(Amazingly, it sounds like this race has FLIPPED to the D column – at least for the moment! Sounds an awful lot like we’re looking at Auditor Tom Salmon. – promoted by odum)

Observing the recount for the State Auditor’s race in Franklin County has been pretty interesting. And I’ve got 4 counties’ worth of very unofficial numbers.

[Caveat reminder as of Friday morning as noted in an email by one politically astute observer: “More than half the population of the state has yet to be recounted and to weigh in with their figures.  With one stroke of the pen this number could turn topsy turvey.  Additionally, after the counting, Judge Teachout will be reviewing challenged votes and other irregularities and concerns and making decisions about awarding votes.”]

Up here, someone counting ballots in Richford gave 36 Salmon votes to Jerry Levy. Thanks to the recount, Tom Salmon got them back. Richford tallied 886 ballots. Brock gained one vote there. Other than that, the gains and losses were by ones and twos, except for two towns that missed 4 Brock votes each and one other town that missed 8 Salmon votes.

The unofficial county-wide results show Brock gaining 15 votes and Salmon gaining 48 votes, for a net gain for Salmon of 33 votes.

Four other counties’ results were obtained via the grapevine. They show:

a strong trend toward Salmon. Lamoille provided Salmon with 57 more votes; Windsor is reported to have come up with 50 more Salmon votes; Windham (via third-hand report) added “30-something” to the total. That’s already more than the margin of Brock’s so-called victory.

People make mistakes, especially under pressure on a very long election day.

While the biggest mistake in our county came in a small town that marks and tallies its votes by hand, the machine-tabulated towns had changes, too. The five largest towns (Fairfax, Georgia, Swanton, St. Albans City, and St. Albans Town), which use tabulating machines, missed 8 Brock votes and 14 Salmon votes.

Overall in the county, Abbott lost 6 votes; Levy lost the aforementioned 36 in one town, but there were no changes for him anywhere else.

Worst idea: someone used white-out to change one entire ballot. We observers surmised that someone might have voted by early or absentee ballot and changed their mind — or some relative changed it for them. The ballot was considered “spoiled.”

Saw a few ballots where the voter followed the pre-election advice to foil corrupt machines by writing in all chosen candidates. Someone had a problem with the execution: that voter checked the box for the candidate and ALSO checked the write-in box and wrote in the same name. There was discussion as to whether that ballot should be considered spoiled (a double vote) or whether the voter’s intent was clear since the write-in and the candidate check box matched.

I was glad to see the process in action.

NanuqFC

On the road leading to the Bennington Battle Monument is a statue of a Catamount on a granite pedestal. This was placed as a marker in rememberance of the Catamount Tavern. The Tavern was not named the Catamount Tavern until years after it stopped being a tavern. Whether known as Fay’s House, the Green Mountain Tavern, or the Catamount Tavern, it was the meeting place of Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys. It was here that they planned the assualts on New York and the British. It was here that, according to Vermont sources, the attack on Fort Ticonderoga was planned. The Tavern burned down in 1871.

Consider yourself at home.
Consider yourself one of the family.
We’ve taken to you so strong.
It’s clear we’re going to get along.
Consider yourself well in
Consider yourslef par to the furniture.
There isn’t a lot to spare.
Who cares?..What ever we’ve got we share!

Now open for business below the fold.

You hear this a lot:

Seeking to choke off a Republican rallying cry, the House’s top Democrat has told colleagues that the party will not seek to impeach President Bush even if it gains control of the House in November’s elections, her office said last night. (Dateline: 5/12/2006)

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) told her caucus members during their weekly closed meeting Wednesday “that impeachment is off the table; she is not interested in pursuing it,” spokesman Brendan Daly said.

Hey, Nancy, who died and made you Speaker of the house or something?
Oh, that’s right. The lock on discourse held by the Republicans did. The fearmongering, the ability to lie with impunity, the hate, the politics of division and class warfare, all died an ignominous and painful (painful, at least, if you’re a Republican) death on November 7th.
Cenk Uygur of Air America’s Young Turks, in his “The Biparitsan Myth” piece publised today on Daily Kos and Huffingto Post points out:

….the real proof is in the numbers. Twenty-nine House seats and six Senate seats changed from Republican to Democrat. None changed from Democrat to Republican. Not one.
That’s not bipartisanship. That’s a 35-0 blowout.

