( – promoted by Ed Garcia)

“An unjust composition never fails to contain error and falsehood.”-Ethan Allen

Lotta schadenfreude today, and we’ll also examine a reprehensible example of the fascist jackbooted thugs being unleashed by their corrupt political masters to oppress the proletariat, just to make sure we don’t lose focus on the glorious revolution against the yellow running dogs and the lackeys of imperialism.
Catamount’s open. Check your sidearms at the door, and we’ll see ya on the jump.

An interesting in Franklin County: a gop is taking his marbles and going home, per the St. Albans Messenger:

GOP conservative disenchanted, backs Savage’s legislative bid

By LEON THOMPSON | Messenger Staff Writer

SWANTON –– Rep. John Winters, of Swanton, announced this morning he will not seek re-election to the legislature this year, but he has already recruited someone to fill his spot on the fall ballot.

Disenchanted? Gee, what could the problem be?

“I want to try something different,” he said, “like spending one or two months in the winter in a warmer climate with my wife.”

OK, more time with the family…we’ve all heard that before……..

Also, Winters is disenchanted with the Republican Party – and Gov. Jim Douglas.

“The Republicans don’t dare be Republicans in this state,” he said.

Well, I guess that depends on if you accept the definition of “Republican” as representative of “the party of Abraham Lincoln.” Few of us do, I think.

If his definition of “Republican” is the party in its current incarnation, well,hell then, I guess we Democrats are doing SOMETHING right…

When Winters ran in 2000, part of his aim was to oust former Republican legislator John Edwards, of Swanton, because Edwards voted for the historic and controversial civil union law. Winters succeeded.

At the time, Winters called Edwards’ stance on civil unions “lower than whale dung.”

Lower than whale dung. Another example of how Republicans help to elevate the discourse in the legislative halls at every level across our great nation.
How far is it really from whale dung to box turtles or man-on-dog boom-boom?
Just another example of the bizarre Republican obsession with the….uh…baser functions of the animal kingdom.

Well, at least he’s honest about it, which, from personal experience, is more than I can readily say for a certain Republican state senator to the south of him that’s currently in the death throes of a rightfully-doomed campaign for the GOP nomination for the US House.

(And our buddy Phil at VDB saw fit last week to give that nose a tweak once again…….which made me smile, naturally. Be sure to follow the link to the original story and read it, if perchance you haven’t. I’m like herpes. I may go away for a while, but I ALWAYS come back.)

Anyway, as we saw in the lead-in, Winters has already found an anointed one to fill his shoes, Swanton Village trustee Brian Savage, who immediately puts his best foot forward by distancing himself from his benefactor:

“I’m far from being liberal,” he said. “I take a middle of the road approach, but I’m not a strict conservative.”

Sigh. Kids these days. I bet Rep. Winters threw up in his mouth a little when he heard that:

“The moral values of this country are going down the tubes, and they are still more important than anything we’re discussing right now.”

More important than staggering deficits, health care, the occupation of Iraq, violation of Constitutional rights and civil liberties…is the theocon’s faddish obsession with homosexuality, abortion, flagburning, Ten Commandments at the Courthouse, yada yada yada STFU already! Jeezum crow! Can we do some BUSINESS here?

So long, dude. Don’t let the door hitcha where the Good Lord splitcha.
Enjoy Florida. Why don’t you send us back some pictures of Richie Rich’s multimillion dollar mansion once you get there?
Good night and good luck.

OK. I have a confession to make. I have, occasionally, at various points in my radio career, glommed hooks or riffs from songs and used them in commercials for car lots, restaurants, dog grooming salons, and the like. Now that’s really not nice, but for some struggling little business in a small town who dug deep on faith to buy 50 commercials that’ll run for a week in the hopes it’d build their business, I don’t have too many karmic problems with it. If the Chambers Brothers want to come after me for using their song to tell people that the Time Has Come Today to get a nice flea dip for Rover at half the regular price, I guess I’ll just have to take my lumps.

But I’ve never hijacked somebody’s song for political purposes without their permission. That’s a low-rent move, as BushDaddy found out:

A diehard Democrat, (Bobby) McFerrin was horrified to learn that Republican presidential candidate George Bush was using “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” as a campaign song in his 1988 bid for the White House.

But it seems that Richie Rich missed that object lesson. He’s apparently, among other transgressions, gotten on the bad side of the Thin White Duke, the Archies, and even Darth Vader, for God’s sake.

This from vt.Buzz, the BFP’s new political blog:

What was still unclear Friday afternoon was whether Tarrant had the rights to use Bowie’s voice, or those of the Archies, who were singing “Sugar, Sugar” on the ad, or the musical strains of Darth Vader’s entry music from “Star Wars.”

You need written permission to use somebody else’s music for commercial purposes. And unless the publisher of that music is feeling generous, you have to pay. The process of getting a synchronization license for the right to use three songs is fairly cumbersome. You have to find the publishers of the works, fill out a form detailing what you plan to use, where you plan to use and for how long. You submit it and get a price quote from the company.

Take a look at the end of the spot. Just like every other political spot you see or hear, that little “Paid for by” tag is at the end. But did Richie Rich pay everybody he was supposed to pay?

