When Democrats were swept back into power in 2006, Rush Limbaugh said:

“But the way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I'm just going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried”

Liberals enjoyed his admission that he'd been basically spewing hot air and that he knew the Republicans were full of it.

But after reading that Vermont Democrats have caved in to Governor Big Jim Douglas and Big Business, letting THEM frame the debate on the energy bill rather than forcing them to support Government Subsidy and Defend Global Warming.. I kind of know how he felt…

…the only difference is….I believed.

crossposted at Rip and Read >

Well, you know what they say…it’s all fun and games until somebody looses an “aye”.

Vermont Democrats have talked tough, but at the last minute, they ducked and swerved on H. 520. The picture at left shows my present opinion of Democratic Leadership. (And yes, I suppose some of my fellow bloggers are entitled to watch me eat a piece of humble pie at the blogger’s barbecue.)

First, in an excess of politeness, they decided NOT to move the July 11th veto session until later in the year to give themselves more time and more votes to override the Governor’s Veto on H.520.

From the AP (via Boston.com):

Symington had said the day before that she was contemplating delaying the
July 11 vote until September to accommodate some lawmakers that said they
couldn’t make it to the Statehouse that day.
But Republican legislators
wanted the session held July 11, as scheduled.
“I’ve had a commitment from each and every one of the 49 Republicans to be there on July 11, but I know that Democrats don’t have a full slate,” said House Minority Leader Steve Adams, R-Hartland.
Symington said she decided not to change the date after speaking with the minority party caucuses.

That’s what I like about Democrats…we’re so NICE! We speak to the minority and make things convenient for them….and I’m sure, positive in fact, that the Republicans would do the very same for us…they are such decent folk. (Careful, dear reader, or some of my dripping sarcasm will fall on your shoe.)

Now, after talking tough and even bringing AL GORE into the act…Vermont Legislators turned tail and dropped the tax on Vermont Yankee at the last minute…maybe, they begged Governor “BIG JIM” Douglas….you’ll like us better now, please, sir, please?

And of course, the Gov. smiled and said, “No. I don’t like you any better than I did before. I’m STILL going to Veto your bill. And now, I’ve taken your measure and found that you, despite your numbers, are lacking in strength, in determination, and will power.”

And I’m sure we Democrats will growl, and show our tiny little yellow teeth, and then go cower in a dark hole somewhere.

This was a clear case of what we should do (H.520- combating global warming, promoting exciting new Vermont businesses, not giving Nuclear Power a cheaper tax rate than wind energy) and what we shouldn’t do…

As a friend of mine just put it: “Sometimes, you have to draw the line and just stand there…win or loose.”

Sometimes, it’s the Heroic Last Stand (the Alamo, Masada, Roland and Rear-Guard) that gives others the courage to carry the fight to victory…but Vermont’s Democrats have refused to do that. They have decided to play it very safe…

…and that makes me very sad, very sorry, and frankly, very much less likely to lick a stamp or write a check the next time around.

PS- My friend just added one more insightful comment: I find it ironic that they are caving in on this on a day when we are expect to reach near record temperatures.”  Well said.

(As usual, SPS writes a great diary that should generate discussion. My own feeling, though, is that we’re past the point where its possible to meet all 3 of his listed conditions for leaving responsibly. – promoted by odum)

June 2007 will likely be seen as the turning point in the Iraq war due to three events that fundamentally alter the political calculus surrounding the conflict:

1) The destruction of the Shiite Shrine in Samarra ended any real hope of reconciliation between Sunni and Shia in Iraq in the near term.  The mosque is the equivalent of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Wailing wall for shia.  

2) The utter collapse of the Palestinian Authority.  Why is this important?  There was always a chance that  the Iraq conflict could be addressed through a regional solution that would give Palestine final status (and Golan back to Syria) in turn for regional support of US aims in Iraq.  Now, there is no one to discuss final status with on the Palestinian side.

3) Sen Lugar's speech on the Senate floor on Monday.  Lugar is the elder statesman in the GOP on foreign affairs.  His breaking with the White House will provide cover for moderate GOP republicans to split as well.  I suspect some time after labor day at least one or more of the Prez candidates will break with Bush as well.    

Taken as a whole these three events make the status quo in Iraq completely unteneable, both domestically and internationally.  For the peace movement, I think the last point is especially crucial.  The sustained pressure has had a major impact on domestic thinking.

Sadly, I think we are reaching Act III in a five-act Shakespearean tragedy.  We still have to figure a way to end the war in a way that prevents three things:

1) Genocide.

2) Safe haven for Al-qaeda or other terrorist groups

3) regional war (Iran, Turkey, Saudi, Syria etc) .

Not exactly lofty idealistic goals, but important ones.  As we continue to oppose the war, we should all be keeping an eye on those three points.  We need to end the war responsibly.

( – promoted by JDRyan)

crossposted on five before chaos.

Those of you who live in the Northeast Kingdom of VT are indeed living in a beautiful place… lots of friendly people, beautiful scenery and other quintessential Vermont goodness. The one big drawback you have is that the newspaper is the Caledonian Record, whose rabid right-wing op-ed pages are, more often than not, so mind-numbingly short on logic, and chock full of so many double standards, compartmentalized thinking, xenophobia, false 'patriotism' and plain ol' b.s. that they could pass for transcripts for right-wing talk radio…like this one I wrote about a while ago.

