To: Vermont Media

From: Judy Bevans, Chair, Vermont Democratic Party Release Date: 3/24/09

Subject: Vermont Democrats Support VSEA¹s Campaign Against Job Cuts

Contact: Judy Bevans, 802-755-6280 or 802-229-1783

Randolph, VT – At a special meeting called on March 21 to elect its new chair, the Vermont Democratic Party endorsed a resolution supporting the Vermont State Employees Association in working to keep jobs in the face of severe budget cuts.

The resolution, proposed by Lamoille County delegate Virginia Burgess, reads, “Be it resolved that the Democratic State Committee expresses its support to the working people of Vermont, and specifically the members of the VSEA, in their efforts to retain essential services by essential personnel for the benefit of the most vulnerable Vermonters.”

The resolution continues, “We further urge that the members of the State Committee contact both their legislators and members of their community in an effort to explain the devastating consequences of the cuts being considered.”

Referring to the resolution, newly elected VDP Chair Judy Bevans said, “What we have in the budget shortfall is a lack of revenue, not an excess of employees. Cutting jobs, especially with no plan beyond a body count, decreases the effectiveness of government and denies access by the neediest Vermonters to the services government provides. It continues Governor Douglas’s attempts to balance the budget on the backs of our vulnerable neighbors: elderly, poor, and disabled people and their families. Cutting jobs is more expensive than raising taxes to keep people working.”

President Obama did not call on any National papers at his press conference Tuesday night (noted in a bit of pique by the New York Times political reporters) and recently, he delivered a snub to the Gridiron Club (widely recognized by most insiders as the ultimate insiders club) by declining their invitation to attend their annual dinner.

A recent poll reports that nearly one-third of Americans under the age of 40 say programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are taking the place of traditional news outlets.

Thirty-nine percent (39%) of adults say programs of this nature are making Americans more informed about news events, while 21% believe they make people less informed. Twelve percent (12%) say they have no impact.

Now this .A press conference of sorts with no press at all .A live online event from the White house to answer citizen submitted questions .Submitted in advance at http://www.whitehouse.gov/Open… and ranked by participants regarding interest and importance.

White House to Host Online Town Hall after Ignoring National Papers at Press Conference

Participants can submit questions in writing or video. They can also vote for questions they want most to be answered. The questions are listed by topic, and then ranked by interest in them. As of 7:18 a.m. on Wednesday, there were 176,060 votes on 2,082 questions from 5,924 people in the jobs topic alone. A ticker at the top of each list of topical questions keeps an updating count.

This event may provide a model for how to engage participants in an online event. Registration requires first name, e-mail, and ZIP code and “catch” verification. The “Terms of Participation” are explicit. Participants can flag questions that violate the policy and if several flag one question, it will be downplayed then reviewed and either removed or restored to the rotation. People who want to submit a question outside the event can do so.

Questions and voting are hosted by Google Inc., but whitehouse.gov owns and has access to the data related to the questions and voting, which will be treated in accordance with the whitehouse.gov privacy policy. Google never receives your email address and does not store the IP addresses related to open for Questions.

http://www.poynter.org/column….

http://www.rasmussenreports.co…

I know, this was mentioned in the comments in my previous diary, and I'm sure there will be more on this shortly, but Cathy Resmer at 7Days has this statement from Smith and Shumlin:

Today, Governor Douglas announced his intention to veto S.115, which has not completed the legislative process. “The governor’s announcement today undermines the legislative process is disrespectful to Vermonters who come to the people’s house to weigh in on the important matters of our time,” said Speaker Shap Smith. “History will judge Jim Douglas on the wrong side of this issue.” “Today is a sad day for Vermont,” said Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin. “The governor may choose to veto a bill, but he cannot veto love and commitment.”

There's also a link to some audio with the governor, have a look. Anyone surprised by this?

Poking around this morning, I came across a good piece at the blog Dissenting Justice, a DC blog by Professor Darren Hutchinson. His post, Definite Candidate for Wimp of the Year Award: Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, is a good one, as it's taking on the lack of spine of our pathetic excuse for a governor in the way he's dealing with the marriage equality debate. He believes the governor is hiding behind the president, as Obama has also come out for civil unions as opposed to full-blown marriage, and that it's easier to do that than for Douglas to come up with his own coherent argument.

