And anyone else on here that cares to chime in.

I cross-posted this diary on Daily Kos this morning.
http://www.dailykos….

It was immediately labeled as a troll post.

Why?

It wasn’t a flame. It was up front about what I believed. Its wasn’t even that snarky (at least for me).

It was pretty plain vanilla.

Shit, it was even pretty accurate. I don’t think anyone on here thinks Pelosi is going to let funding for the war get cut off and I think everyone on here is rather surprised that the Pelosi jet story, which is a stupid story, still has legs.

Are these sites, GMD, Kos, Red State so self enclosed that they turn into one big echo chamber?

What good does that do?

I guess I’m also a little pissy (looking straight at you Odum) that you pulled the link from my Blog. Of course it’s your right, its your kingdom.

But I guess I would ask why.

You know who I am. You know what my beliefs are. You know that if you put up a Welch press release, an INACCURATE press release, and then call me out in your post, well, I’m coming out with my guns blazing.

What do you expect?

Would you want folks on these sites that only talk about how criminal Dick Cheney is or only talk about how terrible John Kerry is?

I mean, I don’t know. But it seems to me that you wouldn’t.

I enjoy Kos and GMD b/c these sites challenge me and test what I believe. Just like I enjoy Red State b/c that site tests me and what I believe.

People cannot honestly believe that everything that has to do with the Republican Party is all bad and that everything that has to do with the Democratic Party is all good?

You can’t honestly take yourself so seriously that when someone disagrees with those two assumptions you go through the roof?

I’ve learned alot about blogging in the last 3 months and I really, really enjoy it. And, I’ve seen great stuff on both sides of the aisle. And, I’ve seen some really hateful ignorant stuff put out on both sides of the aisle.

So I guess I would ask, can’t we all just get along? Or is that an impossible?

(I’m asking that in a very broad sense, not just related to GMD)

It’s back. With 33 sponsors in the House and 10 in the Senate, civil rights activists are finally moving to finish the work that began with the placement of the term “civil union” into the international lexicon.

Putting aside for a moment the idea that in a truly just society, any so-called “debate” around granting full rights of citizenship to gays and lesbians shouldn’t consist of any more hand-wringing than a quick fifteen minute “Wha..? Gays can’t marry?! Oops! Geez…. what were we thinking?! Sorry about that…. here, let’s take a second and fix that right up…(pass, pass, conference, pass, sign),” there’s little doubt that the issue – if it gets any traction at all – is electoral dynamite in Vermont.

For proponents, now is clearly the best time to move forward. There are strong, established majorities in the House and Senate and nobody’s willing to bet the farm on a Douglas electoral defeat anytime soon. Clearly, if not now, when?

And among those stepping up to do the right thing is a surprise name; that of Senate Majority Leader John Campbell of Windsor, largely considered among the most conservative of the caucus, and a fairly feisty conservative as well. From the Times Argus:

As a Democrat who lives in Quechee, a portion of the state more conservative than some, he heard firsthand the animosity stirred up by that law, which provides same-sex couples many of the same legal protections as marriage.

“There was such uproar,” Campbell, the majority leader in the Senate, said Wednesday. “No one was in the middle.”But he also heard from gay and lesbian couples about what a difference the law made to them, Campbell said. While he understood the arguments against the bill, he rejects the idea that civil unions damaged the institution of marriage or morals in Vermont.

“It’s not about morality. It’s about compassion, understanding and humanity,” Campbell said.

Put aside for a moment the odd choice of words there – morality is about compassion, understanding and humanity, yes?

Still, Campbell may not simply be doing the right thing. As another Democrat frequently rumored to hold loftier political ambitions, he may be showing more political savvy than his former rival for Senate leadership.

Consider what we can gleam from the post-civil union election battle of 2000. The results of what was probably the least pleasant election cycle in anyone’s memory obviously showed a highly polarized, visceral split between those that supported equality and those who rejected it outright for gays and lesbians. It also showed an equally pronounced split among many House districts. More often than not, a district was clearly “pro” or “anti,” with more being “anti,” leading to the dramatic power shift that booted Dems from legislative control.

But broken out of those districts, the statewide numbers suggested a “pro” majority – just one that was too clumpy to keep the legislature out of GOP hands. Governor Dean became the very embodiment of the issue on the campaign trail, yet he still won re-election. Lt. Governor Racine as well.

