(Good diary on a topic that is rightfully getting a lot of play, but will have to be delicately finessed, as its fraught with the danger of sounding as though we’re telling voters that everything’s great, when their own experience tells them differently. – promoted by odum)

Yesterday’s Times-Argus editorial page devotes a full column taking Jim Douglas to task for his habitual knocking of Vermont’s economic and jobs development climate.

See the full article at: http://mulishbehavior.blogspot…

Is the mainstream media finally catching on to the political agenda behind the “affordability agenda”? Or, are they just getting tired of his say-more, do-less attitude? Either way it’s high time the Governor was subjected to a little more scrutiny. Maybe his days of getting a free pass are finally over.

An excerpt:

“Don’t believe what the governor is going to tell you about our young people moving away. Declaring that the sky is falling because of Vermont’s status as the oldest state in the union has become as much a part of Jim Douglas’ routine as is his folksy demeanor and having a veto showdown with the Democrats come springtime.

Douglas has in fact built his “affordability agenda” on the idea that we are chasing young people out of the state with our high taxes.

But it’s not true.

…It’s time Douglas stopped doing a similar disservice to Vermont business. The perception is that Vermont is not business-friendly, in part because our state’s chief executive won’t stop telling people that’s the case.It’s easy to see why he’s doing it: It gets Jim Douglas re-elected…

So what can Douglas do? He has talked about finding a regional solution – emphasis on the “talk.” And he has put forward some positive initiatives around education, selling the state as a “green” destination and small business development. None of those things can hurt.

But playing Chicken Little over taxes is worse than useless because it encourages those people and businesses that want to be in the Northeast to look elsewhere.

Vermont can’t afford the “affordability agenda” if it’s being sold one knock on the state at a time.”

Kudos to the Times Argus editorial staff for this important work. Read the entire column here.

Three things this editorial makes clear:

1) “Don’t believe what the Governor is telling you…”; and

2) The Governor is doing our state and our business community “a disservice”; and

3) Vermont can’t afford Douglas’ so-called “affordability agenda.”

Sounds like a platform for Vermont Democrats to run on in 2008.

‘Nuff said.

I’m thinking that, being New Year’s Eve, it’s time to take a look back at some of the things that happened in 2007 and whack ourselves over the head repeatedly in order to avoid some prior mistakes.

So this post is simple: things I’m glad about for 2007, things I’m angry about for 2007, things I’m looking forward to in 2008, and things I dread about 2008.

But first, once again, I have done more  light drawings:

As usual, clicking on the images gives you a larger version with details about the photos.

So let’s start with the bad, from 2007.  Put simply, I am pissed off about:

FISA, S-Chip, Dems in Congress, Dems in the Senate, Harry Reid’s crap, Nancy Pelosi’s crap, Joe Lieberman’s sanctimony, Kent Jones getting canned, every single thing the Bush administration has ever done, thought about doing, or come close to doing, lead in toys, talk about a wall across the border, the fact that the only Republican candidate who’s willing to speak out against the occupation of Iraq seems to be getting support from white supremacists, rising costs of health insurance, rising costs of gasoline, rising costs of, well, everything, global warming, species of fish dying out, Blue America Democrats who turned out to be Bluedogs, big media, big media going after their writers, Vermont state police collecting personal medical data, corporate greed overriding common sense, the pardoning of Scooter Libby, and probably a whole hell of a lot more.

I’m also just sad that Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer’s.

I am, on the other hand, quite happy about:

Chris Dodd standing up to Harry Reid, Daily Kos, Green Mountain Daily, Keith Olbermann, Futurama’s return, the end of the Bush administration (in theory), pretty much the whole Republican field (for comic relief), The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, the fact that we caught the Vermont state police collecting personal medical data, that Gonzales was forced to resign, the outcry over the pardoning of Scooter Libby, the fact that even though we can’t change things quite yet, the country seems to finally be fully on board with the slogan for the occupation of Iraq I’ve wanted us to adopt (“Come on!  WTF?”).  Actually, that slogan can apply to the whole Bush administration.  I’m happy that John Kerry isn’t running and that John Edwards is.  I’m happy that I took many awesome pictures this year.

