he’ll stop caucusing with the surrender monkey DC Dems. If Leahy wants to have me consider him, he’ll walk away from the surrender monkey DC Dems.

So the question is:

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According to Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent, Howard Dean will be advocating via an interview on Vermont Public Radio tonight that the U.S. Senate's health care legislation should be killed. Dean's decision, of course, is based on the news over the last 48 hours that Senator Joe Lieberman has apparently succeeded in his attempts to strip the Medicare buy-in provision from the bill.

Here's an excerpt from Dean's upcoming VPR interview:

“This is essentially the collapse of health care reform in the United States Senate. Honestly the best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill, go back to the House, start the reconciliation process, where you only need 51 votes and it would be a much simpler bill.”

Did you hear that Senators Leahy and Sanders? If not, let me repeat: Kill the bill. 

Call them to make sure they understand that, in this case, no bill is better than a meaningless bill.  

Senator Leahy's Office: 1-800-642-3193

Senator Sanders' Office: 1-800-339-9834

Shut down in October 2009 due to decaying concrete, The Champlain Bridge is due to be completely demolished in several weeks.  

Do you have a dream for the new bridge?  Six proposed designs are up on the NY DOT website and voting is open until midnight tonight December 14.

According to Dream Dictionaries, Bridge symbolizes Transition; crossing from one way of life to another or A rise in the level of consciousness on the part of the dreamer; heightened awareness.

What's your dream? 

According to the Lake Champlain Committee,

New York and Vermont officials are looking for input today on the design for the new Lake Champlain Bridge. Six designs for a replacement bridge have been proposed and you can vote for your favorite.

Check out the designs and cast your vote. Maybe your envisioning will stand for another 80 years.

The Markowitz campaign reports:

BURLINGTON-Former Vermont Governor Madeleine Kunin will endorse Secretary of State Deb Markowitz on the same day (TODAY) EMILY’s List, the nation’s largest financial resource for women candidates, will announce their support for Markowitz’s gubernatorial bid. Both endorsements come nearly a year before the election and will mean a major resource boost for the campaign. It is also the first EMILY’s List endorsement of any gubernatorial candidate in Vermont history.

Big news/game changer, or old news/status quo? Maybe both? Consider this a gubernatorial open thread.

UPDATE: How does the other Democratic pro-choice woman in the race feel about her unequivocal dismissal by EL finally becoming official? Here’s the statement from Susan Bartlett’s campaign:

“I believe this race is going to be decided by Vermonters, not by big out-of-state special interest groups.  Vermont voters will be more influenced by ideas and experienced leadership than by out-of-state donations by single-issue groups.

From the 'pedia:

In the Bizarro world of “Htrae” (“Earth” spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states “Us do opposite of all Earthly things…”

From former-national-big-name-newsguy-turned-local-columnist Barrie Dunsmore's scolding of “disillusioned Democrats” who have the gall to criticize the commander-in-chief:

This past week Henrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker summed up Obama's dilemma this way: “The plan does not, of course, guarantee success. The best that can be claimed for it is that it does not guarantee failure, as, in one form or another the alternatives almost certainly do.

Wow. The point of much of the argument against this surge (that comes from across the foreign policy spectrum… just not the punditry spectrum) is that precisely the opposite is true; we know precisely where this buildup will take us from looking both at the history of comparable conflicts in and outside the area, as well as looking at the recent history of this conflict. A massive buildup is, in fact, the only strategy that looks certain to fail.

“Me do same thing that hasn't worked even harder so it not work even more!”

Also from Bizarro World today:

The Legislature during the last session closed what was known as the “capital gains loophole,” a part of the tax code that previously exempted considerable portions of investment income from taxes. Supporters of the legislation said the loophole unfairly favored wealthier residents, as well as those who derive their incomes through investing rather than labor wages.

(Democratic State Senator Hinda) Miller though says that amid all the talk of fairness and equality, lawmakers lost sight of reality. “In this building there are a lot of judgments about what is fair,”… […]

“I am proposing smart taxes instead of fair taxes,” Miller says.

