UPDATE: After Freyne picked up the plagiarism story (bullet 1 below), a storm has started. The Rainville web site is now down, presumably for damage control concerns, and they’ve fired a staffer over the matter already. Meanwhile, the Dems have already sent out a scathing press release. This one’s got legs, and it all came from the blogs. Stay tuned…

UPDATE 2: The second blogger on bullet point 2 isn’t quite as accurate as the first. A reader pointed out to me that the target of the post linked to was NOT convicted of anything, so I’m reflecting that below

I don’t get as many emails in my role as GMD admin as Freyne and Baruth do on their sites, but I get enough to see that the Vermont netroots may be maturing faster than I expected. Local e-activists have forwarded me the following links in recent days (and linking to other people’s stuff makes the lunchtime home-blogging so much easier):

• From last night:
  

  Doing simple Google searches I was able to find several items which
  Martha Rainville, a Republican running to fill the seat left open by Bernie Sanders’ senate run, quite directly stole from other politicians. I put them together and stuck them up on my rarely used blog…

  …Rainville stole a part of her energy policy from Hillary Clinton.

  She stole part of her press release on access to the federal budget from Jim Cooper, a Democrat from Tennessee.

  She stole part of her health care statement from Rick O’Donnell, a Colorado Republican.

  Here’s the link. She has done a terrific job, (and let me know that she was inspired to start searching from this GMD post about Rainville’s “borrowed” health plan) that deserves broader attention.

• A couple other GMD readers are looking at the Governor’s race. One frequent poster has set up a blogspot blog focusing on Gov. Douglas’s appointees. He states:
  

  Vermont Governor Jim Douglas has staffed high Vermont law enforcement with civil rights violators. Most notable is R.J. Elrick, Chief of the Vermont Police Academy, a convicted civil rights violator.

  Please note: as mentioned atop this diary, this post is apparently inaccurate, as there has been no civil rights conviction – he lost a lawsuit, but there were no criminal charges. Let’s all watch our words, folks…

• And finally, another emailer is re-circulating the rather needlessly smarmy, but interesting Clavelle TV ad which had Douglas, famously standing aside Dick Cheney and saying “Aren’t we lucky to have Geroge W. Bush in the White House?” Here’s the YouTube link
  

Impressive stuff, folks. It’s nice just to be able to pass on links to others’ work.

I am one of those people who does not put bumper stickers on my car. I use my car for my work and think people should not have to discuss politics with me when they hired me for something else.

But I went to hear Scudder Parker speak because I had read about his stand on alternative energy, and wanted to hear what he really knew. Of course I was impressed. We had an actual give-and-take conversation about wind and solar power, a conversation in English  – not politician-ese! and his stump speech was about stuff I knew about – farm prices, health care, jobs, the toll of the war in Iraq on the Vermont Guard – and I agreed with him!

So now I have a Scudder sign in my yard and a Scudder bumper sticker, and I have to drive politely so that I don’t offend anyone and keep them from voting from Scudder Parker!

And I am mentioning Scudder to everyone, and they all tell me they are already planning to vote for him.
So here’s my question: why doesn’t that show up in the polls? Where are all those people who will vote for Douglas? I didn’t think, after 7 years in Vermont, that I knew such a small selection of people…

Political campaigns are, to an extent like stories. Part of the goal is to build narratives, both about your opponent and about yourself as a candidate. The Tarrant campaign for US Senate, which has become the Tarrant campaign to smear Bernie Sanders by any means necessary has come full circle as a narrative. I read the punctuation on the Tarrant story, which could also serve as its epitaph via Freyne. Just two words:

Brian Pearl.

I wouldn’t have thought that Pearl would come up twice in as many weeks on this site, because frankly I’d forgotten all about him – which is the point, really. As Freyne reported:

Richie Rich held a rare presser Saturday morning in front of B.J.’s Gun Shop on Industrial Avenue in Williston. Nice folks inside to chat with. Said Tarrant outside:

“Right now as you know we have in front of us an issue about the wilderness controversy. And I want to state very clearly that I stand behind the sportsmen. I think we have enough wilderness…

…Tarrant had a dozen “sportsmen” stand behind him, including former anti-civil union candidate for governor Brian Pearl. Pearl finished 10th in 2002 with 569 votes statewide.

