It's encouraging to see elected officials speak in no nonsense language. When we put together the intro to the VDP platform last year (I was on the committee), we tried to be as blunt and unambiguous as possible (emphasis added):

Vermont Democrats believe the rights to health care, food, shelter, clean air and water, education, privacy, justice, peace and equality, the right to organize and of free speech are essential to a robust democracy. These rights are not negotiable.

Based on these principles, we stand against torture, bigotry and discrimination, forced childbirth, corruption, and the establishment of state-sponsored religion or religious doctrine.

Peter Welch is thankfully taking the same tack about torture. Not couching it in terms like “rendition” or speaking of aggresive interrogation, or otherwise suggesting that waterboarding is no different than a happy flume ride and anybody who says otherwise hates freedom (from a Welch press release, emphasis added):

Rep. Peter Welch, a long-time critic of the Bush administration’s torture policies, assembled over 50 members of Congress to join him in a letter to Attorney General designee Michael Mukasey urging he reverse interrogation policies of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The letter, authored by Welch, states that “We are extremely concerned about the revelation of two secret Justice Department memos issued under your predecessor that sanction many of the most severe forms of torture

Let's hope this catches on. Lord knows it goes against the grain for career politicians to speak so indelicately, but Welch is among a growing number that do (see the large number of signers on the letter) and I, for one, am grateful. Symbolic? Yeah, but it still matters.

But at the end of the day, it is so profoundly disheartening that it's become necessary to have a public debate as to whether or not it's okay to torture. Clearly, this society is running very low on honor (full letter below).

October 11, 2007

The Honorable Michael Mukasey

Patterson Belknapp Webb & Tyler LLP

1133 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10036

Dear Mr. Mukasey,

 

As you prepare for your confirmation hearings, we would like to bring your attention to the important matter of our nation’s interrogation policies.  In particular, we are extremely concerned about the revelation of two secret Justice Department memos issued under your predecessor that sanction many of the most severe forms of torture.  According to The New York Times, these memos “provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.”

Not only is use of torture by the U.S. Government morally reprehensible, it has done immeasurable damage to our nation’s ability to conduct foreign policy and has put our own men and women in uniform in greater danger.  While we must seek to gather as much information as possible from captured terrorists, it is the job of the Attorney General to ensure that interrogation policies follow all relevant U.S. and international law.

As the nominee to be the next Attorney General, we urge you to commit to withdraw these memos on your first day in office, should you be confirmed.  In addition, we hope that you will dedicate yourself to returning the Department of Justice to policies consistent with U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions.

Sincerely,

 

 

Peter Welch (VT)

 

Barbara Lee (CA)          

John W. Olver (MA)        

Dennis J. Kucinich (OH)   

Timothy J. Walz (MN)      

Bruce L. Braley (IA)      

James P. McGovern (MA)    

Albert Russell Wynn (MD)          

Keith Ellison (MN)        

Raul M. Grijalva (AZ)     

James L. Oberstar (MN)    

Elijah E. Cummings (MD)   

Mark Udall (CO)   

Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (IL)         

Tammy Baldwin (WI)        

Doris O. Matsui (CA)      

Carol Shea-Porter (NH)    

Janice D. Schakowsky (IL)         

Peter A. Defazio (OR)     

Edward J. Markey (MA)     

Danny K. Davis (IL)       

Barney Frank (MA)         

Carolyn B. Maloney (NY)   

Betty Sutton (OH)         

Lynn C. Woolsey (CA)      

Henry C. “Hank” Johnson Jr. (GA)          

Mazie K. Hirono (HI)      

Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)        

Maurice D. Hinchey (NY)   

Melvin L. Watt (NC)       

Lloyd Doggett (TX)        

Maxine Waters (CA)        

James P. Moran (VA)       

Michael A. Arcuri (NY)    

Fortney Pete Stark (CA)   

John P. Murtha (PA)       

Darlene Hooley (OR)       

Thomas H. Allen (ME)      

