The State Democratic Convention is coming up this Saturday, and many GMD writers and readers will be there, either voting for delegates to the Democratic National Convention or running to be a delegate. I've had a couple of people contact me to talk about what they should be looking for, what criteria should be applied to this choice.

 My first observation is obvious: there are way more people who would be good choices than there are openings. We are voting for six Obama delegates and four Clinton delegates, out of a couple of hundred candidates. We have State Senators and Representatives; current and former elected officials; longtime Party activists and fresh-faced newcomers. I go down the list and I have a hard time picking out people who don't deserve to go.

My second observation is that I'm not actually an expert on this question. I have some ideas, but I've only been to one state convention, so I've only had to make this choice once before. So your opinion is just as valid as mine. I encourage other people to weigh in with your own ideas of what goes through your mind as you make your choices.

So here are some of my ideas: 

1. Have they earned it? There are some people who were there from the very beginning, who have worked hard for their candidate, maybe even before that candidate had declared. They've organized, raised money, talked, written, and traveled for their candidate. And all not for personal gain, but because they think that their favored candidate, whether Obama or Clinton, is the person that is most likely to make a positive difference for the country. I feel that that kind of work and commitment are worthy of recognition. In the Obama list I put Philip Baruth, Neil Jensen, and Mary Sullivan in this category, and Madeleine Kunin (and undoubtedly others) in the Clinton list.

2. What will they do for the campaign? As I look down the lists I see the names of some phenomenal organizers. These are people who get things done every time; they make the Party work, and they win campaigns. A vote for them is a vote for an aggressive, organized campaign. Obama candidate Carolyn Dwyer, who has managed two winning campaigns for Pat Leahy and one for Peter Welch, and Clinton candidate Linda Weiss, who until recently was the Party's field director and is an all-around great organizer fit in this category.

3. Who represents Vermont best? We know, or will soon know, who the nominee will be, but there are other questions to be decided at the convention. Who knows parliamentary procedure? Who is going to be an articulate and eloquent speaker for our interests? Who truly represents Vermont and Vermont values?

4. What does the choice mean for the future of the party? I feel that I'm often in a Party meeting and I'm one of the youngest people there. And in case you're wondering, I'm not that young. Our Party is full of smart, energetic, young people, and they are going to be the future. Some of the candidates for national delegate have already distinguished themselves, and others are showing promise, or may have become newly energized by this year's campaigns. When we vote for these candidates we are building the Party for the 21st Century, and there are some very attractive candidates who fill these qualifications.

As you might guess, I haven't decided who is getting all of my votes. I'm still looking forward to Saturday, and to hearing what the candidates and their supporters have to say. Meanwhile, since I'm still making up my mind, I'd like to hear what you're looking for in a national convention delegate.

Today I received an email from my cousin in Florida’s wife. Titled “something of interest”, I opened it thru endless attachments with hundreds of email addys. It begins with a snapshot of a a smiling black woman pointing to an Obama 08 sticker, claiming this woman is his grandmother. It then goes on thru many snapshots of “Obama’s family in Kenya” with paragraphs under each. In these paragraphs, it is claimed that Obama was illegitimate, that his late father was a drunk and drug addict, that his African relatives are all ne’er-do-wells, that his uncle named his son after Fidel Castro, that his family are radical militant Muslims, that Obama direspected his maternal grandparents by calling them “white folk” and that he changed his name to Barack Hussein Obama. I lit into my cousin’s wife over it. But judging by the volume of email addys, this must be everywhere. How entirely shameful.

Hoo-boy. Well, Caoimhin doesn’t write a lot of diaries, but when he does, he sure kicks up a hornet’s nest.

I’m gonna play “publisher’s privilege” and just post a quick perspective check up here. I won’t disable comments, but I encourage folks to continue the conversation at the original diary. I also don’t wanna fight Caoimhin’s battles for him, but I do want to add a couple things. First of all, Rep. Pearson’s bluster notwithstanding, the diary is certainly based on solid ground. Like 100% of the other “scoops” this little blog has had, the evidence will come out verifying it soon enough. Seriously, we’re batting a thousand over the last 2 1/2 years here, do we ever let ya down?

One thing Caoimhin is careful to state repeatedly, is that those that hounded Richter were Progressive stalwarts, but not “The Progressive Party” per se. What I say in my own diary just a couple articles down is that the Prog Party proper was likely going to support Richter, as she had Martha Abbot’s support, at any rate. I want to be clear on this because we will NOT do what has become typical of so many anti-Dem activists; that is, ascribe every wrongdoing by any Democrat as the collective wrongdoing of all “The Democrats.” There is nothing that rankles me more.

