Welch voted a big “fuck you” at the low and moderate income advocacy group ACORN by voting (along with many, many other DC Dems) to go along with the vicious attacks on ACORN and to appease his “good freinds” from the radical, dishonest and racist political right. Leahy and Sanders merely purred their invectives with weasel words in twin Burlington Free Press opeds. Neither partner in the P & B show could find it within themselves to say “These vicious smears against a group of hard working, honest Americans are nothing but lies and slander.”

Obviously the vast majority of Americans are being pissed on by the DC Dems … yet one more time.

But we need to keep in mind what the reality is … because reality might just make the difference someday … so …

Here’s a great little study done by a professor of journalism and professor of politics titled Manipulating the Public Agenda: Why ACORN Was in the News, and What the News Got Wrong

This study, which received no outside funding from any organization, analyzed the complete 2007-2008 coverage of ACORN by 15 major news media organizations, and the narrative frames of their 647 stories during that period. The news media analyzed include the four the highest circulation national newspapers-USA Today, New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal-and an analysis of the transcripts of reports from leading broadcast news organizations: ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, National Public Radio (NPR), and NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (PBS). We also analyzed stories from three local newspapers representing cities in which ACORN has a long-time presence: the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Here’s a bit from the Bradblog that presents us with a great journalistic piece from Rachel Maddow.

Don’t think ACORN matters in Vermont? You’re wrong; these attacks against ACORN are the same attacks being carried out against any real health care insurance reforms. These smears against ACORN are intended to help keep the necks of the vast majority of Americans firmly under the jack booted heels of the rich and well connected.

So let’s not follow in the footsteps of Welch, Leahy and Sanders. Don’t let the lies grow.

Wonderfully timed in the same week Douglas completes his plan to lay off 300 state workers the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation has a “My Turn” piece in the Free Press .Commissioner Gibbs’ noted earlier triumph had been to put up a Facebook page for the Dept.. Now he shamelessly borrows language reminiscent of the New Deal and recalls the CCC .One can only marvel at the moxie of these small government fellows.

At Gov. Jim Douglas’ direction, the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation is doing everything it can to generate economic activity and create jobs. We’re pleased to report that your investment of tax dollars is achieving important results and producing meaningful returns.

Earlier  the Governor  took a stand against placing  inexpensive (signs can cost as little as $300.00) ARRA  signs notifying state run Federal stimulus funded highway projects .He was reportedly angered when a photograph of him at an event was published with one of the orange signs in the image.  

Jason Gibbs is not orange but is much more costly  and basically serves the same purpose as the scorned ARRA stimulus road signs.

The Governor’s personal human signage continues ………..

Our projects meet the strictest definition of “shovel ready” and are moving forward swiftly. We’ve targeted long-term, infrastructure projects that create good trade jobs — carpentry, plumbing, masonry, electric, excavating, roofing and others — critical to immediate and sustained economic growth. And we are transparent. It is important that taxpayers and policymakers see the immediate economic and lasting environmental values of investing in these natural resources.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress…

Markowitz has a campaign video up. I can’t watch it, unfortunately – I can’t even see the player – because I’m on a public wifi signal that blocks YouTube. So you all will have to tell me what you think (I’ve cut and pasted the embed code from Markowitz’s campaign site… hope it works).

————

[UPDATE by Caoimhin]

Here is the video that DebForVermont released on YouTube on Thursday.  Unlike the last video (Coldplay), this one uses a Beatles instrumental to far better effect. Even if I were a Coldplay fan, and I’m not, I’d still think the Beatles are way cooler than Coldplay.

I moved the ka-ching (cash register) video below the break. That video was released last summer in response to the press reports concerning the candidates’ fund raising. The release date of last summer’s video explains the references to Jim Douglas that are now stale.

-cl

———–

Markowitz releases this vid the same time Racine announces a new tech hire: Brendan Bush of Burlington’s Original Gravity Media, who will be handling webstuff. Bush is a veteran of efforts from the Kerry Presidential campaign to United Food and Commercial Workers’ national anti-WalMart campaigns.

This is the video from the original post and which DebForVermont released last summer.

