This is sad news. Like many people of my generation, my first introduction to folk music was through the Clancy Brothers, who brought Irish music to a mass audience in the United States.

Now Liam Clancy, the last of the brothers, has died.

There's a lot to tell about him, but here's something I never knew: he and Bob Dylan were friends.

Liam Clancy lived in Greenwich Village, where he befriended another young folk singer, Bob Dylan. They dated a pair of sisters, Mr. Clancy told interviewers. Recalling that time in an interview on Irish television two years ago, Mr. Clancy said that he, a Roman Catholic from rural Ireland, and Mr. Dylan, a Jew from a small Minnesota town, shared an important quality.

“People who were trying to escape repressed backgrounds, like mine and Bob Dylan’s, were congregating in Greenwich Village,” he said. “It was a place you could be yourself, where you could get away from the directives of the people who went before you, people who you loved but who you knew had blinkers on.”

Mr. Dylan told an interviewer in 1984: “I never heard a singer as good as Liam ever. He was just the best ballad singer I’d ever heard in my life. Still is, probably.”

Follow the link and enjoy the video.

Per today’s Rutland Herald:

A Washington County sheriff’s deputy on security duty Wednesday accidentally discharged his firearm inside a downtown Barre courthouse.

I’d suggest reading the full story for effect, but I’ll give the summary: Sheriff’s deputy brings personal gun to work.  Decides to take it to work because he’s on a motorcycle and can’t secure it properly.  I’m guessing the rest of the story goes something like this: Sheriff’s deputy, thinking gun is unloaded, decides to play with it in courthouse.  

Hijinks ensue.

It may not only be the 35 year old mistakes of Viet Nam which the US should take a lesson from but the more recent ones made in Iraq that are being repeated in Afghanistan, with only slight variation. Unbelievably the US is relying even more heavily on private security contractors now in Afghanistan. Practically on the same day Obama announced the troop level increase by 30,000 (which will still leave troops outnumbered by private contractors) the Army Times reported on the growing problem. 

Although the convoys sometimes carry U.S. military vehicles and represent a vital lifeline for the coalition effort, no Afghan, U.S. or other coalition military forces accompany them. Instead, each convoy is protected by Afghan security guards armed with AK-series assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in sport utility vehicles — “black 4Runners, full of guys in these tan uniforms, with lots of guns sticking out of them,” said Capt. Casey Thoreen, commander of 2-1 Infantry’s B Company, which operates from Combat Outpost Rath, located less than 100 meters from Highway 1 in the town of Hutal. “These guys are like gun-toting mercenaries with probably not a whole lot of training. … They’re just light on the trigger finger.” Haji Obidullah Bawari, the Afghan government’s district chief for Maywand, rendered an even harsher judgment. “Most of them are addicted to heroin,” he said.

  At the congressional hearing the day after Obama’s speech, Secretary of State Clinton answered a question from Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) chairman of the subcommittee on contracting oversight. Clinton noted that the policy should strike a balance between regulation and “agility in doing business”.

To make matters worse, the Pentagon has not yet filled 600 oversight officer positions to monitor contracts in Afghanistan. Gates said he was not aware of the large number of vacancies but would look into it. “We have to be able to manage risk without being risk averse,” Clinton said. If oversight is taken to the extreme, government officials are not able to make “smart decisions,” she said. “We want to account for every penny,” but the government has to be able to balance the inherent tension between oversight and agility in doing business. McCaskill agreed that there is “real tension,”

Per today’s Rutland Herald:

In what Gov. James Douglas called a “critical step” toward resolving the state’s budget woes, the administration Thursday announced a two-year labor agreement with the state’s workers that will cut union salaries by 3 percent.

In addition to pay cuts, the tentative settlement eliminates pay raises and annual cost-of-living adjustments in a deal that will result in about $2 million in general-fund savings in fiscal year 2011.

Douglas Spokestooge Lunderville, however, made it clear that this isn’t just about state employees:

While pay cuts for state workers represent an important measure on their own merits, Lunderville said the agreement also sends an important message to public-sector employees around the state, particularly school teachers.

