Interesting rumors creeping out from a couple places on the week of the Vermont Legislature's much ballyhooed veto override session. Word is that there has been talk from high-profile electeds on the House side of capitulating utterly on the actual content of the Global Warming Bill (H.520) by abandoning the groundbreaking building efficiency element and leaving only the incentives for renewables – essentially giving Jim Douglas everything he could possibly want, including renewed bragging rights as the Governor who passed and signed a global warming bill.

Yuck.

While this news may not shock a lot of people, this part might; Gaye Symington seems to be putting her foot down by refusing to cede any more ground on the bill. Apparently she's found the whip and is cracking it, if the rumors are true (and they are painfully hard to confirm, I must admit). Given that Symington has been on vacation of late, one wonders if there wasn't a “when the cats away…” element to the rumors (which incidentally also suggest that Shumlin may have been deliberately kept out of the loop as well, given that he also wants to see the full bill get a clean up or down hearing).

Symington and Shumlin have had their cat-herding skills tested when they've wanted to bend on an issue while members of their caucus have wanted to hang tough. We'll have to see how it plays out this week with those roles reversed.

I almost hate to bring this up again, but if you are a regular reader you will undoubtedly remember the discussion of the Second Vermont Republic and how friendly they seem to be to racist and neo-confederate groups.

Anyway, I was just viewing Blogging Heads and the first discussion on yesterday's Science Saturday diavlog was all about the secession movement in Vermont, and one of the speakers actually had attended a party with Thomas Naylor.

I think this is pretty interesting, and I think John Horgan, who knows a little bit about it, clearly gets what they're all about.

Watch it here. 

I'm in Eugene Oregon now and I'm finding quite a lot of differences between Eugene and Burlington.   First of all, Eugene is about five times large in population.   It also sits next to Springfield, Oregon which is a blue collar town.  Eugene is a university city, much like Burlington, home to the University of Oregon. 

 The bus service here is excellent.  They have one free bus the “EmX” which goes from Eugne to Springfield every ten minutes in its own travel lane of a six-lane main street.  That makes seven lanes total!  It's fast and efficient, a state-of-the-art marvel in bus transportation.

 Another difference is the fact that you can buy a day-pass for bus transportation for only $2.50.  A one-way fare is $1.25, just like in Burlington.  But Burlington doesn't sell day passes.  What a difference it makes in terms of economic activity if you don't need to worry about paying another bus fare every time you want to go somewhere.

For example, there is a bus which runs about 60 miles out of Eugene into the Cascade Mountains.  Yes, it's a CITY bus and only costs $1.25.  You can take you bike on it too.  That means that you could commute into Eugene in the morning, take a few buses around town, and return to your country home for the total of only $2.50 a day.  For $35 you can get a montly pass.  What a deal!

Bicycles are very popular here and the most stolen item in town.  Theft seems to be the big crime in Eugene.

Food is cheaper too, by a long shot.  I bought broccoli for 99 cents a pound yesterday.  Fruits and vegetables in general are better and cheaper here.

Rents are cheaper too.  I could get an apartment here for much less than $500 a month, perhaps for $350.  When I arrived in Eugne I stayed in a Hostel for $22.  It was a nice clean place too.  I learned that there is another hostel which is about the same price.  Where is the Burlington Hostel anyway?  I tried to find it once but couldn't.

Here's a URL with some comments from others about Eugene.

http://www.hostelz.com/hostels/USA/Oregon/Eugene

I'd say this place has more “hippie culture” than Burlington does.

It also has a more active anarchist culture.  It's liberal but with a “Big Brother is watching” attitude about it.  Eugene has a history of hassling vagrants. The homeless shelter is run by a religious group and the equivalent of the “Day Station” is run by another religious group.  The Catholics are big in providing food and services here.  It has a distinctively more Christian feel than Burlington does.

The Pacific Ocean is about an hour away.  The Cascades are about an hour away in the opposite direction.  So you can cool off at the beach or at the hot springs in the mountains.  If you want a big city, Portland is about two hours north of here.