Unlike the Parker for Governor campaign, which is facing similarly gloomy numbers, the Tarrant story has been told. A glance at the last WCAX poll shows that many more have heard of Tarrant – they’re just not buying. And the image from Tarrant’s desperate grasp for a genuine issue to run against Bernie with is both striking and terminal: this is the candidate of the Tarrant-Pearl wing of the Republican Party, which is barely viable enough to be considered a “wing” at all.

Pearl of course is “known” (and I use that word generously) for his quixotic attempt to defeat Howard Dean for signing the Civil Union law. Pearl is a delusionally self-important (and if you don’t believe me, listen to the Mark Johnson show, as he calls in to monologue constantly), virulently anti-gay arch-conservative who expected backlash against civil unions to catapult him into relevance. It’s no small irony, then, that he and Dean’s former aide Kate O’Connor – now working on the Tarrant campaign – are Vermont’s latest political “strange bedfellows.”

But O’Connor and the handful of “anybody-but-Bernie,” self-identifying “Democrats” who continue to try desperately to prop up Tarrant as a moderate alternative to the firebrand Sanders can deny reality no more. Not only did the Democratic State Committee unanimously endorse Bernie, but the Democratic electorate damn near did too, handing Bernie 95% of their vote, and leaving Tarrant Dems not simply outside the mainstream of their party, but virtually outside the entire party itself. Tarrant has become so poison, that even the GOP itself has distanced itself from their one-time zillionaire superstar. In fact, now that Tarrant has come full circle – from his early courting of the Religious Right Flagship Organization in Vermont, the Center for American Cultural Renewal/Vermont Renewal, right back to the Religious Right’s signature whackjob still in circulation (Pearl), the Tarrantcrats find themselves with one destination:

On the political fringe, right next to Brian Pearl.

Retired Lt. General William Odom is the former head of Reagan’s NSA and as an author and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, is widely viewed as one of America’s leading geopolitical/military analysts. He has risen to popularity in anti-war circles for his no-nonsense criticism of Bush’s military adventures. Here he is, via AfterDowningStreet, from one of the “basement” hearings the Democrats are forced to hold, given that the GOP Congressional leadership in Washington refuses to perform any formal oversight of their emperor:

Odom again spoke about what would happen when/if the United States pulls out. The aftermath is going to be great, he said. It was going to be great the day you went in, but the longer you wait the greater it will be. And, Odom added to noticable effect, this will be the greatest strategic defeat in American history.

Rep. Hinchey asked Odom “How do we get out?” Odom’s reply came without a pause: “Well, the Constitution gives the House the right to impeach.“

Always trust yer Od(o/u)ms.

Burlington’s CCTV channel 17 and Candleblog’s Bill Simmon are looking for volunteers to (hopefully) put together a live blog project for citizen comments on Election Day through laptops available for comments at key polling places in Burlington. Sounds like fun, but they’ll need help to pull it off. I will probably be live-blogging from the Democratic HQ that day, but if any GMD-reading, so-called “blogging experts” want to help support it on site, put it in the comments and I’ll point you to Bill. Maybe if enough folks are interested, itcan expand from just Burlington.

The Vermont Business Coalition PAC is turning into a major embarassment for the Chamber of Commerce and the Vermont GOP for being such a shamelessly transparent and poorly-coordinated front for Republican partisan interests. Nobody’s coming through on their pledges, and major players like UVM and VSAC are pulling out of the Chamber entirely as a result. Meanwhile, a veritable who’s-who of business interests is scrambling to put as much distance between them and this fiasco as possible. This has definitely become a net loss in electoral and political clout for all the Keystone Konservatives who were responsible for putting this comedy of errors together.