Betty McCollum (MN)       

Zoe Lofgren (CA)          

Sam Farr (CA)     

John J. Hall (NY)         

Steven R. Rothman (NJ)    

Linda T. Sanchez (CA)     

Ellen O. Tauscher (CA)    

Hilda L. Solis (CA)       

Dennis A. Cardoza (CA)    

Earl Pomeroy (ND)         

Diana DeGette (CA)

Jose E. Serrano (NY)

Earl Blumenauer (OR)      

Rosa L. DeLauro (CT)      

Rush D. Holt (NJ)

Michael E. Capuano (MA)

Carolyn C. Kilpatrick (MI)     

( – promoted by odum)

Reports are circulating of a new propaganda poll by Entergy Nuclear.

They may be concerned after the St Johnsbury energy meeting showed that even up north, most people want ENVY shut down by 2012 when its license expires.

One person wrote

“A couple of days ago I was called by a public opinion pollster. After a few innocuous questions, the pollster must have asked at least 30 questions designed to elicit my support for nuclear power in general and the renewal of Entergy's license in particular. The questions all stated false, partial or misleading “facts”, then asked whether this informations would make me more likely or less likely to support Entergy's license. Of course, if the so called facts were true, I would be lobbying the legislature for a nuclear power plant in every section of the state, for a 100 year license, at least, and certainly give it to Entergy.”

More at http://www.minor-her….

Update 10/12/7: more detail at http://vermontdailyb…

Last night, Vermont’s panel on same-sex marriage had their first public forum.  The Rutland Herald presents a good report on how it went and, more importantly, presents a revealing comment about where the opponents of same-sex marriage are coming from.

One of the people opposing gay marriage at Wednesday’s meeting was Brian Pearl, a social conservative from Grand Isle who has vowed to challenge Gov. James Douglas for the Republican nomination next year.

Pearl, who was the first to speak, said he worried that legalizing gay marriage would result in minors marrying older members of the same sex.

Okay.  So first on the right-wing anti gay agenda is the obvious canard: child molesters.  Here’s a funny sidenote: for some time, it was perfectly legal in Utah for a 14-year old girl to marry a 35-year old man.  I never heard anyone who opposed same-sex marriage claim that they needed to defend marriage against THAT (and yes, this was while DOMA was being placed into law).

Let’s continue:

He added that same-sex marriages should not be recognized because the couples cannot procreate as heterosexual couples do.

Canard #2. Of course, we need to protect marriage from those who can’t procreate.  That’s why we have laws protecting marriage from the evils of 60-year-olds, the infertile and those who use birth control.

Pearl wasn’t the only one who came out in opposition to same-sex marriage:

Claire LaBounty of St. Albans said she “wants to do all she can for gays and lesbians,” but as a Christian believes that marriage is a union devoted only to a husband and wife.

In other words, she wants her interpretation of her religion to be the law of the land.  Whether or not she wants to “do all she can,” she’s demonstrating that her interest in using the law of the land to endorse her religious beliefs is more important than the civil rights of others.

And that’s what it comes down to.  This isn’t about marriage.  It’s about religion and whether or not we’re free to ignore the religious beliefs of those with whom we disagree.  Refusing to implement same-sex marriage primarily because it will threaten the sensibilities of those who can’t handle the idea that their religion is not the only acceptable one.

This isn’t about marriage.  It’s about the civil rights which are conferred by marriage.  Civil unions simply do not convey those rights.

Well, I gotta say one theing about Obama. He's consistent, in the sense that you know he'lll propose something really good, such as the energy bill Vermonter let you know about this week, and then follow it up with something really bad (which must go with the territory of trying to be all things to all people).

According to the latest from David Sirota,  

Obama is the first presidential candidate to officially declare his/her support for the NAFTA expansion moving through the Congress. His announcement is not necessarily surprising, considering he was the keynote speaker at the launch of the Hamilton Project – a Wall Street front group working to drive a wedge between Democrats and organized labor on globalization issues. His announcement comes just days after a Wall Street Journal poll found strong bipartisan opposition to lobbyist-written NAFTA-style trade policies.