Marijuana is plentiful and virtually legal.  Actually, one of my friends here has a grower's permit for medical marijuana, both for himself and another person.  I've seen his plants in the back room .. about two dozen.  He doesn't have to hide the grow room or the bags of pot laying around.  It's quite nice to be “out from under” the oppressive thumb of government.  There are 15,000 Oregonians who have permits to use medical marijuana, mostly for pain reasons.  7,000 new applications have been filed in the past year.

See http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/ommp/data.shtml  for details.

Oregon is a big state, compared to Vermont, which is a small state.

Oregon votes by mail … everyone does.  It seems to work fine for them.  Talk about paper ballots …. it works.

Oregon has no sales tax.  It's really quite nice to pay the price advertised rather than that price PLUS sales tax.  At some pleaces in Vermont the sales tax seems to be close to ten percent.  That makes a difference.

Cigarettes are cheaper here but not by much and the Governor wants to add a 65 cent per pack tax.  States everywhere are looking for ways to increase revenue.  

I'm thinking of presenting my Vermont Freedom Currency idea ( http://stevemoyer.us/vfc ) to Oregon as well.  We need to “crack the egg” on the money system, the idea that the banks control our lives through the debt mechanism.  We can have more than one way to get what we need.  We simply need to break out of the box which I call the “tyranny of money.”  Perhaps Oregonians will be open to the idea.

 Steve Moyer

Cross posted from Rational Resistance.

 Although there is still a year and a half left of Bush's reign, commentators have started discussing the historical significance of the Bush administration. Never mind that he's the worst, most corrupt, president in history, we've survived incompetence and corruption before.

No, the key here is the absolute war on our constitutional system of government that Bush has carried out, and this week's events have once again demonstrated how these attacks have worked. We have already seen Bush's use of “signing statements” as a means of undermining or sidestepping the Congress. He has made it clear that nothing that the legislative branch can do can limit his executive power.

Now, his statement this week on the Scooter Libby free pass demonstrates that he has the same attitude toward the judiciary. Here's what he said: “I respect the jury’s verdict,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.”

Again: “I have concluded“.

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of American government knows that the trial and sentencing of those charged with crimes is a power of the judicial branch, and there are good reasons for that. Reasons like protecting the innocent from over zealous or politically motivated prosecutions, and like sheltering the criminal justice system from favoritism and undue influence.

In other words, it isn't up to the president to determine the justice of a sentence, it is up to the courts. If there were an argument that the sentence was unjust and excessive, Mr. Libby would be free to make that argument as part of his appeal.

In this case, though, by commuting the sentence, specifically based on his own determination of what is a fitting punishment, Bush has announced to the world that his executive power knows no bounds, and that, as in the case of signing statements, he will rule as he will, by fiat, unbounded by the rule of law.

I don't ask whether the United States can survive this corrupt autocrat. I do ask whether our democracy can.

There’s a sense in which media blogs are dangerous things. One of the reasons for the success of the blogosphere (political and otherwise) is it’s personal, often matter-of-fact communication paradigm. Blog entries are conversational, informal, and inevitably (whether intended or not) relay a sense of the person (or at least their “internet side”). Blogs are, after all, online personal journals in which some of us like to wax political, and some just want to discuss their Star Wars memorabilia.

This creates a challenge for traditional media outlets who want a piece of that blogosphere action and send their journalists into the fray. Journalists are supposed to have a professional detatchment from their subjects, but professional detatchment is the very antithesis of political blogspeak. Certainly there are other times when journalists are systemically encouraged to either editorialize, or make full blown ideological crusaders of themselves. One could even say that’s the zeitgeist.

But put a beat reporter in that position and things are different. The Vermont political press corps are all blogging these days, potentially providing uncomfortable (but illuminating) views into their own biases and thereby inviting everything from speculation as to whether or not these biases inevitably creep into their reporting, to full-blown criticism.