Ah, Bizarro World, you're such a silly place. “Fair is unfair. Fair is now bad word. Me want more boats and houses for friends when state can't pay for unemployment. Me think that better than fair.”

Me gonna throw up now.

President’s Address Defending the Use of Force When Necessary Was Reflective of the Elder Bush, Who Went to War to Stop Saddam Hussein’s Aggression Against Kuwait With the Broad Support of the World Community — Unlike the Younger Bush, Who Defied the World to Finish Off the Iraqi Dictator in Apparent Revenge For Saddam’s Attempt to Kill His Father

Sarah Palin had some rare praise Thursday for President Obama after the president delivered his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, Norway on Thursday, in which he acknowledged the irony of  accepting a prize for peace at a time when he is leading the United States in a time of war. Palin, the former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee, said that she would like to see the president act more like his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama’s speech, however, appears to indicate that he intends to act more like Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, who responded to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait by building the largest international military alliance since World War II to force the Iraqis out, whereas the younger Bush defied the world to finish off Saddam by invading Iraq  in 2003. (Photos: Getty Images)

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EST Monday, December 14, 2009)

By SKEETER SANDERS

Republicans are a fickle bunch. After months of attacking President Obama relentlessly, now, all of a sudden, they’re praising him.

Within hours after the president accepted the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway on Thursday, Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee — and one of Obama’s most severe critics — actually applauded the president’s acceptance speech.

“I liked what he said,” Palin told USA Today in an interview after the speech.  “I talked too in my book [Going Rogue: An American Story] about the fallen nature of man and why war is necessary at times.”

Only a week ago, The ‘Skeeter Bites Report ripped Palin in a blistering editorial for lending tacit support to the “birther” movement — a movement  motivated by racist and Islamophobic bigotry against Obama — after Palin told a right-wing radio talk-show host that she “didn’t have a problem” with people raising the issue of the president’s place of birth.

It should be noted that Palin’s eldest son, Track, is serving in the Army. Track Palin, 20, is currently stateside, having just returned from Iraq.  It’s not known whether the younger Palin will return to Iraq or be sent to Afghanistan in the near future.

But Sarah Palin isn’t alone in her praise for the president. Other conservative Republicans, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, compared Obama’s speech, in which he said that there are times when the use of force is necessary for a greater good — the concept of a “just war”- to that of  Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush.

Appearing on the public radio program “The Takeaway,” Gingrich said he thought the president’s speech was very good. “He clearly understood that he had been given the prize prematurely, but he used it as an occasion to remind people, first of all, as he said, that there is evil in the world,” Gingrich said.

“I think having a liberal president who goes to Oslo on behalf of a peace prize and reminds the committee that they would not be free, they wouldn’t be able to have a peace prize, without having force… I thought in some ways it’s a very historic speech,” Gingrich continued. “And the president, I think, did a very good job of representing the role of America which has been that of – at the risk of lives of young Americans – creating the fabric of security within which you could have a Martin Luther King Jr. or you could have a Mahatma Gandhi.”

Palin said the president’s remarks had a familiar ring. “We have to stop those terrorists over there,” she told USA Today. “We’ve learned our lesson from 9/11. George Bush did a great job of reminding Americans every single day that he was in office what that lesson is. And, by the way, I’d like to see President Obama follow more closely in the footsteps of George Bush and [Bush’s] passion keeping the homeland safe, his passion for respecting – honoring our troops.”

OBAMA: ‘THERE ARE TIMES WHEN THE USE OF FORCE IS NECESSARY . . .’

In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama acknowledged the irony of accepting the prize for peace as the commander-in-chief of a nation in the midst of two wars. “One of these wars [in Iraq] is winding down,” the president said. “The other [in Afghanistan] is a conflict that America did not seek; one in which we are joined by forty-three other countries — including Norway — in an effort to defend ourselves and all nations from further attacks.”