This repudiation to me suggests that there’s a little – shall we say – hostility among Americans to the neoconservative agenda.
Allow me to say it, directly:
They have FAILED.
They have failed to build on the incredible comity and goodwill offered to us by the world community after 9/11.
They failed to prevent the events of that horrible day in the face of every indication that  they were going to occur.
They have failed to capture and bring to justice the perpetrator of the murder of 2,749 Americans.
They have failed – those who were sworn – to uphold their oaths to preserve, protect, and defend  the Constitution of the United States.
They have failed to defend our countrymen from the danger they put them in abroad, and they have failed to defend them from the forces of nature at home.
With respect to value, decency, and the execution of their responsibilities as stewards of our country, the Republicans have succeeeded at exactly NOTHING.
Nothing. Nada, zip, zilch, bupkus.
A big fat fucking ZERO.
They have succeeded only at lying. And breaking the law. And exploiting the differences between us so that they become divisions.

This from a piece I found on afterdowningStreet.org:

Leahy of late has had a fire in his belly, the likes of which we haven’t seen in a while. His sadness at the loss of comity and the discarding of basic Constitutional values under the Bush GOP has turned into outrage, and he has been consistently riveting in front of a crowd in recent months.

But since the election, that outrage has turned into inspiration, and it’s an inspiration he passed on to the crowd tonight. Like the speakers before him, Leahy was funny, thankful, exuberant… but there was an edge that was very serious. He related a conversation where he was recently asked if President Bush should be “worried” that he was now to be Chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. The crowd started cheering.

“No, no” he said, calming the crowd, as if to be prepared for a softening of his rhetoric.

“No, he shouldn’t be worried. He should be terrified.”

And the room exploded.

Leahy went on to assure the crowd that, unlike “some in the administration,” he’d “actually read the Constitution,” and went on to promise that no judges nominated to the federal bench who would ignore that Constitution would ever get past his committee.

Be afraid, Mr. Bush. Be very afraid.

Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark offers his views on the Bush Administration:

Articles of Impeachment

of

President George W. Bush

and

Vice President Richard B. Cheney,
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and
Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors. – – ARTICLE II, SECTION 4 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H.Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez have committed violations and subversions of the Constitution of the United States of America in an attempt to carry out with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes and deprivations of the civil rights of the people of the United States and other nations, by assuming powers of an imperial executive unaccountable to law and usurping powers of the Congress, the Judiciary and those reserved to the people of the United States, by the following acts:

1) Seizing power to wage wars of aggression in defiance of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter and the rule of law; carrying out a massive assault on and occupation of Iraq, a country that was not threatening the United States, resulting in the death and maiming of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and hundreds of U.S. G.I.s.

2) Lying to the people of the U.S., to Congress, and to the U.N., providing false and deceptive rationales for war.

3) Authorizing, ordering and condoning direct attacks on civilians, civilian facilities and locations where civilian casualties were unavoidable.

4) Threatening the independence and sovereignty of Iraq by belligerently changing its government by force and assaulting Iraq in a war of aggression.

5) Authorizing, ordering and condoning assassinations, summary executions, kidnappings, secret and other illegal detentions of individuals, torture and physical and psychological coercion of prisoners to obtain false statements concerning acts and intentions of governments and individuals and violating within the United States, and by authorizing U.S. forces and agents elsewhere, to violate the rights of individuals under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

6) Making, ordering and condoning false statements and propaganda about the conduct of foreign governments and individuals and acts by U.S. government personnel; manipulating the media and foreign governments with false information; concealing information vital to public discussion and informed judgment concerning acts, intentions and possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in order to falsely create a climate of fear and destroy opposition to U.S. wars of aggression and first strike attacks.

7) Violations and subversions of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, both a part of the “Supreme Law of the land” under Article VI, paragraph 2, of the Constitution, in an attempt to commit with impunity crimes against peace and humanity and war crimes in wars and threats of aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq and others and usurping powers of the United Nations and the peoples of its nations by bribery, coercion and other corrupt acts and by rejecting treaties, committing treaty violations, and frustrating compliance with treaties in order to destroy any means by which international law and institutions can prevent, affect, or adjudicate the exercise of U.S. military and economic power against the international community.

8) Acting to strip United States citizens of their constitutional and human rights, ordering indefinite detention of citizens, without access to counsel, without charge, and without opportunity to appear before a civil judicial officer to challenge the detention, based solely on the discretionary designation by the Executive of a citizen as an “enemy combatant.”

9) Ordering indefinite detention of non-citizens in the United States and elsewhere, and without charge, at the discretionary designation of the Attorney General or the Secretary of Defense.

10) Ordering and authorizing the Attorney General to override judicial orders of release of detainees under INS jurisdiction, even where the judicial officer after full hearing determines a detainee is wrongfully held by the government.

11) Authorizing secret military tribunals and summary execution of persons who are not citizens who are designated solely at the discretion of the Executive who acts as indicting official, prosecutor and as the only avenue of appellate relief.