Morriseau to Rainville during the last US Congressional debate: “You do have a duty to disobey illegal orders. You don’t send troops to an illegal war, I don’t give a damn if it was George Bush who told you to do so, General Rainville!” Heh.

The renewed Blier Watch blog continues to draw direct lines between the Vermont GOP and the religious right (as personified by the Vermont Renewal group). Rainville and Douglas have knelt before the altar of the theocrats, and BW now draws a direct line between the same group and VT GOP Chair Jim Barnett.

And in the “in case you missed it while we’ve been obsessing on national issues” department:

Rich Tarrant has triggered the “millionaire’s amendment” to the McCain-Feingold/Shays-Meehan campaign finance law by spending such a colossal amount of money on himself. Bernie can now return to major donors and ask for more above and beyond the standard limits. Gotta wonder if there’s going to be a “Tarrant recession” in Vermont after he gets his butt kicked in November and his steady, massive infusion of capital into Vermont’s economy moves back to Florida.

Baruth is starting a weekly column in the Vermont Guardian. He joins Freyne and Resmer in print… even Charity has a TV show. Where’s our traditional media outlet? How can GMD close the media gap? Maybe we’ll get into video games…

Uberblogger Steve Benen of Carpetbagger finally gets some local props via Cathy Resmer. You go Steve. You and Eve should stop by and post on Vermont stuff sometime. We’ll bake ya a cake.

All Wildernerss, all the time. Whodathunk Douglas would’ve gotten enough of a black eye from his attempt to kill the Wilderness Act (and go to war with Vermont’s Washington delegation) that he would’ve felt the need to backpedal? What clearly started as an in-your-face show of power hasn’t quite worked out that way. Check this great op-ed by Bill McKibben, who is getting a lot more deeply involved in local politics these days, which is great news. Kudos to Bernie to kicking butt and saving the day on the bill. Much as the Tarrant crowd will try to make lemonade out of the demonstration of Sanders’ effectiveness, you know Rich can’t be too happy with the Governor this week.

And Jim Jeffords made his final address to the US Senate this week in Washington. What is there to say but “thanks, Jim.” I remember having my little public access camera and scamming my way past the security guards checking press credentials during Jeffords’ Burlington announcement that he was leaving the GOP. I got to set up right next to Candy Crowley of CNN. Ah, heady times…

My thread on Peter Welch and the state of liberalism has prompted some good discussion on here, especially abot the possibility of a good ‘think tank’, and what it would entail. So, I’m gonna take a stab at it.

In the comments of that post, when talking about Brookings, CAP and such, the term ‘center-left’ has come up. Well, the first thing our theoretical think tank would require is an abandonment of the term ‘center’, for several reasons.

First, what is commonly called the ‘center’ of American politics has moved so far to the right that it offers us on the left very little to chew on. ‘Centrism’ still embraces the tired and oft-disproven mantra, for example that our healthcare crisis can be fixed by ‘market-based’ solutions. How long have we been hearing that one now? HMO’s were the solution? Centrism seems to still blindly hold to the notion that the free market offers the best solutions to ‘insert problem here’. Bullshit. The free market cares not if you live or die, if you’re sick, whatever. Now, I’m not an anti-capitalist as many of my buddies are, but I’m not stupid enough to believe that market-based solutions can fix all of our problems. The point I’m getting at here is that ‘centrism’ in its current form works against many of the things we’re striving for , whether it be healthcare, labor issues, enviro issues and so on.

The next problem with today’s ‘centrism’ is the fact that it implies a compromise with the other side. Well, here’s something to remember. The ohter side (meaning the Republican party and their followers circa 2006) has no interest in compromising with us. On anything. That should be quite obvious to us by now, considering that Democrats have to hold hearings and such in small congressional offices and are often threatened for doing so by the Republican leadership. Plus there are too many things that we should not be willing to compromise on. Torture. Invasions of foreign countries that didn’t attack us. Congressional oversight and accountabilty. Reproductive freedom. Do I really need to go on? Further, we need to remember that there are many of those on the extremities of the right that would completely destroy us if they had a way to get away with it. If you can stomach it, listen to right-wing radio or go to Free Republic or Little Green Footballs. They talk of interment camps, torture, murder, all that great stuff. I’m not kidding and you know it. Now, I know they don’t represent all of the right-wing. Regardless, they are an influential part of it. I don’t want to compromise with them on anything, so we need to stop acting like we’re dealing with rational people here. And often, the rare chances we do get to ‘compromise’ are hardly good at all. Heck, look what the Torture Bill ‘compromise’ looks like; it’s not all that different from the pre-compromise torture bill.