It might well be that the savvy choice for a politico with statewide ambitions would be to… well, to do the right thing, here – especially if you’re a politico who could stand to improve his overly-conservative image among more liberal primary voters, as Campbell would be advised to do. It also would give him bragging rights on proudly doing the right thing in the face of public scorn, when in fact the greater public is probably with him.

Throw into the mix that this is seven years later, and as such the intensive polarity of this debate is bound to be less pronounced than the last one, if for no other reason than the two main arguments of the anti-civil union crowd – that Vermont society would collapse, and that “civil unions” are actually gay marriage being snuck in and foisted on Vermonters – are dead and buried. Obviously, society hasn’t collapsed, and if civil unions really are same sex marriage, then what possible difference would actual same sex marriage make.

Still, without question, the issue has the unique potential to create a mirrored Montpelier next session – a Democratic Governor and Lt. Governor facing off against at least one Republican house of Congress.

Shumlin, on the other hand, by saying that he is “…not planning on wasting a lot of energy on efforts that will not become law… If the governor indicated he would sign the bill, I would take a more serious look at it” is putting himself in seriously dangerous waters, precisely because that statement in and of itself is absurd in its (seeming) arbitrariness. Does Shumlin really mean to casually provide Douglas with such an all encompassing rhetorical veto? Of course not. There will be climate change bills that will emerge from this Senate, despite Douglas inevitably indicating his unwillingness to sign them. In fact there may well be some deliberately intended to draw such a veto in order to draw a bright line of distinction between Douglas and his next Democratic opponent.

Shumlin also needs to be careful because this issue isn’t going to get swept under the rug in the same way impeachment was last session. It’s a hot-button, simple-to-discuss issue with strong, sustained interest from the press and among many across the broad Democratic base. He may bottle it up in the Senate, but in the House there will be a strong push from proponents that will take on a personal enough quality among Legislative coworkers that it may well overcome Speaker Symington’s near-absolute reticence to take on any overly controversial, potentially majority-threatening issues. If that happens, Shumlin could end up looking like a road block to equality, feebly trying to point the finger of blame at the Governor – when if there’s any legislative body that could likely hold a veto-proof majority, it’s the Senate rather than the House.

I think about my kids a lot. Give me half a chance and I’ll drive you crazy talking about them (or, just as often, how they’re driving me crazy). It’s a cliche, but it’s true – once you’re a parent, your life is forever divided into two completely different pieces; before you had kids, and after. Other life-benchmarks, even the ones you used to think were important back in the pre-parental past, become merely details.

This is of course why all the trite political messaging cliches – making everything about “the children” – keep working, even though they are so transparenyly shallow and exploitative. Sentiments about kids – even clumsy sentiments – always hit parents right where they live (so to speak). Likewise, social action is almost always couched in the context of children. The whole notion of the future is placed within that context. The preamble of the Vermont Democratic Platform states “Everything we do – every policy, law, and regulation – must consider the effects of our actions on the lives and futures of the world’s children, and their children.”

It is an implicit, defining distinction between young progressive activists and their older counterparts; we older ones are doing it for the children.

But does such a motivation distinguish our politics?

It’s another cliche that lefties are all more idealistic – even radical – in our youth, but as we grow older and become more “seasoned,” our politics moderate. While not a rule (I haven’t experienced it, although my approach has changed), it certainly seems to be the norm. The shorthand, equally cliched reasoning is that, post-college, lefties “sell-out”; that is, they get cushy jobs, collect material things and become too materialistically invested in “the system” to allow themselves to meaningfully work against its injustices. As such, they begin a process of rationalization (the at-large rationale being “maturation”) as they move from the fringes to the political center. Back at the Institute for Social Ecology, I remember Murray Bookchin opining that the way to give campus radicalism a shot in the arm would be to abolish tenure. Suddenly, all those one-time radical lefty professors wouldn’t be so comfortably invested in the university system and they’d all take to the streets again (I was never sure exactly how serious he was, but I digress…). While there are certainly more pronounced examples all around us of this phenomenon, I don’t think it explains the vast majority of aging, moderating lefties who did not go on to become wealthy. What’s moderating them? Is it really that maturity equals moderation?

I don’t think so. In fact, I blame it all on the children.

