Looks like the Legislature will wrap up tomorrow from what I’ve heard. I suppose that could change, but I doubt it.

Congratulations to GMD’s Jack McCullough, who was recently elected Chair of the Washington County Democratic Committee. Jack replaces Allison Sultan who was a terrific chair and a good friend, who is moving to the DC area with her family. Go get ’em Jack.

And congratulations to Philip Baruth, who was the victor in our little silly sidebar poll of last week that asked which… er… “out of the political mainstream” candidate for Governor GMD readers would prefer. Philip edged out Ben, Jerry, and Whoopi Goldberg for the win. No word on whether or not any of them called him to concede as yet.

If you haven’t heard yet, the AP is losing Ross Sneyd to VPR. Good for VPR I suppose, but it kinda sucks for the rest of us. Sure I had fun poking at the guy sometimes, but he was definitely one of the good ones. AP really seemed to disrespect him, though, so you can’t blame him for ditching them.

Douglas is threatening to veto the Climate Change Bill. This one might bite him in the butt, although its unlikely the Dems could override him.

Any bets on who the behind-the-scenes-bigshot whose name “acting” Public Service Commissioner David O’Brien was using to try and threaten Sen. John Campbell was (Campbell called him a “bully”)? I have a pretty good guess (well, it seems like it could only be one person, actually… but I have a limited perspective), but I’m looking for corroboration. Stay tuned…

(CL’s got a way with words, no? Enjoy! – promoted by JDRyan)

Yesterday’s hearings showed the Attorney General lying, obfuscating; and once more, unconvincingly pleading ignorance to the criminal activity he has navigated on behalf of the Bush administration. At the same time, he gave even more compelling testimony proving he is unqualified to be Attorney General and unworthy of any position of trust.

Will he go? NO.

One more time: ALBERTO GONZALES IS NOT RESIGNING. Gonzo has better job security than most anyone I know including most prognosticating his immediate departure. He will not leave the Attorney General post. Even if he wanted to go, which is possible, Mister Bush will not allow it.  

There are two primary and related reasons for Bush keeping Gonzales at DOJ.

First, the Senate will not confirm — or even hold hearings to confirm a replacement Attorney General — until their investigators have turned Abu’s office upside down. Keeping Abu as His Attorney General is therefore Mister Bush’s least bad option. 

Secondly, and consequently, losing Abu carries too many liabilities and opens the Justice Department to unaffordable sunlight. The Dep’t of Justice flank is Mister Bush’s most vulnerable, and it is the last one he will leave exposed. Losing Gonzales will invite Democrats (and media to the extent it cares) into a vault Bush claims is not there, to find evidence Bush claims does not exist, about activities Bush claims never happened.

The level of criminal activity, human & civil rights abuses, mismanagement and corruption is unparalleled in U.S. history.  Bush cannot trust anyone else at the Justice Dep’t helm because he cannot trust anyone, other than Gonzales, to blithely cover-up and lie with the loyal abandon that is the Alberto Gonzales trademark. In Mister Bush’s eyes, the level of embarrassment caused by Abu’s incompetence, perjury, lawlessness and contempt for constitutional rights and civil liberties is a welcome distraction. Gonzo’s liabilities remain insignificant to Mister Bush compared to the resultant sunlight that will shine on direct evidence of executive branch crimes if  the obstructer-in-chief is no longer there to protect his master-in-chief’s interests.

Little Dutch Boy

Abu Gonzales will remain ensconced in Justice as long as Bush holds on in the White House because in Mister Bush’s eyes Gonzales is like the administration’s little Dutch boy.

Gonzales is standing with his finger in a creaking dike that is near bursting. Everyone sees the dike nearing the breaking point from a torrent of rampant criminality. The worse it gets for Gonzales standing at the base of this dike, the more Bush needs him to stay and keep the truth from washing past. Worse than a light socket and less inviting than a snake hole, no one else will jam their own finger into this swelling dike of overflowing corruption to save only one person. The last thing Mister Bush wants to know are the consequences of Abu withdrawing his fat little finger. Until the dike is fixed, no one else will put their finger in on Mister Bush’s behalf either.  (FYI-the Dike is not scheduled for maintenance until January 2009).