I’m happy that I’m a lot healthier than I was a month ago and I’m happy that my work, for the time being, is prosperous and I’m happy that even though some of my camera equipment got stolen this year, and some of it got broken, that I was able to recover quickly (though expensively) from both.  I’m glad that clear thinking about global warming has entered the mainstream.

I’m happy for Parker River.

As far as 2008 goes:

I have no idea what to expect.  I both dread and look forward to it.  I look forward to whomever the Republican nominee is, because I don’t think it will be that difficult to beat him (though I think McCain and Huckabee would be major challenges).  I dread Clinton being nominated (feel free to flame me) but I look forward to working for Edwards in New Hampshire this weekend, because I think he’ll do better than Clinton in Iowa and that will make NH really interesting.

I look forward to more music, more photography, better health.  I look forward to the last throes of the Bush administration and I look forward to seeing better people elected in 2008.

I look forward to more writing, more thoughts, a little peace and quiet, and a lot of damned fine music.

So how about the rest of you?  What are your best lessons from 2007?  What do you expect to do differently in 2008?

 Loading ...

In my opinion, there are a lot of reasons not to vote for Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee for President. Most of them are obvious from a progressive standpoint (at least I think so), but one of the most significant is perhaps not so obvious.

When the dust clears, the Democratic nominee will become the functional head of the Democratic National Committee. Howard Dean will become largely marginalized and ultimately replaced by someone who is the candidate’s right-hand person, if that candidate actually wins the White House (and if he or she doesn’t, Dean will end up taking the blame anyway, and will likely be shown the door). It’s a pattern which is routine (although, IMO undesirable – and I’d like to see it broken). In the short term, though, the candidate will be largely calling the shots.

It’s been no secret that the usual suspect, political Washington insider crowd – personified by mega-consultants like James Carville and pundits like Paul Begala – viscerally despise Dean and his “50 State Strategy” as it was originally known. The ballots of the dramatic ’06 elections hadn’t even been cast before history was being rewritten by the likes of Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer to take credit for the electoral gains and minimize or dismiss the effect of Dean’s radical reallocation of resources to the state level.

Simply put, Dean has never been out of this crowd’s sights, and Hillary Clinton is the candidate of this crowd. Once she  has the chair above Dean, Dean and his priorities will go the way of all things just as quickly as Carville and company can show up with the pink slips. Dean has already been preparing local party staff for the likelihood of some serious, even radical changes to the Party’s current modus operandi.

The question is how much of a change in mid-election year stream the Clinton crowd would dare to make, and whether their vindictive streak would overwhelm their sense of the practical.

As far as the other candidates go, it’s hard to say. Obama has famously turned over his campaign to many in the beltway insider set from the get-go as well, but not so much the crowd with the highly public axes to grind against Dean. In any event, those of us who feel that this devolution of resources and support to the local level is a good thing should have their eyes wide open if they choose to vote for Clinton.

Highly recommended current fun stuff in the nation's smallest capitol below the fold.

 
1.  Juno at the Savoy Theatre

2.  Myra Flynn at Black Door.  This pic, as noted by WDH3, is from the really incredible Langdon St. Cafe where there's live music every night of the week!  Myra fans please note she will be in Waitsfield Jan 5.

3.  Mad Dub at Positive Pie. 

4.  A short walk to see our Capitol Building illuminated at night.

For years I actively and publicly supported then Representative Bernie Sanders. Not because I agreed with everything he said and did, but because I agreed with enough and above all he offered a new type of politics.

And the Bernie of those days taught me a bit too. When I was hosting a local talk show in Barre during the second half of the ’90s, Sanders was a regular guest. We had many discussions about “free” trade and the up and down sides thereof.

I listened, watched and came around to Sander’s thinking on that topic because he was right.