There’s a primal urge to protect your children. It’s instinctive, powerful, and tends to override everything else. Filter that impulse theough the lens of modern humanity and it has political and social overtones – especially if you’re someone who looks at the world as a dangerously unsustainable place. It becomes an instinct to hoarde – to amass enough stuff and wealth that your children will be cared for when you’re gone. And it’s political overtones are obvious; taxing of any accumulated capital (or the passing on of that capital) cuts into the self-built safety net, so its easy to start down a path of conservative political thought.

And, as unsteady and uncertain as the future seems, it can become impossible to allow too much of a safety net. In fact, you could say that the more you see “the system” as a screwed up place, the more motivated you could become to protect your kids from it. Once someone heads down that slippery slope, they also have that human need to think of themselves as a moral person, so rather than live in opposition to one’s ethics and politics, one naturally starts a process of adapting those ethics and politics – moderating, in other words. This is where DLC contributors are made, more often than not. Socially liberal, economically conservative.

Of course the irony is, that if we had a more just system where basic rights (such as health care) were protected, and an appropriate social safety net were maintained, this force of moderating-anxiety might be lessened – that selfsame moderating-anxiety that becomes a force against making improvements. It’s also more complicated a force for hardcore lefties to engage with. Much easier to call someone a “sell-out” than to acknowledge that their motivation might not be so craven and hypocritical.

For the children, despite the children – whatever the case, “the children” do make the world more complicated…

( – promoted by odum)

As most of you know, one of the best things about Vermont is that it’s not exactly an ideal place to live if one is a conservative. And often, as in other places, outspoken conservatives in their slavish devotion to free-market fundamentalism (and in VT, sometimes-but-thankfully-rarely Bible-based social conservatism), they tend to play a bit loose with the facts. Outspoken conservatives up here are so rare that it’s not hard to get attention by opening one’s mouth and letting the drivel fly – there’s not a lot of competition. Hence, the John McLaughry experience.

McLaughry heads the VT-based think tank called the Ethan Allen Institute:

The Ethan Allen Institute is Vermont’s independent, nonpartisan, free-market-oriented public policy think tank. The Institute offers “Ideas for Vermont’s Future” built upon a libertarian, decentralist, community-based philosophy. It is one of some 48 similar but independent state organizations associated with the State Policy Network. 

Mission Statement:

The Mission of the Ethan Allen Institute is to influence public policy in Vermont by helping its people to better understand and put into practice the fundamentals of a free society: individual liberty, private property, competitive free enterprise, limited and frugal government, strong local communities, personal responsibility, and expanded opportunity for human endeavor.

It’s your typical ‘let the markets decide the fate of the human race; it knows what’s best’ organization. McClaughry’s got that William-Buckley-wannabe vibe going on, and is the public face of the E.A. Institute. Come to think of it, he’s pretty much the only face I ever seem to see from the institute.  The board of directors includes such heavyweights(snicker) as Jack McMullen, the guy who ran against Senator Leahy a few years back and lost the primary to farmer Fred Tuttle.

McLaughry himself has a rather impressive resume, having worked in the Reagan administration, served on four presidential commissions, held office in the Vermont House and Senate, as well as has an unsuccessful run for governor under his belt. You can hear his commentaries on Vermont’s contirbution to the right-wing noise machine, True North Radio. And to his credit, McLaughry hasn’t ever framed his positions from the theocratic angle (he is an intellectual, after all).  So, all in all, he’s a pretty smart guy, and I say that sincerely. So you could imagine the cognitive dissonance I was having after reading his op-ed piece on global warming in the Times Argus a few weeks back entitled ‘Warming Hysteria is Out of Whack’ (subscription or payment required to view), that stated:

Virtually unnoticed by the news media, over 17,000 scientists and engineers – nearly 2,000 of them with degrees in meteorology and climatology – signed the 1997 Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine Kyoto Petition. Its punch line read: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.

“The post-1979 lower troposphere satellite microwave data corroborated by radiosonde balloons shows no alarming global warming trend.

See, there’s a problem here, folks. McLaughry, in his fetish-like obsession with free-market fundamentalism, knows that Americans, and particularly right-wingers, are kind of lazy with checking the facts. Many see something that confirms their preconceptions, see it coming from some blowhard the represents an ‘institute’ (giving it an air of credibility), and then accept the premises, case closed. Too bad he’s wrong, not to mention that quoting 30 year old studies on a modern, quickly-evolving problem is pretty friggin’ lazy. Might as well use the Bible for a reference.