-cl

a nice piece by Terry Allen

In These Times

http://www.inthesetimes.com/ar…

Here’s what corporations know, but don’t want you to find out: Private insurance is for suckers.

Armies of healthcare industry flacks, lobbyists and bought-and-paid-for legislators rant that nonprofit, public insurance is a slippery slope to socialist hell, will limit your choice of physicians to Doc Watson and Dr. Kevorkian, and bankrupt the country. But, in fact, most U.S. Fortune 500 companies wouldn’t touch private insurance with a 10-foot colonoscope.

When they need to insure their financial health against fire, terrorism, and liability lawsuits sparked by defective products and polluting factories that kill people, they don’t call State Farm. Instead, corporations routinely insure themselves by creating a “captive” insurance company as a wholly-owned subsidiary. “The parent company is insuring its own risk,” says Sandy Bigglestone, of Vermont’s Captive Insurance division.

But when we the people need health insurance against the high cost of staying alive, we, or our employers, pay private insurers-corporations that are more devoted to protecting their profits than our health. The premiums we pay go not only for our pills and treatments, but also for lobbyists (on whom the health insurance industry currently spends $1.4 million per day for the U.S. Congress alone), campaign contributions, stratospheric executive salaries, private jets, lawyers hired to fight legitimate claims, and, of course, profits.

Click here for the complete article.

(cross posted from IntgralPsychosis.com)

With behemoth health foods retailer Whole Foods marching ahead with plans for an out of scale (and, with the existence of so many local food co-ops, locally-based retailers, and yes, direct-from-the-farm markets, we could say wholly redundant and un-necessary) South Burlington location, faux-progresive and CEO John Mackey may well be getting a bit concerned.  That’s because Vermonters in Pittsburgh to protest the G20 meetings have chosen to target a Whole Foods retailer there as part of their protest against the corporate elite’s pro-profit and anti-sustainability agenda.

A group of Vermont farmers and students blocked the entrance of a Pittsburgh Whole Foods around 10:00 Friday morning.  They then built a raised-garden bed, complete with growing plants and vegetables, under their banners which read “Whole

Communities Not Whole Foods for ½ the people” and ” A Whole Lot of $$$$ GREEN $$$$$” as well as “Grow Gardens Not Corporations”.

From the activists’ press release:

One person joining them from Pittsburgh said “I have watched Whole Foods come in and cater to wealthier folks from outside this neighborhood with its corporate green image while selling products that not only don’t contribute to a local or sustainable food system but are totally unaffordable to most folks that live here.”

Jean Marie Pearce left her farm in the Northeast Kingdom to participate in planting the garden.  “We need to realize that Whole Foods is about growing profits not sustainability and the G20 is about growing capitalism not a healthy world.  I want a world where food is grown for everyone, not the GDP for 20 countries!  Examples like the dairy farm crisis right now prove the need for more inclusion around these policies.  We can’t protect or control our economy when it is run by 20 people and their corporate friends.”

Once these Vermont activists return from Pittsburgh, we can only imagine what they have in-store for the developers who hope to build a Whole Foods in South Burlington.  It’s a safe bet that Whole Foods and those developers are working on trying to imagine that very thing right this moment.

Time for a Friday end-of-week what is known and unknown about Lt. Governor Brian Hamlet “Lite Flight” Dubie.

First the KNOWNS:

Lite Flight has consulted with at least two (2) out of state political consulting firms to plot strategy for a gubernatorial campaign.

Lite Flight, despite being caught flat-footed by Jim Douglas’s wise read of a near impossible reelection year, has been receiving significant pressure to run for Governor.

Lite Flight makes a really good living right now as a full time private citizen pilot leveraging his taxpayer funded flight training and only part time Lt. Governor.  As Governor, he will need to take a big pay cut.  He does not relish this scenario (GMD, for the record, doesn’t actually blame the guy on this front. Seriously, who wants to work five times harder than they are currently clocking for the privilege of a 60% more/less pay cut?)

Also: Dubie has, of course, been in contact with national R’s who have made it clear they would like him to be their guy.

More knowns, unknowns and unknown unknowns not now knowable, below:

KNOWN UNKOWNS  There are two camps working the strings of the GOP primary nomination right now.

