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Community broadband services are all the rage nowadays. Start singing Woody Guthrie's “This Land Is My Land” and by the time you reach those gulf stream waters you'll have not only covered the entire lower 48 U.S., but you'll also have described where local communities have put in high speed communications services. (For much more information visit freepress.net.)

And even at the federal level these efforts are being recognized and encouraged.

(Free Press Lauds ‘Community Broadband Act of 2007’, freepress.net, 07/24/07)

As Senator Lautenberg stated in a press release:

(click here for press release)

Fair enough, Senator. I know many folks in Williamstown, VT are sick of waiting for the pie in the sky promises made by the commercial carriers to come about. I've been tasked by the Williamstown Community Economic Development Committee to explore community broadband, and I'm working on this venture with at least 13 other Orange County towns. After all .. this land is your land, this land is my land.

As a matter of fact, all across Vermont communities are exploring or actively installing the latest in communications infrastructure … fiber-optics and some wireless. Much of this has been made possible by Burlington Telecom, the Burlington utility that gives Queen City residents inexpensive access to fast, reliable and high quality Internet, telephone and television services via a brand new fiber-optics network.

So I'm going to applaud those pushing to make sure community broadband is not interfered with by behemoth corporations … politely, tentatively. Because I want to see if the final actions meet the initial words.

You.  Have.  Got.  To.  Be. Kidding.  Me.

From the Brattleboro Reformer:

One police officer, who attended the Selectboard meeting “on his own behalf,” said the protesters were being irresponsible, pulling officers away from their more serious duties.

“We are a very busy department,” said Detective Eric Johnson, who said he sympathized with the protesters but disagreed with their decision to not leave the property when ordered to by police.

“If we go to a scene and ask you to please leave, just leave and move to a public place,” he said. “Our responsibility is to enforce the law,” adding “if I ask them to leave and they don’t, what am I to do?”

Oddly enough, one of the protesters had a fairly good idea about that:

“All they had to do was take our water away from us and we would have been gone in 48 hours,” said Kilmurray, after speaking at Tuesday night’s Selectboard meeting.

Congratulations, Brattleboro Police Department.  You’ve taken a minor protest by a very small group of people and turned it into something much bigger.

If you haven't seen the emails and postings, Sierra Club is targeting Fox “News” for their campaign of crude, scorched-earth style global warming denial (heh… pardon the expression… honestly, it didn't even occur to me until I read the diary preview..heh heh). To do so, they've identified a major Fox advertiser – Home Depot – for action. Here is the associated YouTube video: 

You can add your name to the petition here. What makes this story particularly timely for Vermonters? This (from the Times Argus):

It's not just a rumor any more. Home Depot has set it sights on central Vermont.

The company that bills itself as “the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer” is targeting a partially abandoned strip mall on the Barre-Montpelier.

It's possible they may be more receptive than usual to Vermonters, under the circumstances.

As his Iraq adventure disintegrates before his eyes, and as more and more Americans are unwilling to give him any benefit of the doubt, George W. Bush is once again pulling out the let’s scare’em with terrorism card.

            And while there is no doubt that this despicable ploy is just that, we should not fall into the trap of only accusing him of crying wolf. Because, putting aside the lies that our government dishes out everyday, there is no question that at this point, there are indeed terrorists who would love nothing more than to launch an attack in The United States.

            If a successful attack should happen, and all we’ve been doing is accusing Bush of raising the level of fear, then we’ll immediately find ourselves on the defensive with many Americans rallying around the President once again as the only one to “keep us safe”.

            Instead, our message should be unequivocal and clear. There WILL undoubtedly be another terrorist attack, and if it is successful, it will be because this President has ignored crucial border security in order to provide for his military adventure in Iraq.

            The Democrats’ message is stuck in reaction mode. Bush makes a grandly idiotic policy decision, or makes some statement framing the debate just as Karl Rove has instructed him, and all the Democrats simply respond by disagreeing in vague and tentative tones, making sure that they never stray from the very framework that Bush has articulated.

