Two links to check out this weekend. First, former State Representative and current Democratic candidate for State Senate in Washington County Donny Osman takes his campaign to You Tube. Check it out:

Second, Shay Totten at the Vermont Guardian fleshes out his web-only report on the Rainville Plagiarism story into a full-blown, front page print piece in the current issue. If you’re either a political blogger or a regular reader/participant, it’s a must read. As far as GMD connections go, along with myself, Neil Jensen (Vermonter) is quoted heavily, and both he and Jack McCullough have their blogs referenced.

My favorite quote comes from She’s Right’s Charity Tensel:

“There are a growing number of conservative blogs, but there does not seem to be that ‘netroots’ formation like you see on the Democratic-progressive side with collaborative sites like Green Mountain Daily. I don’t see anything similar on the horizon for the Vermont right. I would love to take on something like that if I had the time,” said Tensel.

High praise indeed. This is the reason so many of us on the left-leaning poli-blogosphere like Charity so much. She can actually discuss things without having to fall back on nastiness (even though this site probably bugs the crap out of her). Imagine some of the usual right-wing suspects who comment on the other blogs allowing something positive about this site to pass their lips (ha)?

We need Charity to ground us all in the reality that just because someone disagrees with us, doesn’t necessarily make them disagreeable as people (even though it might be simpler to make sweeping negative generalizations about right wingers rather than actually engage with people).

This is not to say that people who say truly abhorrent things shouldn’t be called out on them – which is a set up for my next diary…

The Bushies hurl abuse such as cut and run re Iraq when the invasion itself was cutting and running away from the war against fundamentalist Islam and Al Qaeda.  I refuse to call it the war on terrorism.  That would be like calling WWII the war against the blitz.  Terror is a tactic not an enemy.

The relationship between fundamentalist Islam and Saudi Arabia needs to be examined.  In the old days of the British Empire, the term used to describe what we would call fundamentalist Islam was Wahabiism.  The Wahabi movement is the established  religion of Saudi Arabia. 

Fifteen of the 9/11 murderers were from Saudi as is Bin Laden (from the ruling class in fact).

Of course, Bush and his dad are in bed with the Saudis big time.

Remember that just after 9/11 the Bin Laden family members as well as other Saudis were allowed to fly out of the US when Americans were all grounded.

In that light, remember that HItler’s nephew lived in this country and was publicly known to during WW II and Stalin’s daughter lived in the US during the Cold War.

(Promoted, with adjustments around to fit around the fold… – promoted by odum)

The country is on the edge of falling into soft then into hard dictatorship.  Bush and the Republicans are a clear and present danger to democracy and constitutional government. 

Anyone who thinks that our (Vermont’s) Republicans are somehow different is either lying or delusional.  The day Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party was the day the line was drawn.  In fact, events since then have only shown how prescient Jeff was.

I am running as a democrat for a State Representative (Dorset, Danby, Mt. Tabor, Peru, Landgrove).  If elected I will introduce a resolution ending Vermont’s involvement in the phony Iraq war.  Phone in that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.  It is as bizarre as if Churchill had invaded Turkey in response to the Blitz or FDR had invaded Spain in response to Pearl Harbor.

Speaking of Pearl Harbor, Vermont actually declared war on Germany three months before Pearl Harbor.  So there is a real precedent for Vermont have its own foreign policy.  As well, Vermont is the only state where the legislature elects the head of the National Guard.  So the legislature (civilian control of the military) can order the A-G to withdraw all Vermonters from Iraq.

  I am also a strong supporter of a single payer system of universal health care.  The Canadian system was created by the great Tommy Douglas when he was Premier of a small agricultural province.  Vermont can once again, as it is often done, lead the nation.

I agree that the funding of education is broken.  Of course, Republicans just taxes.  The problem with the property tax is that, for many, it is a tax not on real resources but a tax on paper profits (the increased value of their homes).  It is not based on ability to pay.  That’s why we should fund education with the income tax.

Broadband access is the electrification issue of our time and it should be available everywhere in the state.  It is crucial for sustainable economic development.  We can keep young people in the state if good jobs are available wherever they live. 

Public support of transportation is needed in Vermont both in terms of bus service and rail.