Camp one revolves around a few party leaders and social big government conservatives who want the State involved with everyone’s personal lives. They want an empty suit to dress their radical social agenda and Lite Flight is their man.

Camp two revolves around a collection of conservatives who are more concerned about the typical GOP agenda. For them, it is all about class warfare, low wage jobs, enabling corporate give-a-ways (VT Yankee/Walmart/Developers) and otherwise mortgaging Vermont’s future to score a short term gain at everyone else’s expense. This camp is also looking for an empty suit to dress up an ugly continuation of their failed Douglas-style economic policies. However, the difference here is that Camp Two is pressuring Dubie NOT to run.  This camp knows that Dubie can’t win and they have been “grooming” (not that you’d notice) Tom Salmon to run for them.  Tom Salmon says “I could be Governor tomorrow if I had the right people behind me.” What the good young man doesn’t realize is that the “right people” who’ve been whispering in his ear are some of the same people who have already pegged him for an empty suit puppet whose best qualification is that he will loyally carry water for those same “right people.”

We know about the two camps grooming/pressuring (pressing?) their suits.  It is unknown whose suit will be coming off the rack in the next few days.

KNOWNING the UNKNOWNS

Right now, Camp One has the upper hand.

Dubie wants to be Governor even if he doesn’t want to campaign for the job, give up his current cushy lifestyle, take the paycut, or quadruple his workload.

What is unknown is whether Lite Flight is going to make the leap and whether it will come before the middle of next week.

As of this posting, it is looking like Tom Salmon or Brian Dubie will be running for Governor before the end of the first week of October. Dubie’s awkward reticence would almost certainly mean “I’m out” for any other politician. But the ground work he has already laid, people pressuring him, the folks he has already brought in to sketch out a campaign, as well as those who are doing early work for him, all point to Dubie running for Governor.  

UNKNOWN UNKOWNS

To be discussed in the comments —

 Loading ...

Vermont lawmakers conducted a high-profile grilling of FairPoint honchos, demanding answers about the abject failure of this corporate little-engine-that-couldn’t that swooped in to take over Verizon’s internet and telephone services, over the concerns voiced by Unions (and others). At this point, of course, the stories about the many problems are inescapable – all of which extend from the inability to make FairPoint’s existing systems integrate with the established Verizon ones (after all, its the same staffers and the same systems here on the ground that were working just fine before… it aint the locals’ fault).

Of course today was largely a dog and pony show for the press and public. The Public Service Board is hardly going to de-certify FairPoint to operate in Vermont, as nobody knows exactly what that would even mean. Politicians just wanted to tell FairPoint executives that they really, really want things to improve, and were looking for some reassurance that they will, and that FairPoint isn’t about to slip into bankruptcy, which would also take us into unknown territory.

And yet, despite the tepid reassurances to the contrary, bankruptcy is exactly where FairPoint is going – and soon. A quick glance at what that might mean for customers and local workers after the flip…

Stock marketeers can read the tea leaves. FairPoint’s stock is in the crapper. Valued at below a dollar, they may end up dropped from the New York Stock Exchange. The situation is simply not sustainable. Word is (and I don’t have links for this) that they have approached their investors for wiggle room – either more money, or the conversion of some debts to stock, etc – but haven’t gotten very far.

This doesn’t signal bankruptcy in and of itself, but insiders do believe Chapter 11 is on the way. Chapter 11 does not mean liquidation, it means reorganization. Debts and obligations are put on hold while a plan for recovery is put into place. That plan must meet certain criteria and be approved by creditors, as well as the court, otherwise liquidation could end up on the table. All this means that day to day operations should not be affected, but don’t expect service problems to get much better during this period.

Everything can be on the table for reorganizing the business, including (under Chapter 11, Subchapter 1, Section 1113 of the bankruptcy code) collective bargaining agreements.

If a company petitions under Section 1113, the court has 30 days to rule, and they could rule virtually any way they want. Unions are going to be at a disadvantage in this process (aren’t they always?) as the secured creditors (such as banks) will be the big dogs in the reorganization and will be major drivers in the process. The Unions will likely try to negotiate with FairPoint to avoid the 1113 process which could get ugly for them – particularly in an unfriendly bankruptcy court.