The latest talking point/strategy from GOP HQ seems to be to fight anything progressive with the argument that it's “distracting” from dealing with the economic crisis that they played a huge part in creating (you know, that whole “Reaganomics on steroids” thing). We're seeing it with all the Village-speak lately with this “Obama trying to do too much” garbage. Now, coming from Republicans, not the most adept, complexity-handling, agile subset of our species, this is understanding… sometimes I wonder how they're able to actually show up to work in the morning in DC with all those similar-looking big grey buildings everywhere; if it weren't for the obvious dome of the Capitol, I suspect some would probably show up at the Smithsonian for work.

And as Hutchinson points out, Douglas, in a bold stroke of originality, is using the same playbook as the mouthbreathing Eric Cantor, who recently criticized Obama's stem cell decision as a distraction, yet apparently found that a resolution congratulating the American Dental Association , a bill to declare English as the official language of the United States, and a beer tax reduction all vital, pressing issues that most of the country loses sleep over at night. I know I do; every time I go to the dentist, I ask him if he feels appreciated enough by the American people, and that he damn well better answer in English, because I'm feeling ornery because of those few extra cents I paid on my bottle of beer last night:

Why Aren't These Things “Distracting”?
Here are some of the other things that Governor Douglas has done (or has planned for this year) that have not caused economic collapse in Vermont.

Vermont Quarter to get a Makeover>: “Governor Jim Douglas has nominated Vermont’s 150 miles of the Appalachian Trail to replace the scene of Camel’s Hump and sap buckets as part of the U.S. Mint’s new America’s Beautiful National Parks Quarter Dollar Coin Program.”

Public Appearance Schedule of Governor Jim Douglas:

Friday, March 27, 2009
6:00 p.m. Annual Green-Up Poster Contest Awards Banquet, Capitol Plaza Hotel & Conference Center, Montpelier

Saturday, March 28, 2009
10:00 a.m. Poultney Maple Fest Weekend Tree Tapping, Green Mountain College, Poultney

11:00 a.m.-4:00 p.m. Tour of Sugar Houses for Maple Open House Weekend, Locations to be Announced

6:00 p.m. Vermont Trappers Association Annual Banquet, Montpelier Elks Club, Montpelier

Governor Douglas has time to hang out at a tree tapping, go on a tour of sugar houses and attend a poster contest banquet, but he thinks that debating civil rights is too distracting.

Maybe he's not distracted because they're all superficial campaign-like PR events, which is primarily what Douglas seems to think passes for governing, when he's not impeding progress in some form or another. Indeed.

Governor George Aiken, pictured above, is known for having coined the term “Northeast Kingdom” but a lesser known fact is that he stole that term from Green Mountain Daily

Green Mountain Daily, one of Vermont’s most venerable institutions, has decided that it is no longer financially viable to maintain a print operation and will therefore, as of April 1, 2009, move to an online-only presence.  

Green Mountain Daily started out as a small operation and continued in that vein for its first 4 decades or so, focusing on local news stories and human interest material.  Everyone on staff remembers fondly the headlines on December 7th, 1941, “Local Firefighter Saves Kitten.”

But when, several weeks later, we learned that America was at War, we sprung into action and the nature of the paper changed.  With war came a new responsibility to respect our nation and promote its interests.  Thus, with the nation gripped by war, Green Mountain Daily, decades ahead of its time, instituted its own “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy and thus a new era was born.

With the fifties came the rise of communism and a new enemy to fight, and Green Mountain Daily was there.  Yes, not only did Green Mountain Daily show up when subpoenaed, several of us camped out on the steps for days before, just to get the opportunity to name names before anyone else could rat us out first show us up in our patriotic duty.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

Costco, Starbucks and Whole Foods jointly issued ways to tweak the Employee Free Choice Act.  Yet again big business proclaims that the EFCA would allow those dreaded unions to massacre successful corporations.  Of the three, only Costco has a substantial amount of employees that are actually unionized.  Their spokesman is Lanny Davis, a self-proclaimed pro-labor liberal.

An article from Sunday’s Washington Post is linked above.

Following up on recent discussions at GMD about buying locally, responsible contracting and stimulus projects going to low-bid, out-of-state businesses, Jon Margolis wrote a great article about employee misclassification in the construction industry:

http://www.vermontnewsguy.com/…

He also weaves in what this has to do with the University of Vermont’s James Jeffords Hall.  This is a startling example of public dollars going into the pocket of a contractor with an extremely suspect reputation.

Check Jon’s piece out if you haven’t already.