Remember last summer when the Brattleboro police decided that the best way to deal with peaceful demonstrators was to turn on the juice? 25,000-25,000 volts' worth.It caused a lot of stir, and got a lot of coverage right here. So much that the town decided to launch an investigation of police practices.

 Now the investigation is complete,  and it may be no surprise to you that the investigation concluded that the police were guilty of using excessive force in their actions.

Consultant: Taser use was 'excessive'

February 10, 2008

BRATTLEBORO — An independent consultant hired by the Town of Brattleboro to investigate a July 24 incident in which police stunned two protesters with a Taser gun says the officers' action was “unnecessary and excessive.”

 The report and the Town Manager's memo to the select board are available online.

Odum's great diary on race is no longer visible on the front page, so perhaps it's time to talk it up again. 

In today's NY Times, Frank Rich discusses how the Clinton camp is going down the road of overt racism pitting Hispanics against blacks, whites against blacks, and whatever tactic it might take to win the primary — even if it destroys the Democratic party in the process.

Rich begins  

…the wholesale substitution of Hispanics for blacks on the Hallmark show is tainted by a creepy racial back story. Last month a Hispanic pollster employed by the Clinton campaign pitted the two groups against each other by telling The New Yorker that Hispanic voters have “not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” Mrs. Clinton then seconded the motion by telling Tim Russert in a debate that her pollster was “making a historical statement.”It wasn’t an accurate statement, historical or otherwise. It was a lie, and a bigoted lie at that, given that it branded Hispanics, a group as heterogeneous as any other, as monolithic racists.

…and I'm sure all of you see where I'm going (esp. since I had to make breakfast for the girls before finishing this diary!). 

A new attempt to limit the influence of money in Vermont politics cleared a House committee on Friday, but two years after the last bid to do so lost in the U.S. Supreme Court, opponents were saying the new legislation could land the state back in court.

(Campaign finance bill gets House committee’s approval, Times Argus, 02/09/08)

Apparently part of the issue is around how much financial support political parties can give to those applying for political office on a party’s ticket.

But they rebuffed the governor on another key provision: He had sought to have stripped from the bill limits on contributions by political parties – which the bill sets at $30,000 for governor down to $500 for House candidates. The House panel kept those limits in the bill.

(ibid)

In my opinion as long as public tax dollars are directly funding the activities of political parties (through primaries for example), these associations are public entities and thus subject to governmental oversight. If a given political organization doesn’t like this, they are free to not be a legally recognized political party.

If I were arguing this case in court that is the direct line I would use.

But, as I’ve written elsewhere, I would rather get the government out of partisan party politics and simply get out of the primary business entirely.

(Cross posted from VermontIRV.)

In 2006 Burlington voters elected current Mayor Bob Kiss after a two round (truly) instant runoff. After the first round the ballots were recounted and tallied for the two remaining candidates, and Burlington ended up with a majority consensus.

Vermont’s current instant runoff proposal, S.108, envisions pretty much the same outcome where more than two strong political office applicants are vying for the same position.

Here is a look back at Burlington in ’06 to see what our future in ’08 might very well look like.

Because I got the idea for this post from this Wikipedia entry, I’ll give that version first (correction of totals figure from City of Burlington):

The above is a false representation of the voting process however. The only “majority” that counts in elections is that of all the valid ballots cast. As about 10% of the ballots were exhausted after the first round (meaning no selections other than first choice were made) an accurate reflection of Burlington’s IRV runoff would look like this:

Counting the exhausted ballots in round two and onwards is equivalent to counting all the folks who didn’t participate in any other runoff after voting in the primary election. In short it simply is not relevant to elections.

What is relevant to our elections regarding the exhausted ballots, however, is this: 89.5% of those who voted in the first round actively participated in the runoff! Compare that to the runoffs you may be familiar with (I usually see runoff turnout or second voting at 10% to 20% of the original turnout).

What you see above is what we can expect from S.108. This IRV proposal will use batch elimination in the case of no majority winner in the first round to reduce the field of office applicants to the two top vote getters. The ballots will then be recounted with your vote going to the remaining political office applicant who is ranked highest on your ballot.

Simple and elegant.

Cross posted on BureaucracyBlog.com.

Can the Age of Transparency finally be dawning?  Welcome the Super-Delegate Transparency Project.