The president told his audience that “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations — acting individually or in concert — will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

Noting that he was accepting the Peace Prize exactly 45 years to the day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. accepted the 1964 Peace Prize for his leadership in the nonviolent movement to win greater civil rights for African-Americans, the nation’s first black president acknowledged that “As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of nonviolence. I know there is nothing weak, nothing passive, nothing naive in the creed and lives of [Mahatma] Gandhi and King.”

But as a head of state “sworn to protect and defend my nation,” Obama continued, “I cannot be guided by their examples alone.” As president, said Obama, “I [must] face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world.”

Unfortunately, “A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies,” the president continued. “Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism. It is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. I raise this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter the cause. At times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.”

‘. . . BUT EVEN WHEN IT’S NECESSARY, WAR IS NEVER GLORIOUS’

Nonetheless, the president continued, “This truth must coexist with another — that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy. The soldier’s courage and sacrifice is full of glory, expressing devotion to country, to cause and to comrades in arms. But war itself is never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such.”

Part of the world’s challenge “is reconciling these two seemingly irreconcilable truths — that war is sometimes necessary, and war is at some level an expression of human feelings,” Obama said. “Concretely, we must direct our effort to the task that President [John F.] Kennedy called for long ago. ‘Let us focus,’ he said, ‘on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions.'”

As president, Obama said, “I believe that all nations — strong and weak alike — must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I — like any head of state — reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards strengthens those who do, and isolates — and weakens — those who don’t.”

Obama noted that “The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognized principle of self-defense. Likewise, the world recognized the need to confront Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait — a consensus that sent a clear message to all about the cost of aggression.”

Without mentioning his predecessor by name — but reminding his audience of Bush’s actions that drew fierce international opposition — the president acknowledged that “America cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don’t, our actions can appear arbitrary, and undercut the legitimacy of future intervention — no matter how justified.”

Obama acknowledged that in those situations where force is necessary, “we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength.

“That is why I prohibited torture,” the president continued. “That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.”

REPUBLICANS COMPARING OBAMA TO THE WRONG GEORGE BUSH

It was clear from his speech that Obama was evoking several of his predecessors — including Jimmy Carter, who, in his 1980 State of the Union address following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, declared that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf region.

So it should come as no surprise that conservative Republicans would draw comparisons between Obama and George W. Bush.  The trouble is, they’re comparing the president to the wrong Bush.

Obama’s speech was far more reflective of his predecessor’s father, George H.W. Bush — and,  at the same time, a damning indictment of his son. For Bush 41 did something that Bush 43 failed to do: He went to war with the full support of the world community to stop an aggressor that attacked a neighboring nation.

The elder Bush — a World War II veteran — went to the United Nations and won a series of Security Council resolutions demanding Iraq withdraw its troops from Kuwait. When Iraq refused to comply, the Security Council ultimately authorized the use of force to remove them.

What’s forgotten is that the elder Bush also reached out to the Arab League, which passed its own resolutions condemning the Iraqi invasion. Saudi Arabia — the world’s most important oil producer and exporter — was particularly fearful that Saddam would later send his armies to seize its northern oil fields. At the request of King Fahd, Bush sent U.S. troops to northern Saudi Arabia to prevent such an invasion.

In the months that followed, the elder Bush succeeded in building a coalition of 34 countries — the largest international military alliance since World War II — to join forces with the U.S. in opposing the Iraqi invasion. Significantly, the coalition included 11 Muslim nations.

By the time the UN Security Council authorized the use of force against Iraq and the Gulf War began on January 17, 1991, there were forces on the ground from Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Kuwait, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Spain, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Although they did not contribute any forces, the 33rd and 34th countries in the anti-Iraq alliance — Japan and Germany — made financial contributions totaling $10 billion and $6.6 billion respectively. Nonetheless, Americans made up  73 percent  of the alliance’s nearly one million troops deployed against Iraq.