“This agreement today does provide a blueprint for school districts and municipalities to follow as they try to find savings and keep taxes low,” Lunderville said. “This is a new standard for public employees, and one we hope folks around the state will look to.”

Because what we really want to be doing right now is demoralizing teachers.

I wonder if Salmon’s employees are still getting those raises.

After his speech this week President Obama's been taking some hits from Vermont Dems. Not just the left fringe of the party, ably represented here, but even the mainstream Democrats:

Senator Leahy: “For me it boils down to whether or not there is a convincing answer to this question:  What can realistically be achieved, and is it worth putting our soldiers’ lives on the line, at a million dollars a troop, as our economy continues to struggle here at home?  Sizeable deployments of soldiers from Vermont and other states are only the latest compelling reasons for reaching deep to find the right answer this time.

Senator Sanders: “I think the president made a mistake. I`m disappointed at what he did, and I`ll tell you one of the reasons…This is a worldwide problem. Where is Europe? Where is Russia? Where is China? Where is the rest of the world? With these 30,000 troops, we`re going to have 70 percent of the foreign troops in Afghanistan,” Sanders told Ed Schultz on MSNBC.

Representative Welch:

 “Nevertheless, increasing our military footprint in Afghanistan will not achieve the goals the President outlined. Our goal, and our obligation, is to protect the American people from another al-Qaida attack. Al-Qaida is a dispersed group pursuing a radical and violent agenda.  It is not a nation state. Our strategy should focus on containing and degrading al-Qaida worldwide, not expanding our military footprint in Afghanistan, a country rife with corruption and a history of tribal loyalties rather than stable government institutions.

He gets a bit more support, although it is far from enthusiastic, from Madeleine Kunin:

Are there really good wars and bad wars? We thought so during World War II, and in retrospect, we were right. But in Vietnam, and Iraq we were wrong. Will our renewed effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan keep us safe, can we leave a more stable situation in our wake, and can we really pull out in 18 months if we’ve made little progress?

Will we ever reach a time when we can beat swords into plowshares?

So many questions. I have no final answer except to say, for now, I will give our President the benefit of the doubt in the hope that this careful man, who does not like war any more than we do, will have made the right decision.

And here are some comments from friends:

BTW–I took my Barack Obama poster off the wall today. There is only so much that I can forgive.

Did candidate Obama promise 2 have more troops in Afghanistan than the Soviets did during their occupation? Well, he's topped them now. Sad.

Obama, at a jobs summit: “our resources are limited.” Not so limited, however, to stop us from waging a pointless war in Vietghanistan.

 I thought we had to invade Afghanistan when we did. I really think we had to under the circumstances. Still, at this point it's hard to see the justification for staying. Rik Hertzberg points out in last week's New Yorker that  most of the justifications, like needing to go to stamp out al Qaeda, just no longer apply: they are operating without much difficulty in plenty of other places, including Pakistan, which is much, much scarier than Afghanistan.

(Promoting, with a reminder to candidates that GMD will front page messages such as this to the community. – promoted by odum)

I believe every Vermonter should have access to quality, affordable health care every day of his or her life. Call it single-payer. Call it Medicare for All. Call it whatever you want — what we need is a health care system that is focused on patient health, not tied to employment, and ensures that no Vermonter has to choose between health care and other basic necessities.

On Tuesday, I attended the “People’s Forum on Health Care” at St. Michael’s College, where I announced my plan for moving toward health care for all Vermonters.

My first step will be holding a public hearing to get the ball rolling. As Chair of the Health and Welfare Committee in the Senate, I will hold a public hearing on January 12 to begin the difficult process of building a new health care system. We will be looking at S.88 and H.100 — the bills that advocate a single payer system — as well as other legislation that may be introduced for consideration this year. This will be a joint hearing with the House Health Care Committee.

After this public hearing, I will hold committee hearings to figure out how we can move from our broken market-driven, employer-based system to a fair and just system that guarantees every single Vermonter comprehensive health care for every single day of his or her life.