My last little problem with ‘centrism’ is that great change rarely come from the center. The Repubs aren’t getting all of the things they want because they’re coming from the center. The ‘Contract with America’ didn’t come from the center. Neither did the New Deal, the Great Society or the Voting Rights Act. So we need to stop thinking that coming from the ‘mushy middle’ is somehow going to inspire the masses to rise up from their American Idol-induced stupor to support us. If we’re not going to stand proudly in the face of criticism for what we stand for, we might as well just sit down. Heck, lay down.

So that’s the first part of what an effective lefty think tank needs. More to come.

You can read more of JD Ryan’s stuff at http://www.fivebefor…

How many times since 2001 have we heard people ask, “Why do they hate us?” or “Why do they hate America?”

I submit that this is the wrong question. Look at all we’ve done in the world since that day. It strikes me that the relevant question is why do they not hate us more than they do? And I don’t just mean Islamic countries, I mean the whole world. When the NIE came out that proved that the war in Iraq made Islamic terrorism more dangerous, that’s not something that just happened to America. It’s made terrorism more dangerous for the whole world. Luckily we haven’t been hit again on our soil since 2001, but what about England and Spain, and other places we haven’t even heard of? Oh yeah, and Iraq?

But they still want to talk to us, because, no matter what Bush and his accomplices do, there are still people around the world who truly believe in American ideals.

Mary Hooper, Montpelier’s mayor, is traveling to Montpellier, France, to participate in a ceremony where the mayor of Montpellier will sign a mayors’ declaration against nuclear weapons, a statement Hooper has already signed.

“Obviously we can’t wait for the federal government to be talking about this,” Hooper says of the mayors’ anti-nuke campaign. “People need to be talking about it locally. If people in leadership positions — perhaps at every level, but certainly on the local level — say this is important, and we need to be paying attention to this issue, then maybe we can make a change.”

Mary’s paying for her own trip, so come out Saturday night to support the effort:

“Montpelier to Montpellier: A Musical Sendoff,” Christ Church Episcopal, Montpelier, September 30, 7 p.m. Info, 229-2340.

The US Senate says torture (including rape?) is in, habeas corpus is out if the Bush Administration decides you are an “enemy combatant.” I’m beyond expecting than any of the cheerleaders of this dark age, bloodthirsty crowd would be concerned about the “inalienable rights” our founding fathers spoke of, but given the administration’s track record of holding and torturing people who have nothing to do with terrorism, you’d think they’d at least be concerned about some of their own constituents.

But oh – I forgot – they never make those kind of mistakes with non-brown people, so who cares?

Embracing torture and scrapping habeus represents the most significant victory of the “hate America” crowd. These are people for whom our Constitution is anathema. They cloak themselves in nationalistic rhetoric and furor, but it’s a different nation they are proud of. The one they are trying to create.

Don’t believe me? Our nation’s organizational document is the Constitution. It defines what America is and how it’s run. It’s a document they despise so much, they never miss an opportunity to try and change it to their own liking. Consider:

• Their proposed flag-burning amendment
• Anti-choice amendment
• Forced school prayer amendment
• Anti-gay amendment
• A right-to-vengeance amendment

I mean, they hate this document.

And when they don’t want to rewrite it, they just ignore it. From gleefully stomping all over congressional oversight responsibilities and promoting singular, monarchical powers vested in a god-king, to threats to the independent judiciary from the leaders of the GOP.