As to Dr. Richter’s comments, I can’t help but note that she is as careful in what she does not say (or refute), as in what she does. And let me be clear, the last thing any of us want to do is make her life more difficult. She speaks positively of her support from Pollina, and of course we should all accept her word – but I also think its still completely legitimate for Caoimhin (who was fired up in the extreme about working to get her elected) to question why Pollina didn’t use his near absolute-clout with Progressive loyalists to call for the pressure to be turned off. Especially given that, as I have heard independently, that this pressure was applied by Progressives in the Montpelier and Hardwick areas (and that’s Pollina’s crowd).

In any event, the whole things sucks. Is there time for Richter to change her mind and – I dunno – run as an independent?

Some sad news regarding Ted Kennedy and his seizure a few days ago. It has been reported that the cause was a malignant brain tumor:

A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics' most enduring figures. “He remains in good spirits and full of energy,” the doctors for the 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement.

They said tests conducted after the seizure showed a tumor in Kennedy's left parietal lobe. Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma, they said.

His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy.

Our thoughts go out to Sen. Kennedy and his family, and let's hope he turns out okay.

As of last week, Deborah Richter M.D. was preparing her announcement event at the State House.

As of last week, the person who has done more to change the direction of the broken approach to the State of Vermont's most pressing, most crushing and most economically taxing problem on Vermont families, Vermont workers and Vermont business, was about to step into electoral politics.

As of a few days ago, Dr. Richter was prepared to give a bigger voice to the cause of health care reform via a statewide campaign and put herself in a position to be a more effective agent of change.

As of just a few days ago, Vermont's most passionate and articulate advocate — for healing the wounds caused by Vermont's self-inflicted health care policy malpractice — was ready to take the fight to the next level. She was preparing to campaign for the office of Lt. Governor. She was going to begin a campaing to force Vermont government, our media and our political conversation to focus on the one issue that literally means life and death, financial security or bankruptcy, or having a job or not having a job to thousands of us.

So what happened to Deb Richter? The process behind the story below the fold.

According to two reliable sources close to the unfolding events and close to the Progressive Party, Deb Richter was sandbagged and betrayed by the politics of seemingly friendly fire.

Not the politics of the insurance companies, the hospital associations, the  Vermont Medical Society and all the other interest groups that cash checks on the backs of sick Vermonters and at the expense of access to health care. No, she was thrown under the bus by fellow travelers of the health care reform movement people who might otherwise tell you that they support progressive health care reform. Over the past few days, Progressive Party Apparatchiks pressured Dr. Richter out of the race.

The Pollina crowd talks a pretty health care reform game. However, when the person who knows more about how to achieve access to health care decides to run as a Democrat (and support the Democratic ticket including Gaye Symington), then all of a sudden priorities shift. The shift is dramatic.  When the Pollina Progressives learned that Deb Richter intended to run as a Democrat and to support the Democratic nominee for Governor, here is what happened over at the Moose Farm.  Sick kids found out they can wait.  Businesses overburdened from a system that penalizes responsible employers and gives irresponsible ones a competitive advantage are no longer a pressing concern. What about the best opportunity and most qualified person to move the Overton window closer to the rational single payer approach to solving the health care mess? The Progs answer with a question: “What have you done for us lately Dr?”

Deb Richter has worked tirelessly and selflessly through multiple legislative sessions and with many State leaders of the Democratic, Progressive and Republican parties. She has contributed weeks and months of her life to help achieve better access to health care for all Vermonters. She has necessarily had to work with politicians, bureaucrats, wonks and activists of all stripes.

Given her passionate work for health care reform, it is not surprisingly, in fact it is well known and expected, that she shares a significant ideological propinquity with the progressive policy goals of like minded liberal Democrats and Progressives alike. Many on the Moose Farm wanted her to run as a Progressive. Who can blame them. Many Democrats such as myself were overjoyed at the thought that she was ready to make a prominent, articulate and solid challenge to Brian “I only need 40% + help from Pollina” Dubie. Having Dr. Richter on the stump preaching the health care sermon that the State desperately needs to hear is exactly what this campaign season needs.

Deb Richter has been a champion voice and continually spot-on when it comes to the most important issue facing Vermont. She had a chance to become the most effective advocate in State government for a single-payer, full access system. There was one thing that Dr. Richter either did not foresee or she did not foresee the level of nastiness that would come her way. Just because you agree with someone, just because you work with them, just because they say that they also want Vermont government to pursue the same policies and reforms that you have spent a good part of your professional life advocating DOES NOT necessarily mean these same people will support you when you run for office to accomplish those goals. In fact, if it means – in Deb Richter's case – that you will support your own party's nominee for Governor while you are running for Lt. Governor, then your erstwhile friends and colleagues turn out to be the same people who want to keep you from running. That's the thanks one recieves for offering to make extremely serious personal, financial, time and other professional sacrifices to run for office. 