What's that about judging people by the company they keep? We're all expecting Hillary to follow suit, right? Who knows? Recently she actually said that trade agreements need to be reviewed and possibly amended:

Mrs Clinton said Nafta suffered from “serious shortcomings”. She also reiterated her pledge to incorporate strong environmental and labour protections in future trade deals – a measure most economists view as protectionist.

“I think it is time that we assess trade agreements every five years to make sure they’re meeting their goals or to make adjustments if they are not,” she said in a speech in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which stages the first caucus vote in the presidential nomination process next January. “And we should start by doing that with Nafta.”

Now, I'm not one to give Hillary much support, but it seems like Obama's trying to out-Hillary Hillary here. This one's a big slap in the face to labor, and it's not going to help Obama win any votes from the many people who have lost jobs due to these trade agreements. Maybe he's giving some of that hope he's known for to some big corporate types… they need hope too, I guess, considering the bloodbath that the GOP is going to feel in '08.  Needless to say, this is a black mark for the Obama campaign. Possibly not a fatal one, but it's not going to win him much support from working people.

crossposted at five before chaos

 Matt Taibbi's latest about the pathetic excuse of a candidate known as John McCain is a must read. It's interesting how far McCain has fallen, because if you asked me a few years ago who the GOP frontrunner was, I would have thought it was him. But I guess having your public persona being that of a constant dweller of Bush's nether-cavities has probably taken quite a bit of sheen off of that rose. You can only milk that Nam thing so much before many start waking up to the fact that there's something really wrong with you if you lived through something like that and are continuously promoting something similar, or worse. Leap below the jump to witness the atrocities…

Now, whenever I see anyone supporting the GOP candidates, especially enthusiastically, my first reaction is “Who are these idiots?” (and yes, I get that about a lot of Dem supporters, too). WEll, as Taibbi's dialog with several McCain supporters clearly illustrate, the answer is… idiots. Although it should be apparent, the emphasis on the money quotes are mine…

Rusty Houser likes McCain's stance on the war; when I ask  him why we are in Iraq in the first place, he tells me, “To get rid of Al  Qaeda.” When I point out that Bush himself has admitted there was no connection  between Iraq and Al Qaeda, Houser shrugs. Bush, he assures me, “doesn't  always let people know what he knows.”…

Another McCain supporter named Johnny Mack who is pushing “No Surrender”  petitions at a VFW appearance in Anderson says he didn't know that there was no  connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq before the war, but that doesn't matter,  because “I'm just a dumb country boy” who nonetheless knows of “secret  reasons” for the war from his time running nightclubs in the Midwest, where he  learned “things I can't disclose.”

A third supporter, Lynn Fowler, says she agrees with McCain's assessment  that we need to fight the terrorists in Iraq because otherwise they will come  here. “I never understood that one,” I say. “If the terrorists want to fight us  here, how are we stopping them from coming by going to Iraq? Are we tying up the  air-traffic controllers or something?”

She frowns. “They are here,” she says. “They're all around us!  They have prayer mats in schools! In New York, there are taxi drivers who won't  let you in their cab if you're carrying alcohol!”

You know, the next stop for a Muslim cabbie who won't let you bring alcohol in their cab (does that really happen?) is usually a stop at the local bomb store (which of course, is hidden in a secret wall behind the local mosque). I mean,these people are in serious tinfoil hat territory, no?  Now, lest you think this is something unique to the reddest of states, or something, not so. Just have a look at how former plagiarist/hack/Rainville toady/Green Mountain Daily 'innocent victim” Christopher Potter Stewart is still so enraptured with oozy man-love for McCain, unabated, as he was plugging the hopeless one mercilessly last year. Why, as recently as this last September, he issued this mildly braindead proclamation:

First, we believe that John McCain is the most qualified of all the presidential candidates to “sort out” American policy in Iraq when the troop surge is up in April.

