Yeesh. It’s getting a little hot in here. Let’s dial it down a bit, eh? Here’s my personal favorite nonsense from Comedy Central’s Indecision2008 website from September. Once again, demonstrating their hardcore geek cred, CC has a list of which comic-book superheroes most resemble which candidates. This is probably mildly amusing if you’re not a hopeless geek – but its way damn funny if you are!

Here are the big three Dems as a teaser, but the rest are just as funny (if not funnier):

Hillary Clinton = She-Hulk
Trained as a lawyer, can kick pretty much any guy’s ass, marriage to Man-Wolf was probably a mistake.

John Edwards = Robin/Nightwing
Kinda just worked better as a sidekick.

Barack Obama = Black Lightning
Energetic…?

Check ’em all out, if it’s your kinda thing. Here’s one more, just for kicks:

Mike Gravel = Wolverine
Intense, outdoorsy misanthrope from the Great White North with little memory of his past — possibly insane.

After all the inspirational speeches, nasty comments , innuendo, innuendo-denial, constituent pandering, constituent dissing and frantic bloggery, its finally the Iowa caucus. Where the first two finishers have a future in the race, and all the rest need to start reconsidering their personal calendars for the next few months. It’s Democracy in action.

If, by Democracy, you mean that you don’t get a vote. That as few as 1/100ths of 1 percent of eligible Democratic voters, from a pool that is 98% white and 100% midwestern will maybe not choose who the nominee will be, but will certainly determine most of the names that won’t be.

And you get no say whatsoever. Aint that nice?

Oh sure, you can send some money, if you’re the type with money to spare. If you have a lot of money to spare, you can even fly out and help convince potential caucus-voters. But you still won’t get a say.

If things go well, your candidate may be in the mix after the caucus – in which case you can rush out to New Hampshire (as I’m planning to do) and bust your butt convincing some of those voters to back your candidate.

But you still don’t get a say yourself.

Even if the race is still in play come Town Meeting Day, you still aren’t going to have much of a vote. Quite frankly, by the time Vermonters vote, if there isn’t a clear candidate, it likely means we’ll be looking at a brokered convention, in which case the real votes will be cast by the superdelegates and the unpledged delegates – and eventually by the pledged candidates who get released by their candidate.

And still no say for you at that point. Just an opportunity to have some generalized influence-by-proxy.

This system sucks. The idea that my candidate may get eliminated before I get a chance to vote for him sucks. Let’s all make it a priority to continue the conversations about change, so tentatively begun at the organizational level this cycle, and blow this system open for next time.

Does this make anybody else queasy?

“This,” is Deb Richter’s new attempt to reinvigorate the single-payer healthcare debate. More power to her for that, of course. In referring to his desire to expand Catamount health, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin reiterated at his press conference yesterday that he is, in principle, a supporter of the single payer system – and its true, his rhetoric has been consistent for many years on that front. What he’ll tell you is that a small state like Vermont needs help and medicare/medicaid funding flexibility in order to afford it, and without federal action it simply won’t add up.

It’d be interesting to do some creative number crunching and brainstorming in that regard. I played that game myself once, batting around a radical thought experiment that would get the lawsuits flying. But its hard not to have some sympathy to his point. Catamount, he argues, is simply a way to help as many people as possible in the interim (and maybe to warm people up to the idea of government-brokered insurance).

But, really – Take Back Vermont Healthcare?? Whose idea was it to invoke Take Back Vermont, with the same white sign and all? I look at that – I even hear about it – and I reflexively recoil.

If Dr. Richter thinks its a clever way to appeal to the rural voter and tap some of that resentment – let me tell you, it’s not. “Take Back Vermont” is a firmly established – almost archetypal at this point – expression of bigotry and hatred. It’s a hot button for those who feel animosity towards gays and lesbians, stirring it up – and it’s a hot button for those of us who support equal rights – getting our dander up and putting us on the defensive.

It’s a psycho-social hornet’s nest, and whoever thought it was a good idea to resurrect all those feelings (and there are still quite a few “Take Back Vermont” signs out there – make no mistake) and try to pump them into the healthcare debate should not be patting themselves on the back, they should be kicking themselves in the ass.

Much to my surprise, there’s an extensive iBrattleboro post on pharmacy fishing.

Someone sent the following question to the state police:

“Would you please check the veracity of the allegation that the State Police have the right to force pharmacies to release their entire class 2 prescription histories, or, exactly what it was they were doing as referred to in the very recent post here on ibratt. Also, does the Brattleboro police dept have that power? If so, has it exercised it?”

Excerpts from the Brattleboro police department’s response after the fold.

I’m not going to comment on this much for now.  I’ll think about whether or not I have anything to add.  Instead, I’m just going to put together what I think is a fair excerpt and discuss it more when I have time.  I did not edit much, because I think it’s important to keep this in its full context.  