I am committed to looking at the possibility of a single payer health care system in Vermont. This won’t be easy — we’ll need to convince the federal government to allow us to demonstrate that there is a better way. I do believe we can do this, and I need your help.

Please join me in this important discussion. Share your support for universal access health care, as well as your thoughts and comments on the best way to move forward:

http://dougracine.com/health-care

As a state senator, as lieutenant governor, and as a small business owner, I’ve been a passionate leader for those in need. As governor of Vermont, I will continue to fight for those most vulnerable, and it starts with a promise to pursue universal health care — the most basic of human rights — for everyone in our state.

Sincerely,

Doug Racine  

If you were watching the WCAX news last night, you might have seen this story:

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Some crewmen aboard the Maersk Alabama — now say ship captain — Richard Phillips — ignored repeated warnings about pirates. The cargo ship was boarded by pirates off the coast of Somalia in April. Phillips was held captive for five days. Crewmen say Phillips was told to keep his freighter at least 600 miles off the African coast. And there were at least seven warnings of pirate attacks. Phillips — who lives in Underhill — declined comment on the allegation.

Possibly a significant criticism of Phillips, but also possibly sour grapes by crew members who were pissed off first at being hijacked, and then not getting the publicity and possible movie deal that Phillips has gotten, right?

Contrast that with this morning's Free Press story from the AP:

Records obtained by The Associated Press show that maritime safety groups issued at least seven such warnings in the days before outlaws boarded the Maersk Alabama about 380 miles off the coast of Somalia.

This seems to shed a very different light on the story, since it provides documentation for what could have been merely grumbling by disgruntled crew members.

We're not shy about giving the Free Press a hard time when we think they get it wrong, but in this case their coverage seriously tops WCAX.Another reminder to be careful about what you see in the news.

We have previously covered the drunk driving charges against Auditor of Accounts Tom Salmon, and there isn't a lot more to say about the substance of the charges. He got caught doing it, he admitted it, and he's now facing the criminal consequences.

Today was the date set for his arraignment, the date at which he was to appear, answer the charges, and enter his plea. GMD was in court today, serving on a jury, so we have this on-the-scene report:

At the arraignment today Salmon appeared with his attorney and pled guilty to the DUI charge. The court accepted his plea . Pursuant to a plea agreement Salmon was convicted and fined $500 plus standard court surcharges. He is already serving civil license suspension and was ordered to participate in the CRASH program. He made a brief statement andleft with his attorney and his wife.

As Expected, President’s Plan to Send Up to 30,000 Additional Troops Draws Flak From Both Anti-War Activists as ‘Too High a Price to Pay’ in American Blood and From Conservatives as ‘Sending Wrong Message to the Enemy’ on Withdrawal Timetable

President Obama outlines his plan to send up to 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan to an in-person audience of Army cadets — and to the nation as a whole — during his first prime-time televised address Tuesday night at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. The president’s long-awaited strategy on Afghanistan, as expected, drew sharp criticism from both anti-war activists and liberal Democrats on the left and from conservative commentators and Republican lawmakers on the right. (Photo: Jim Young/Reuters)

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EST Thursday, December 3, 2009)

By SKEETER SANDERS

President Obama’s long-awaited unveiling of his new strategy in Afghanistan Tuesday night to deploy up to 30,000 more U.S. troops to the war-ravaged country — with a timetable to begin a phased withdrawal a year and a half from now — has, as expected, drawn sharply negative reviews from both anti-war activists who supported his candidacy last year and right-wing critics who have dogged him since he took office nearly a year ago.

A coalition of up to 100 anti-war activists has called for a mass protest in Washington on December 12 to demand an end to all U.S. military action in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, TalkingPointsMemo.com reported Wednesday.

The activists, under the name “End U.S. Wars,” posted an open letter to the president on the coalition’s Web site, in which they pledged to support only anti-war candidates in the 2010 midterm election — and warned that they will “seriously consider backing an explicitly anti-war primary candidate to challenge you during the Democratic primaries [in 2012].”