Many of Bush’s reasons for keeping Abu at DOJ are obvious. A successor tapped for the Attorney General chair will be beholden to a confirmation process more than the President. Mister Bush needs loyalty. Loyalty requires a finger in the dike rather than an open mouth in the Senate. Watching Gonzales hold up the dike is far less stressful to Mister Bush than sweating the disclosures needed to start a confirmation process.

The Butt-Plug

Let’s face it, this administration operates like a (poorly functioning) colon.

The unchallenged tolerance for GOP criminal activity, mismanagement, kleptocracy, fraud and abuse sits like gridlocked and compacted shit unable to pass through a waste system of GOP controlled government. Hiding Mister Bush’s crimes and holding back evidence of his administration’s systemic complicity is like trying to plug a ballooning colon until after the 2008 election cycle. In the Bush administration, the obvious place to fear an evidentiary evacuation is at the Dep’t of Justice. Unfortunately for Judge Gonzales, he is perched at the evacuation point just as Mr. Bush feels the sudden onset of a dysenteric implosion.

Bush knows how uncomfortable Judge Butt-Plug is, and he realizes that everyone wants him to just let it go. Instead he arrogantly sits there pretending nothing is wrong and pretending no one is noticing his eyes bulging as he pushes his ass against his presidential chair with every ounce of his strength. Pulling Gonzales out of his administration’s bungy-hole would effectively flush the Justice Dep’t with a constitutional enema. It could drown the White House in it own untreated sewage. 

Mister Bush’s default instinct is fear and it drives him to deceitfully jam the Gonzales Butt-Plug further up his ass. Between Gonzales and Bush, that feeling is awkwardly mutual and mutually uncomfortable.

Someone has cleaned up Bush’s messes his entire life. In the dark recesses of his little brain, however, he fears and knows this mess will be different. As uncomfortable as the Gonzo Butt-Plug is to everyone near Bush, his dwindling inner circle of true believers realize no Attorney General following Gonzales will so willingly plug himself in and loyally hold back the shit.

The Game

Bush’s demand that Gonzales stay at Justice is a strategic call, not a loyal one. Appreciating this dynamic can only help to put more pressure on Bush.

More importantly, Democrats can better drive a wedge between the Bush administration and the congressional and establishment Republicans who are being tarred with this obscene spectacle. Outside of Bush’s inner circle, those Republicans fear Gonzales as a liability as much as Mister Bush fears his own personal liabilities if Gonzales is forced to leave.

Bottom line, Gonzales will not leave the Attorney General post under the current cloud. If there is one person who will close the lights on this administration, it will be that little shit now sitting on the top floor of the Dep’t of Justice. He will be the last to go.

The immediate Democratic strategy is therefore to make him an even greater liability and to spread those liabilites widely and thickly on the rest of the GOP. If Mister Bush insists that Gonzo stay on the job as a national disgrace to shield his administration, then he must be used as a political sword against those Republicans who find the rule of law and constitutional democracy so offensive under a Bush presidency.

sláinte,

cl

( – promoted by odum)

If we want to salvage anything out of this super-majority in the legislature before Nov 08, Democrats need to focus on a few core state-level issues.  Impeachment and climate change are important topics, but the Vermont legislature has no real influence over either.  I know this is not a popular view on this blog… 

The democratic leadership needs to come up with a bold approach to the 900 lb gorilla in the room: how we fund our schools in this state.  By bold, I mean we need to address both how we fund education and the underlying cost structure (why costs are rising).

On the how, I personally support the idea of switching education over to an income tax.  It is fair and inherently progressive.  My guess is a 2-2.5% income tax ought to do it (I haven’t run the numbers, but this sounds about right).

The downside to an income tax is that it will, inevitably, take away local control because the state will have to gather the tax and disburse funds.  Still, on balance, it seems more fair than all these games of penalties and shifting money around via property taxes.