BUSH SR. WARNED IN HIS MEMOIRS THAT TOPPLING SADDAM WOULD HAVE ‘INCURRED INCALCULABLE COSTS’

After successfully driving Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, the elder Bush rejected strong urgings from conservatives to advance U.S. forces into Baghdad to topple Saddam’s regime. Indeed, after the Gulf War ended, conservatives sharply criticized Bush Sr. for allowing Saddam Hussein to remain in power.

The elder Bush fired back in his 1998 memoir, A World Transformed, which was co-written by his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft.  “Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq,” Bush wrote, “would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in ‘mission creep,’ and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. . .

“We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq,” the elder Bush wrote. “The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under the circumstances, there was no viable ‘exit strategy’ we could see, violating another of our principles.”

FLASHBACK: SADDAM TRIED TO KILL BUSH SR. DURING 1993 VISIT TO U.S. TROOPS IN KUWAIT

The 41st president’s son either never read his father’s memoirs or, if he did read them, chose to ignore his father’s warning about toppling Saddam Hussein. As it turned out, Bush 43 went to war in defiance of the world community and invaded another country without provocation to topple the very same dictator who had sent his army into Kuwait 13 years earlier.

The 43rd president’s publicly stated motivation was to rid Iraq of its stockpile of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. But it turned out that no such stockpile existed — nearly all of Iraq’s WMDs had been destroyed within six months after the Gulf War ended, but Saddam kept up the appearance that Iraq still had them to deter an attack, according to Hans Blix, the former chief weapons inspector for the UN.

But Bush 43 refused to see it that way — at least not publicly.

So what was George W. Bush’s real motivation for going to war to topple Saddam Hussein? Simply put, revenge. Bush 43 wanted to exact revenge against Saddam Hussein for his attempt to kill Bush’s father.

And he was going to take down Saddam no matter what the world thought of it, according to secret transcripts revealed in October 2007 by Spain’s largest daily newspaper, El Pais.

In case you’ve forgotten, let’s travel back in time to February 1993. The elder Bush — having turned the keys to the White House over to his successor, Bill Clinton, just a month earlier — was visiting U.S. troops stationed in Kuwait, ostensibly to say farewell as their commander-in-chief and to congratulate them for liberating Kuwait from Iraqi occupation.

But Bush had a target on his back. Saddam Hussein — his armies driven out of Kuwait and much of his country’s infrastructure laid waste by U.S. and allied bombs and missiles — saw an opportunity to exact revenge against his nemesis, the United States, by killing the man who routed his army.

So Saddam sent a team of assassins to Kuwait to kill Bush — but they were quickly captured by Kuwaiti security forces. The Kuwaiti authorities arrested 17 people who allegedly planned to drive a car loaded with explosives near Bush and detonate it, killing the former president.

Through interviews with the suspects and examinations of the bombs’ circuitry and wiring, the FBI established that the plot had been carried out by the Iraqi Intelligence Service, according to the PBS documentary series, “Frontline.” A Kuwaiti court later convicted all but one of the defendants.

Two months after it was foiled, the assassination plot was revealed to the world.  In retaliation, President Clinton ordered the firing of 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles to destroy the Iraqi Intelligence Service’s headquarters in Baghdad. The day before the strike commenced, Madeleine Albright, then the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, went before the Security Council to present evidence of the Iraqi plot.

After the missiles were fired, Vice President Al Gore said the attack “was intended to be a proportionate response at the place where this plot” to assassinate Bush “was hatched and implemented.”  The Clinton administration subsequently authorized the CIA in 1996 to organize a coup against Saddam, only to be foiled by the dictator’s intelligence service.

BUSH 43 PLOTTED TO OVERTHROW SADDAM FROM THE DAY HE TOOK OFFICE

That the younger Bush wanted to exact revenge against Saddam for attempting to kill his father was revealed by Bush himself, when in an address to the UN General Assembly in September 2002, he let it slip that “In 1993, Iraq attempted to assassinate the Amir of Kuwait and a former American president.”