I… can not comment on what the Vermont State Police do and do not request from pharmacies or medical care providers.  However, I will certainly write about the law you mention as well as what the Brattleboro Police do. We are not lawyers here but we do regularly interpret laws to guide our behavior…

The VT law that governs the above issue is Title 18, Chapter 84A – Vermont Prescription Monitoring System (VPMS). The legislative intent of this law is explicitly written into the law… that intent specifically states:

“…to promote the public health through enhanced opportunities for treatment for and prevention of abuse of controlled substances, without interfering with the legal medical use of those substances.”

It is worth noting that law enforcement, prosecution, and similar words do not appear anywhere in the description of the legislature’s intent in passing this law.

Chapter 84A goes on to specifically address the role of law enforcement in its application. First, the only law enforcement officers able to work within it are “Trained law enforcement officer(s).” This is defined in the law as:

“… any officer designated by the department of public safety who has completed a training program established by rule by the department of health, which is designed to ensure that officers have the training necessary to use responsibly and properly any information that they receive from VPMS.”

Again, back to the intent of this law. Our representatives obviously want to make sure the police use the information properly.

…The law allows state licensing authorities to gather prescription information as part of licensing and monitoring health care workers. The law allows these licensing bodies to tell “trained law enforcement officers” if they suspect fraudulent or illegal activity by a health care provider. This section of the law (4282) states nothing about suspected criminal activity by patients.

According to section “e” of 4282, trained law enforcement officers are expressly forbidden from having access to VPMS except for the specific information provided to the officer by the licensing authority, as described above.

All of the above makes it pretty clear that the legislature wants to address public health concerns, but does not want the cops pawing through people’s medical records. However, it is important to note one final mention of police access to prescription records in this law… I think this is where the controversy you mention comes up.

There is an advisory committee set up under this law to help coordinate the efforts that it authorizes… this committee is allowed to determine under what circumstances, if any, the health department can give VPMS data to law enforcement. This would be set up as an administrative rule and seems to be the main concern of most people on this issue. I do not know the status of this committee and whether or not they have made a rule granting the police blanket access to pharmacy records. I can tell you that we (BPD) have not been told by anyone that we now have access to such information.

Now on to the Brattleboro Police. We do not make requests of the health department or pharmacies for VPMS information. However, we do aggressively investigate prescription drug crimes, to include fraudulent attempts to get or distribute pills. When these crimes are investigated it is necessary to access, to some extent, people’s medical records.

When a crime like this is committed, there are many investigative tools available to access medical records. Search warrants, subpoenas, and other methods of accessing information are allowed under VT law Title 18 (Health). These are used on a regular basis to investigate individuals for criminal offenses related to prescription drugs. The Brattleboro Police Department certainly does utilize all of these investigative tools to conduct investigations.

The difference between the actions in the above paragraph and accessing VPMS is what the police might be looking at. VPMS is a database of information on many people. It is maintained by the department of health for purposes that satisfy their mission of maintaining public health. If they become aware of a criminal act they may refer it to the police. The process in the paragraph above this one is different than that. It is designed to give police information on a particular crime and on a particular person who may be committing drug crimes.

To address your final question, The Brattleboro Police Department has not made any requests of pharmacies or the department of health to mine all of their prescription drug data. Requests for information on a particular person, for a particular period, suspected of a particular crime, has occurred and continues to occur.

So, what do you think?

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

I think this Diary sums up how many Obama supporters feel:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Will Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney be on the Presidential ballot as a Green this year? (For that matter, do the Greens want Nader back after he used and abused the party apparatus so badly the last couple times? Would he even accept losing in a Primary? Doubt it.) From Third Party Watch:

According to the Alameda County (CA) Green Party, there will be a Presidential Debate on January 13, 2 p.m. in San Francisco. Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Elaine Brown, Jared Ball and Kent Mesplay are all listed.

The California Primary on February 5 will include all five of these candidates as well as Kat Swift of Texas, and Jesse Johnson of the West Virginia Mountain Party, which affiliated with the Green Party (US) this summer. In most states, delegates to the GPUS Presidential Nominating Convention will be selected by state convention or other internal methods such as balloting, but in four states (Arkansas, California, Massachusetts, & Illinois) and DC there will be a state run primary.

Calitics (GMD’s sister 50-State-Blog-Project/Soaplblox site in California) will likely liveblog, if it’s your kinda thing.

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

UPDATE: Here's the VIP attendee list from the Edwards site: Ben Cohen, Kevin Leahy, Matt Dunne, Doug Racine, and John Campbell.  I'm certainly planning on showing. -odum

Good morning Friends:

I'll have more details later, but here is the gist:

This Saturday  (5th of January) a group of Vermonters will be banding together and heading to New Hampshire to canvass for John Edwards.