On the cost structure side, there have been some tentative moves towards consolidation, but we need to move much more aggressively to rationalize district management.  In russia (hardly a model, but look at all their nobel prizes…), they faced the same problem on a huge scale.  Declining enrollments, tiny schools and large, duplicative overhead.  There, the federal government simply established a formula for district composition and allowed communities to sort things out themselves.  It was a bit heavy handed and the transition was not easy, but I have seen the results: rural schools are showing signs of improvement.  I am not advocating this approach for Vermont, but I think the outcome demonstrates the value of consolidation: it focuses more resources on kids, less on overhead. 

Special education is another tricky question.  My son is in Kindergarten here in Essex and I was simply blown away to learn the resources we are spending on special ed. It is very, very heartening, but it is also eating a huge amount of the budget.  Essex is a big district, so we have a fair amount of resources.  This question is much more difficult for small districts.  I am not education specialist so I don’t have a lot of ideas on this front, but welcome thoughts from those who are.

Health care and pension costs for educators is another issue, but those merit separate diaries.

It is quite possible that none of the above ideas are the best solution, but I think the important thing is that we Dems come up with a bold plan on education funding and use the next session to put it into law.

Cross posted at Rational Resistance

Okay, maybe it does seem like we’re beating a dead–sorry, make that extinct–horse here, but get a load of this.

The next time you’re in Cincinnati and you’re looking for something to do with your family, you might want to visit an attraction that teaches the kiddos what really happened in prehistoric times. And by “prehistoric” I mean all the way back to the origin of the universe, six thousand years ago.

Yes, folks, it’s the Creation Museum. Explore the wonders of creation. The imprint of the Creator is all around us. And the Bible’s clear-heaven and earth in six 24-hour days, earth before sun, birds before lizards.

God’s Word is true, or evolution is true. No millions of years. There’s no room for compromise.

Don’t miss it!

Good news from Oregon. The new Democratic Legislature (recently GOP-run) has passed a Domestic Partnerships bill. The governor signed the bill this morning.

This morning, in a public ceremony attended by well over 100 citizens and legislators, Governor Ted Kulongoski signed two bills into law ensuring that all Oregon families are treated with basic fairness and that all Oregonians can live and work free from the sting of discrimination, regardless of sexual orientation or gender.

In a passionate speech at the signing ceremony, Basic Rights Oregon’s Executive Director John Hummel told the crowd, “Our hope is simple. It is for the day when Oregon families will no longer be forced into uncertainty in times of crisis, and when no Oregonian will be fired from their job, denied housing or denied an education–simply because of who they are or who they love. Today marks a moment in time when Oregonians proudly made hope a reality, and created a fairer, more equal Oregon.”

Like VT’s own civil unions bill, it’s not on equal footing with marriage, but undoubtedly it’s a step in the right direction. More on this here.

You know it’s a sign of progress when these things are passing without a court order(New Hampshire’s passed without a court order as well).

Pity the poor national Republicans. Sometimes it seem the only thing they have going for them of late (electorally speaking) is that they all run against Democrats – although with the 50-state strategy in play, even that’s less of a leg up than it used to be. The poor souls have realized at some level that appearing captive to evangelical theocrats may not be such a good thing in regards to maintaining the White House. In the past, the strength of the odd synergy between the theocrat right, the neocon right and the laissez-faire right has consisted of the theocrats rallying their armies of voters while the neocons and l-f wings use their considerable skill in spin and messaging to reassure average folk that the theocrats’ values are simply their values. That all this stuff about a lurking neo-fascism is all liberal anti-Christian scare talk.

And so the spin is always about the family. And the “freedom” to worship. They successfully cram all their anti-Constitutional policies into thes comfortable, warm, and oh-so-vague blankets and the middle-of-the-road, none-too-checked-in “swing” crowd snuggle in under them all cozied up.

But things are changing…. (more below the fold)

First with the Supreme Court decision on intact-extraction-and-dilation abortion, which scraps all precedent by giving federal and state governments carte blanche to completely outlaw a medical procedure if it conflicts with the legislative majority’s religious dogma. And the theocrats are probably falling all over themselves to ban abortion by systematically outlawing all its individual methods.

What this all means is that abortion will be front and center in the elections next year – and most of that swing voter set remain solidly pro-choice. Having this argument will inevitably cause more of them to pay extra attention.