About 80% of the 640 FairPoint employees in Vermont are Union members – either the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers or the Communications Workers of America. These folks are not the people responsible for this mess, of course, and were in fact the very ones trying to tell everyone that this was a bad idea in the first place.

And unlike the banks that have invested in FairPoint and will have the most influence in the reorganization process, nobody in Washington is standing by to bail them out.

Without question, workers in Vermont and across New England will have targets on their heads in this process. FairPoint will grab the best lawyers, make sure the court will be one unfriendly to labor, and will try to get away with what they can at the expense of the Unions.

What do the Unions have going for them in this process? What they always do – they are the people who actually make it all work. You can’t “reorganize” a broken company, and if they push the already-stressed workforce on the ground, things could well break.

And then nobody gets anything.

Let’s Not Kid Ourselves: What ACORN Staffers Did When Two Conservative Activists Showed Up At Their Offices Posing As a Prostitute and a Pimp Was Incredibly Stupid — and the Agency is Long Overdue for a Major Housecleaning — But Make No Mistake: The Activists’ Video Expose is Part of a Years-Long Right-Wing Campaign to Destroy ACORN — and Was Likely Conducted Illegally

(Posted 5:00 a.m. EDT Thursday, September 24, 2009)

==================

GUEST COMMENTARY

==================

By JOHN WELLINGTON ENNIS

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), an umbrella organization of community groups that serves poor people in major cities across the country through housing, legal advocacy, family services and higher wages, has lost all federal funding, after decades of working for low-income, disadvantaged Americans.

That the House of Representatives has moved swiftly on anything is stunning in and of itself. More stunning, this is in response to a single independent report by conservative activists, with no follow-up investigation, no hearings — not even being provided a copy of the full, unedited videotapes shot by conservative activists James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles at ACORN offices in New York, Baltimore and Washington.

This is serious stuff here. This is not a game of gotcha, of cheap political points, of practical jokes – not when this is money that helps in many real ways in impoverished communities around our country.

====================

ACTIVIST BEHIND EXPOSE ADMITS POLITICAL MOTIVE

It is vital to assess how this backlash was accepted so quickly in light of videos that were from someone whose films are funded by conservative backers, videos that misrepresented ACORN through editing and not disclosing other failed attempts at their desired response, and may well have been dubbed over, if O’Keefe would dare to release the unedited tapes in their real context to prove otherwise.

A significant reason that this ACORN backlash has moved through Congress like Montezuma’s Revenge is that this particular hidden camera stunt had the ring of “child prostitution” in it, which most politicians of either party would run from rather than dispute its irrelevance. “Anyone defending ACORN is for child prostitution” is an immediate fallacious meme. It’s not like we’re talking about the Catholic Church here, which still gets federal funding.

Noteworthy is that there have not been any previous allegations between child prostitution and ACORN. In this weekend’s Los Angeles Times, O’Keefe himself asserts that this ruse had  nothing to do with prostitution, importing underage sex workers, or tax help for starting up a business:

“Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization,” he said. “No one was holding this organization accountable. No one in the media is putting pressure on them. We wanted to do a stunt and see what we could find.”

That’s what this is really about: the elections, and the threat that has been hyped tirelessly that ACORN is in some way stealing your vote.

Before I digress into the long campaign to smear ACORN because of its successful voter registration, I don’t want to be accused to changing the subject to the elections. O’Keefe clearly stated that is what these stunts were about from the beginning.

There is much to dispute in O’Keefe’s quote. There is no evidence whatsoever that politicians are getting elected single-handedly by ACORN, and it is a wild exaggeration. Many claims of voter fraud are made, few instances ever occur.

What has been distorted is that these allegations surround voter registrations, not actual votes, and that ACORN has regularly flagged forms that were incomplete, duplicate, or unverifiable. By law, anyone collecting voter registration forms has to turn in all that are used, even if they know the forms will not be processed.