What I liked best of all about Sanders was his obdurate political independence. Here was someone who had broken the glass Dem/Rep barrier, and Sanders regular drum beat that our political problems lay with an unflinching support of the two towering twin parties of American politics found a rapt statewide audience including me.

I listened, watched and came around to Sander’s thinking on that topic because he was right. (Oh yeah … I started my Vermont politics as an active Democrat including a stint as the Williamstown Democratic committee chair.)

And then Sanders ran for senate. And Sanders threw away any legitimate claim to an “I” after his name despite his fraudulent use of it to this day.

After all Sanders wanted the support of the Democratic Party establishment. He actively discouraged other than Democratic or Republican entrants into the field of federal Representative wannabes.

And he didn’t need to pander to the Democratic powers that be. Sanders was a 60% plus vote getter under any circumstance, and everybody knew this. Nonetheless Sanders threw his lot in with the Democratic big whigs of DC.

That walking away from the politics of people in favor of machine politics convinced me Sanders’ lacked long term credibility. He built his fame on one song, and he changed his tune at the first opportune moment.

And then there is such as his op-ed in today’s Rutland Herald/Times Argus Sunday paper (sorry, no electronic version available).

The title is “Ending Iraq War tops Bernies’ wish list for 2008”.The op-ed is pretty standard Sanders, and it does talk to a lot of necessities: education, poverty, health care, jobs and such.

But Sanders ends the piece with a prime example of why I find him less than genuine nowadays:

As Vermont’s senator, it is my view that Congress must become more forceful in its opposition to President Bush’s disastrous policies and more aggressive in fighting for the middle class and an end to the war. If Republicans in the Senate want to defend the president’s policies by filibustering every major piece of legislation, as they have over the last year, then the Democratic leadership should keep the Senate open 7 days a week 24 hours a day. Our country is in trouble and the people want a change in direction. We must not fail them.

So, Senator Sanders, did you write this while on your Christmas vacation and safely ensconced in Vermont? Or are you right this moment in Washington D.C. doing what you tell us is so urgently needed?

Problem is we have a bunch of rhetorical heroes that practice practical milquetoast in our elected Democratic (including Sanders) politicians.

We will only get more of that if we extend fusion politics beyond that currently practiced by the Dems and Repubs to the Progressive Party.

If I could ever see evidence that “fusion” in politics worked to empower individuals and local communities instead of centralized control freaks I would happily change my mind.

But Sanders showed me the true flavor of fusion politics, and I don’t like it one bit.

That is why  I no longer support B. Sanders.

In this morning's Post, Galbraith has a good piece on Pakistan.  I think he pretty much nails it on the head, though I don't think things are quite as bad as they seem.

I was in Pakistan in mid-November (Balochistan and Karachi) during the state of emergency. Bhutto had returned the week before my trip and the first attempt to kill her in Karachi resulted in 150 dead. 

When I was in Karachi shortly thereafter, I was struck at how normal things seemed.  In talking with my local counterparts, many of them expressed a high degree of indifference.  For all his failings, Musharraf has done some good things economically and in education.  At least among the professional types (hardly a representative sample) I was dealing with that seemed to give them pause about taking to the streets.

I guess my point is that things may not be quite as dire as they seem.  Or more cynically, things can get a lot worse.

PS: For anyone interested in seeing a pretty remote part of Pakistan (Balochistan), here is a youtube video my colleague took from our trip.  

You know about the wall between church and state? Also known as the Chinese wall? I'm not talking about constitutional law or geography here, I'm talking about journalism. The time was that there was an impenetrable wall between the advertising and editorial sides of the newspaper or TV station. It's always been a bit more porous in TV, but the ideal remains.

I was watching the local news on WCAX tonight, and it appears there's a little problem there. They were doing a story about some football game that was going to be on tonight, and an argument about whether the NFL was going to let the regular viewers watch it, or just the people who are paying for the NFL Network, which is owned by the NFL.