            We need to go after this criminal administration in the same way that we would go after any public enemy or scourge. We need to be pointing out relentlessly that Bush is not keeping America safe; he’s creating enemies faster than we can possibly apprehend them, and he has neglected this vaunted “Homeland” that he has suddenly thrust into our lexicon. The only action that this administration can take to improve our security is to get out of Iraq and change their approach to diplomacy in the region. Bush is creating the conditions for another terror attack by his policies. This should be our outcry.

            If we simply express skepticism about his fear mongering, we will be rewarded with another terror event, either through the administration’s incompetence or complicity. Either way, we will once again find ourselves watching in amazement as Americans decide that they can’t risk going against the President in a time a crisis. 

            And the next attack will doubtlessly usher in the new era of facism for which Bush and Company have been patiently been laying the groundwork. It must be the citizens of this nation who say “I told you so” in the event of anther attack. If George Bush is saying it instead, then it will be too late for Democracy in America.

I think it's fair to say that everyone who front pages here has a slightly different reason for doing it, and a slightly different set of objectives. Regular visitors know that I'm a Dem partisan. As for my reasons and objectives, I recognize that we're in a hard-wired political system that will ultimately accomodate only two parties, whatever those two may call themselves. That getting frustrated and adding parties doesn't alter this rather annoying reality, and that – short of truly radical change (which simply adding a party is most assuredly not) – to do as much good as possible therefore means making the “leftist” party – the Democrats – as effective and responsive as possible.

Recently, I've been receiving more criticism from other Dems for having the gall to criticize members of “my own team.” Tonight I received one such email from a state Representative. It was phrased in such a way that I felt the need to respond in as thorough and complete a way as possible, and after consideration, I thought it might be appropriate to share my response here. Given that we're all here for different reasons, I invite others to chime in on the philosophy of political blogging from their own perspectives.

Sorry. I recognize this is perhaps a bit personal in content, so I would remind anyone who is annoyed by it that the “back” button on your browser is just a mouse click away. My email is on the flip (with some selective snipping to hide identities)…

[intro snip]

Green Mountain Daily exists – to my mind (and as the founder, my mind is of a high degree of relevence, but not the only mind) for a number of reasons. A big piece of it is to give those lefties who are angry, frustrated or feel disenfranchised a home in the Democratic Party. A place to be able to say what's on their minds freely and without retribution or kickback. Historically, if they don't get that, they either a) give up on the party and the process, or b) become Progs. The rise of the national blogosphere has changed that dynamic, and as I saw no one picking up the [netroots] ball here, I did it myself. I think the results have been positive.

But if there's going to be a forum like this, it has to have certain qualities that are non-negotiable. The reason why, for example, the “Prog Blog” will never matter more than a little blip on the radar screen is because its an institutional mouthpiece. Propoganda. GMD, and its cousins such as the DailyKos are not. That is precisely why they are relevent and successful.

Bloggers can smell a phony a mile away. I am forever being accused of being some kind of Democratic Party lapdog. The reason why the charges don't stick is because I'm not, and it's obvious. I say what I think honestly. When I wrote that piece I was mad. And I had already had about 10 conversations with people who were equally mad. They were mad at everybody. The governor, Gaye, you, the world at large. Unfocused rage at a time like that is poisonous to the work we all try to do, so I felt the need to acknowledge – and yes, validate – that rage, but in the process try to channel it.

Now if you think I – or anyone – can do that by stepping up and scolding people for daring to feel pissed off at you, you're seriously deluding yourself. You may be hurt by it, and I understand, but I was mad at you. I think I had a right to be. Your letter suggesting I didn't only stirs it back up again.

But what I can do is acknowledge the frustration and do what I did – that is, to say that the one we should focus our anger at is the Governor who put us all in this situation against all reason. If I'd given you a free pass, I'd have been a phony and everybody would've smelled it.