Far-fetched is the idea that no one in the media has been putting pressure on ACORN. That O’Keefe would even think ACORN could elect politicians single-handedly is because of Fox News’ rampant coverage and conflation of ACORN conspiracies and allegations, to the extent that John McCain worked it into his stump speech by the end of the 2008 presidential election.

RIGHT-WING ANTI-ACORN CAMPAIGN TIED TO U.S. ATTORNEY FIRINGS

The red herring of voter fraud as an excuse to deny others the right to vote is a well-worn claim. Voter suppression, specifically using the fear of “voter fraud” to advance voter suppression, is a topic I have explored and documented in-depth in my documentary “Free For All!” which you can see online for free right now.  I also produced a video about ACORN with Video the Vote focusing on the fraud of voter fraud.

David Iglesias, a Republican U.S. Attorney for New Mexico, investigated allegations of voter fraud throughout the state at the urging of Republican leaders, and when he found no evidence and would not prosecute falsely, he was fired, as asserted by Iglesias in his testimony before Congress and e-mails recently declassified from former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

But again, I don’t want to be accused of dodging the issue — I am just looking to rebut the persistent falsehood which directly affected this kid’s motivation to punk a community organization into losing millions of dollars to help the poor.

O’Keefe is comparable to the FBI informant who brought down the Bronx terrorist plot — only that there would not have been any actual plot were it not for this FBI informant actively recruiting mentally challenged Muslims from mosques for this plot, which apparently involved entrapping people who were dumb enough to listen to him.

O’Keefe could well have actually attempted to show something about ACORN’s voting registration controversies — like speaking to registrants who admitted falsifying voter registration forms, or followed up on who registered and who voted, or even interview ACORN directly. But none of those would have involved a minister’s daughter dressing slutty, so you can’t really blame him.

O’KEEFE A MASTER MANIPULATOR

So it came to pass that in this effort to dispute voter registration that Giles and O’Keefe conceived of the worst sounding scandal they could invoke, and traveled the country to ACORN offices across the country to find someone to take their time to humor them in the improv game of “Yes, And.”

And they eventually found some clueless ACORN employees, people far too eager to offer good customer service than employ any common sense. A couple of workers comply with O’Keefe’s outlandish inquiry for underage brothels in dispensing tax advice.

The well-publicized clips are shocking enough, and have been exploited as much as any couple of minutes of video can be. Glenn Beck taunted other networks for not covering it. Even Jon Stewart bunted on it, as if his guest interview were Sistah Souljah.  As a potent testament to Stewart’s “Most Trusted Newsman” gatekeeper status, the House the next day voted to cut all federal funding for ACORN.

It is worth noting here that what transpired on O’Keefe’s videotape were conversations about hypothetical situations-not actual prostitution, no actual crime, and not proof of an agency-wide policy or program involving prostitution or illegal immigrants. In fact, O’Keefe’s experiment proves this — that several other ACORN offices would not be ensnared by their absurd scenario, and turned away these provocateurs. One office in Philadelphia filed a police report because they were alarmed by the pair.

O’KEEFE APPARENTLY VIOLATED MARYLAND STATE LAW ON SURREPTITIOUS RECORDING . . .

Ironically, the only thing illegal in some of these tapes is that O’Keefe was filming illegally at ACORN’s Baltimore office. States like California and Maryland have strict consent laws about surreptitious recording, which is why the news and entertainment industries have long figured out workarounds for hidden cameras. (Hint: Las Vegas.)

As the right-wing crankosphere raves over how the media didn’t uncover this, it is worth pointing out that not only are the tactics against the standard of journalism, the lack of disclosure and misrepresentation pushes this expose well out of the range of journalism and in to the realm of entrapment.

As it was, O’Keefe had to misrepresent a conversation where a woman stated up front that their inquiry was illegal, but played along because she figured it was a gag. Another misrepresentation by Fox News was the breathless uproar about a woman who joked that she had killed her husband — Well, after it was established that her husband was alive, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and others kept repeating the ridiculous claim for another day, demanding an investigation, since they obviously didn’t have the resources as a major “news” network to confirm that this guy was alive.