Earlier this week it was announced that after pressure from a variety of people, including Senator Leahy, the NFL relented and agreed to allow the game to be broadcast on network TV. Naturally, since it's a big game, CAX was going to cover the story.

But, here's what they said:

Thanks to a last minute decision by the NFL network, fans all over Vermont will be able to watch the undefeated Patriots take on the New York Giants tonight right here on Channel 3… The simulcast of the NFL Network feed is a major concession by league officials, who repeatedly said they would not show the game anywhere but on their network. But the NFL faced mounting pressure from politicians, including Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy who had threatened to reconsider the league's antitrust exemption if it didn't make games available to more viewers. Fans we spoke with are pumped for the game…

Notice something? “right here on Channel 3.”

In fact, the game was showing on both CBS and NBC, so you could have watched the game either on WCAX or their competitor, WPTZ.

So what, you say? This is supposedly a news program, and when you're watching a news program you expect that you'll get the whole news, not just the part of the news that will be financially advantageous to the station for you to know.

Maybe it's not the biggest story in the world, but this does seem like a failure of journalistic ethics. 

Pakistan, as you all know, is in a terrible moment right now.  Here's today's report from Strategic Forecasting, Inc., below the fold.

Update 3: List of Riots in Pakistan by City, Dec. 29 December 29, 2007 |

1603 GMT NOTE: The report below consists of new information about the riots in Pakistan first reported here. Details on the scale and method of arson in instances mentioned below has been limited. Updates will be made when more information becomes available.

Karachi

• Four people were killed Dec. 29 in shootings in Karachi in Pakistan’s Sindh province, and two of the deaths are confirmed, Stratfor sources in the country said. Twenty-six people were wounded in shootings, and some were looters shot by the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers.
• Stores in the Zamzama shopping district near Defense were looted and damaged.
• Seven large fires were reported, one at a stadium close to the U.S. Consulate, and one large tire fire in the Korangi area that can be seen from at least 4 miles away and is producing significant smoke.
• The Port of Qasim has been closed since the news of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s death.
• Residents are afraid to leave their homes during the three-day mourning period after Bhutto’s death.
• International flights and some domestic flights are operating in Karachi, and the route to the airport is secure during the day. The U.S. Embassy has prohibited its employees from taking domestic flights over the next few days.
• Several shops tried to open Dec. 29, but angry crowds forced them to close.
• The situation is “uncomfortable” for residents who do not have stockpiles of food.

Sindh province

• The National Highway in Sindh remains closed, and mobs are attacking and burning any vehicles traveling on that road, Stratfor sources in Pakistan said.
• A shutterdown strike continues, enforced by mobs armed with Kalashnikov weapons.
• Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority said some domestic flights will resume in the near future, and Pakistan International Airlines has resumed international flights to and from Karachi.
• No city in Sindh has a curfew, although curfews remain an option, police said.
• The army is present in the streets in the cities of Sukkur, Larkana, Badin, and Hyderabad. In Karachi, the army is only present in two neighborhoods. 

Naushahero Feroz

• On the National Highway, 150 vehicles were torched.

Hyderabad

• Gun battles took place between the Sindhi and Mohajir communities, wounding eight people. The clashes occurred despite army presence in the streets.

Khairpur

• Police and protesters clashed, at least 50 people were arrested, and one truck was torched.

We will begin airing a new TV ad tomorrow highlighting Obama’s ability to unify the country and restore trust in our government.  The thirty-second spot, entitled “Unify,” features quotes from four newspapers that have endorsed Obama in the New Hampshire primary: the Boston Globe, the Nashua Telegraph, the Portsmouth Herald, and the Valley News.

Tim Foley

Proud to be a NH staff member for Barack Obama’s movement for change.

Krugman has a piece on free trade today that basically hits the nail on the head on free trade, but fails to offer a remedy.  Since we've had some pretty heated discussions about trade and its impact on Vermont, I thought I'd pass it on.