In this last Sunday’s Times Argus, Dr. Alan K. Betts, a real scientist (unlike McLaughry, the political scientist) who is the president of Vermont Academy of Science and Engineering in Pittsford, contributed an article that completely demolished McLaughry’s wishful thinking piece. Here are the major points:

1. McClaughry quotes “evidence” that the lower tropospheric satellite microwave data do not show an “alarming global warming trend.” This is a dishonest fudge of the real scientific evidence. The data in question from Spencer and Christie (Science, 1990, and other papers that followed) were for many years inconsistent with the surface warming record, and this was widely repeated as “evidence” that warming was not occurring. A U.S. Climate Change Science Program panel was specifically set up and funded by the (skeptical) U.S. government to resolve the issue. They found the errors in the Spencer and Christie analyses, and now the data agree; and all show the warming that has occurred in the last 30 years (during which we have had satellite as well as surface data). Read their 2006 report at http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/sap1-1-final-execsum.pdf. Sadly, this definitive report is deliberately ignored by McClaughry, because of course the scientific evidence inconveniently disagrees with his political agenda. The repetition of false information is a well-known tool of propaganda, not science.

2. The argument that only a few percent of the greenhouse gases are from our industrial society is totally misleading. Water vapor is the biggest contributor to the greenhouse effect. Together all of the greenhouse gases warm the Earth to an average of 60 degrees Fahrenheit, which means the oceans don’t freeze Fahrenheit, making life as we know it on this planet possible. It is what we are doing to this balance that matters. Although carbon dioxide contributes a smaller amount than water vapor to the greenhouse warming, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is rising very rapidly (about 100 parts per million over the last century; and now rising at about 2 parts per million per year) driven by fossil fuel burning. The growth of other industrial gases in the atmosphere is also contributing to the greenhouse effect. The presence of water vapor, coupled with the earth’s temperature, amplifies the effects of these additional greenhouse gases. McClaughry is implying that a few more degrees of warming isn’t much to worry about (because he does not want carbon dioxide emissions to be regulated).

3. McClaughry points out that in 1997 thousands of scientists signed an anti-Kyoto petition (starting “We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto”) as part of a successful campaign by business-funded interests to stop the United States from agreeing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. Ten years have passed and it is now clear that we need reductions in greenhouse gases far greater than those of the Kyoto agreement, if we are to avoid huge economic costs, as recently outlined in the Stern Review by the British government.

Ouch. Perhaps McLaughry really believes those words of his anointed savior, Ronald Reagan: ‘Facts are stupid things.’ But it doesn’t even take a scientist to see how McLaughry is piling on the bull, it just takes a little fact-checking, as evidenced by these letters to the editor in response to McLaughry’s diatribe. R.D. Eno from Cabot:

Snarling and foaming, McClaughry as much as calls any climatologist who contends that manmade emissions are tilting the climate toward rapid and unnatural warming a liar. But the only evidence McClaughry cites in his surly little scree is a “petition” circulated in 1998 by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicin that disputes the evidence for global warming, signed, says McClaughry, by 17,000 scientists, of whom 2,000 were meteriologists or climatologists. This “petition” is a hoary old hoax.

OISM is a one-man operation, much like the Ethan Allen Institute, run by Arthur Robinson, a biochemist with a sideline in books about how to survive a nuclear war.The study that the “petition” supposedly supports was written by Robinson, his son and a couple of astrophysicists, none of them climatologists. (One of the authors, Sallie L. Baliunas, is affiliated with nine ExxonMobil-funded groups, according to New Scientist.)Robinson formatted the study to mimic a National Academy of Science article and then flooded university mailboxes with copies and a card to be signed as an endorsement. But the study was never peer reviewed and has been discredited by the academy. The number of legitimate endorsements of Robinson’s “petition” cannot be determined because credentials were not listed, but Scientific American, randomly sampling the signatories, estimated that “petition” supporters included only about 200 climate researchers. The OISM paper and “petition” represent flat-earth science at its worst. Trying to pass off this baloney as filet mignon might be called, to paraphrase McClaughry’s bluster, ethically repellent dishonesty, but that would dignify it.

Ya’ know, it takes more than the word ‘institute’ to have some credibility, John. How is anyone supposed to take you seriously when your cherry-picked sources are about as reliable as Dick Cheney’s were for Iraq? If McLaughry’s sloppily researched op-eds are the best the conservatives of Vermont have to offer, it’s no wonder they’re an endangered species in Vermont. But I’m not complaining.

crossposted at five before chaos and DailyKos.