. . . AND PULLED A RACIALLY-MOTIVATED SCAM ON PLANNED PARENTHOOD

Nor is this O’Keefe’s first foray into being the Tucker Max of conservative hacks. He pulled a stunt on Planned Parenthood entrapping receptionists and donation representatives into conversations where he said he wanted to kill off black people, while his compatriot Lila Rose called and claimed to be underage to see if the clinics would report statutory rape.

(Lila Rose just recently called for abortions to be held in public squares to create the mass gross-out that would therefore make them all illegal).

In a detailed response from ACORN’s chief executive, Bertha Lewis, and its executive director, Steven Kest :

“O’Keefe has a sordid history of preying on receptionists and other front-line service workers for respected organizations. In 2008, he pulled a similar stunt on Planned Parenthood when he and another female colleague secretly recorded phone conversations with staff who handle fundraising calls at a few of the organization’s affiliates.

“During the calls, O’Keefe pretended to be interested in setting up funds for low-income women in need of health care. Once the conversation hit a comfortable stride, O’Keefe would change his tune and explain, in explicit language, that his real intent was to target women of color in an effort to control minority populations. The audio recordings were edited in an attempt to make it appear that Planned Parenthood was complicit in accepting donations for racist purposes.

“O’Keefe’s intent then, as it is now, was to entrap an organization whose mission he is ideologically opposed to, and masquerade his efforts as investigative journalism rather than the propaganda videos they are.”

OTHER RACIALLY-CHARGED AND SEXIST STUNTS BY O’KEEFE

And in college, O’Keefe showed women their place with his video wit, as reported by Media Matters:

As a Rutgers University undergraduate, O’Keefe videotaped a classmate distributing to a Women in Culture and Society lecture a handout that emphasized that a “good wife always knows her place.”

And most tastefully of all, O’Keefe drove around posing as a Publisher’s Clearinghouse van offering big checks to people — nearly all of them black — only to taunt them that the money is what was going to bank bailouts.

Do not-so-subtly racist or sexist stunts count in courts of law? Shouldn’t there be a requirement that they at least be funny, besides mean for the sake of mean?

Is this same adolescent accountability accepted by defense contractors, when Blackwater and its owner Eric Prince are implicated in murder?  He just keeps getting contracts.

Representative Darrel Issa (R-California) sent out a letter bragging of cutting ACORN’s money for all of us, then asked us to give him money. Issa’s hometown of San Diego has had political scandals that have led to actual convictions, not simply recordings of speculative conversations. Isn’t it time to slash San Diego’s federal funding? All of this is not to get off subject, though. Whatever angry conservatives want to insist the subject is.

It is natural for many to shirk away from defending ACORN in light of this footage. But this particular exchange is not just cherry-picked — it was planted, nurtured, and harvested, the latest attempt to take down an organization that empowers the numbers that vote Republicans out of office.

(John Wellington Ennis is a filmmaker whose most recent documentary, “Free For All!” was hailed by critic Roger Ebert as “engrossing, even enraging.” His production company, Shoot First Inc., in Beverly Hills, specializes in unscripted entertainment, such as documentaries, reality TV, comedy, and live music. He blogs at johnennis.tv. This commentary first appeared at ThePublicRecord.org.)

# # #

Guest Commentary Copyright 2009, The Public Record. Re-posted by permission.

The ‘Skeeter Bites Report Copyright 2009, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

• A rose, by any other name… “A Community Resource Network” (ACoRN) based out of Lebanon NH is a nonprofit HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C support organization. Apparently there is another organization that uses that acronym. And that other organization has been getting bad national press. What are the odds?

  Anyway, ACoRN (with the little “o”) is apparently getting grief from people confusing them with ACORN, and would like people to know that they are in no way connected.