I don’t have a final opinion on nuclear power, but I do know that Entergy (never trust a company with a made-up name) is a sleazy, dishonest corporation up from the southland of Enron and Worldcom. 

I’ve said enough. 

[WHACK-A-MOLE UPDATE 10-6]: I’m glad Julie has made this her mission. The below example from yesterday was quickly fixed, but sure enough she found another one. Clearly there was no comprehensive review done, they’re just counting on using Reason and Brimstone to find any and all lifted passages, I suppose. They should pay her a fee for the service. Here’s the latest from R&B:

From http://www.martharai…

We need maximum transparency for government. There should be no secrets unless it involves critical aspects of National Security. Every earmark, every grant, every contract should be online so the public can get access to it

If it sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the exact same passage, unchanged, that I found on Sunday night that was stolen from the PBS show NOW.

How to get in front of it this time, I wonder? They can’t fire the same staffer again… -odum]

It’s hard to believe, but the “new improved” Rainville website still has some of the plagiarized material. This is the latest from Julie Waters’ blog:

Okay, so Martha’s site is now back up again, and she’s fixed all the stolen language problems, right?

Not so much as you might think:

http://www.martharai…
I also support making health insurance portable. Too often when people switch jobs their health insurance isn’t portable, forcing them to change doctors and coverage or lose it entirely.

http://www.rickodonn…
People switch jobs but their health insurance isn’t portable, forcing them to change doctors and coverage or lose it entirely.

As with before, I kept a copy of the site

Isolated incident, eh? -chuckle- Too funny…

( – promoted by odum)

(This was published as this week’s editorial in the Vermont Journal)

We got a press release from the Governor that began, “Governor Jim Douglas
today announced that state employees could once again have a one-month
health insurance “premium holiday,” meaning participants would not be
required to pay their health insurance premium for the month of December.
‘This premium holiday means state employees and retirees will have a
little extra cash during the holiday season,’ said the Governor.  ‘This is
made possible by the fact that as we near the end of the calendar year we
have a surplus in our health insurance fund; it is only appropriate that
this surplus be reduced by providing this break for our participants.’”
Isn’t that nice?
We asked around and found that most Vermonters are not state employees.
Some of them have a permanent holiday from health insurance premiums
because they can’t afford health insurance in the first place.
They don’t have a lot of “extra cash during the holiday season.” They are
just one paycheck away from hungry, one small medical disaster away from
homelessness.

Some of them pay their own health insurance premiums. They are lucky if
they are in a group plan that keeps their family insurance premiums
affordable – assuming affordable means more than the monthly mortgage
payment. A premium holiday for them would mean a chance to catch up on
some of their other bills.
Some of them have minimal insurance that will only cover them in a
catastrophic health situation. The rest of their health care comes out of
the money for heating fuel.
Some of them are small business owners who would love to find some way to
provide health insurance for their employees. They are concerned that they
will lose a valuable employee to a business that offers insurance, or
worse, to catastrophic illness or accident.
Governor Douglas credited the state’s commitment to health and wellness
for a portion of the surplus.
“In 2006, more than 3,000 state employees had health risk, blood
cholesterol and blood sugar screenings performed by nurses visiting their
worksites around the state.  The 2006 annual walking program saw more than
1,700 state employees rack up over 500,000 miles in eight weeks,” he
added.
There are lots of Vermonters who would benefit from these services. They
didn’t get them, can’t afford them and neither can their employers.
For most Vermonters, the Governor paid lip service.
“Focusing on living an active, healthy lifestyle are commonsense and very
effective steps everyone can take to lower their health care costs,”
Douglas said.
It gives the saying, “Thanks, Jim” a whole new meaning.
Governor Douglas is one of our state employees who got the free screenings
and the second annual premium holiday. He earned it by standing in the way
of the Legislature as they tried to find a way to bring coverage to every
Vermonter.
The result is the Catamount Health Plan, which takes small steps in
addressing the health care crisis in Vermont. It is a brokered approach
that may very well fail because it is not a comprehensive plan.
The Governor also announced that the administration will propose only a 5
percent premium increase for state employees’ health plans for calendar
year 2007, less than increases seen in other health plans both in Vermont
and nationally.
“I must say thank you to the state employees who have cooperated with us
in adapting to the changes that helped keep our premium increases so low,”
said the Governor.  “We believe that time will show that our health care
initiatives are paying off and contributing to these low rate increases.”
The rest of us should be so lucky. Most health care plans rose at
double-digit rates the last two years, meaning that those who participated
in the Governor’s much-vaunted “private-sector” plans took the hit while
the state-administered plan came out smelling like a rose.
Linda McIntire, Commissioner of Human Resource,s drove the point home in
the Governor’s jubilant press release.
“It is good news because it will be a fourth straight year of single-digit
rate increases for this health plan, at a time when other health plans,
both in Vermont and nationally, are seeing much higher rate increases,:”
she said. “Beyond the dollar figure, this small increase provides proof
that when we work together to seek sensible solutions for the challenge of
providing affordable health care, we can continue to provide quality care,
preserve choice for plan participants, and yet keep it affordable.”
We should all be so lucky.
Listen to your own Commissioner, Governor, and spread some of that Holiday
health care cheer around. Let us all pay premiums 11 out of 12 months a
year with increases of less than 10 percent a year for good insurance that
includes proactive care.
Don’t be a Scrooge. Every Vermonter deserves the health benefits you enjoy.