On the other side, right-wing radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday branded the president’s address “incoherent” and blasted his new Afghanistan strategy as “the policy of a left-wing politician, not a serious commander-in-chief who leaves the strategies to the experts.”

Limbaugh tore into the president’s address as being “all about placating as many sides of the political spectrum as there are.  The last thing it was about was military victory . . . He didn’t talk about victory because, remember, he’s uncomfortable with the concept of victory.”

PRESIDENT: OUR MISSION IN AFGHANISTAN IS NOT LIKE VIETNAM

Anticipating much of the criticism against his strategy, the president sought to refute them head-on in his Tuesday-night address. He rejected comparisons to Vietnam, insisting that, unlike that war, Washington leads a coalition of 43 nations and is not facing a “broad-based popular insurgency.”

“To abandon this area now — and to rely only on efforts against al-Qaida from a distance — would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al-Qaida, and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland,” Obama said.

To those who have argued against increasing U.S. troop levels, the president insisted that “the status quo is not sustainable” due to continuing gains by the Taliban.

To Republican objections that he failed to follow the recommendations of General Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in the region, for a greater and more open-ended escalation, Obama was dismissive. “I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests,” he said.

CODE PINK STAGES CAPITOL HILL PROTEST

On Wednesday, members of Code Pink, an anti-war women’s group, staged a protest outside the Capitol Building in Washington as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary William Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The protesters called on Clinton and Mullen not to make “an epic mistake.”

As Clinton arrived, Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin shouted out,

“Hillary! You know better!” Her fellow protesters then called out at Mullen, “Mike! That’s a peaceful name!” briefly catching Mullen’s eye. “We can’t afford this escalation or this war!”

Benjamin then chimed in, “You do realize this is a misadventure. The Afghans don’t need more troops, they need more economic development, jobs.” She warned of “an endless cycle of violence” if the troop buildup goes forward.

KERRY GIVES QUALIFIED ENDORSEMENT, BUT FEINGOLD SAYS NO

Reaction on Capitol Hill was more muted, but still reflected sharp divisions in both parties toward Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy. Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made a qualified endorsement Tuesday night, giving the president high marks for “defining a narrower mission, not an open-ended nation-building exercise.”

Kerry, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who later opposed that conflict, made it clear, however, that his support for sending additional troops to Afghanistan is based on a “strict understanding of the need to transfer and build as well as partner with Afghans,” and he warned that unless authority is quickly handed over to the Afghan government, it “will end in failure, no matter how many troops we send [there].”

But Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) said he opposes the troop buildup in Afghanistan because it’s a misguided mission.

“Many believe, and I’m one of them, that this could push more extremists into Pakistan and destabilize a country that’s much more dangerous,” Feingold told Wausau television station WAOW-TV on Wednesday. “So when the President says we need to do this to finish the job, I say, ‘What job?’ Al-Qaida is not based in Afghanistan anymore and to the extent they’re there, we can handle it without putting hundreds of thousands of troops.”

REPUBLICANS BACK ‘SURGE,’ BUT DISLIKE WITHDRAWAL TIMETABLE

For their part, Republicans on Tuesday for the most part expressed support for  Obama’s decision, but they also expressed deep displeasure with his pledge to draw down forces in a year and a half.

Even before Obama delivered his address, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), the president’s opponent in last year’s election, made clear his opposition to the timetable. “Dates for withdrawal are dictated by conditions,” McCain told reporters Tuesday on Capitol Hill. “The way that you win wars is to break the enemy’s will, not to announce dates that you are leaving.”

At a White House meeting with Obama late Tuesday, McCain and other leading Republicans were assured by the president and other administration officials that he would indeed let the progress of the war determine the pace of the drawdown.

Nonethelss, the president’s decision did not mollify many of his Republican critics, who, like Limbaugh, accused Obama of trying to appeal to those who oppose escalation of the war even as he called for a troop increase.

Representative Howard McKeon (R-California) the ranking minority member on the House Armed Services Committee, told Reuters he was disturbed by the president’s exit timetable. “I don’t like having a deadline,” said McKeon. “You can have one in mind, but why tell the enemy?”