My recent (as of last summer) ally in the Progressive camp here in Franklin County, Anaiis Salles, has posted her terrific idea over on The ProgBlog: Call in sick of war on Town Meeting Day, March 7.

She calls it “Sick with the Iraq Flu” (“Iraq: Free, Liberated, and United in deciding on its own destiny”). You’ll find the sickout idea about three-quarters of the way down after the jump on her entry.

The idea has beauty in simplicity: many of us take the day off to go to Town Meeting anyway. Why not use a half hour or so of that day to email or phone our Congressional delegation to support the actions they’ve taken (Leahy and Welch), or to give them a shove toward what they were elected for (Bernie, whose name we haven’t seen on significant anti-Iraq-escalation legislation, although he’s verbally rattled his budgetary sword).

Why not use another half hour or less to contact your state legislators in both Vermont House and Vermont Senate and their leadership: Gaye Symington and Peter Shumlin.

Anaiis gets another part just right:

Town Meeting Day is the perfect day to call or e-mail Nancy Pelosi and tell her impeachment isn’t off the table. Ms. Pelosi doesn’t decide that, the electorate does.

And she provides for consequences for inaction:

Having a “voice” and having power so you are heard and responded to are not the same. We’ve vented, we’ve whined, we’ve discussed the Iraq war issue and have reached a political impasse that’s heading toward an Iranian cliff. It’s time to use the power we, the electorate, have to move this country in a new direction while 60% of our nation’s profit still comes from our going to our jobs every day.

No real change in direction backed up by action rather than words? No work. No peace? No work. No sane federal energy policy? NO WORK.

Anaiis ran Bernie’s campaign in Franklin County and worked hard to be an ally of the Democratic Party there, after a shaky start where Bernie’s campaign began early sucking all the air out of the volunteer pool. She turned that potential for antagonism around. Word on the grapevine is that we were the only county where the Democrats and the Progressives played so nicely together in the sandbox.

She’s got a great idea. Let’s spread it around.

NanuqFC
 

From Peter Welch’s office:

“What is clear is the financial impact of the President’s failed policy in Iraq.  The President requests an additional $245 billion in funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the fiscal year 2007 and 2008 budgets and projects $50 billion more to be spent in fiscal year 2009. 

“Pressing needs are going unmet because of a failed Iraq policy.  There will be no more blank checks for the war. 

“To that end, I am working closely with my colleagues on tough legislation that demands an end to this war:

I am an original cosponsor of H.R. 508, sponsored by Representatives Lynn Woolsey and (original co-sponsor of) H.R. 746, sponsored by Rep. James McGovern, both call for the redeployment of all U.S. forces from Iraq within a six month period and the turnover of all U.S. bases to the Iraqis. 

I have co-sponsored a resolution with Rep. John Murtha, H.J.Res. 18, calling for an immediate redeployment of our troops. 
Finally, I have co-sponsored H.R. 353, legislation introduced by Rep. Markey to prohibit the President from spending funds to escalate the troop presence in Iraq without specific Congressional approval.”

And these bills do disallow continued use of funds to support Iraq deployments after the redeploy dates laid out in the bills.

In related news, Chris Stewart’s head was reported to have exploded.

(NOTE: Above links and text adjusted to indicate corrected version)

What’s the most interesting (maybe) development in Campaign08? It might be the development of an Internet-based political party founded by three former inside-the-beltway activists taking a last run at running a campaign they can be proud of. They call themselves “Unity08,” and they identify as a third, “centrist” party, aiming to recapture the middle and give the increasingly extreme-base-oriented major parties a one-time kick in the pants toward governing the country for the greater good of all, rather than just major payoffs and other perks for their allies.

They’ve been in the blogosphere since their launch last month and in newspapers and magazines, most notably
The Atlantic Monthly‘s January-February issue , in an article by Joshua Green, a senior editor of The Atlantic. They plan to have their primary online: no smoke-filled back rooms, no picking off candidates after Iowa and NH because of money – or lack thereof.

“They” are Doug Bailey, a former operative for the late Gerald Ford; Jerry Rafshoon, who worked on electing Jimmy Carter, the Peanut President (and nuclear Navy veteran) and best ex-president we’ve probably ever had; and Hamilton Jordan, the other half of Carter’s 1976 election brain trust.

More after the jump.

