(Nicely put. – promoted by JulieWaters)

FYI, there’s a 7-minute video of Peter Galbraith discussing the Iraq War and the Bush Administration’s handling of it, the surge, and its broader implications over at Mulish Behavior: http://mulishbehavior.blogspot…

Worth checking out.

Also, I disagree with the conventional wisdom that Douglas cruises in a 3-way race. Rather, Douglas has it much easier in a head-to-head race against Pollina.

How’s that?

For starters, there is a large percentage of old-guard Democrats who simply WILL NOT vote for a Progressive, regardless of how much courting goes on, and regardless of whether the Democratic leadership could convince someone from running to give him a free pass (which won’t happen). In that case, Douglas either picks up those folks (“Douglas Democrats”?), or they take a pass on voting in that race. So, Douglas stands to win with anywhere from 55%-45% (best case for Pollina), or perhaps in a landslide somewhere around 65% or 70% to Pollina’s 35% or 30%) (more likely).

Second, in a 3-way race, the Democrats will vote, and turnout will be high in a hotly contested presidential election year. So, it does provide the opening to keep Douglas with a plurality of the vote – either throwing it to the legislature and allowing the 3rd place candidate to make a public appeal to throw their votes to the 2nd place candidate), or at a minimum hampering him by denying him a mandate.

Lastly, might I suggest that if the Dems put forth aggressive energy and health plans this session and Douglas vetoes them, or if the economy continues to worsen, OR, any number of other X-factors come into play (suppose Galbraith outraises Douglas using his national/international connections – who knows?!), then perhaps, just perhaps, the Democrat finishes first. Not entirely outside the realm of possibility if all the stars align.

It always blows my mind how readily leftists create more problems for themselves. It’s a quality I tend to ascribe to Democrats, but the carnival-like drama of the search for gubernatorial candidates demonstrates that its a failing of Progressives as well.

We’re experts at creating Frankenstein monsters for ourselves, and this story is a story of Frankensteins. The shared creation, of course, is Governor Douglas himself, who was allowed to develop a head of electoral and popular steam that led him into the Governor’s office by being allowed to run unchallenged as Treasurer.

But the Dems and the Progs are both dealing with their own monsters made manifest in each other, because both seem all too content to leave their political fortunes to the forces of nature – and nature abhors vacuums, as I’ve said many time before on this site.

It was the vacuum created by the lack of a Democrat making serious movements last year that enabled Pollina to swoop in so easily and readily. Pollina becomes the Dems Frankenstein monster.

But the lack of any effort to meaningfully reach out to the Democratic grassroots to shore up the support Pollina claimed to want also left a vacuum just hanging out there. If Pollina had paid more than some occasional, casual lip service to the idea of repairing long-burnt bridges, there would have been no room for what we’ve heard and seen today – Peter Galbraith, for all intents and purposes, being anointed the Democratic party nominee.

And so, Progressives have seen the Dems’ Frankenstein monster with one of their own. There will be lots of grumbling from both sides now, while observers of all political stripes will merely be left to chuckle about how predictable this has all been. In any event, the game’s afoot – and now that the players seem to be on the board, the details become a lot harder to second-guess. I just got in from hearing Galbraith address the Democratic caucus – not quite announcing his campaign, but pretty close (sound familiar?). It’s easy to see the problems presented by such an electoral neophyte, but I suspect that Progressives, Republicans and frustrated Democrats underestimate him at their peril.

Whatever happens next, this all sure is interesting.

I know, some of you probably forgot he was even running – that's okay, sometimes he did, as well. His campaigning was best summed up by David, at the Right's Field:

So ends the laziest candidacy in American history. They’re showing b-roll of Fred “campaigning” on MSNBC and they literally can’t find anything more interesting than him eating a bowl of soup.

A great post on this subject has already appeared on  GMD- I suggest looking at:

Missing Emails: “Where are What?

In Orwell’s 1984, inconvenient truths contained in historical documents were consigned to “The Memory Hole”; quite simply, an incinerator, which destroyed all traces of documentary evidence contradicting the Government’s current version of the Truth.

Of course, Orwell did not foresee that, in the digital age, very little in the way of “hard copies” would exist, making the task of alteration or disposal even easier.