Remember, to most conservatives, believing something is true is evidence that it's true. Facts need not apply. We can apparently see this qualification in McCain's continuous embrace of the Bush agenda. Brilliant. Stay in New Hampshire, Chris. Please. Or go work for Joe Lieberman.

CONCORD, N.H. — After months of monitoring convicted tax-evaders Ed and Elaine Brown and their fortress-like home, all U.S. marshals needed to get past the booby traps was a little patience. And an invitation.

In the end, the couple who vowed to resist violently if authorities tried to arrest them put out a welcome mat instead, inviting what they thought was a group of supporters to their home in Plainfield in west-central New Hampshire.

This story has gotten a bit of attention in Vermont, but it's worth talking about it a little more because this variety of tax cheat is more than just a novelty. Their key characteristics include rejection of the federal power to collect taxes, leading to a more general rejection of the power of the federal government; right-wing politics; idiot legal arguments in support of their claims; and the use of violence or the threat of violence, and various fraudulent legal mechanisms, to harass the government officials who are trying to enforce the law.

And, where one of them is holed up, others, like white supremacist Randy Weaver, are likely to turn up. 

So what's so bad about them? I would say a couple of things. First, their legal claims are utterly baseless, and every time one of their claims about the illegality of taxes is raised it is conclusively demolished. (For example, you may hear them arguing that, based on the letter to the taxpayer in every year's Form 1040 tax booklet that the IRS depends on the voluntary compliance of the American taxpayer, that taxes are “voluntary”, or that the court that sentenced them was illegitimate because the flag in the courtroom had a fringe on it, which means that the court was sitting as a court or maritime law. For more examples, take a look at this site on “Idiot Legal Arguments” )

The kicker is that people buy this. Look at the newspaper message boards and you'll see dozens of letters parroting their bogus arguments. It's partly because people don't like to pay taxes, but I think it's also because these arguments appeal to people's naturaly skepticism or hostility to experts, and they see this as one more example of a situation in which the experts are wrong.

 Second, it's part of a package, so when you buy their anti-tax message you get their anti-government, racist, fundamentalist Christian (or some bizarro Aryan church) ideology.

 Third, they kill people. Randy Weaver or his followers killed an ATF agent. Other right-wing militia people killed radio personality Alan Berg.

So as I say, this arrest is good news. The tax evaders were arrested, nobody was hurt, and we score one point for the rule of law. 

Here's the new reality, based on SurveyUSA data (now if only some of our elected sorts in DC would wake up to it and stop trembling…)

Some hubbub around this animation over at Open Left (my favorite blog this month) if you want more…

• Okay, I realize Vermont is a special place, but could somebody explain this to me?
• Im not always in 100% agreement with them, but Vermont Scrapwood is still the smartest blog in the state. Just go and browse if you haven't already.
• On the other hand, Vermont Hum just confuses me. But that's okay, lots of things do.
• Stephen McArthur at Orwell's Grave posts “quite possibly the last interview with (Grace Paley) and major story written about her”, penned by his partner, Rickey Gard Diamond, for Vermont Woman. A great read.
• Five before Chaos is becoming the late night stand-up of the Vermont blogosphere. John is starting to remind me of Lewis Black. For the record, that's a good thing.
• Alex has turned Rip & Read into a travel blog of late. Lots of political changes in merry ol' England (where he's traveling, and has posted 10 entries from), so I'm still hopeful he'll strike up a political conversation or two and report back…
• Dohiyi Mir still won't link to us. Sigh. Woo-hoo! See what sighs can get ya?
• Paleoconnish blog, The Vermont Traditionalist, which usually wanders in the world of can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees-psuedointellectualism, can be a fun source for gossip on Vermont's religious right. One point of peripheral interest they provide of late is what's to become of usual-suspect, quixotic vermont candidate Greg Parke, who made a perennial cottage industry for himself by effectively raising money to run against Bernie Sanders every two years. Arch-right winger Parke, who didn't really ever run against him, so much as raise gobs of money from out-of-staters by exploiting their Berniephobia, has found a new way to put those languishing lists he's accumulated to work in lieu of a Vermont socialist candidate to joust with every two years – a new nonprofit called The Vermont Conservative Union. Expect Bernie to appear prominently in their first fundraising piece.