• A belated shout out to Steve Benen, Vermont blogger extraordinaire, for being such a rock star. Take that Dobbs.
• Wow. Totten writes this and this. Colby writes this and this. Then Totten writes this (at the bottom). Man, that was fast.
• Speaking of Totten, today’s piece on all things Senatorial indicates that longtime Vermont Labor stalwart Ralph Montefusco might run for State Senate. Personally, I’d love to see that happen. Run Ralph, run!
• Speaking of Seven Days, Lauren Ober cracks me up.
• Yeah, that’ll work. In case you haven’t yet read on the sidebar, perennial Liberty Union 50th place candidate Boots Wardinski is boldly volunteering to save the Progressive Party from… er… David Zuckerman. For a preview of how well that’s gonna go over, click here.
• Speaking of the Zuckster, I don’t usually point people to official-institutional blogs like the Prog Blog, but the Burlington Representative has initiated a conversation over there about his consideration of a run on the Dem Primary ballot for Lite Guv. Interesting reading.
• Every now and then Mark Johnson emails me to let me know of something I missed on his show that I should hear or that might inform discussion on the site, as I usually dont have the opportunity to stream it. Or so I thought. I think the real reason I “forget” is those god-awful commercials for Montpelier coffee shop Capitol Grounds. Uhhhhhh… it haunts my dreams…..

[Cross-posted (obviously) at Broadsides.org]

While Vermont’s current Lieutenant Governor, Brian Dubie, dithers to and fro about his re-election plans and other oft-mentioned possible candidates like Rep. David Zuckerman put out political feelers by asking questions about themselves in the third-person (i.e. “What should David Zuckerman do?”), Newbury’s Boots Wardinski is cutting to the chase: He’s in. Period.

But wait. There is one wrinkle.

In an exclusive phone call with Broadsides.org, Wardinski announced that he’d be seeking the office of Vermont’s number two job in the Progressive Party’s primary in September 2010.

“I know what I want. I know where I stand. And I know how to use first-person pronouns, as in: I’m running for lieutenant governor of Vermont in the Progressive Party’s primary because I firmly believe in alternative parties and my stand on the issues.”

When asked for specifics, Wardinski rattled off a list of political stands that included the immediate shutdown of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, universal health care coverage for all Vermonters in a publicly-funded system, a halt to public employee layoffs, and an immediate withdrawal of all Vermont service members currently fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and “who the hell knows where else.”

“See, being specific isn’t hard,” declared Wardinski. “I just wish my opponents would do the same by stopping their media games and starting a substantive debate on the issues. If Brian Dubie and David Zuckerman don’t know what to do, they should step aside and let those who believe in what they’re doing – and thinking – lead.”

Wardinski is a horse logger, landscaper, farmer, maple sugar maker, and political activist in Vermont, where he’s lived for nearly thirty years. He currently serves as the president of the Capital City Farmers’ Market in Montpelier, the founding co-director of Horse Loggers for Peace in an undisclosed location, and a member of Veterans for Peace.

Wardinski has been arrested on numerous occasions in acts of civil disobedience, including actions against continued funding of the Iraq War (before it was popular), against the use of genetic-modified organisms (GMO’s), and against military recruitment of Vermont’s citizens.

Political observers may wonder why Wardinski is entering the Progressive Party’s primary after being a key historical figure – along with Bernie Sanders — in Vermont’s Liberty Union Party. The answer, according to Wardinski, is simple:

“I truly believe in alternatives – many alternatives! – to the two-party duopoly that has a stranglehold on our state and national political system. And when I saw that the Progressive Party’s Zuckerman was beginning his game of footsie with the Democrats, I knew someone had to step up and demonstrate that those alternatives have to be celebrated, not co-opted. Unlike Zuckerman, I believe what I say about the two-party hegemony that has led to wars, a lack of health care, and the gross inequality between the rich and poor.”

Wardinski is referring, of course, to the reports being circulated by Zuckerman himself that he is considering a complete abandonment of his previously held positions regarding alternative parties by entering the lt. governor’s race as a Democrat.

“Zuckerman’s basically issuing one, big ‘nevermind’ to his constituents,” said Wardinski. “I guess that’s what it takes to be a Democrat or Republican. You know, just like Obama was going to ‘stop the wars.’ Nevermind, indeed.”

Broadsides attempted to contact uber-Vermont political commentators Eric Davis and Garrison Nelson for a comment on Wardinski’s announcement but we were informed that they “were napping.” [Editor’s note: Poor fellas, they must be tired from trying to make the bland seem so relevant for all these years.]

Wardinski promised to be making an announcement about his campaign staff in the very near future. Stay tuned.