Well, invitation accepted. I give you Burlington Free Press reporter Terri Hallenbeck and her apparent distaste for Freshman Representative Peter Welch (continued on the flip).

I rather like Hallenbeck’s writing and have told her so via email. By all accounts she is a pleasant person. But I don’t think that gets her off the hook for being called out when her biases show. At vtbuzz (the Freeps political newsblog), I did a quick, cursory review of the last several times she’s mentioned Peter Welch in her blog because I (and others) had begun to detect a pattern.

From her most recent Welch-referring post.

The New York Times story on the bill includes a photo of the Greening the U.S. Capitol news conference depicting part of Rep. Peter Welch?s head behind Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The post is a mildly smirking dismissal of the presence of Welch during a presentation on what has been his signature issue of choice. No big deal, right? Just a gentle poke.

This is the the Welch mention before that…

The speaker mentioned Welch a couple times during the news conference, Welch spokesman Andrew Savage said. Pelosi’s own news release on the same event, however, doesn’t mention Welch. Not even when she refers to plans for the House to purchase carbon offsets, as Welch did for his office earlier this year.

He gets a little recognition, but not quite that much.

Ooo. More than a little poke. Outright mockery. Very much in keeping with the personality-driven writing of a blog, but is this appropriate for a journalist on the political beat?

And before that…

This time Welch says he wants to hear from constituents about the issues that matter to them. There’s a card you can tear off, fill out and send in ranking your issues. It’s about constituent services, which are after all the number one purpose of a member of Congress.

Don’t kid yourself, though, it’s also about getting re-elected.

We’re clearly beyond “just the facts,” and with three consecutive mentions, we’re into the territory of a pattern. Look, the postcard made me roll my eyes as well, but is it really Hallenbeck’s job to interpret the news for us?

And if you think it is, it’s worth noting that there is a stack of interpretations piling up that put the freshman Representative in a poor light. In what light, then, should we be reading Hallenbeck’s coverage of Welch in the Free Press?

Continuing in order, we finally come to a reference that does not contain any personal or political characterization:

Barre was teeming with politicians last weekend. Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders made their way across the stage at the Barre Opera House. So did Rep. Peter Welch and Barre Mayor Thomas Lauzon.

But the next one, again, subtley smacks of eye rolling, with it’s “little splash” comment...

Peter Welch, made a little splash earlier this year by establishing the first carbon-neutral congressional office.

It’s impossible not to notice the narrative Hallenbeck is setting in regards to Welch. Still, you may say, maybe it’s just her style. Maybe we should compare her blog references to other political figures.

Well, I did.

The last several references to Jim Douglas range from the “cute” like this:

As we learned from their previous video, these kids have got a knack for this stuff, but I would pay money to hear Gov. Jim Douglas deliver a counteracting rap video.

…to the incidental, like this…:

The governor has indicated that just removing the Vermont Yankee tax won’t be enough to buy his love on the energy bill.

…and this rather glowing one…:

When Gov. Jim Douglas took his Vermont delegation to China on a trade mission this week, the Shanghai bureau chief of Forbes magazine took special interest. Russell Flannery grew up in Rutland and is a 1981 graduate of the University of Vermont. He’s been a journalist in Asia since 1991.

Flannery took the occasion to interview Douglas. His story appeared today on Forbes.com. You can read the article “Catamount strokes The Dragon” HERE.

He notes Douglas’ success in landing a meeting with Shanghai’s mayor.

All very different, and in more of a matter-of-fact style, in which Hallenbeck generally invites commentary on the news rather than the newsmaker, as she does through her characterizations of Welch. In fact the only one that breaks that reverse pattern with Douglas is this one regarding the back and forth on the scuttled meeting between Legislative leaders and the Governor over H.520:

Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin puts out a news release announcing his willingness to compromise rather than just telling the governor. He cites as a reason for this that that’s how he learned of the governor’s plan. Seventh-grader: “He hit me first.”

Gov. Jim Douglas cancels a meeting with Shumlin because he doesn’t like Shumlin’s behavior.

