(Don’t read this over dinner — and hang in there until after the jump.
– promoted by NanuqFC)

Bill Lippert’s been on quite the emotional rollercoaster over the past week or so. There was the close of a tough legislative session for the House Judiciary chairman, and the O’Really? Factoid ambush over breakfast in the State House (Freyne has his original story with a link to O’Really?’s site and a followup with the Speaker and the Pres Pro Tem about their letter to Faux News. O’Really? has his own followup charging the Rutland Herald with being a “corrupt enterprise” in response to its publication of Democratic consultant Bill Lofy’s Op-Ed castigating Fox for its bigotry in choosing Lippert to harass [check out the “in case you missed it: Vermont Chaos! Vermont paper turns Jessica’s law into a gay issue!” on O’Really?’s site] There’s more follow-up, including an editorial from Randal Smathers about O’Really?’s attackdogs calling him to object. Got all that?)

Lofy covered some of the threats that Lippert received via email. But here are a few others from among those I asked him to send me during a phone conversation on Friday:

i couldnt even tell you were a transvestite when i saw you making such a douche of yourself on oreilly.  and your drag queen friends that were trying to protect you were classic.  are all you socialist liberal pieces of crap like that?  maybe you queens could rent a pair of testicles next time you are on television?

you are one disgusting person, i really dont know how you can live with yourself,keep on smiling,you could give a shit about children,i spread the word on your state,over the web,keeping people from visiting the state of v.t,and it works. do me a favor drive fast and reckless,

Lippert sucks muslim dicks and likes it. I hope you get the shit beat out of you on a regular basis.

One such email began with the subject line: “Bill Lippert go drown yourself you pedophile bastard” and continued:

I hope you die of natural causes like a heart attack you F’ing bastard for protecting fags, and doing nothing for Jessica’s law. f you you ugly old white trash. America will soon turn to a militia, after this keeps going on. Vermont is shit, with all white trash.

The story gets better below the fold — and by better, I mean less disgusting and more uplifting. I promise.

There were also a couple of stern but polite ones in the batch he sent, including this one, signed (as many of the more vitriolic ones were not) and from someone who identified himself as from Vermont:

Sir, I don’t agree with the way Bill O’Reilly and his reporters conduct interviews, but a reporter was allowed access to speak to you, and you didn’t answer his question. You had an opportunity to set the record straight and you dropped the ball. What really was more disturbing was all your fellow law makers could do was boo the reporter. That and your no reply answer makes Bill O’Reilly look good and Vermont look bad. I await your reply. [signed, with mailing address and email address]

Another of the more polite ones:

Sir, I was watching Bill O’Rilley last night.  You said Vermont just increased the sentencing terms for child predators. I also watched Keith Olberman and he said O’Rilley got it all wrong. I am just trying to learn the honesty of each of those “Talking Heads”.

Can you tell me what you meant when you said the laws were strengthen [sic]. Actually if you can give me a web site address that show the various laws, and you give me the law’s number, I can do the research myself.

Thank you for your guidance.

I wouldn’t want to lead GMD readers to believe that all Faux News/O’Really? watchers are as ill-informed and block-headed as the majority of the emails might suggest.

One of the 27 O’Really?-prompted emails Bill shared with me (which he had previously shared with Speaker Gaye Symington) was particularly nasty and blatant about its homophobia:

There has never been any correlation between homosexuality and Pedophilia, ……. Until now. […] Therapy is as successful conquering pedophilia, as it is with conquering  homosexuality.  The ONLY solution is incarceration or castration. […] If I were you,  I would seriously consider killing myself.

Now we get to the good part. Bill Lippert, whom I’ve known for 25 years, did an interview with Vermont Public Radio last Thursday to talk about the ambush, the reality of Vermont’s sex offender laws, and the emails he’d been getting.

Here are a few quotes from the 31 (plus) emails he got after that interview aired:

I was fortunate enough to listen to your segment on NPR [sic] regarding your Bill O’Reilly encounter.  I feel sad and scared to know that such people are in the public eye broadcasting such inaccurate and atrocious information.  I greatly appreciate all that you do for the state of Vermont and beyond.  I completely support your decision to  not support Jessica’s Law as I agree that its protocol would not protect the victims, properly rehabilitate the predators, or keep our communities safe. I was devasted to hear that you are receiving such emails as the one you read on the air today.  It’s scary to think how many intolerate, judmental [sic], and hateful people there are in the world.

I heard your interview on VPR this morning, and cannot refrain from writing you a letter of support.  It is appalling that these representatives of a foreign culture would come to Vermont to mount this kind of personal and baseless attack.  Your tolerance, intelligence, courage, and insight are evident in your articulate responses.
  I never am able to get over my surprise and sadness at the bigotry, ignorance, ugliness, and hate that seem to prevail in some quarters of our society.  I can assure you that most of us here in Vermont think that in fact it is you who represent the true and great traditions of our State, of our entire species, really, the traditions of open-mindedness, fairness, justice, tolerance, and compassion, which are the only values that stand between us and chaos.
  I know this episode must have been very hurtful.  Please know that there are a great many of us here who share a little fraction of that pain vicariously, and who hold you in the highest respect.  Your have made Vermont a better place for all of us.

I just heard your interview on VPR.  You are among the special, honorable people that make me proud to be a Vermonter.  Caring, intelligent, thoughtful and reasonable views like yours are notably lacking in our country’s public discourse.