If you don’t know about the scandal surrounding disgraced former Representative Mark Foley (R-FL) and his habit of trying to solicit underage kids for sex on the internet, you’ve been living under a rock. The internal GOP cannibalistic frenzy being played out in the public eye is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and more and more people agree that it’s only a matter of time before House Speaker Dennis Hastert is forced to step down from leadership, probably to be replaced by Rep. Roy Blunt, who seems to be the only leading House Republican not implicated in one way, shape or form in the coverup these days…

But what should the House Democrats be doing? The conventional wisdom – even among the netroots – seems to be (a la DemFromCT at dKos, emphasis added):

My humble opinion is that the R’s in DC are still underestimating its effect on Main Street, and that national Democrats are doing the right thing by letting the GOP continue to do each other in. I don’t underestimate the GOP’s ability to get nasty, but right now, the scandal’s entirely one of their own making, and one beyond their ability to manage.

In my (admittedly outnumbered) opinion, This trick never works.

Each circumstance looks more promising than the last, but what we always underestimate is the media machine that closes behind every attempt the GOP makes to rise above problems or scandal. After Hastert inevitably steps down, the media will give them a free pass and a fresh start less than a month before the polls open.

The Dems should hold a presser first thing Monday (which gives the GOP a few more days to attack each other), rejecting GOP-floated ideas to simply scrap the page program entirely as cutting and running from kids interested in government or as some suggestion that our national leaders consider a group of kids unmanageable (or too much of a temptation? I mean, haven’t they though through the implications, there…?). They should then announce plans for some sort of “Protect children from predators” act which would provide immediate expulsion from Congress for any lawmaker caught coming on to underage kids (or any lawmaker covering for them), and would provide some comparable laws in the country at large where they might be needed (and maybe the federal laws are adequate in the nation-at-large – I’d be surprised, but if so, let this be a lawmaker-only law that applies to lawmakers at all levels – if it’s broke, we should be the ones to fix it). They should say, if they get to run the zoo in November, it’ll be at the top of the list the very first day.

To those who are saying that the Dem candidates should be handling it in the field, rather than the leadership in Washington, I’d just remind folks that pivotal to the GOP successes in the last decade has been the “attack from all fronts” approach. Dem candidates and politicos are always trying to fine tune their surgical electoral strikes in a reflection of what they consider to be their greater political finesse and sophistication.

It hasn’t worked.

First: Here come the ads. I don’t have much money, and I’m spending too much on this. I asked the other front pagers if they’d object some time ago and they said no, so here we go. Thanks to Steve and Eve at Carpetbagger for helping me get going, and Chris Bowers at MyDD for accepting GMD into the Liberal Bloggers Advertising Network. The changes will trickle in over the next few days.

Second: You may notice that my icebreaker ad is for the central Vermont newsweekly the Vermont Journal which is delivered to homes in Lamoille County, the Waterbury area, the Mad River Valley and Bolton. That’s because I just started a weekly column there this week, and it seemed to be the least I could do in return. It’s pretty great, as the VJ hits a lot of folks who are not the liberal faithful, but instead are in the “swing” category or conservative. I’ve tried to start gently so as not to scare them off…

This week’s column wasn’t posted online, so I can’t link to it, but I’m hoping that will change next week.