Barack Obama released a comprehensive energy plan [PDF] yesterday that's received high praise in a number of places (fuller detail below the fold) — especially from those who've been underwhelmed with Obama's energy stances thus far.

Here are a couple… 

Over at Grist.com David Roberts writes about Obama's “bold new energy proposal”…

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised — even shocked — at its quality. It's a deft mix of good politics and strong, substantive policy. Here are what I see as the three headlines:

• 100% auction of cap-and-trade credits. This is a home run, a real act of standard-setting boldness (the kind that Obama always promises but rarely delivers). The green community should immediately use it to push Clinton and Edwards into making the same commitment, insuring that it's the new baseline for any cap-and-trade program.
• Smart investment. The revenue from auctions will be considerable, up to $50 billion a year, and Obama's smart about putting it to work, dividing it between energy R&D, protections for low-income workers, and market deployment of existing clean tech.
• A focus on efficiency. Clearly Obama gets that efficiency is the easiest route to emission reductions, and he's got a set of thoughtful, detailed initiatives to make it work.

…

Much has been said about Edwards' important role in this campaign: pushing the other candidates toward stronger, more ambitious policy. You can see it at work here — in several respects Obama's energy proposal echoes Edwards'.

However, with his promise to auction 100% of cap-and-trade credits, Obama has put himself out ahead of all the other frontrunners. He deserves the praise he'll get for it.

The Leage of Conservation Voters responds:

Senator Barack Obama has put forward an aggressive plan that would point America in the right direction toward a clean, renewable energy future, reduce greenhouse gas pollution and reverse the disastrous policies of the current Administration.
 
With the Obama plan in place, America would boldly regain its footing as a world leader in environmental protection and clean, renewable energy production.

We should all be pleased with how all of the Democratic candidates this year have been pushing each other back and forth to make substantive policy initiatives — on a variety of topics — central to the discussion.

More details below the fold… 

From the campaign's press release…

Portsmouth, NH – In a major policy address today, Barack Obama will announce a visionary plan to make America a global leader on energy. After years of broken promises and unfulfilled plans that have fallen victim to the Washington status quo, Obama will pledge to provide real leadership on the issue by challenging conventional thinking and loosening the grip of special interests.  Obama’s plan lays out bold steps to combat global climate change, free America from the tyranny of oil, and create millions of new jobs and entire new industries here in America. 

Senator Obama has been a proven leader on energy with a strong record of fighting to invest in renewable fuels and raise fuel economy standards. Obama has been honest in telling the defenders of the status quo that when he’s President, the same failures won’t do. 

Senator Obama’s plan to make America a global leader on energy includes:

•      Implementing an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the level recommended by top scientists to avoid calamitous impacts 
•      Investing $150 billion over the next ten years to develop and deploy climate friendly energy supplies, protect our existing manufacturing base and create millions of new jobs  
•      Dramatically improving energy efficiency to reduce energy intensity of our economy by 50 percent by 2030 
•      Reducing our dependence on foreign oil and reducing oil consumption overall by at least 35 percent, or 10 million barrels of oil, by 2030 
•      Leading a new international global warming partnership 

The plan can be viewed in full HERE.

As the campaign season heats up, and we hear the breathless reports in the media on one day about how a single poll supposedly shows that Candidate X has surged ahead — and yet no similar stories about Candidate X plummeting the next day when the first was shown to be an anomaly, I thought you all might enjoy this amusing description of how polling is done…

It’s for this reason that I think most polls are ultimately push polls — when you analyze the subtexts that they almost always promote.