Here are the tentative details: Meet in Lebanon New Hampshire at 9 a.m. Begin canvassing around 10:00 a.m.

There will be a Vermonter kick-off event at 9:00 a.m. hosted by Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry's .

January 5, 2008 – 9:00 AM
Lebanon Canvass Kick-Off
Rivermill Commercial Center
Building #5, 85 Mechanic Street
Lebanon, NH

There may also be a rally/event with John Edwards in the early afternoon in the river valley area although that is in flux and I do not expect to see final plans until after the Iowa caucus.

More info, and a Wednesay evening update, below the jump

I expect the Edwards campaign will have more on the itinerary later. 

I will post more details as we come closer to Saturday. I will link to emerging/final details as soon as they are available.

I hope you can join us and help on “Vermonter Day” in New Hampshire.

There are plenty of opportunities (read: “all help is greatly appreciated”) between now and Tuesday.  Vermonters for Edwards, who cannot volunteer on Saturday, are welcome all other days too!

Contact me directly at caoimhin [underscore] laochdha@verizon.net for more information.  Better yet, the Edwards for President event information page is http://www.johnedwards.com/nh/events/ .

———————

[UPDATE: Wednseday at 8:00 p.m.] In addition to the information Odum put up earlier:

Manchester, NH – As John Edwards' momentum builds in Iowa and New Hampshire, the Edwards for President campaign today announced the endorsement of 13 Vermont elected officials, labor leaders and progressive activists including Ben & Jerry's co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. The Vermont leaders have committed to work to ensure John Edwards wins the Vermont primary, and a group of them will travel to New Hampshire on January 5th to hand out free ice cream and build campaign momentum for the New Hampshire primary.

“John Edwards has the backbone and integrity to stand up to wealthy, powerful interests and deliver the real change our nation needs,” said Ben Cohen. “We're proud to stand with him in this fight.”

The following Vermont leaders support John Edwards and will work to ensure he wins the Vermont primary:

    * Ben & Jerry's co-founder Jerry Greenfield
    * Former Vermont Lieutenant Governor Doug Racine
    * State Representative John Moran
    * State Representative Dexter Randall
    * State Representative Chris Pearson
    * President of Champlain Valley Labor Council/President National Writers' Union/UAW 1981 Jerry Colby
    * Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 597 Ron Rabideau
    * Vermont Labor Activist Connor Casey,Immediate past president Vermont State AFL-CIO Federation Teamsters Daniel Brush

Also, thank you to Greenvtster for the directions.

Full press release from Edwards campaign is right here.

——————————— 

Sláinte,

-cl 

This is mostly as an aside to Julie's post on the Kos/Obama dust-up. I read a few comments over ther but had to leave because my eyes started bleeding- it was like listening to a bunch of fifth-graders.

Nevertheless, like many, I've been quite distressed at Obama's apparent lurching farther and farther to the right in this campaign. It's almost as bad as Hillary, but from a different angle. Matt Stoller at Open Left ad this to say in his Reality-Based Candidate Evaluations post that sums up the Obama phenomenon better than I ever could, and gives us much to be concerned about:

Let's do a thought experiment.  Let's say I were to put a generic candidate forward, and ask whether Democrats should choose him or her as our nominee.  This person rejected the Iraq war at the time of the war authorization vote and has a very liberal voting record as a Senator, though, like much of the caucus, has done little of substance to lead us out of the war.  He has a good if unremarkable career as a Senator, and is loved by Democrats all over the country for inspiring rhetoric.

Since declaring for President, this person has called Social Security a 'crisis', attacked trial lawyers, associated unapologetically with vicious homophobes, portrayed Gore and Kerry as excessively polarizing losers, boasted as his central achievement an irrelevant ethics bill, ran against the DC establishment while taking huge amounts of cash from DC, undermined Ned Lamont in 2006, criticized NAFTA while voting for a NAFTA-style trade agreement, compiled opposition research on the most effective liberal pundit in the country, refused to promise that American troops would be out of Iraq by 2013, and endorsed the central plank of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy doctrine, the war on terror.

How would you react?  You could concoct a 'theory of change' and argue that all of this is just deceptive, and the candidate is worth supporting anyway.  You could make arguments that this person can change the electoral map, with no evidence, and support him for that reason.  Or you could decide that this person means what he says and is running a campaign promising the country premised on conservative ideas such as the war on terror, maintaining an American presence in Iraq, and 'fixing' Social Security…

We like to think we live in the reality-based community.  And if you know all of these things, and you still support Obama, you have to concede that you are supporting a conservative candidate for President.  And that's fine.  But just go into this with clear eyes.