Freyne in print today drops a bombshell story that’s been simmering in and around Guard circles (and on the edge of the media) for more than a year now:

The letter arrived in my mailbox last Thursday without a signature or return address. It was addressed to Peter Welch and yours truly…

“I am sending you both letters because I cannot believe how Martha Rainville lies to the people of this state. She talks about integrity and running a clean campaign, when, in fact, she didn’t run the Guard with integrity.

“There is currently an investigation being conducted by the Guard about one of their officers that Martha protected constantly — Martha even broke military rules to protect this officer.” 

“Now, six months after Martha is gone, this officer’s actions are being questioned and for good reason. This officer broke several military rules. The officer was providing homemade pornography to Guard members, Martha heard about it, took the evidence and destroyed it without taking any actions against the officer.”

“Now the Guard is conducting the investigation.

Indeed, our sources indicate an investigation is very much underway, and pornography — locally produced porn movies involving Guard members — is involved. Of particular concern, we’re told, is that the sexual activity crossed the lines of rank. That is a big “no-no” in the military.

Again, this story has been out there for some time, and it has been associated with a very high profile Guard member with direct ties to Rainville, but up until now it’s all been based on anonymous letters, which simply do not merit putting someone’s reputation in jeopardy. If Freyne has indeed confirmed that an actual investigation is underway, the name will likely come out soon enough (sorry folks, I ain’t gonna share).

And just to be clear, while the porn thing may be eye-catching, it’s the UCMJ lawbreaking that’s at issue and any subsequent Rainville coverup. It clearly bothered some Guard members enough to start sending letters. I’m sure all of us will be checking with our Guard sources for more details on this all day (I know I will!).

From the Times Argus:

Statements attributed to Republican House candidate Martha Rainville were lifted word for word from other politicians, including one of the nation’s most prominent Democrats — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton…

…”The individual responsible is no longer a worker for the campaign,” Rainville said…

This is a bellwether moment, folks because (emphasis mine):

The allegations of plagiarism first surfaced Sunday night when a politically active part-time professor and musician from Westminster noticed similarities between Rainville’s words and those of the other politicians. Julie Waters said she does occasional political work — she produces Rep. Bernard Sanders’ Internet broadcasts — but her research was not underwritten by or performed on behalf of any candidate…

…Her research was posted on her Web log, and was then picked up by most of the state’s political bloggers within hours.

The question as to whether or not the political blogosphere in Vermont is having an impact is now definitively answered. This was a 100% blog-driven story, and Julie used the medium exactly the way that brough it to prominence nationally as a force to be reckoned with. Two weeks ago, she read a post at GMD that got her wondering whether or not there was any outright plagiarism on Rainville’s website. Two weeks later and a post on her own blog proved her suspicions were correct. Freyne picked it up and the rest is now history.

It’s important to realize that these things snowball. Expect activists across the state now to start researching and fact checking candidates over the next 5 weeks like nothing we’ve seen before.

The game’s afoot!

Cross posted from Rational Resistance:

It’s like this. Earlier yesterday he was saying that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and called for efforts to bring the Islamic militia and its supporters into the Afghan government.

The Tennessee Republican said he learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield.

That’s right, the guys who made Afghanistan a safe haven for bin Laden and his al Qaeda killers, and created a reign of repressive Islamic terror, they’re going to be our new pals. “Come on back, all is forgiven!”

What a great strategy! This isn’t even declare victory and go home, this is literally hand the country over to the people who helped to attack us, and who we threw out of the government when we invaded.

Well, apparently Dr. Bill started thinking about what he had said, and it occurred to him that it might not play too well back here in America, or where some of us live in the reality-based community, so he’s changed his tune. Between 4:01, when the AP story went live, and 5:45, here’s his new line:

America will Never Negotiate with Terrorists or Support their Entry into Afghanistan’s Government

Written by Bill Frist, M.D.

Notice something? He doesn’t actually claim he didn’t say what he said. It’s a non-denial denial.

So I have a new campaign slogan for him and he can use it free of charge:

“I was against the Taliban before I was for them.”