The effort to destroy America and build something different took a big step forward today. Strategically, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid blew it, reportedly agreeing to withhold a filibuster attempt (despite Senators such as Feingold indicating they’d support one)in exchange for freedom to offer amendments on the floor (none of which succeeded). It is a failure in judgement of potentially apocolyptic proportions for this country.

But we should remember not just the fanatics who gleefully pushed this atrocity through, but their enablers as well. If the Ds retake the Senate with their help, it will indeed be a bittersweet victory (but yes…sigh…still a victory for sure).

“This bill is everything we don’t believe in,” -Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.

“This is basically the legalization of the Jose Padilla treatment” – Glenn Greenwald

UPDATE I: Here’s the Dem hall of Shame:

Tom Carper (Del.)
Tim Johnson (S.D.)
Mary Landrieu (La.)
Frank Lautenberg (N.J.)
Bob Menendez (N.J)
Bill Nelson (Fla.)
Ben Nelson (Neb.)
Pryor (Ark.)
Jay Rockefeller (W. Va.)
Ken Salazar (Co.)
Debbie Stabenow (Mich.)

…and the whatever-the-hell-he-is Hall of Shame:

Joe Lieberman (Conn.)

The usual crowd that lets us down, although I was surprised to see Rockefeller on that list and shocked to see Lautenberg. Menendez is in a tight race (the GOP’s best potential pick-up) and now deserves to lose.

The other 32 Dems, joined by Chafee (R-RI) and Jeffords voted in favor of morality and the Constitution.

UPDATE II: Check Freyne for a great piece describing Leahy’s lone-voice-in-the-wilderness, quixotic (but noble and appreciated) attempt to stop this travesty.

Guess we have to hope for another SCOTUS ruling. Hardly a safe bet.

The Torture Bill passed the House today, in the shiny wrapping paper of an immigrant-hate bill, literally adding insult to injury.  Tomorrow it will likely be voted on in the Senate. Friday it will probably become law.

Other administrations protected our basic constitutional rights in the face of whole nations, armed to the teeth with massive numbers of extraordinary weapons that threatened to wipe us all out in a few hours. Other administrations faced dangers so grave that the entire world literally hung the balance, and they did so with the Geneva Conventions intact. Other administrations faced  unprecedented dangers without fearing every person’s right to a day in court, to face their accuser and see the evidence against them – a guarantee that has been in place for nearly 800 years.

But this cowardly crew is so frightened by a rag-tag band of thugs they’re cutting and running from the very basis of democratic society.

Retreating from democracy is the realm of cowards.

Any legislator, in any party, who votes for this bill, no matter what other bill it may have been cloaked in for the day, is not worthy of the trust bestowed by the voters and should be run out of office.

Washington DC Subway Ad, 2003

( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

Some readers may be old enough to remember John Dean as the White House counsel who blew the whistle on Nixon’s Watergate crimes; younger readers may be only vaguely aware of him.

If you don’t know of him, you should. John Dean came out of Watergate a changed man, and in recent years has written critically of the current trend of doctrinaire extremism that has taken over the Republican Party. He has also written widely in defense of civil liberties.

This Friday John Dean will be speaking at a fundraiser for the Vermont chapter of the ACLU. One thing we’ve learned during the Bush Administration is that we need the ACLU more than ever, and this is a chance to hear John Dean speak and to support the organization.

John Dean, White House legal counsel to President Nixon during the unfolding of the Watergate scandal, will speak at an ACLU-Vermont fundraiser Friday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in South Burlington.

As much as any single individual during the Watergate era, Dean was responsible for identifying the abuse of power undertaken by the Nixon administration as it sought to solidify power and silence critics. Since that time, Dean has been an incisive analyst of the American political scene.

The topic of Dean’s Vermont address is “Spying, Secrecy, and Presidential Power.” Tickets are $20, and may be obtained through the ACLU (802-223-6304, or info@acluvt.org), at Bear Pond Books of Montpelier, at the Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury, and at the Peace and Justice Center in Burlington. A reception will follow; tickets for that event (which includes admission to the talk) are $60.

You can also find out more at their web page.