I listened to you on VPT [sic] this morning and was so impressed with your composure, unwavering dedication and professional demeanor in light of what you experienced recently and in the past–in direct contrast to what you encountered eating breakfast at the state house.  I appreciate all that you are doing and have been doing and am so glad I live in Vermont so I can live next door to upstanding people like you.  The ignorance and hate that exists in this country and planet is too much sometimes to handle and gets overwhelming, but I hear you and remember that leading by example every day will hopefully make some change happen.

I caught your interview on VPR this morning – I hope you could hear my shout of “well done” from down the road in Williston. You did a great job explaining Vermont’s approach to the sex offender legislation.  You were measured and rational, such a sharp contrast to the hysterical attacks you were addressing.  The excerpt you read from the e-mail was chilling, and effective – who could fail to note the irony of the violence and immorality of the writer.  Allusion to suicide?!  I personally think we need to clone you.  I can only hope my four kids will take to heart the political and personal courage you have shown, you are an amazing role model for them.  You are my hero.

I have been following the story since Saturday, and have been enraged on your behalf– on so many levels. Thank you for your hard work on many critical issues facing Vermonters, but especially those related to the civil rights of members of the LGBT community. The courage it must require to withstand the persecution you have clearly faced as an openly gay legislator is truly inspiring.

There were many more in the same vein.

There’s one more piece, which can be read as a true example of how to be an ally, OR as a truly inspired political play — or both, as these things so often are (my view, not Bill’s, btw).

Bill told me he was called by a network television news local outlet for an interview on Tuesday, after O’Really?’s piece had aired over at Faux. “I just really didn’t want to do it,” Bill said. “And when I said that to Gaye [Symington], she said, ‘You shouldn’t have to do it, Bill. I’ll do it.'” And she did.

On the one hand, Gaye was among the legislators who supported civil unions from the beginning and maybe even went on one of the legislator speaking tours to talk about it. For a straight person to offer to take on a media interview on behalf of a gay beleagured colleague, essentially stepping into the target zone,  and do a creditable job is the mark of a true ally — just as has happened here on GMD when the homophobes stomp by.

On the other hand, how will Bill now feel about voting against the Speaker, as he did during the impeachment vote? Does Bill owe the Speaker something? or was what Gaye did the obligation of any decent person to one persecuted out of bigotry? And can Bill see it that way?

NanuqFC

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act — George orwell

I just noticed Freyne beat me to this, but it’s still worth pointing out. This is from today’s Sunday Herald/Argus editorial:

An important decision awaits Gov. James Douglas now that the Legislature has completed its work this year: whether to veto the energy bill that includes a tax on power generation at the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant.

Douglas should sign the bill.

Sounds good, yes? But it follows on the heels of this from two weeks ago:

efforts to make companies more responsible corporate citizens must be undertaken with fairness in mind, which suggests a thoughtful policymaking process.

Action on climate change is long overdue. If Gov. James Douglas had been leading the way on the issue, then the Legislature might not have felt compelled to rush its program into existence. But that is no excuse for creating a program with a dubious funding source.

Clearly, the editors would like us to accept a parsing of the language that would do the Boston Legal team proud; that they can be all for the bill (in a blandly clinical, one-shot way) but still object to the funding mechanism (in a more, shall we say, vehement way on multiple occasions – going as far as taking the playground-scuffle step of calling Shumlin’s original proposal a “score-settling tax”).

But it doesn’t work that way.

Collectively, the Argus and the Herald make up a tremendously influential and consequential chunk of the Vermont media, and as such, they get to lead the way in informing debate. The fact is, when the bill went through, they quickly came out with a couple editorials, slamming the bill in no uncertain terms. In doing so, they set the goalposts, and crafted what has become the “conventional wisdom” among both the opponents of the bill, as well as those casual news watchers who have only followed it peripherally, but now feel that the sophisticated, intellectual viewpoint is that handed to them in the papers.

And an odd conventional wisdom it is. It says that if a tax doesn’t directly, precisely relate to an expenditure, it is “bad policy.” Since the bill is designed to shape the energy paradigm in Vermont, you’d think that a tax on an energy producer would fit that criterion. But apparently using either a nuclear waste tax, a windfall profits tax, a property tax, or an energy production tax that would also be levied on wind (all notions bandied about, with the final one actually making the cut and deemed marginally more acceptable to the editors) on the energy industry providing a third of our electrical power is not related enough to a bill focusing on energy conservation and renewables promotion.

To editorial, the only funding scheme acceptable was the much maligned heating fuel tax. Once again, editors show they are in the enviable position of not suffering the death of a thousand cuts that those in the middle and working classes do. It’s a yearly ritual in my house to consider which bills we will be late on in order to pay for those final one or two deliveries of oil to heat the family home. No big deal to the editors, though – even if there’s an obvious corporate citizen equally related to the energy field who can easily afford it and make for a more progessive target of taxation.

Apparently, you can only tax Vermont Yankee for a bill that would perhqaps move the nuclear waste. Under this logic, tobacco taxes going to health programs would be out the door.

And the General Fund? The sales taxes, income taxes, etc that collectively fund every other functioning of government? Well, I suppose paying the Governor’s salary is “bad public policy.” Even gas taxes going to the transportation fund would seem inadequate. Again – not even the same industrial category. Perhaps if the gas taxes were going for oil drilling…

For whatever reason, the Herald and Argus targetted this bill with unusual scorn. Proponents are doing a good job bouncing back, and the news that Vermont has more per capita nuclear waste than any other state is a nice sign that they aren’t going to be willing to play ropa dope.

But the fact is, despite their nice, groovy sounding liberal editorial today – if this bill goes down, it’ll be a defeat largely owned by the editors of the Rutland Herald and Times Argus.