   From Jennifer Nix: A Little Sunlight Please: The Super-Delegate Transparency Project – Politics on The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

Super-delegates should vote according to the will of the people-the popular vote – whether Clinton won that district or state, or whether they fall into the Obama column. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just scrap the current super-deg count and say “Do-Over!!” Members of Congress should vote according to who won their districts. Senators and governors should vote how their states go, etc. Wouldn’t it be nice if they all planned to act like John Knutson, Maine’s Democratic Party Chairman? Not sure what you do about super-delegates who are just sort of free-floating party power-brokers. Anyway. Sadly, it ain’t gonna happen.

   But, at the very, very least, it should be a completely transparent process. Which is why the Super-Delegate Transparency Project is striking a chord with folks. It’s a joint effort of my blog, Literary Outpost, Open Left, numerous other blogs and volunteers, and we’re drawing off the fine work being done at DemConWatch.

Imagine, a transparent process at a presidential nominating convention.  What a concept.

And with any luck and a lot of good grassroots organizing, a concept whose time has come.  In this particular Democratic Party process, some people think, and it seems reasonable to think, that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have reason to be uncomfortable with the immense amount of power that super-delegates have.  

I’ll disagree with our former governor, Howard Dean, chair of the DNC, that the party needs to avoid a big fight at the convention.  It depends on what kind of fight (and I think a close contest would be healthy), and for now, it appears the very closeness of the contest between Clinton and Obama is sparking this movement toward greater transparency.  That’s a good thing.

And this is exactly how these things come to pass.  When people are threatened or injured by secretive, impervious machinations, that’s when they want to throw open the doors and windows, if not tear down the building completely, to let in the light of reason and accountability.   I think it simply impossible that any super-delegate’s behavior would not be changed with the knowledge that the whole country can look in on how they do what they do.  Even the most ethical of super-delegates is likely to monitor himself or herself more closely if the process is made transparent.

And that would be a very, very good thing, in lieu of there being no super-delegates at all.

Cross posted on BureaucracyBlog.com.

“We have brought to Iraq the worst of America – our bureaucrats…” So says veteran Republican operative Manuel Miranda, as reported by ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Politics…

In what ABC News terms a “confidential memo,” Miranda also says that the there are “scores” of his counterparts in Iraq who share the same opinions, “each from the vantage point of their own expertise and particular experience in the Embassy,” and whose names he said he was willing to share with Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

In the ten page memo Miranda first carefully enumerates all the people and efforts whom he does not fault, then proceeds to lay a range of faults squarely on the State Department and Foreign Service.

After characterizing the work of State and Foreign Service personnel as “an embarrassment,” “incomprehensible,” “willfully negligent if not criminal,” and showing “complete lack of strategic forethought,” he goes on to say, “The waste of taxpayer funds resulting from such mismanagement is something that only a deeply entrenched bureaucracy with a unionized attitude, like the Foreign Service and Main State, could find acceptable.”

One can take his use of “unionized attitude” as proof of his Republican bona fides, which we can only hope serve to enhance the credibility with which his superiors regard his assessment.

The litany of criticism continues: “misguided,” “inflexibility and the inability to understand alternative management principles,” “inclination to make excuses and…blame others,” “a bureaucratic imitation of the Keystone cops,” “gripping culture of excused inaction,” “ham-fisted,” and “I was ashamed for my country.”

The full ten page memo is located here: http://tinyurl.com/2owm2p.

Back story:

There seems also to be a backstory that hasn’t fully emerged about this “confidential memo” having found its way to public view. The ABC News story ends:

While on Capitol Hill, Miranda was embroiled in a controversy when he obtained a confidential memorandum written by Senate Democrats and leaked it the press. Democrats accused Miranda of hacking into their computer systems. Miranda said the Democratic staffers had left the memo on a computer server accessable [sic] to all Senate staffers.

It would seem that someone may have exacted payback in making this memo of Miranda’s public. That, or perhaps he arranged for it to become public himself.

Come, transparency.

(Vermont Public Radio?!?!?!

This does not smell good, and I’ve never even heard of it. Great job, Wes… – promoted by odum)

Cross-posted over here

What would you think about the idea of a strategic partnership between the FBI and the private sector aimed at “sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States”?  If you’re like me, you might first begin to wonder who it is that gets to define and determine what these “hostile” acts are.  Also, if you were like me you’d have some serious questions if such a group were to claim to provide it’s members with “value-added threats, advisories, and warnings.”  See, this isn’t a further inquiry into telephone companies illegally providing the Federal government with whatever the hell they ask for, this is about a pretty secretive FBI program called Infragard.  Infragard members (business leaders, academic institutions, and individuals in control of infrastructure like roads, airports, radio stations) work hand-in-hand with local FBI field offices to “receive education and training on counter-terrorism, counterintelligence, cyber crime and other matters relevant to informed reporting of potential crimes and attacks on the nation and U.S. interests.”  Note potential crimes and the inclusion of the term “U.S. interests”- who’s interests are they talking about? certainly not those of a regular Joe like me (otherwise they’d undoubtedly be working on providing me affordable health care- that’s in my interest).