Here’s the scenario:

To guarantee that it would [represent the center] , they decided that the ticket itself would be bipartisan: one Democrat and one Republican. And if independents with bipartisan tendencies were interested, they’d be welcome, too.

It would take advantage of the “new” transformative or disruptive (depending on your perspective) campaign medium of the Internet by operating primarily online.

That way everyone could join the party online and participate as a delegate, helping to build the party’s platform collectively rather than ceding that task to interest groups, as both major parties tend to do. [emphasis added]

Does this sound familiar to anyone (way to go, Odum! Vermont leads again!)?

In addition, they plan to hold an online convention just after the major party conventions, banking on two facts: the majority of voters will be dissatisfied with the party’s brokered choices; and disappointed candidates might consider a third-party run. But here’s the catch:

Once the balloting has winnowed the field to four, each of the remaining candidates will have to choose a running mate from the opposite party: Democrats must choose Republicans they can work with, and vice versa. Independents can choose someone from either party, but in the spirit of unity, they must also name a senior Cabinet officer from the remaining major party-for instance, a Democratic running mate and a Republican secretary of state.

Unity08 hopes to be qualified on ballots in 25 states by June this year. Another couple of points of interest:

Any registered voter can be a delegate, and can join without having to give up a prior political affiliation. At the same time, the new party’s leaders will begin the process of qualifying Unity08 on all fifty ballots for the 2008 presidential election.

And:

… an important intention of the new party will be to wrest control of the agenda from the candidates and turn it over to the delegates, who will collectively hash out an “American Agenda”-a party platform that Bailey says will be a list not of answers but of questions. … the media will seize on these same questions and put them to all candidates-thereby injecting the American Agenda into the national debate.

Will it work? Who knows? But it’s an interesting proposition.

There’s one choker about the Atlantic’s article, though, and it comes midway through the next-to-last paragraph:

Centrists in both parties, from Joe Lieberman to Chuck Hagel, are known to harbor presidential ambitions that have little chance of being fulfilled along current paths.

Lieberman a “centrist?!” As Jumpin Joe himself might say, “Oy vey!”

NanuqFC

Rep. Peter Welch: It’s easy to see the minefield Welch is in, simply by looking at the latest Danziger cartoon in yesterday’s Times Argus/Rutland Herald (check the “Rainville ’08” alongside the signature). Welch made the Iraq War the centerpiece of his campaign. After his campaign at Democratic gatherings, he forcefully and passionately continued the theme. Now that proposals for ending the war are coming almost daily, the term “non-binding resolution” has already become farcical, not simply among the activist left, but within the US Congress itself. Welch currently looks like he’s standing still, signing onto non-binding bills that seemed like yesterday’s news before the ink was dry. While his ideas on Global Warming are important, it is clear that – due to his own campaign strategy – his stance on the War will be the issue that defines his first term, both among his supporters and his Republican opponents. It may seem unfair to Team Welch that things are moving so quickly, but them’s the breaks – and again, Welch brought them on himself. Add to that the fact that Senator Leahy – someone with far more authority to speak on what is and isn’t proper and possible in Washington – is now on the leading edge of the issue through the Feingold-Boxer-Leahy bill, I suspect Welch has until the end of the month to join him on that edge and match his own campaign rhetoric. Any longer than that and – even if he does come around to the Leahy position – he will be tagged as having done it grudgingly and only under public duress (in other words, the “phony” label) Done.

The Governor: Letting himself pop at reporters last week was a big mistake. As I’ve argued, I don’t think it wasn’t truly uncharacteristic in quality (he’s always gotten nasty), but unexpected in quantity (insofar as he doesn’t lose it to such a degree). The dude needs to watch himself. This is not the same Vermont press corps anymore. The rapid turnovers are changing the nature of reporting and whatever institutional buddiness exists between the fourth estate and the administration. Gone are Chris Graff and Darren Allen, for example – and the Governor is likely to find himself held to far higher scrutiny before the likes of Porter and Hallenbeck.

His tirade of last week was akin to a bucket of cold water splashed onto the whole crowd – even those that are the relative veterans at this point, such as Ross Sneyd. Continuing into the session, and then on into the electoral cycle, he may find himself less able to take the positive press and spin he is so used to for granted anymore.