I'm just worried that people aren't paying attention enough to see this.  I wouldn't fully agree with Stoller that Obama's a full-blown "conservative" but he's hardly the progressive we need to get things going in the right direction. If we do indeed get yet another mushy "centrist" candidate, we can fully expect to remain in the political wilderness for some time to come. The stakes are higher than ever right now, and in view of this, Obama's "change" mantra is starting to sound Orwellian.

This is mostly as an aside to Julie's post on the Kos/Obama dust-up. I read a few comments over ther but had to leave because my eyes started bleeding- it was like listening to a bunch of fifth-graders.

Nevertheless, like many, I've been quite distressed at Obama's apparent lurching farther and farther to the right in this campaign. It's almost as bad as Hillary, but from a different angle. Matt Stoller at Open Left ad this to say in his Reality-Based Candidate Evaluations post that sums up the Obama phenomenon better than I ever could, and gives us much to be concerned about:

Let's do a thought experiment.  Let's say I were to put a generic candidate forward, and ask whether Democrats should choose him or her as our nominee.  This person rejected the Iraq war at the time of the war authorization vote and has a very liberal voting record as a Senator, though, like much of the caucus, has done little of substance to lead us out of the war.  He has a good if unremarkable career as a Senator, and is loved by Democrats all over the country for inspiring rhetoric.

Since declaring for President, this person has called Social Security a 'crisis', attacked trial lawyers, associated unapologetically with vicious homophobes, portrayed Gore and Kerry as excessively polarizing losers, boasted as his central achievement an irrelevant ethics bill, ran against the DC establishment while taking huge amounts of cash from DC, undermined Ned Lamont in 2006, criticized NAFTA while voting for a NAFTA-style trade agreement, compiled opposition research on the most effective liberal pundit in the country, refused to promise that American troops would be out of Iraq by 2013, and endorsed the central plank of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy doctrine, the war on terror.

How would you react?  You could concoct a 'theory of change' and argue that all of this is just deceptive, and the candidate is worth supporting anyway.  You could make arguments that this person can change the electoral map, with no evidence, and support him for that reason.  Or you could decide that this person means what he says and is running a campaign promising the country premised on conservative ideas such as the war on terror, maintaining an American presence in Iraq, and 'fixing' Social Security…

We like to think we live in the reality-based community.  And if you know all of these things, and you still support Obama, you have to concede that you are supporting a conservative candidate for President.  And that's fine.  But just go into this with clear eyes.

I'm just worried that people aren't paying attention enough to see this.  I wouldn't fully agree with Stoller that Obama's a full-blown “conservative” but he's hardly the progressive we need to get things going in the right direction. If we do indeed get yet another mushy “centrist” candidate, we can fully expect to remain in the political wilderness for some time to come. The stakes are higher than ever right now, and in view of this, Obama's “change” mantra is starting to sound Orwellian.

For those of you who don’t know, there was a bit of a hostile thread over at Daily Kos today which discusses an Obama line:

Making an argument for his electability, Obama said, “I don’t want to go into the next election starting off with half the country already not wanting to vote for Democrats — we’ve done that in 2004, 2000,” according to a person at the event (rush transcript).

In a later discussion in another thread, people were wondering why the thread was so angry.  I wrote a response, which in retrospect was almost long enough to be its own diary.  So, after the fold, if you want to hear why I understand some of the raw anger at Obama’s comments, it’s all there, exactly as I posted it on Kos.

I think I can explain some of that anger.

And really, this isn’t to attack anyone, even though I’m sure someone will take it that way.

I’m deeply concerned about tactics I’ve seen coming from both Obama and Clinton.  I’ll give the example from today as a specific: when Obama claims that in prior elections, 50% of the population doesn’t want to vote for a Democrat, he’s creating a talking point to be used against Clinton down the line.

I’m angered because this buys into the right-wing talking point that the country is not, as a whole, on the side of the Democrats.  They are, without question.  The country wants Democrats to stand up and be Democrats and would gladly have gotten behind the Gore of 2000 had he shown the courage and fire of the Gore of 2006.  

I totally get people saying we should all be positive, but from my POV that doesn’t mean being silent when our front runners do something we think is really dangerous to our chances down the line.

I will probably end up supporting whomever the Democratic nominee is, but I won’t be able to do it with real enthusiasm if it’s someone who seems more eager to court Republicans than Democrats or someone who’s more into corporate America than corporate oversight.

So, yeah, sorry to be negative.  This is just my perspective.  I have no problem with anyone supporting Obama, Clinton, etc.  I don’t agree, but I respect the choice, just as I respect reasonable criticisms of Edwards– I agree that the public financing issue is a concern, and I agree with Laura that his interaction with the media isn’t as strong as other candidates.  But I’m not going to attack people for disliking that about him; we all have our priorities.  

So, that said, for my money, I could happily get behind Edwards or Dodd, and I could sigh and accept Obama.  I don’t know what I’ll do if Clinton is the nominee.  I hope I don’t have to face that.