According to The Washington Post (

“White House Has No Comprehensive E-Mail Archive:System Used by Clinton Was Scrapped” by Elizabeth Williamson and Dan Eggan):

For years, the Bush administration has relied on an inadequate archiving system for storing the millions of e-mails sent through White House servers, despite court orders and statutes requiring the preservation of such records…

As a result, several years’ worth of electronic communication may have been lost, potentially including e-mails documenting administration actions in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Henry Waxman’s House Oversight Committee is planning to hold hearings on this matter, currently scheduled for February 15.  Let us hope that this committee, of which Vermont’s own Peter Welch is a member, makes plenty of copies of what they find.

Originally posted at http://vnrc.org/article/view/1…

There's an interesting development in the upcoming Governor's race. There's been lots of speculation as to whether a Dem was even going to jump into the race. Well, it appears that Peter Galbraith is getting much closer to jumping in, with the setup of the Vermont Leadership Fund:

In Vermont, we have a chance to end six years of stagnation with new progress. Health care is a human right, and not just for those who can afford it. We need leadership to unleash Vermont's potential in the new green economy, to better protect our environment and to find innovative ways to conserve all our precious resources. And, we should add our voices forcefully to those demanding an end to the Iraq War.

I am excited about the possibilities for Vermont — especially if we are working with a Democratic President and Congress — and for that reason I am now giving serious consideration to being a candidate for Governor.

Since my potential candidacy was first mentioned in the press, many Vermonters have contacted me asking how they can help. I am very grateful for these offers of support. In order to make them more concrete, I am launching the Vermont Leadership Fund with the help of the Vermont Democratic Party.

The Vermont Leadership Fund will support Democratic leaders on all levels around the state, and cultivate new leaders who will help build Vermont's future. It will highlight the multiple shortcomings of our administrations in Montpelier and Washington and present positive alternatives.

Looks like Anthony Pollina's job is about to get a bit harder. 

Anthony Pollina’s day just got a little worse… and Jim Douglas probably thinks he’s got it made (although that false sense of security may be his undoing) as Peter Galbraith takes another step towards running for Governor.

Today Galbraith sent out an email touting his “Vermont Leadership Fund” which will support candidates at all levels, but presumably serves as the official “dipping of the toe” into gubernatorial waters.

“Interesting,” as Peter Freyne would say. You can check out the message and contribute at: http://www.vermontleadershipfu…

I think I’ll send something his way and see what happens. Maybe this guy CAN give Douglas a run for his money. At least he’s got the guts not to be scared off by Douglas and/or Pollina. Anyone else?  

We’ve talked about this a bit before.  I won’t give the whole history, but you can visit Green Mountain Daily’s Pharmacy Fishing Archive for all the stories about collection of personal data by Vermont State Police on medical data from pharmacists throughout the state of Vermont.

Well, it’s just gotten a bit more interesting.  In some of the earlier discussion (I don’t recall how much of this was private discussion and how much was posted online) involved a database to try to get a handle on illegal prescription drug use.  What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Department of Health had already begun developing that database and has, in fact, put out bids for the creation of it.  

I’m a tech geek and know databases and secure information management extensively.  After the fold, I’ll try to explain exactly what this database can do, doing my best to translate tech geek into standard human English.  

For those of you who are tech geeks yourselves, this may sound like I’m talking down to you.  I apologize, but I want this to be understood by the general public, and I want to be thorough.

I’m going to begin by quoting a few items from the requirements set forth by the state for the database:

The contractor will collect data on all Schedule II, III, and IV controlled substances

dispensed by VT licensed pharmacies.

(You can see what drugs fall into the various schedules through the Department of Justice)

A complete record for each prescription dispensed will be stored for six years, and shall be available for query during this period.

“Available for query” means that any authorized user can, at any time, look up information up to six years in the past.

The following data elements will be collected by the application from dispensing pharmacies:

1. Patient full name

2. Patient date of birth

3. Patient’s complete address

4. Prescriber name

5. Prescriber DEA#

6. Pharmacy Identification

7. Pharmacist’s name or initials

8. Generic or brand name of drug dispensed

9. National Drug Code for the drug dispensed

10. Quantity of drug dispensed

11. Dosage

12. Number of days supply dispensed

13. Number of refills prescribed

14. Date drug dispensed

15. Source of payment

16. If the patient is an animal, the patient’s name and species, along with the owner’s full name, DOB, and address.

I think this is mostly self-explanatory; from what I understand, people who prescribe medications have Drug Enforcement Agency codes which ID them to Federal Officials.  I’m assuming source of payment is relevant because cash payments are believed to be more likely in criminal transactions than credit car payments.