(And yes, it’s hard not to notice that while she takes them both to task, it is Shumlin she specifically characterizes as a child, even though it was Douglas cancelled the meeting).

A further glance at references to Sanders and Leahy revealed no such pattern of negative characterization or narrative-building.

Regular commenters have noticed the pattern as well, going so far as to tease Hallenbeck about whether or not she is building a narrative to run against Welch herself.

Now, I don’t presume to know why she has an issue with Welch. Some may conclude that she identifies more with Republicans (she certainly seems to bend over backwards to counter the Douglas Administration’s thinly veiled suggestion that the H.520 meeting was cancelled because she was giving Shumlin too much attention. Rather than nervously explain herself in public, she could have taken offense as a journalist at the Governor’s crude scapegoating). Or perhaps she identifies with Dems and is overcompensating to avoid the dreaded “liberal bias” charge. Maybe she just doesn’t like Peter Welch.

Frankly I don’t care. What matters is that she clearly has developed an unflattering narrative of all things Welch, and she has no qualms about putting it out on her blog for web surfers to plainly see.

The question, then, is whether it also comes out in her reporting in a manner that’s perhaps a little less plain to see.

Preaching to the choir yesterday in Martinsburg, W Va, Bush recited the same sermon he and his handlers reserve for these carefully controlled and completely choreographed appearances before the faithful.

“We give thanks for all the brave citizen-soldiers of our Continental Army who dropped pitchforks and took up muskets to fight for our freedom and liberty and independence,” Bush said. He added: “You’re the successors of those brave men. . . . Like those early patriots, you’re fighting a new and unprecedented war.”

I wonder if anyone else noticed that our Revolution against the tyrannical rule of that earlier George, the occupation of our cities and provinces by British troops, his interference in what we regarded as our affairs, and the general mistreatment of our citizenry was, in fact, the polar opposite of  our invasion and occupation of Iraq and the mistreatment, maiming and murder of their citizenry.

We have been at war in Iraq for over four years, in Afghanistan for nearly six, at the same time we have conducted and continue to conduct covert operations in other countries throughout the Middle East including Iran and Pakistan, as well as in several African countries.

The result of what we have wrought has been the death, destruction or displacement of hundreds of thousands of innocents, along with the sacrifice of our military forces and our economic future. There has been no net gain for the people of this country or any other.

Along the way great benefits have devolved upon many of our well connected corporations, both public and private, continuing the transfer of public wealth to private hands, (select private hands, that is) which is the core of neo conservative economics and was the central purpose of going to war in Iraq.

We might have more easily invaded Mexico, a country which was equally complicit in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the number of Mexican terrorists aboard the ill fated suicide planes having been exactly equal to the number of Iraqi terrorists.

A war against terror in Mexico, so much closer than Iraq, would have greatly eased the logistical problems we have in the Middle East, avoided stirring up the international radical Muslim community and may have gone a long way to solving our much ballyhooed “immigration problems.”

Here at home, a young man was killed about two weeks ago, Marine Cpl. Derek C. Dixon was killed while serving at a checkpoint in al Anbar province on Tuesday, June 26. Cpl Dixon was from Riverside, Ohio which is about a traffic light from where I sit typing as I watch the rabbits at early morning play outside my office window.

He will be buried today north of Dayton with full military honors, he was twenty years old and looked younger. Cpl Dixon attended high school at the same school I attended over four decades ago. He probably joked and laughed in the same classrooms, walked the same halls and ate in the same cafeteria as I did those long years ago.

Forty one years ago I walked those halls, laughing and joking with Ronnie Fields, one of my childhood friends and a lovable clown of a kid. Incorrigible and disruptive to good order and discipline was the the verdict of the adults who patrolled the halls in those days.