Anyways, an anonymous tipster led me to the revelation that not only are the editors of the C.R. op-ed severely intellectually challenged, they're also incredibly lazy. You see, it seems like some of the material from their op-eds come from a rather unlikely source… those stupid right-wing spam emails that your crazy Republican uncle sends you. I'm not kidding. More below the fold…

You know those emails.. usually containing something about God, lazy illegal brown people, terrorist brown people, Hillary Clinton Satanic lesbian conspiracies, etc. And as always, untrue. Well, it seems like the lazy hacks at the CR, like most far-right ideologues, can't be bothered to fact-check. Remember, their patron saint Reagan did say “facts are stupid things“. Here's a few examples.

On Feb. 1st of this year, the C.R. ran an op-ed called “Not 'Fonda' Hanoi Jane”. Yeah, I know, you've undoubtedly seen it on a bumper sticker somewhere, usually next to a “Bush/Cheney” or “Charlton Heston is my President” sticker. Frightfully original, I know. Anyways, it was in regards to some Barbara Walters special where Jane Fonda was selected as one of the “100 Women of the Century”. The C.R. rants about Fonda's well-known controversial visit with the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, but one passage stands out in particular:

“In one disgraceful traitorous act, Fonda went down a line of prisoners who secretly gave her scraps of paper with their identities on them to let their families know that they were alive. At the end of the line, she gave the papers to her North Vietnamese escort. Three of the men died from the beatings that followed this betrayal.”

Now, the lazy part. You're probably familiar with Snopes.com, a site that is dedicated to debunking and confirming certain urban legends, rumours, etc. If you're not, you should be. And Snopes spends a good amount of time dealing with those aforementioned right-wing spam email rumors. And in just five seconds, five seconds which the C.R. editors couldn't be bothered to take to fact-check, because they're too busy watching O'Reilly, Savage and Boortz and reading those crazy-uncle emails, Snopes set the record straight, and yes, it was one of those emails:

[The most serious accusations] that Fonda turned over slips of paper furtively given to her by American POW's to the North Vietnamese and that several POW's were beaten to death as a result, are untrue. Those named in the inflammatory e-mail have repeatedly and categorically denied the events they were supposedly a part of.

“It's a figment of sombody's imagination,” say Ret. Col. Larry Carrigan, one of the servicemen mentioned in the 'slips of paper' incident. Carrigan was shot down over North Vietnam in 1967 and did spend time in a POW camp. He has no idea why the story was attributed to him, saying, “I never met Jane Fonda.” In 2005, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Carrigan is “so tired of having to repeat that he wasn't beaten after Fonda's visit and that there were no beating deaths at the time that he won't talk to the media anymore.”

Ridiculous? Yes. Surprised? Of course not. But wait, there's more.

It's pretty obvious that some on the far-right end of the spectrum are a bit short in the compassion department in regards to the whole Hurricane Katrina mess (might be that 'lazy brown people' thing). This one is about something that 'crossed the desk' of the op-ed staff at the C.R., in regards to understanding how large “a billion” really is.

• A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
• A billion minutes ago Jesus had recently died and Christianity was in its infancy.
• A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.
• A billion days ago no one walked on the Earth on two feet.

Apparently one of them knows how to use a calculator because they then give a few examples of what one billion dollars could buy, such as 50,022 Subaru Outbacks and 43,478,260 seats at Fenway Park. They then point out how  Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), is asking the Congress for $250 billion to help rebuild New Orleans, and then present us with these numbers:

• If you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you each get $516,528.

• If you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.

• Or, if you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012. 

Wow, from destitute and poor to millionaire overnight! What a country! Well, wouldn't you know that Snopes points out that exact same right-wing spam email with the same numbers, the only difference being the Snopes e-mail also has a witty comment at the end suggesting we should all flood our houses so we can be on the “big easy” street the rest of our lives, and the CR has a dig at the Senator about her love of earmarks. Ah, winger wit. Pathetic. And some of the math is wrong, I hear.  Oh, and there are no plans to disperse over 2 million dollars to each family of four, either.

So what is it? Stupid and lazy? Low expectations from the readers or perhaps they take their readers for granted? I can see a typical morning  in the pressroom, where C.R. “columnists” (and I say that with a very loose interpretation of the word), check their emails and whoever can come up with the biggest whopper gets a free donut. Either that or they just pull them off of Snopes, figuring that the readers that agree with them aren't going to be bothered to check the facts anyways. I hear that their next op-ed involves something about how the face of the devil really was in the smoke when the Twin Towers fell, or how huge alligators live in the St. Johnsbury sewers, where they grow to enormous size after being flushed down the toilet by pet owners who think they're getting too big.

So, if you'd like to give them a hand with their fine journalistic prowess, feel free to drop executive editor Dana Gray a line here with your tips, and also, why not drop publisher Mark M. Smith a line here and ask him why he thinks so lowly of the intelligence of the Northeast Kingdom residents he's supposed to be informing. And remember, if it has something to do with Hillary Clinton eating babies or Barack Obama praying in a mosque and firing an AK47 into the air while screaming “death to the infidels!” as he helps illegal gay Mexicans sneak across the U.S. border, be ready to see an op-ed about it shortly. Heck, maybe you'll get a job in the editorial room.