If Vermont needs anything in this election year, it needs an election cycle that focuses on the solutions to the health care crises. Vermont voters need a statewide candidate through whom they can express their desire to see a complete revamping of our broken health care system. Running on a health care reform platform and defeating an incumbent in the process would create a ripple effect and create cover for the incoming legislature and governor to giveVermont the reforms it needs and not just the ones that are safe and and politically painless. Having a statewide office holder who espouses the gospel of single payer health care reform only gets us closer to the goal of fixing a problem and repairing a process that is growing intractably worse.

To be clear, a source with first-hand knowledge has stated that the pivotal reason for Richter's unexpected departure was a coordinated effort by friends of hers active in the Progressive Party to cast her decision to run as a Dem and to endorse Symington as a personal attack for the purpose of hounding her out of the race. This was further confirmed by another source close to the Pollina campaign. What we have not learned, or have not confirmed, is the extent to which Hillary Anthony Pollina sanctioned, supported and/or helped derail Deb Richter's planned run for Lt. Governor. While word slowly rises to the surface and we learn more about Anthony Pollina's involvement, here is what I suspect we will NOT learn.

• We will NOT learn that Anthony Pollina, after the Progs had turned their backs on Vermont's permier health care reform advocate, called Deb Richter last weekend to encourage her to stay in the race.
• We will NOT learn that Anthony Pollina told Deb Richter “health care comes before politics. I'd rather see you as Lt. Governor even if you do not endorse me.”
• We will NOT learn that Anthony Pollina, in the face of his Progressive Party supporters chasing Deb Richter out of the race, stood up and said, “I'd rather see Deb Richter as Lt. Governor instead of Brian Dubie for the good of Vermont even if it means that she campaigns with Gaye Symington.”
• We will NOT learn that Anthony Pollina instructed his Progressive Party associates to cease obstructing Deb Richter's run as a Democrat.

Let's face it, many Progressives (not all for certain and in fact I know some Progressives are not too happy about this turn of events) believe it will be to their party's advantage if Anthony Pollina can attack Democrats generally, and Symington specifically, on health care as opposed to supporting a Democrat such as Deb Richter who is ready to prescribe a better health care policy regimen for all of us.

In 2002, Anthony Pollina single-handedly handed the keys to the Lt. Governor's office to Brian Dubie. Looks like this year, his team just insured Brian Dubie's reelection too.

… I’m voting Jon Lester in November!

Nine innings pitched, 0 runs, on 0 hits and 9 K’s tonight. Oh… and the first no-hitter of the year! Way 2 go Jon!

LESTER IN ’08!!!!

Taken from my original post at Integral Psychosis

A few days ago I read a New York Times op-ed “Aid at the Point of a Gun” (no link as the piece has since changed to requiring a password).  But the gist of the piece was that, given the military dictatorship in Burma/Myanmar’s obstructionism against foreign aid into the country following the devastating tsunami there, where it is estimated that at least 100,000 people have died and many more hundreds of thousands are further at risk of dying in the storms wake from starvation and disease, it may be necessary to use military force to provide aid against the wishes of the Burmese State.  This same sentiment was recently written in Time magazine.

Now, it’s not that I am in any way against doing what is necessary and prudent in offering any and all help to the suffering people of Burma or elsewhere for that matter.  However, my “bullshit alarm” goes off pretty loudly whenever I hear a proposal for military intervention, and especially when it’s under the guise of the oh-so benevolent and pious U.S. government’s “humanitarian” “concern”.

For instance, if the starvation of hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people were such a concern to the powers of Washington, where is their response to the 35.5 million Americans who live in what is called “food insecurity” (11% of all “households”) or the other 4.6 million who live in what is called “very low food security”, to say nothing of addressing the systematic, societal failures that allow such an instance to arise in the first place (1).  The asinine idea of aid through military force (an invasion of another region of the world) reads as little more than another outlet, a giveback (in fact, in the end a regressive taxation which overly burdens the poor, working, and middle classes the the enrichment of the upper, elite, and ruling classes) to military contractors, big agribusiness, and the oil conglomerate/cartels (the drive for global control of oil supplies is, after-all, far more about military might than consumer markets- military strength at this point in time is inextricably intertwined with oil and fuel resources).  Sending the military into Burma to provide humanitarian aid also has the convenient effect of demonstrating to the regional powers (China, Iran, Russia- who all are against such a proposal) that the U.S. is still capable of operating in new theaters of “war” at it’s pleasure, despite everything else.