Ronnie was killed in Vietnam early in 1968 long before our young Corporal was born, his name is etched in a marble slab in the sidewalk of the Vietnam Memorial Park, located near the banks of the Great Miami River, within sight of our sadly aspiring little “downtown.” Ronnie’s name is there in a great circle of sidewalk joining the names of other local boys who paid the ultimate price of our folly in Vietnam.

I go there sometimes and walk by the river. I stand under the trees near Ronnie’s name etched there in the marble and listen to the breeze as it crosses the river and blows through the trees, pushing the blazing city air off to the east and I see his face at 15 and 16, the mischief in his eyes above a grin that made you forget every thing else in the vicinity except whatever he might be up to now.

I stand in that silence and think of him and all the others lost and gone, some I knew, most I did not, except in spirit.

I spent several years on a Veteran’s honor guard and have served at more than three hundred funerals and memorial services. In every one I heard the same phrases, the same words, honor and duty and sacrifice, died for his country, service to America, and then, then they play Taps, fire three volleys and go to their homes or to the VFW for sandwiches and beer.

Nothing left at graveside, just another name etched in marble, or concrete, etched in bronze, another memory of a fresh faced young kid laughing with his friends in some high school hallway, just a memory and the wind.

They buried Ronnie almost half a lifetime ago and since that day, so many more, so many more.

They will bury Cpl Dixon today, a squad of Marines in attendance, a Chaplain probably, an Officer in Charge and a rifle squad. The bugle will sound taps, and the riflemen will fire three volleys.

The dreadful finality of the crack of the rifles will startle the senses, bring tears to the eyes, and sobs to the throats of most of those in attendance.
The grief will seem unbearable but it will be borne, once again.

And when final notes of the bugle fade, they will leave
and leave behind another soon faded flag, another memory in the wind.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

The Progressive States Network has released a report trumpeting progressive policy advances at the state level, and they have singled out the Vermont Legislature by naming Vermont one of their “Star States” for progressive lawmaking. The report honors Vermont Legislators for Catamount Health, as well as for the Global Warming bill. Also:

Vermont made progress on many other issues as well, including:

• Creating the Vermont Telecommunications Authority and approving a $40 million bond to spread cell phone and high­speed internet access throughout the state by 2010.
• Promoting public health by stopping bus idling in front of schools.
• Increasing subsidies for Pre­K programs.
• Raising wages for tipped workers.
• Limiting contributions to candidates and political par­ties.
• Passing expanded education funding and funding sev­eral studies review cost­drivers in the system.
• Expanding civil rights to transgender residents by ban­ning discrimination based on gender identity.

The Legislative majority gets a lot of heat around here for not making many bold stances, caving too easily, or giving activists the brush-off cavalierly, but this is a reminder that there isn't much better out there – and in reality there's a whole lot worse.

The Progressive States Network is a wonky outfit, so it's no wonder they like our bunch. Even though they get beat up on message, strategy, leadership, etc – we've got some talented wonk-types in the crowd. And PSN is no Republican-Lite group, as their Board of Directors includes significant Labor representation, and also features such names as David Sirota, George Lakoff, David Brock, Ned Lamont… and even…(wait for it)… Rep. David Zuckerman (P-Burlington).

Signing off on this report would seem to put Zuckerman in the position of being far less critical of Democrats (both in Vermont and elsewhere) than his Progressive Party's leadership. In fact, it puts him in the position of being less critical of Vermont Democrats than many Vermont Democrats. Just another sign that Zuckerman may have more in common with Bernie (now comfortably stabilized in his common-law marriage with the Democratic Party) than most of his Party-mates.

by Dan DeWalt, from The Commons (Windham County Monthly)

Howard Dean’s famous scream may have capped the unraveling of his presidential campaign, but it was also the unwitting herald for a grass roots movement that six years later played a major role in overturning the Republican stranglehold on power, not only nationally, but across the river in New Hampshire as well.

Now those same grass roots groups are calling for impeachment, taking the challenge directly to Dr. Dean’s own Democratic Party hierarchy.