Tarrant spokesman Tim Lennon said he didn’t know if the campaign had gotten permission or paid for use of the songs. He said Thursday he would check with those who made the ad. By Friday afternoon, Lennon was out of town, but campaign aide Kate O’Connor was still trying to reach the makers of the ad.

Uh-huh. Last I heard, OJ was still trying to reach the real killers. A cheap shot on my part, to be sure; but sometimes, I just can’t help myself.

Anyway, just to make sure we keep this in perspective, I’ll pass this along from Terri, the vt.Buzz blogger who made this catch:

The ad accused Sanders of changing his tune on accepting political action committee money because of $500 he accepted from Florida Crystals, a sugar farm that operates in the Dominican Republic where workers are allegedly paid $2 a day.

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehe. Just wanted to make it hard for Richie to tie Bernie to Jack Abramoff. No Indian casinos in this mix. No free boxing passes either.
I guess when you spend almost four and a half million dollars to beat somebody, have a name recognition of eighty-something percent, and the most conservatively-biased polling firm in the country has you down by thirty-eight points, you grasp at any straw-or stalk of sugar cane- you can get your hands on.

Sweeet.

Yep, things in Vermont are smelling pretty good:

BURLINGTON — The Queen City can add yet another feather in its caps of top U.S. rankings, that of one of the sweatiest cities.
According to the fifth annual Old Spice Top-100 Sweatiest Cities list, Burlington is the 91st sweatiest.

91 out of 100. That’s not TOO too bad, but I wish they’d measure Montpelier.

OK, before I turn on the jukebox and the pool table in the Catamount, I want to call your attention to something that happened to a fellow tavern proprietor:

(Wayne) Ryan had taken out an ad in the Bellows Falls Town Crier that criticized the size of the village police department budget.

Is that why Ryan was arrested at his bar, Nick’s Food and Spirits, a day before a revote on the village budget, in a highly orchestrated show of force?………

  The Rockingham Selectboard has had its share of beefs with Ryan. How convenient that, now that Ryan has been arrested, the board has the power to pull his liquor license.

Scary thing. Maybe I better not blog anymore. After all, what would the Catamount Tavern be without a liquor license? I’d hate to get cuffed and stuffed by the Bennington Police Department, after all.

The picture that ran in Thursday’s Reformer that showed Ryan clutching his cane as he limped across Rockingham Street shackled to a state trooper shows that perhaps seven troopers weren’t needed to carry out this arrest.

Wow. That DOES look rather draconian. You’d think the guy had thrown someone down a flight of stairs or something.

That’s all I’ve got today….except the ale. As always, the first round’s on me.
All tales of wingnuttery are welcome, as always. Oh, by the way: impeach any presidents lately?

“The idea of a revengeful God… is offensive to reason and common sense, and subversive of moral rectitude in general.”

“… while we are under the power and tyranny of priests, since as it ever has, it ever will be their interest, to invalidate the law of nature and reason, in order to establish systems incompatible therewith.”

-Ethan Allen

“Arrived at Onion-river falls [Winooski] & passed by Ethan Allyn’s grave. An awful Infidel, one of ye wickedest men ye ever walked this guilty globe. I stopped & looked at his grave with a pious horror.” –Rev. Nathan Perkins in his Narrative Of A Tour Through The State Of Vermont on 25 May 1789

 

Nobody expects him to even win the primary, but in doing some correspondence regarding the VSH Futures Project I came across some information about Dennis Morriseau, one of the candidates running for House of Representatives in the Republican primary.

Years ago, before he started running for office, Morriseau owned a restaurant on Church St. in Burlington called Leunig’s Bistro. Annoyed that there were too many “undesirables”–homeless people–in the area, he came up with an idea for a program he called “Westward Ho!” The idea was that this organization would give bus tickets–one-way tickets, of course–to the crummy people they didn’t want hanging around Burlington anymore. Presto! Problem solved!

Apparently only one person actually took them up on this offer and the idea pretty much went away. One very interesting angle, however, that I just found out about recently,

is that they actually tried to get the IRS to consider the organization a tax-exempt charity.

Yes, they did, I’m not making this up, and I can’t say that I appreciate your skepticism.

Anyway, here’s the link to the Tax Court decision denying the tax-exempt status: One-Way Ticket Out of Town for Homeless Not Motivated by Charitable Impulse.

Here’s one paragraph from the court’s decision:

“It is apparent that petitioner’s activities were designed to rid the Marketplace and downtown Burlington of disruptive homeless persons and to protect the commercial interests of petitioner’s creators, who owned restaurants in the Marketplace. Homeless persons had caused disturbances in the Marketplace and in the restaurants owned by petitioner’s creators. Through various media, Morrisseau, Thompson, and Halvorson expressed their concerns with the problem of homeless persons in Burlington. These expressions, however, reflected frustration with the harassing and abusive behavior of some of the homeless persons and fears of financial loss, rather than concern for the homeless persons. By ridding the area of homeless persons, petitioner’s creators were providing themselves with a more desirable commercial location.”

I understand that Morriseau’s candidacy is motivated by his opposition to the war in Iraq. Still, if you happen to catch him at a campaign appearance, you might want to ask what he thinks of “Westward Ho!” now.

Enjoy the rest of this beautiful summer weekend.