Bush later admitted publicly that he made preparations to overthrow Saddam as soon as he took office. “The stated policy of my administration toward Saddam Hussein was very clear — like the previous administration, we were for regime change,” Bush told reporters in 2004 in a joint news conference with Mexico’s then-President Vicente Fox. “And in the initial stages of the administration, as you might remember, we were dealing with (enforcing a no-fly zone over Iraq) and so we were fashioning policy along those lines.”

Bush said the September 11 attacks put him “on a hair trigger” to take pre-emptive action against Iraq rather than wait for evidence of a new threat to Americans. But the fact is, Bush 43 used the 9/11 attacks as a pretext to move forward with his months-long plans to overthrow Saddam.

While neither of the Bushes, father and son, will admit it publicly, there was a deep ideological divide between them, according to author Craig Unger in his book, The Fall of the House of Bush.

“George H.W. Bush was a genial man with few bitter enemies,” Unger writes, “but his son had managed to appoint — as secretary of defense no less — one of the very few who fit the bill: Donald Rumsfeld. Once Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney took office — the latter supposedly a loyal friend — they had brought in one neoconservative policymaker after another to the Pentagon, the vice president’s office, and the National Security Council.

“In some cases,” Unger continued, “these were the same men who had battled the elder Bush when he was head of the CIA in 1976. These were the same men who fought him when he decided not to take down Saddam Hussein during the 1991 Gulf War. Their goal in life seemed to be to dismantle his legacy.”

And, indeed, they did. How else can you explain today’s Republicans comparing Obama to the younger Bush, who brought disgrace to this country’s good name during his eight years in the White House?

A more intriguing question: Given the apparent ideological rift between father and son, was Bush 43 out to “one-up” his father by getting rid of Saddam? The answer to that question perhaps can be better answered by the historians.

But for today’s Republicans to compare Obama to Bush 43 is an insult — not only to Obama, but also to Bush 41.

# # #

Volume IV, Number 94

Copyright 2009, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham held a news conference last week and announced their bare bones Framework for Climate Action and Energy Independence.

Obviously the event was timed to have an impact in Copenhagen. Both Kerry and Lieberman said explicitly that their intent was to send a message to countries hashing out a climate treaty: the U.S. Senate is on the job.

The document, is referred to as “a starting point, inviting our colleagues’ constructive input”. They do state a near term pollution reduction target in the range of 17 percent below 2005 emissions levels by 2020. On Friday, in Copenhagen, a draft text released by conference chairman asked wealthy countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions 25 to 45 percent below 1999 levels by 2020. The Senate framework cuts amount to about a 4 percent cut below 1990 levels.

However, the framework proposal does call for nuclear power as an “essential component” of the climate strategy along with federal incentives to boost US production of land, offshore oil and natural gas drilling. Drill baby drill?

Independent Senator Lieberman (who more recently is busy torpedoing Senate health care legislation) said “there are well over 60 votes in play in the Senate, not that we have 60 votes yet.” by way of noting the changeable nature of this framework. Perhaps last week’s Senate announcement only had an effect on a domestic audience because about half way into the Copenhagen talks much of the World, is apparently unmoved by news that US Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham are on the job.

Marcelo Furtado, Executive Director, Greenpeace Brazil, said on Monday morning that negotiators had done so poorly last week that they left a “crime scene” for the arriving heads of states, and that developed countries had clearly “failed to do their homework.” Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the current drafts from the developed world on the table would deliver an increase in emissions.

 With President Obama scheduled to arrive later this week and after a brief protest walk out by “underdeveloped nations” the prospects are described by Earth2tech blog in stark terms

………It remains to be seen what the heads of state can actually do upon their arrival this week. But to reach any kind of agreement there will have to be significant shifts in their statements and emissions reductions targets. A few are starting to inch forward —India has offered to adopt the guidelines under the UNFCCC, and report to Parliament on its domestic goals. But China and the U.S., as expected, will be the ones that will need to move closer.