If 86 year old Brookline New Hampshire resident Betty Hall has her way, the New Hampshire legislature will be the first in the nation to invoke Jefferson’s manual and send a call for impeachment to Washington D.C.  

“Impeachment is huge for us because Bush is going to kill our elections. The right to vote is the most important right of all and he’s stolen the last two elections,” she said to The Commons.   

It was this perceived threat to the nation that led her and others to bring an impeachment resolution to the floor of last summer’s N.H. Democratic Party Convention. Hall said “we passed impeachment in June of ’06 over the objection of the top brass of the party. We took the battle to the floor and won.”             

Hall said that the defeated Party leadership went so far as to not include the impeachment vote on their website’s convention coverage.

The Party establishment took another hit in last year’s Democratic primary when Carol Shea-Porter was able to muster enough volunteers to out-hustle the Party’s favored candidate and take the nomination for U.S. Congress.

Porter benefited from the work of Democracy For N.H., the New Hampshire version of Democracy For America, a grass roots organization that Dean created to give new purpose to the volunteers who had worked for his campaign.

After last November’s election, some of these volunteers found themselves in the legislature as well.

More below the fold…

“As a group the Democratic Party would be much stronger if the leadership listens, leading the people in the direction they want to go”  he said.

Indeed, N.H. Democratic Party chairman Ray Buckley has tapped two long time state activists to create a grass roots committee for the party. According to committee co-chair Howard Morse, the party is aiding and abetting grass roots groups and is working to bring the various groups together under the Democratic Party umbrella. His co-chair Chas Pru describes it as a sea change. He is encouraged that the Democrats are taking the grass roots interests to heart.

Robert Perry of Strafford, who is one of the leaders of the House legislative impeachment effort, said “the success of the grass roots movement in N.H. has caused the leadership to pause and assess what it all means.” He said that state party recognizes what the grass roots are doing and are making space for them in the party structures. He said, “The leadership has us on board.”

There is no indication that the leadership has gotten aboard the impeachment train however. In spite of the vote for impeachment at the ’06 convention, Howard Morse remembers “no clear call of any kind for impeachment. There might have been a vote, it might have even passed, but in all the reporting that I saw, it did not come up. Its much ado about what I think is nothing.”

Betty Hall has a somewhat different take. I think that establishment Democrats don’t understand what’s out there. The dumb bunnies don’t understand how angry people are.”

Tim Butterworth: “I’ve always assumed that most organizations have pyramidal structures. Generally the ones on top have worked their way up. They tend to become conservative trying to stay on top.

D.F.N.H. founder Alex Lee sees it the same way. 

“Bad habits make the Democrats hold onto their bad political calculus. There is more interest in holding power than in making positive changes. The election wave came in but they’re just worried about the undertow.”

Robert Perry says that it is essential to move forward with impeachment. He also has a different assessment of the prospects.  

He said, “An impeachment resolution presented this fall and voted on in January has a good chance of passing the House and a better than even chance in the Senate.”

A legislative House with 400 members makes for an unwieldy body. Party leadership can assert itself, but House votes tend to be more of a reflection of the individual districts and representatives according to Marjorie Smith, 11 year House veteran and Finance Committee chair.

Hall, Perry and their allies will give these legislators a chance to weigh in on impeachment in the next session. Howard Morse predicts that “it would not be well received and it would not be accepted.” Hall accuses the party of being overly cautious. She and Perry see a real urgency. Perry cites U.S. military threats against Iran. Hall is worried about voting and constitutional rights. She has her own first hand account of when she discovered her right to free speech to be missing. 

“I was arrested and put in jail for carrying a sign that said Bush is bad for America in Nashua where Bush was speaking across the street. The secret service wanted to put us in a cage far from Bush, I refused to go and they arrested me, I had a trial and was acquitted.” 

That judge agreed that her constitutional rights had been violated and the police lost the case. Hall doesn’t want to have to worry about what the next judge will say. She wants Constitutional redress now, in the form of impeachment.

“I want to raise the level of noise” she said. Her impeachment efforts are meant to do just that.