I saw Russ Feingold in Brattleboro with Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch a few weeks ago.  This was a great event and Senator Feingold was impressive.  Although the attendance in Brattleboro was good for this event, it isnt often that Democrats and Progressives in Vermont get an opportunity in VERMONT to see a Democrat of national stature like Senator Feingold.  When national figures like Feingold visit Vermont, we need to do everything we can to come out, show up, engage, and participate including car pooling, phoning others to turn out, etc.  Lets let the rest of the nation know that Vermont is a hot bed for democracy and we wont allow the country to go down the sewer without a fight!

FINALY FINALLY FINALLY – The Dems are starting to unite around Howard Dean on IRAQ!  Its about time!  Here’s a link to an article in today’s Boston Globe Newspaper:

The following appeared on Boston.com:
Headline: Democrats may unite on plan to pull troops
Date:  February 20, 2006

“WASHINGTON — After months of trying unsuccessfully to develop a
common message on the war in Iraq, Democratic Party leaders are
beginning to coalesce around a broad plan to begin a quick withdrawal
of US troops and install them elsewhere in the region, where they could
respond to emergencies in Iraq and help fight terrorism in other
countries.”
____________________________________________________________

To see this recommendation, click on the link below or cut and paste it
into a Web browser:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/20/democrats_may_unite_on_plan_to_pull_troops?p1=email_to_a_friend

I consider myself a Progressive Democrat and worked on the Howard Dean Presidential Campaign in New Hampshire.  I also worked for Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary, Robert Reich, as a personal aide.  I helped found the Progressive Democrats of Massachusetts and I am finding many Dems in Vermont to be DINOs  – Democrats in Name Only…..they are Republican lite.  This is disconcerting to me, given this is that state that hatched Howard Dean.

This is a companion diary to the Presidential Primary straw poll at the left hand of the front column. The list is only of candidates who are actively “exploring” the race and doesn’t include any “dream” candidates. There is no “other” option, cuz I ran out of slots for poll answers…

Please use the diary to discuss your choice (or the lack of choices, depending on how you may feel about these folks).

Here are exploratory committee links (so far…I’ll keep updating):

Evan Bayh
Joseph Biden
Wesley Clark
Hillary Rodham Clinton
John Edwards
Russ Feingold
John Kerry
Bill Richardson
Tom Vilsack
Mark Warner

It doesn’t take a crystal ball or a dowsing stick to come to the realization that Vermont is not exactly Crawford, Texas, or anywhere in Utah.. You might be surprised at where some of the voices calling for an end to this criminal and reckless Administration come from…..
The insurrection continues below the fold.

No doubt, you’ve heard about the resolution put forth in Newfane:

ARTICLE 29
We the voters of Newfane would like Town Meeting, March 2006, to consider the following resolution:

Whereas George W. Bush has:

1. Misled the nation about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction;

2. Misled the nation about ties between Iraq and Al Quaeda;

3. Used these falsehoods to lead our nation into war unsupported by international law;

4. Not told the truth about American policy with respect to the use of torture; and

5. Has directed the government to engage in domestic spying, in direct contravention of U.S. law.

Therefore, the voters of the town of Newfane ask that our representative to the U.S. House of Representatives file articles of impeachment to remove him from office.

NEWFANE(Brattleboro Reformer)

— Among votes to approve the budget and education spending at Town Meeting, residents will wade into national waters and vote from the floor for the impeachment of President George W. Bush.
Selectboard member Dan DeWalt wrote the Town Meeting resolution and gathered enough signatures to get the question on to the ballot.
The vote for impeachment will be taken from the floor.
DeWalt said he was not going to bring any evidence to Newfane’s meeting, claiming that the people of the town know enough about Bush’s presidency to vote on the resolution.
If voters approve the resolution, DeWalt said he is going to ask U.S. Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., to file the articles of impeachment to remove the president from office.
“We have an immoral government operating illegally,” DeWalt said. “I feel morally compelled to act.”

You know what they say, ‘It takes a village”…….

Newfane votes on this resolution at Town Meeting Tuesday, March 7th.

But did you catch this?

Statement by Dennis Morrisseau, Republican candidate for Congress.

They are totalitarians. Obvious totalitarians. That is why they have to come down. The war in Iraq is not the reason. They began the war as a means to power over us. The war is first a way to silence us. Further sham elections will be an aid in that, but we have been suffering sham elections in America for some time now. (More on that later)

“Rove’s Dream”. You can probably Google it. It’s right in the open and yet somehow unseen: The plan to take control of all three branches of government and make that control permanent. “The Architect” Bush calls him. This “Architect”, said to be a gay man, who bashes gays, has designed a strange church.  An Orwellian church adding the power of religious belief and bigotry to government power, all in derogation of our beloved constitution, our beloved short history, real religion, our true values. Hate is love. War is peace. Stealing your lives, your sustenance, your oil, your children, your votes, your money, your minds—all in the name of “Freedom”, in the name of “Democracy”. That’s what we’re going to impeach them for.