If you want to know “where the wisdom” in this is, take a look at the last national election. This blogger paradigm has turned the political tables on their heads. Bloggers have generated more money to candidates, more votes to candidates and more elections to Democratic candidates than anything we've ever seen. It would take some serious denial to claim this isn't the case. And this “straight talk” is the way we do things. Part of the reason we HAVEN'T gotten Jim Douglas out is we are about 2-3 years behind the rest of the country on this, so we are not mobilized the way the rest of the country is. And I'm sorry, but I think getting there is more important than all holding hands, singing kumbaya and pretending we agree on everything. We don't and everybody knows it. Denying that weakens us. Accepting it strengthens us, because diversity is strength. Democracy is stronger than consensus. The proof is all around.

An institution with no capacity for rollicking self-criticism is a sick institution, and the two left wing parties in the state have their capacities for self criticism completely broken off into the other. If we don't fix it in ourselves first, the Progs might – in which case they'll kick our asses, and probably deservedly so…

[snip] But if you want to make lemonade out of two lines in a blog post that hurt your feelings, rather than castigate me, why not actually ENGAGE with folks on the site? Post a comment. Post a whole diary. If there's one thing that feeds the frustration, it's this sense that the electeds are too good too muddy themselves with the blogs. Sure you guys REACT to them and complain about them. Why don't you DO something? Get in there! Again, that's part of what has so strengthened the national grassroots/netroots movement. Go to DailyKos on any given day and you're likely to see anywhere from 1-3 user diaries on the sidebar written by the likes of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Russ Feingold. Earl Blumenauer and so on, and so on.

[last paragraph snip]

UPDATE 6:11 PM – Geez… i post two rumors and the emails start flyin. Consider both amended below… 

There may be some rethinking of roles and responsibilities in the Vermont House Leadership. Majority Whip Floyd Nease was recently under tremendous pressure from the Lamoille County Democratic Committee to shake things up, and there is some word that some sort of shake up may be beginning. Don't expect a big turnover in titles or an internal power struggle, but there could be some “flavor” changes. Stay tuned. UPDATE: I'm getting pushback on this also… while the Lamoille Dem gripe session is in the mix, the fact is that the shakeup that may (or may not) be in the works is apparently Speaker-Symington-driven and has been discussed for some time. DO NOT ask me what that means… we'll have to wait and see if anything comes of it.

Conventional wisdom says that VT Dem State Chair Ian Carleton will be stepping down soon. Haven't approached hm specifically about it, but it seems to be an open secret. Anybody interested? UPDATE: I'm getting pushback on this… might be looks like it's just a rumor, but it sure aint a rumor I started. Have heard it from several people. One of those 'telephone' games I suppose.

Speaking of State Chairs, the Vermont Republican online activist presence (such as it is) continues to languish with Rob Roper now serving as the State GOP Chair. His Freedom Works site hasn't been updated in some time (listing Jim Jeffords as a “key vote”) – including the Vermont Education Report formerly generated by Libby Sternberg but passed on to Roper and FW. Looks like she unknowingly sent it there to die. As a side note, the site is also using the official Vermont Seal which -as I understand it – is a no-no.

Maybe we should be sending prisoners to the Philippines instead of states like Kentucky (j/k). Here's an interesting rehabilitation technique:

Here's a question: with what do you associate the number 359,443,925,683? No, it's not the estimated population of the United States by the end of 2008. Actually that number should have a dollar sign in front of it because it is the amount of interest we paid on our national debt during fiscal 2007.

That's right … $359,443,925,683.00 just so we can not pay down any of that $8.9 trillion (and exploding) owed by the citizens of the United States. That comes out to almost $30,000 for every child, woman and man! (Brillig National Debt Clock and US Treasury Department)

No, this isn't a swipe at today's economic conservatives who'll swear borrowing tons of money and then paying a huge carrying fee to never pay any of it down is great for the economy. That's a different discussion.