But msnbc may have blown the lid open even further when, during last week’s first GOP presidential debate, the following happened:

From NBC’s Carrie Dann and Mark Murray
We just replayed the tape to answer the question some of you asked: Which candidates raised their hands when Chris Matthews asked them if they don’t believe in evolution?

Three did: Brownback, Huckabee, and Tancredo.

That’s right – a third of the Republican candidates for president announced, without hesitation, their rejection of any science that may conflict with their absolutist, take-no-prisoners, dark ages dogma. Bear in mind, we’re supposed to be long past this, generally speaking. Gone are the days where the Catholic Church would imprison the likes of Galileo for… well… for being a scientist and practicing his discipline honestly. In fact, the Church has apologized for that treatment and now easily accepts that modern cosmology and biology (if you’re the theistic type) can simply serve as windows into the mechanisms of creation. And it has, despite arguments on the fringe to the contrary, been a surprisingly easy fit.

But as we all know, there has been a resurgence of those who practice selective literalism when reading their holy scripture. The committed culture warriors who are looking for a political jihad either because their dominion theology/radical “endtimes” doctrine calls for it, or they’re simply fueling their enthusiasm for their faith with a political movement instead of the tried-and-true revival meetings. These folks are so powerful in the GOP now that they can field three candidates for President.

That would be good news enough for Dems. It shows that the theocrats are not content to be camouflaged by the Republican intelligentsia anymore, which will make the pitch to the swing voters that much more problematic. Still, if you give people just a few weeks, they’ll forget anything – especially if we’re talking about something this early when no one but the hardcore junkies are paying attention anyway.

Fortunately, it seems the theocrats may not let us forget. You see, they were actively pissed off that only three candidates raised their hands. Mitt Romney has particularly peeved them. From Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network:

I have now asked the Romney campaign specifically if he believes in Darwin’s theory of Evolution or does he take the Creationist view? The answer above suggests that he may believe in both. I’m not saying he does. I’m just saying I’m a tad bit confused by the answer.

Here’s the key point. The majority of Born Again Evangelicals take the Creationist viewpoint. Some Evangelicals already have concerns about Romney’s Mormon faith. He needs support from Evangelicals to win. That’s why this issue is an important one that needs to be cleared up. I don’t think this is an issue that Romney can avoid.

Ever since the Scopes Monkey Trial, Evolution has been the litmus issue on whether or not you’re rational about your religion, or you’re a pitchfork waving, our-way-or-a-jail-cell, anti-science dark-ager. A Galileo-era throwback. As a question of public policy, it presses primal buttons in people and is looked at by many as the line of demarkation between scary zealots and the most expansive possible definition of “mainstream.”

If this retro-religious pressure on and from the GOP is maintained – and covered by the media (a big “if” indeed) – and the election really does come down to an election between the anti-choice, creationist, crusader crowd vs everyone else, then this game is already done.

(Promoted – The power of making one’s voice heard brings another small victory for Vermonters. – promoted by mataliandy)

As we suspected there were other times! Peter Welch changed his mind  about gaming the schedule to discourage Vermonters  from coming. After receiving the note below in which leaders of the  impeachment campaign said “no” to the meeting at 9am and based on at least 50 or 60 phone calls to his office from Vermonters in all parts of  the state, Peter rescheduled the meeting to 11am and added a half hour. The public forum with Peter Welch to discuss impeachment will now be from 11am to 12:30pm this Saturday, May 11 at the Hartford High School in White River Junction. Once again the beautiful voices of the people of Vermont prevailed upon our leaders.

We are now turning our attention to encouraging everyone to come to the public forum tell Peter Welch to initiate investigations of Bush and Cheney and if the investigations support the charges to vote to impeach. Nearly 400 Vermonters came to the State House on April 25 to push the Vermont House to pass a resolution calling for  impeachment of Bush and  Cheney. The Senate passed such a resolution on April 20. 

“It is not enough to investigate the underlings. They can be replaced  without the crimes stopping,” said James Marc Leas.  “Nor will we accept Peter Welch’s political rationales for refusing to investigate Bush and Cheney. Peter Welch’s job is first to uphold his oath to protect the constitution, and that oath has no waiver for “political considerations.”