12) Refusing to provide public disclosure of the identities and locations of persons who have been arrested, detained and imprisoned by the U.S. government in the United States, including in response to Congressional inquiry.

13) Use of secret arrests of persons within the United States and elsewhere and denial of the right to public trials.

14) Authorizing the monitoring of confidential attorney-client privileged communications by the government, even in the absence of a court order and even where an incarcerated person has not been charged with a crime.

15) Ordering and authorizing the seizure of assets of persons in the United States, prior to hearing or trial, for lawful or innocent association with any entity that at the discretionary designation of the Executive has been deemed “terrorist.”

16) Institutionalization of racial and religious profiling and authorization of domestic spying by federal law enforcement on persons based on their engagement in noncriminal religious and political activity.

17) Refusal to provide information and records necessary and appropriate for the constitutional right of legislative oversight of executive functions.

18) Rejecting treaties protective of peace and human rights and abrogation of the obligations of the United States under, and withdrawal from, international treaties and obligations without consent of the legislative branch, and including termination of the ABM treaty between the United States and Russia, and rescission of the authorizing signature from the Treaty of Rome which served as the basis for the International Criminal Court.

Enough is enough.

It is time.

I’ll leave the details to the experts, but for now, I’ll say this much, and, for the moment, no more:

If it should chance to be
We should see
Some harder days
Empty larder days
Why grouse?
Always a-chance we’ll meet
Somebody
To foot the bill
Then the drinks are on the house!
Consider yourself our mate.
We don’t want to have no fuss,
For after some consideration, we can state…
Consider yourself
One of us!

Retired General Anthony Zinni spoke to an audience of 250 people at Montpelier’s Unitarian-Universalist Church Wednesday night. While he has been in the news in recent years for his criticism of the Bush Administration’s handling of the war in Iraq, his discussion Wednesday ranged far beyond the war, and was primarily concerned with how the United States can exist and be effective in the world as it now exists.

Zinni’s thesis was that we are living with the results of the third great global transformation of the Twentieth Century. The first was after World War I, the second was after World War II, and the third was at the end of the Cold War. As Zinni put it, “The world did not change on 9/11, it changed in 1989-90 when the Soviet Union dissolved.”

General Zinni was first commissioned as a brigadier general at the time the Berlin Wall fell, and he recalled travelling to Berlin for his orientation, a process as disorienting for the trainers as for the trainees. Zinni and the other new general officers were taken on an unauthorized tour of East Berlin by a lieutenant who drove right through Checkpoint Charlie, now unmanned, and around the streets of the Potemkin village that was East Berlin, before returning with a sledge hammer to break off pieces of the Wall as souvenirs. What Zinni learned in that process, and the years that followed, was that, “We are living in a changed world that we don’t understand, and which we are ill-equipped to deal with.”

He also learned that Bush 41’s New World Order did not bring the stability that was anticipated and promised, due to forces as diverse as globalization, revolutions in technology and communications, and the rise of regional hegemonies, and the conclusion he draws is that “Instability is the primary enemy.”

The audience included Adjutant General Michael Dubie and defeated Congressional candidate Martha Rainville. While Zinni’s subject was broader than the war in Iraq, he received questions on the war, and on the Military Commissions Act.

“What went wrong in Iraq?”

A couple of things. First, we went off track in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, which made the problem worse. By invading Iraq we got involved in the “wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Second, the war was not conducted right. Third, to put it charitably, the administration abused the intelligence. Finally, “we made the same mistake as in Vietnam: if you have a strategic vision, don’t hide it from the public. Once you lose the credibility of your rationale it’s very hard to recover from it.”

What do we do about Iraq now? Admitting that is answer is unlikely to be popular with a Montpelier audience, Zinni echoed Colin Powell’s so-called Pottery Barn rule: “We broke it, now we own it.” He said that one option is to get out, but that we’ll be back in in three to four months, once it turns into Afghanistan. The answer, in Zinni’s view, is not to get out or to keep doing what hasn’t been working. The answer is an integrated government that can implement military and political measures and provide social services.

When asked about the Military Commissions Act, Zinni’s answer was straightforward: “If you don’t want it done to your sons or daughters, you don’t do it to anyone else.”

In answer to the question of what we, as individuals can do, Zinni offered a three-ooint prescription;

First, “Do not reward politics as usual.”

“Why,” he asked, “Do we accept a political system that brushes aside competence?” refering to the decisions by Mark Warner and Colin Powell not to seek the presidency.

Second, “Inform yourselves.”

Third, “Don’t underestimate your own power.”