Want to read some great journalism, important reporting, and insightful…er…insight (where’s my thesaurus)? Vermont’s traditional journalism pioneers Jon Margolis and Anne Galloway both make tremendous contributions this week. Margolis has a piece near-and-dear to my heart as it reflects a longtime GMD theme. Here’s Margolis:

In many states, as well as on the federal level, committees of the legislature or Congress can and do investigate the workings of the executive branch… by both culture and law, Vermont’s legislature appears to be one of the weakest in the country in its capacity to find out about what’s going on in the executive branch, much less to monitor it or to probe into possible incompetence or misconduct.

Galloway’s vtdigger has broken out the very anatomy (as she says) of the story Jack broke and has followed (the closing of the VSH Canteen) and in the process illustrates just how inefficient, confused, wasteful and arbitrary the Douglas administration is when it comes to handling taxpayer dollars:

(Secretary of the Agency of Health and Human Services Rob Hofmann) says closing the Canteen will save $100,000 next year, and he says this is a sizeable budget item in light of the administration’s call for 8 percent across-the-board cuts…

[…] Last Friday, DMH closed the Canteen. On Monday, DMH moved into its newly renovated office space at nearby Wasson Hall, which features new windows, repointed brick and interior renovations. The three-story structure is also getting a new slate roof… The price tag is $2.5 million, not including $47,000 for new hardwood furniture purchased from the Vermont Offender Work Program and a $33,000 contract…

And if that’s not enough…

Memos from the Department of Mental Health show that officials didn’t assess the impact of closing the Canteen on Vermont State Hospital patients until nearly a month after the decision to shut down the snack bar was finalized.

Veteran journalist Margolis is a one man act, and has already become a must read. The more ambitious news site vtdigger is Galloway’s nonprofit e-news endeavor, and it’s profile is growing in leaps and bounds. It won’t be long before the Times Argus rues the day it ever let her go. Both also are looking for online contributions to support what they do, and it would behoove folks with extra cash to help them out to keep this ball rolling. They are building new journalism models from the bottom up, which is what its likely going to take to save journalism, as opposed to simply retrofitting more traditional business models.

Both Margolis and Galloway were recently guests on Mark Johnson’s show as well. The complete podcast can be found here at Johnson’s site. One of the more interesting parts of the discussion (well, to me at least…) came when GMD’s Maggie Gundersen phoned in and spoke of her experience as a member of the “legacy media,” which also provided an opportunity to segue into a discussion of blogs in general.

Both Margolis and Galloway to large extent “get it” that blogs and new media sites are something different, something meaningful and not to be feared. They also have a sense of what traditional media practitioners sometimes do to fuel the new media fire – specifically the tendency to create false dualities to give the appearence of being evenhanded.

There is still some oversimplification at play, though. Suggestions (it may not be in the excerpted portion below) that journalists have to stay somehow in between the political ideological poles walk a bit close to the notion that good journalists have to either have no opinions, or must only be political centrists. You also hear some oversimplification in the false equivalence between GMD and VT Tiger, simply because one is “left” and one is “right” and both use the medium of the world wide web. I daresay there is no left wing equivalent to VT Tiger in Vermont, as there is no right wing equivalent to GMD. The two sites are very different in goals, approaches, functionality, and everything in between.

But it’s still great stuff, and that 6-minute-or-so segment is excerpted at this link (dang thing won’t embed right):

CLICK HERE TO HEAR CLIP

Everybody I know likes to give at least some money to charity during the Christmas season. Or, to be a little clearer, everybody I know believes that they should give to charity and finds it rewarding to do so. If you're coming here I suspect that one of your life motivations is to make the world a better place.

In my family we decided years ago to concentrate our giving on the Heifer Project, a charity that helps provide food relief, economic development, and self-sufficiency to people in impoverished regions around the world. They have a catalogue that describes what they do and what your contribution buys, so you can give geese, pigs, honeybees, or even big animals like heifers, llamas, or water buffalo. They even have a project specifically targeted to help women, who make up the vast majority of impoverished people around the world.

There's too much need for any of us to think we're doing more than scratching the surface, but I have no doubt that Heifer is one organization that really makes a difference in people's lives.