More from the requirements:

The contractor will be an Application Service Provider, hosting the Vermont Prescription Monitoring System (VPMS). The contractor shall utilize and maintain all hardware and software for the VPMS application, throughout the life of the resulting contract.

This may take some explanation.  Here’s the deal: an “Application Service Provider” means that the person who handles this bid will, themselves, be hosting the system.  In other words, instead of having it housed on secure servers by the state itself, a private company will be holding onto all the data.  

This means that although the company will be required to maintain strict security codes, there’s little the State of Vermont can do to guarantee that security.  There is no motive for the company hired to do this work to reveal security breaches on their part, because doing so could place their corporate interests in jeopardy.

Really, for me, this is what it boils down to:

1. If we’re going to collect this data (I’m not convinced we need to, but if we do it, we need to do it better than this), it has to have a firewall of some sort with respect to access of data.  Specifically:
   
   
   • separate access for personal names (for routine data cleanup, elimination of duplicate records, etc.), which aren’t connected to medications or history, combined with…
   • a set of criteria for revealing the names.  I.e., if the same individual has prescriptions at four different pharmacies in a six-month period, then it can trigger a report which allows law enforcement to determine whether or not an investigation is warranted, but without those specific triggers, a warrant is required to obtain the information.



2. If we’re going to collect this data, it needs to be housed somewhere where we can keep an eye on it, not where some corporation somewhere may or may not have any strong motivation to keep the information private



3. The proposal itself uses the terms “HIPAA compliant” and “fully HIPAA compliant” without ever defining explicitly what is meant by those terms.  These are terms which are relatively ambiguous, though they don’t sound this way on the surface.  They’re open to so much interpretation that we need to be specific as to exactly what the Vermont Department of Health assumes HIPAA to require and how it expects to meet those requirements.

One final thought: having the information stored like this has real potential in politics down the line.  Someone who opposes a sitting governor or legislator can easily covertly track down personal information about them and leak it to the press through the system as described in the proposal.  To me, this is a very big deal.

I caught the last part of tonight’s South Carolina debate (meaning I missed the apparent fireworks). The supposed free-for-all portion, and I find myself of several contradictory minds on it.

It strikes me as the most substantive and the most nauseating of the debates all at once. The candidates are being given more room to speak in something besides soundbites, and are demonstrating that they are all articulate, intelligent people. Of course, we’re also getting to see just how annoying they can be. Edwards strikes me as the least annoying, and that’s undoubtedly largely due to the fact that I’m more drawn to him politically, but I think there’s a little more to it. Edwards is being far more focused in his rhetoric (if not his attacks), clearly because, as the underdog, he needs to be surgical. As a result, we’re seeing less of the “real” Edwards (whatever that may be – and that’s certainly a question open to debate).

Obama and Clinton are both running as front runners in a sense, and as a result showing us a bit more of their actual personalities. This may well endear themselves to their targeted swing voters, but it really aint working for me. Obama seems as smug and rambly as ever, and in fact seems annoyed at having to share the stage with people he seems to look down on. Clinton is doing a better job hiding her tendency to scold, but it’s obviously coming out in all its unpleasant glory from time to time. It would be interesting to see what sort of annoying personality quirks would be eking out from Edwards if he weren’t having to (largely – but not entirely-  successfully) play it so rigorously disciplined.

But he does, and it’s because he’s playing a fundamentally different game to a narrow slice of voters, wIth this word from TPM:

Will John Edwards manage to win a single contest in all of Campaign 2008? Even his aides don’t think so, according to the New York Times… It’s looking like Edwards’ goal now is to pick up enough delegates to force a brokered convention, where Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would have to make some kind of deal with him.

If this is true, Edwards is no longer playing to win, he’s speaking to progressive issue voters with a simple plea: if you stick with me, I can represent your issues at a brokered convention in a muscular way. He is, in a sense, saying that he will continue to play the role he has already played in the overall election (TPM again):

“You have almost single-handedly made poverty an issue in this election,” (Martin Luther King III) wrote to Edwards. Look, this is true. When the history of this race is written, it will register that Edwards had a salutary effect on the debate during this campaign on multiple issues, poverty only being one of them.

For someone (like me) who votes on the issues more than on the candidate, it’s a compelling argument for sticking with him.