The Vermont Legislature has put on an… odd… display to say the least. They’ve set up a dynamic not unlike the one I faced in my High School biology class. At the beginning of the year the students were all told if our grades were higher on the standardized test at the end of the school year than they otherwise would’ve been, that the higher grade would go on the report card for the class. Naturally, after hearing that, I did nothing for the whole year and studied like hell in the last week to walk away with a B for the year, based only on my test performance.

The Vermont legislature has all its eggs in this final week’s basket as well. A good performance on the budget, the education issue and the energy bill will, if not leave them with a stellar grade, at least have the potential to shed them of the “do nothing” label that swings over them like a guillotine and leave them with a passing grade, if barely.

Even if these final bills go really, really well, lefties are bound to be left with a bad taste in their mouths. The impeachment issue (and more significantly the colossol blundering of the handling of the issue, even going back into the last session), the astounding failure of courage on the death with dignity bill, the snail’s pace of the IRV bill; all these things leave the Democratic base feeling taken for granted and disrespected. Rep. Michael Fisher’s victory on the Iraq resolution was the exception to this paradigm, but in retrospect, given the lack of formal support from the caucus and the now well-known clawing and scratching Fisher had to engage in to get his day on the floor (including his agreement to refrain from sponsoring the Impeachment bill, which he had done last session – although he did vote for it, of course), even this victory feels hollow and tokenistic; as if it was supposed to serve as the one and only bone thrown to the left in order to placate us on every other policy issue. And nothing would be more patronizing, if that is the case.

So there’s still a lot of anger and frustration. The dismissals have all felt rather patronizing, and as such, easily personalized. And cracks are showing in the Dem caucus as well. Among Democrats, Symington was in a clear minority on impeachment – even her own leadership team voted for the measure. In the Senate, members of the Dem caucus look to be in open rebellion against Shumlin’s impulsive, unpredictable style.

The point is that nobody is feeling too thrilled about things. And as difficult as it may be for those of us feeling particularly burned to admit, we all do share one very important thing in common:

It is in all of our best interests for this Democratic supermajority to be effective and successful.

How to make that happen and pull it out in a big way for the next biennium is going to be challenging. On the leadership side, Symington and Shumlin are both going to have to lose their respective manifestations of their unfortunate lack of respect for their base. Shumlin needs to learn he can’t simply shine us on, while Symington needs to accept the fact that adults do not like to be chastised and dismissed like children. Obviously there is more that unites the leadership and the base than divides them, but you wouldn’t necessarily know that from the last few months.

And the fact is that, as leaders, S & S bear extra responsibility for making this relationship work. Sure there are screamers on the left who simply want to tear down and have no interest in cooperation, but by refusing to lead with respect for their base, the caucus leaders inadvertently create a leader/power vacuum – and nature abhors a vacuum.

The uneven power dynamic may be about to shift a bit though, with the primary date likely to be moved back into August. This will create a new dynamic on the ground, whereby there will be enough time between the primary and the general elections for the winner of a contested party nomination to have time to make a proper go of it against a Republican challenger. This may well embolden many in the grassroots to consider primary challenges against Dem incumbents who are too conservative for their districts. If such a scenario starts to play out in several districts and is apparent early enough in the year, liberal Democrats will be in a much better position to make demands in the Legislature collectively and individually, as a good third of the Democratic caucus are fairly conservative, and a good half again of them are perhaps more conservative than many in their home districts.

My own pollyanna-esque feeling is that next biennium will have to be better. Last session, the Legislature spun its wheels a bit in the first biennium as well. Still, its reassuring to know that one of the final actions of this biennium may be to make the power of the ballot box that much more effective for next year.

crossposted at the brand-spankin’-new five before chaos

I have to say, even though I still think it’s way too early to be focusing on the ’08 elections, and my biggest fear is probably a Hillary presidency, I am enjoying the hell out of watching the GOP continue to self-destruct at so many levels.