Vermont’s Legislative Democrats: There’s a disturbing narrative squeezing out around the edges of the burgeoning property tax debate. It smells ever so sightly like Dems, already seeming frustrated about the topic (due to the fact that they’ve all but left it to the Republicans ever since “Revolt & Repeal” started many months back) are starting to suggest that it isn’t a significant issue (I’m thinking of a recent newspaper report that highlighted Sen. MacDonald of Orange County’s presenting of a comparitive list of household expense increases in recent years, showing the property tax has increased far more slowly that other items such as gas prices…. but I cant find a link anywhere…any ideas?). Certainly I’m sympathetic to the feeling that the character and extent of the problem is getting politically defined – but again, that’s because when Vermont Dems don’t have a clean answer to a policy problem, they often cover their eyes in the hopes it will go away until forced to address it. Taking control of the rhetoric after ceding it will take a sustained, coordinated message strategy, starting as they are in the hole.

Unfortunately, there are signs that many don’t want to wait that long. We’re starting to hear a “What Crisis?” rhetoric from legislators, that is coming from Paul Cillo’s Public Assets Institute. Cillo correctly notes that education taxation, as a percentage of income in Vermont, has actaully been dropping. This is technically true, although the way we pay our taxes (getting a big income-sensitive check from the state) doesn’t make it feel that way.

But the fact is that there is an affordability issue in the nation (the rhetoric of which, the Dems have also ceded to the Republicans). The recent yearly increases in local school budgets don’t reflect a gradual, incremental creep that may go unnoticed, but rather a high-profile, annual bitter pill that intentionally draw intensive public scrutiny. The public doesn’t feel much power over gas prices, but they certainly expect to have power over school boards – and when they exert that power, they bring all the frustrations of their dwindling solvency with them. This is the nature of the beast, and Democrats and Republicans alike will always have to deal with it thoughtfully and proactively.

Against that backdrop, it would be hard to imagine a more disastrous, inappropriate and uncompassionate response to this debate (and aren’t the Dems supposed to be the compassionate ones?) than essentially saying “shut up and stop your whining, property taxes are no big deal, what’s your problem?”

It also makes those saying it seem hopelessly out of touch. When thousands of Vermonters are saying there’s a problem (especially those in my own tax bracket – and yes, I’ll attest there is a problem), and you think that telling them “no, you’re just not smart enough to see there’s no problem at all” is going to win friends and influence people, you might want to ask yourself if electoral politics is really your gig. This is a very dangerous minefield for Democrats right now, and Leadership would be well advised to pay very close attention to how their caucuses are responding to the very real frustration in play.

This could be the biggest lurking landmine of all, and the Republicans know all too well how to press Democrats’ buttons in these sort of arguments that they want so desperately to avoid. Navigating it will take time, and a process of public education combined with public empowerment that is methodical, and cautiously avoids ever sounding like a lecture.

This is why, in the end, Douglas will not adhere to the agreement that the Legislature and Douglas avoid criticizing each others’ ideas on the matter – because the fact is, it’s the Democrats who are most at risk. He’ll just wait until the worst possible moment…

Some of the older lefties who read this may also have their musical roots in the big folk music scare of the 1960’s. If you’re like me, you were probably sad to hear about the death of Rick von Schmidt.

I’ve never been a prosecutor, and it’s a job I wouldn’t want to do, but I’ve been interested over the years in what prosecutors do when faced with political protests. More than twenty years ago activists took over Senator Stafford’s office in Winooski for a weekend to protest U.S. policy in Central America. When they were finally arrested they were charged with unlawful trespass. The case dragged on for over a year, the protesters went to trial before Judge Mahady, and the trial of the Winooski 44 became a show piece for the activists to demonstrate the crimes of the Reagan Administration in Central America.

In other cases where protesters block traffic or cause public inconvenience, police use their arrest powers to clear the area and remove the protesters, then, instead of prosecuting them and giving them an outlet for their beliefs, the chartes are quietly dropped. I think this is really the smartest way for a prosecutor to handle most of these cases.

That’s what’s happening now in Bennington. Rose Marie Jackowski was prosecuted, convicted, and got her conviction reversed in the Supreme Court and remanded to the Bennington District Court. The prosecutor was faced with having to retry a woman who has become a hero to antiwar activists all over the state. In this case, though, there is a new prosecutor who isn’t married to the case, and she made the smart decision to drop the charges.A grandmother whose conviction for standing in the road to protest the war in Iraq was overturned by the Vermont Supreme Court last year won’t be tried again, newly-sworn-in Bennington County State’s Attorney Erica Marthage has decided.

Go, Rose Marie!