These men and Ms. Rice are not Republicans. They are also certainly not conservatives. Nor Americans. I mean that. I hate to say it, because of the history of the phrase: they are un-American—in clear violation of their oath’s of office to “preserve and protect the Constitution”. Read the oaths. Read the Constitution. You can do all that in half an hour. Take the time.

These men and Ms. Rice are not hidden. Right in front of our noses they are condoning torture and a war of conquest. What are the permanent Iraq bases for? In court and in public, this group is claiming that The President’s War Powers trump all other US and international law—that Bush’s “inherent powers” as commander-in-chief to manage the war, mean that he can ignore court orders, written law, the Congress, and can override the Constitution itself, at will. That is why we must impeach them. And, by the way, I am a Republican. Running for Congress now, for ’06, up in Vermont.

  Wow. Even from a Red Teamer in the Green Mountain State, we hear the call to IMPEACH! (Not that we can expect Governor Douglas to jump on that bandwagon – he was Chimpy’s Vermont campaign manager in the 2004 election.)
  Now Morrisseau is one of the two “dark horses” in the race for the GOP nomination to fill the House seat Bernie’s vacating as he steps up to the Senate, but any Republican speaking so is at least worthy of note. (As for the other “dark horse” in that race……..don’t get me started on Mark Shepard. Not just now. We’ll do that another time, if it becomes relevant.)
  To Peter Welch, I would say that the appropriate response to Morrisseau’s stance in this respect is to STEAL THAT ISSUE. Morrisseau is already the most marginal candidate in the House race. Marginalize him further, and steal that issue from him.

  What is not generally known is that impeachment proceedings against the President of the United States can be initiated in the House of Representatives by action taken by a state Legislature.

  Lifted from a diary by arbortender on Daily Kos:

Pages 314-315 of the House Rules for the 109th Congress, incorporating Jefferson’s Manual, which the House uses as a supplement to its standing rules, read as follows:

  Section 603. Inception of impeachment proceedings in the House.
  In the  House there are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion:
  (yakyakyak;)
  by charges transmitted from the legislature of a State (III, 2469)

  And the rumor mill is buzzing with something I can’t talk about just yet, but I can say that something may be about to break open under the dome in Montpelier. I hope that time comes soon.

An unjust composition never fails to contain error and falsehood. Therefore an unjust connection of ideas is not derived from nature, but from the imperfect composition of man. Misconnection of ideas is the same as misjudging, and has no positive existence, being merely a creature of the imagination; but nature and truth are real and uniform; and the rational mind by reasoning, discerns the uniformity, and is thereby enabled to make a just composition of ideas, which will stand the test of truth. But the fantastical illuminations of the credulous and superstitious part of mankind, proceed from weakness, and as far as they take place in the world subvert the religion of REASON, NATURE and TRUTH.

from “Reason: The Only Oracle Of Man”
ETHAN ALLEN

  What would Ethan Allen say about a President who claims that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher, yet pursues an unjust and illegal war at the expense of the people he was elected to serve? A man that declares the wall of separation of church and state to be a bridge? Who leaves poor people to die on rooftops in a city devastated by floods? Who sanctions the use of torture, subversion of our civil liberties, and indefinite detention of at least one American civilian in a military lockup? Who subsidizes corporate interests with huge tax breaks in the face of a staggering deficit that swells at the rate of at least 170 million dollars a day based on the costs of the war in Iraq alone?
  A person who turns a blind, accepting eye to this is complicit in the destruction of the Republic, and should remember that while he points the finger at Cindy Sheehan or Michael Moore (who have more patriotism in their little finger than most Republicans have in their entire body), he points three back at himself.

  IT DOES NOT TAKE COURAGE TO FALL INTO LOCKSTEP. FREEDOM DOES NOT MARCH. DISSENT AND REJECTION OF CORRUPTION AND AN UNAMERICAN ADMINISTRATION REQUIRES COURAGE.

 
  The patriots see this – the unAmerican, traitorous sheep of the Right either do not, or are fine with it because they place their jingoism, their economic and social Darwinism, and their irrational belief in the supernatural ahead of the good of this country and its people. And that is beyond the pale, and beneath contempt. My grandfather built ships to support a war against people like that. He fought them then, and I will fight them now. All enemies, foreign and domestic.
  What would Ethan Allen say of a Robin Hood in reverse – who robs from the poor to give to the rich?
  “The fantastical illuminations of the credulous and superstitious part of mankind” are what Bushco depends on to stay in power. The weakness must end.
  What better place than the home of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys for “the religion of REASON, NATURE and TRUTH” to rise up and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?

“It’s not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is, Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. Hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. This new version is the past and no different past can ever have existed. In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact.”  -George Orwell

“What an impressive crowd: the haves, and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite, I call you my base.” – George W. Bush

“There are your enemies. They are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!”
–Vermont Yankee General Stark, reportedly challenging his men to fight to the death against the British who were coming to seize the colonial storehouseful of horses, food, and munitions.

  Let it begin now, and let it begin here.

  FREEDOM AND UNITY.