First, there’s the Congress and Senate. So many of them are digging in their heels on supporting Bush and the war, it’s making me seriously think that the conventional wisdom that politicians are only concerned about being reelected is very wrong. They’re setting themselves up for an electoral bloodbath in ’08. It really seems that the goal here, as some have already stated, is to keep the war going until Bush is out of office and let the next president clean up the mess. But you can tell they’re getting nervous when Foghorn Leghorn himself is starting to talk about timetables. But what makes it funny is they still have the wingnuts like this one leading them around like a bull with a nose ring.

But where the real humor is to be found is in the presidential race, as the top-tier candidates are finding how hard it is to try to appeal to mainstream voters yet not lose the batshit insane christofascists and warmongerers that make up the GOP base. That leads to things like Rudy Giuliani saying that it would be “okay” if Roe v Wade were repealed but it would be “okay” if it were upheld. Talk about noncommittal. And then the fun begins.  The Politico is reporting that it was just leaked from a rival GOP campaign that Giuliani gave money to Planned Parenthood at least six times in the ’90’s. Gotta laugh as they try to do each other in. It’s all the more satisfying when you consider how poor the ‘top-tier’ even is. It’s like the GOP is finally having their Dukkakis/Kerry moment.

Under every rock is mediocrity and a pander. Consider the sheer irony in Mitt Romney’s situation. The fundies have a real problem with his Mormonism, as though the crazy stuff that they believe, like this and this is any less ridiculous than what he does. And once again, he’s not free to even show any sort of independent thinking (authoritarian types which comprise the bulk of the base have a real problem with that). They’re already on his ass for not being one of the few people at the debate shameless enough to show how nutty they really are when he didn’t raise his hand when asked who didn’t believe in evolution.

So it’s time to sit back and watch the monkey show, as they slowly devour each other and any shred of credibility  as they pander to the worst elements in our nation, all so they can lose big in ’08. Go ahead and gloat. It’s been a long time coming and it’s only gonna get better. Mr. 28% is solidly wrapped around the neck of each and every one of these guys, and he’s not letting go. It’s hard work, right?

George W Bush has signed himself into the position of Supreme Crusader. He refuses to be bound by legislative action, and this Congress has not yet managed to muster any legislation of substance to challenge him.

Vermont Congressman Peter Welch refers to legislation with troop withdrawal timetables that passed in the U.S. House as his greatest achievement thus far in ending this war. The timetables didn’t even make it out of committee with the Democratic Senate, and so were spared the President’s veto. The Congressman thinks that this is real progress, but is unable to articulate why. He is also certain that impeachment proceedings would prolong the war, but offers only his judgment as evidence.

Only after impeachment investigations against him had begun did Richard Nixon start the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. George Bush is still operating from an undeserved but nonetheless standing power base. Congress can’t pass a law that he feels compelled to obey, but they can impeach him and remove him from office and he can’t do a thing about it.

Bush thinks we’re winning a war. Democrats in Congress think they’re ending it. While Nancy Pelosi keeps impeachment off the table, it’s showing up everywhere else.

Impeachment is the only remedy when the executive usurps legislative authority. But this Congress doesn’t want to tackle that. No, these legislators are happy as clams, taking bold stabs at wrongdoing around the outer edges of the administration, uncovering political meddling in the Department of Justice, Republican politicking being done on the people’s dime, failures at Walter Reed. In the meantime, they do not have a single investigation of Bush or Cheney about the war, or torture, or signing statements, or violating FISA and the fourth amendment, or anything at all that would lead to their removal from office.

The Democrats just want to see Bush and the Republicans twist in the wind until the ’08 elections. The Constitution, American soldiers and the Iraqi nation can be damned in the meantime.

Our house is burning down. We’re asking our representatives to pass us a water bucket, but they’re only excited about their project to dig the fire pond deeper. Just wait until it’s all designed and built they say, and then we’ll really be good at putting out those fires. Only when they discover their own pants burning will they pull their heads out of their plans and go for water.

We’re looking for a measure of competence and honor from our leaders. If they don’t have it in them, we will instill it. If Peter Welch wants us to believe that he’s ending the war, he should tell us how he’s doing it. If he can’t give a reasoned answer why we shouldn’t impeach he should support our efforts. If he wants to end this war, he should stop protecting Bush and Cheney from being held accountable and help us end this administration’s rein of destruction.