As well, if disaster relief is of such concern and import to the Bush Administration, perhaps they could have done something- anything- before, during, and after (even to this day) Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.  The Israelis, Canadians, Germans offered aid: if was refused.  You know who offered aid: Fidel Castro’s Cuba (um, that was refused too).  Interestingly, while most aid was refused from our Western “friends”, it was happily received from China and others.  Yet the failure of agency after agency, policy, and system (i.e., the failure of the State) to rightly provide for the people who were first living in extreme danger, then devastated, and finally ignored, obstructed, and thrown into forced migration for the “development” and privatization (benefit) of the already wealthy and powerful proves that any offer of humanitarianism is a callous and cynical rouse.

Now, I am not by any definition one who is particularly interested in ideas of nationalism, national pride, or some sense of “patriotism” that rests on meaningless rhetoric and sloganeering.  Nonetheless, I am loath to know that it is my money that is going to accomplish- or not accomplish- all of this monstrosity.  It may even be true that the best thing for the people of Burma would be for the international community to act on their behalf to bring relief and supplies- unfortunately, from what I’ve seen of the U.S. in my lifetime, I cannot believe that such actions come from a motivation for anything other than profit an greed.

Word from insiders is that despite all the positive buzz on sites like this, great news coverage in the Times Argus/Rutland Herald and Seven Days, the rumored support of the Vermont Progressive Party, and a campaign role for the legendary Peter Freyne, Deb Richter has opted not to run for Lieutenant Governor after all, due to concerns over balancing such a run with her medical practice.

What does this mean? Well, there are rumors of another candidate (who was considering challenging Richter in a primary, even). Whoever that “other candidate” is, the ball is in their court.

Maybe it’s just time to draft somebody. Ideas?

As its proponents are quick to remind us, Vermont Yankee (with it’s steam leaks, cooling tower collapses, corporate shell games to avoid decommisioning costs – and of course, corporate booster currently residing in the Vermont Governor’s office) currently provides about a third of Vermont’s power, at prices far below those available on the open market, and with relatively low carbon emissions. And “about a third” is gonna be , what – 33%? Maybe 30%?

From the NYT:

JUNEAU, Alaska – Conservationists swoon at the possibility of it all. Here in Alaska, where melting arctic ice and eroding coastlines have made global warming an urgent threat, this little city has cut its electricity use by more than 30 percent in a matter of weeks, instantly establishing itself as a role model for how to go green, and fast.

Comfort has been recalibrated. The public sauna has been closed and the lights have been dimmed at the indoor community pool. At the library, one of the two elevators was shut down after someone figured out it cost 20 cents for each round trip. The thermostat at the convention center was dialed down eight degrees, to 60. The marquee outside is dark.

Schoolchildren sacrifice Nintendo time and boast at show-and-tell of kilowatts saved.

Maybe this doesn’t have to be such a problem after all.

Crossposted to Birding New England:

Vermont is currently the only state in the union which has no documented cases of eagles breeding within its boundaries.  It looks like it’s going to stay that way.

Per The Rutland Herald:

It might have been the inexperience of the female, which still had some of the plumage of a youngster, that led to the loss of the nest within the last week, said Forrest Hammond, a biologist with the Vermont Department of Fish & Wildlife, who had been watching the pair.

“We suspect, from what the experts tell us, the birds might have left the eggs at the same time. A crow might have gotten the eggs. A seagull (another known eagle egg predator) was seen in the area at about the same,” Hammond said.

“We’re all really disappointed,” he said. “It’s too late for them to re-nest this year.”

But there’s always next year.

“There’s a great big, good nest,” Hammond said. “If there was a problem, it’s a lack of experience. They’ll stick around and try again next year.”

To compound the frustration of Vermont biologists, Hammond said that an eagle pair has been breeding successfully on the eastern shore of the Connecticut River in Plainfield, N.H., for several years, across from Hartland.

I knew about this before the article was published.  I’d had a conversation with a friend about it; he’d been checking on the site and suddenly one day there was no eagle on it, and there were crows around the area.  

Mostly, it just makes me sad, but they have tried nesting several times now and don’t seem to have an interest in stopping, despite the failures.  So maybe there is next year.

Oh, and that photo is of one of the nesting birds.  I took it from our car, making a point of not venturing off the road even though I could have had a much better shot if I’d chosen to.  No way I’m going anywhere where I could interfere with that Eagle’s nest.  Aside from being morally and ethically wrong on every level, it’s just not smart to mess with a bird that big.