In exchange for being the Fed’s eyes and ears, members receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does, and even before elected officials.  One business executive even claims they are given permission to “shoot to kill” in instances of Martial Law (according to this article– which you really must read).

Formed in 1996 during the Clinton administration (yes, the Democrats aren’t immune to this crap) Infragard is just one more piece of the intertwining of the government and business- which just so happens to be one of one of Mussolini’s central tenets of fascism.  Like I said, be sure to check out the article above, as well as Infragard’s own website; if nothing else, so that you can get your own sense of exactly what these folks are all about.  Note their links page, which is mostly a few governmental sites (like the Department of Justice and Homeland Security) along with the World Bank (that uber-fine institution beloved worldwide for their transparent, democratic process and their incredibly generous programs which have brought untold riches and prosperity to every corner of the globe, from Argentina to Haiti and beyond).

And if anyone’s wondering, yes Vermont has it’s own chapter.  They appear to be a notable partnering that includes Champlain College, Norwich University, Chittenden Bank, and most interesting of what I could find (membership is a pretty well guarded secret) Vermont Public Radio’s Rich Parker serving as president.  Grrreat! I  feel better and safer now that I know.

(front page worthy – it’s on a lot of our minds, no doubt. – promoted by JDRyan)

Louis Porter had an item in yesterday’s Times Argus about the large role that Vermont members of the Credentials Committee might play in the Democratic National Convention. Who receives the nomination could hinge on whether the Florida and Michigan delegations get seated.

Porter identifies Dean loyalists Kate O’Connor, Bob Rogan, and Kathy Hoyt as members of the elite DNC-appointed core of the Credentials Committee. So it comes down to whether the Deaniacs will cave to Clinton pressure and seat the banned delegations (gutting the authority of the party to regulate its primary schedule), which will award most of their 360-some delegates to Clinton, who walked a very fine line (and some say, stepped way over it) about campaign appearances in the shunned states.

So that raises the question of how Dean and his campaign stalwarts feel about Clinton. I don’t have an answer. I have a vague recollection that there was no love lost between the Clintons and Howard Dean, even if they are essentially cut from the same political cloth.

Another piece that doesn’t figure into Porter’s calculus is that VT DNC delegate Billi Gosh — a major donor in Vermont and die-hard Clinton supporter — was just elected to the (temporary) Credentials Committee. (Vt State Committee Treasurer and establishment supporter Michael Inners and political newcomer Dottie Deans were also elected to the [two other] temporary DNC Credentials Committee[s].) Final Committee delegates will be elected at the State Convention.

Finally, there’s Dean’s quote:

I think we will have a nominee sometime in the middle of March or April. But if we don’t, then we’re going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement. Because I don’t think we can afford to have a brokered convention.

So why is it we bother with primaries?

As the Legislative session begins, a proposal to fix our structurally deficient bridges has come to the table. In a surprising twist of history, it is our Legislators taking the lead on this issue instead of the Agency of Transportation.

How Neal Lunderville never gave up his first job to the Governor below the fold.

For years folks at AOT and DOT have pointed out that their annual budget has been raided by the Governor's office in order to fund projects somewhere else in the administration. Not this year. Governor Douglas' former political advisor and recent political appointee as Secretary of AOT is more concerned with Vermont's bond rating and overall state budget than the safety of our roads and bridges. His plan, the “Road to Affordability”, eliminates a number of highway projects and defers a considerable amount of upgrades until the distant future when this work will be even more expensive.

Heckuva job, Lunderville.

On the other side of the coin, our State Legislature is moving Vermont forward with an inventive solution. Their plan is to let the State Treasurer decide how to arrange a comprehensive bond which will allow for the necessary upgrades to our bridges – many having not been replaced since the Flood of 1927.

There is more than irony in Lunderville's “Road to Affordability” nonsense. Lunderville has been quoted since January 21st discussing issues outside of the responsibility of his office on issues such as the overall state budget, the Governor's political views, and inferences to Vermonts AAA bond rating. This suggests that he is still wearing the hat of Douglas' political advisor instead of the Secretary of Transportation.

If a Vermont bridge collapses, Mr. Lunderville, what will have to say then?

Nate Freeman

It’s renewable. It’s a great industrial product.

It grows with ease.  It’s cheap.  So why is it illegal?