I'm still talking impeachment of Cheney and Bush.

The corruption and dishonesty part of our current federal administration already gets wide discussion. The lies that led to the invasion of Iraq, unconstitutional eavesdropping on American citizens, failure to respond to Congressional inquiries, signing statements, war profiteering, operating a government of by and for the corporations, waging an undeclared war against Iran, abrogation of international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions … all these and more demand impeachment.

What hasn't received a tremendous amount of coverage, however, is the breath taking incompetence of the Cheney/Bush administration.

At the time of Bush's coming to power in January, 2001 our national debt was about $5.7 trillion (US Treasury Department). Since then it has grown by $3.2 trillion … that's $246 billion every six months!

I don't care how many weak willed Democrats went along with the Cheney/Bush tax breaks for the wealthy, the driver behind those breaks was the administration. Cheney and Bush have deliberately engaged in a borrow and spend economic policy that has driven our nation further and further into debt, and don't forget this administration inherited an almost balanced budget. This is breathtaking incompetence at a minimum.

Don't forget two of the administrations more memorable summer vacations. The first was in 2001 when everybody in or connected to the intelligence community was running around with their “hair on fire” as former head counter-terrorism adviser to the White House Richard Clarke put it. What was it that Condi Rice at the 911 commission hearings told the nation was the title of a mid-summer presidential intelligence briefing? “I believe the title was bin Laden determined to attack the United States.”

Great time for a summer vacation, huh? A fine example of gross incompetence and criminal negligence.

Another great adventure for the Cheney/Bush administration was 2005. You remember that summer, don't you? We saw hurricane Katrina, destruction of a massive swath of Gulf coast line and the drowning of half of a major United States city! We were all watching a category 5 storm heading straight towards New Orleans, the administration was receiving warnings that the levees wouldn't hold and Bush ran off to campaign for legislation, attend a birthday party for John McCain and then more R&R. Of course Bush did find time to assure us his incompetent FEMA head Brown was doing a “heck of a job”.

And don't forget Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine/Israel, Lebanon and more … all human and foreign policy disasters at a minimum. Everywhere the Cheney/Bush administration has left their mark failure has followed.

This is just more reason to force an impeachment of Cheney and Bush. The incompetence of this current federal administration is a greater threat to us and our constitutional democratic republic than anyone, anywhere … foreign or domestic.

It's your choice: sit idly by listening through the walls while our nation continues to be raped by the most corrupt, dishonest and incompetent adminstration in our nation's history; or get active and force impeachment investigations.

You probably remember that Moveon.org got its start as a movement to vote a censure for Bill Clinton, forget about impeachment, and move on to the real business of the country.

Now Russ Feingold is proposing a censure resolution. 

We know beyond any possibility of contradiction that impeachment can't pass, and probably won't even get a serious hearing. What about censure as an alternative?

What about contacting Welch, Sanders, and Leahy and demanding censure? 

Got this history from David Bromwich post at Huffington Post

“The federal judiciary is thickly planted now with judges who can be relied on for opinions that cooperate with the claims of arbitrary power. A staff lawyer for Kenneth Starr from 1995 through mid-1997, John D. Bates was appointed to the U.S. District Court by President G.W. Bush in December 2001. In December 2002, he dismissed the GAO lawsuit in Walker v. Cheney, which had sought information about the vice president's secret dealings on energy policy. The warrant for dismissal, in that case, turned on a failure to demonstrate “injury.” Of course, oversight agencies perform their work in order to discover injuries; they can hardly name in advance and with perfect precision the injuries they seek to discover. But such are the arguments by which a political judge may give his decisions an appearance of standing above politics. In February 2006, after the resignation from the FISA court of James Robertson — an unusual act of protest against the circumvention of FISA by unauthorized government wiretaps — Judge Bates was picked by the new Chief Justice, John Roberts, to sit as the newest judge on the FISA court.”