REACTION IN KABUL JUST AS DIVIDED AS IN WASHINGTON

The reaction in Afghanistan to Obama’s address was just as divided as that in this country.

“The U.S. president’s speech was very important,” Foreign Minister Dadfar Rangin Spanta was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse on Wednesday. “Mr. Obama said that the United States will take the necessary steps to help Afghanistan.”

But other Afghan officials said that they opposed the “surge,” citing past influxes of troops that failed to push back the insurgency.

“We couldn’t solve the Afghanistan problem in eight years, but now the U.S. wants to solve it in 18 months? I don’t see how it could be done,” Segbatullah Sanjar, chief policy adviser for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, told The Wall Street Journal.

The Taliban insurgents, however, issued a dismissive communique that the U.S. troop increase would only strengthen their movement. “However many more troops the enemy sends against our Afghan muhejedeen, they are committed to increasing the number of muhejedeen and strengthen their resistance,” the Taliban’s communique said, warning that more U.S. soldiers “will die because of it.”

# # #

Copyright 2009, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

Quite a week. Another day, another public challenge of the Obama administration by a Vermont Senator.

Bernanke’s nomination comes before the Senate Banking Committee this Thursday. It’s unclear how far he’ll be willing to go with this hold, but it’s a very big deal regardless. Reid has shown in the past that inconvenient holds from the Democratic caucus do not necessarily elicit the kind of traditional Senatorial deference that holds from the opposition do (raise your hand if that surprises you).

WASHINGTON, December 2 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today placed a hold on the nomination of Ben Bernanke for a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

“The American people overwhelmingly voted last year for a change in our national priorities to put the interests of ordinary people ahead of the greed of Wall Street and the wealthy few,” Sanders said. “What the American people did not bargain for was another four years for one of the key architects of the Bush economy.”

The rest of the Sanders press release follows.

As head of the central bank since 2006, Bernanke could have demanded that Wall Street provide adequate credit to small and medium-sized businesses to create decent-paying jobs in a productive economy, but he did not.

He could have insisted that large bailed-out banks end the usurious practice of charging interest rates of 30 percent or more on credit cards, but he did not.

He could have broken up too-big-to-fail financial institutions that took Federal Reserve assistance, but he did not.

He could have revealed which banks took more than $2 trillion in taxpayer-backed secret loans, but he did not.

“The American people want a new direction on Wall Street and at the Fed.  They do not want as chairman someone who has been part of the problem and who has been responsible for many of the enormous difficulties that we are now experiencing,” Sanders said.  “It’s time for a change at the Fed.”

The Federal Reserve has four main responsibilities: to conduct monetary policy in a way that leads to maximum employment and stable prices; to maintain the safety and soundness of financial institutions; to contain systemic risk in financial markets; and to protect consumers against deceptive and unfair financial products.

Since Bernanke took over as Fed chairman in 2006, unemployment has more than doubled and, today, 17.5 percent of the American workforce is either unemployed or underemployed.

Not since the Great Depression has the financial system been as unsafe, unsound, and unstable as it has been during Mr. Bernanke’s tenure.  More than 120 banks have failed since he became chairman.

Under Bernanke’s watch, the value of risky derivatives held at our nation’s top commercial banks grew from $110 trillion to more than $290 trillion, 95 percent of which are concentrated in just five financial institutions.

Bernanke failed to prevent banks from issuing deceptive and unfair financial products to consumers.  Under his leadership, mortgage lenders were allowed to issue predatory loans they knew consumers could not afford to repay. This risky practice was allowed to continue long after the FBI warned in 2004 of an “epidemic” in mortgage fraud.

After the financial crisis hit, Bernanke’s response was to provide trillions of dollars in virtually zero-interest loans and other taxpayer assistance to some of the largest financial institutions in the world.  Adding insult to injury, Bernanke refused to tell the American people the names of the institutions that received this handout or the terms involved.

“Mr. Bernanke has failed at all four core responsibilities of the Federal Reserve,” Sanders concluded.  “It’s time for him to go.”