Here’s something that might make you spill your single-malt. VTDigger and the Castleton Polling Institute have released a new poll on Governor Shumlin’s job performance. And the news ain’t great.

Two years ago, Shumlin had the approval of 65% of respondents; only 23% disapproved of his performance. This time, it’s 49 positive, 40 negative, and the rest “Not Sure/No Opinion.”  

Quite a swing, to be sure. Not enough to sway my belief that Shumlin will easily win re-election, but he might actually have to spend money this time. (And he’s got plenty to spend.)

After reporting the numbers, VTDigger’s Anne Galloway called upon Vermont Pundit Emeritus Eric Davis to divine the entrails. And he let loose with a veritable firehose of speculation, starting with the natural attrition that affects all incumbents, and moving quickly through the Jeremy Dodge land deal, Shumlin’s failure to produce a single-payer health plan, the state of the economy, his support for renewable energy, and his slowness to produce a Lake Champlain cleanup plan.

One of the Rules of Punditry: Give enough answers, you’re sure to hit the right one.

But actually, I think he left out one really big one — maybe the biggest of them all: widespread disaffection with the school-funding system. We saw a lot of it at Town Meeting Day; enough to force the Legislature to cut the proposed state property tax increase from 7% to 4%, and to begin seriously considering reform ideas for the tax or the entire education system.

That’s at the top of the issues affecting Shumlin’s ratings. Here’s the rest of my analysis, for what it’s worth.

After the jump: Eric Davis suffers a bout of Lismamnesia.

The 2012 poll caught the Governor at the best possible time. He had shown great leadership after Tropical Storm Irene. Not that you or I or anyone agrees with everything he did, but he did a lot of stuff and, in the process, looked extremely Gubernatorial. He couldn’t possibly have maintained a nearly 3:1 edge in popularity. So, on top of the incumbent’s natural attrition, add the inevitable deflation of the Irene Effect. That accounts for most of the decline.

After that comes the school-funding situation, still unresolved. I’ve previously wrote that this is by far the best issue for the Republicans this year. Not that it’ll beat Shumlin, but it’s the best weapon they’ve got. Better than health care.

Next is Shumlin’s personality. He’s very self-assured and decisive, but often comes across as arrogant, abrasive, and unwilling to listen or compromise. His style was an asset in responding to a disaster like Irene; it’s less so in “normal” times. (See also: Bush, G.W., and Christie, Chris.)

After that comes the health care combo platter: Memories of the troubled rollout, plus his failure to produce a single-payer plan. These are factors, but not as large as the Pundit Class believes. The further we get into the Age of Obamacare, the dimmer the memories of its early stumbles will become. As for Shumlin missing the deadline for a single-payer financing plan, that’s mostly an inside-baseball thing. It’s causing him trouble in the Legislature, but the vast majority of voters aren’t going to care.

As much as I made hay about the Jeremy Dodge deal at the time, I don’t think it makes a dime’s worth of difference today. Once Shumlin realized the potential harm the deal could do, he acted quickly (and fairly) to end the dispute. It’s way behind us now — except in the memories of those who can’t stand Shumlin anyway.

As for Davis’ other issues — the economy, energy, and Lake Champlain — they are factors, but they’re very low on my list.

But let’s put all of that aside. The truth is, we really don’t know why Shumlin’s poll numbers have dropped. There are two huge problems with the poll:

1. It’s the first in two years. Vermont’s too small to support an ongoing survey operation, so all we get is the very occasional snapshot. This may well be the low point for Shumlin: we’ve just been through the health care rollout and the Town Meeting Day uproar over property taxes, and he has yet to begin campaigning for re-election.

2. As Davis points out, the survey didn’t ask why voters approved or disapproved. Further questioning could have given us a read on whether it was a particular issue, or general perceptions of Shumlin’s character. Do they disagree with him, or do they mistrust him?

All in all, this new poll is the big political story of the day, and I’m sure the Republicans are enjoying a rare good moment. But I don’t think — at all — that it portends doom for Shumlin or the Democrats.

____________________________

Postscript. Near the end of the Digger article, Eric Davis turns his attention to a potential Heidi Scheuermann campaign for Governor. And, just like Terri Hallenbeck, he has a massive blind spot the size and shape of Bruce Lisman. He actually brings up the necessity for Scheuermann to have a deep-pocketed backer — but instead of naming Lisman, he suggests Vermonters First.

I’m amazed that Davis could get this so wrong. Vermonters First isn’t going to lift a finger for Heidi Scheuermann; she represents the Phil Scott wing of the party, which is anathema to the likes of Lenore Broughton. He also suggests the Republican Governors Association as a possible big-dollar supporter — which is also wrong, because the RGA has bigger fish to fry and much better prospects outside of Vermont.

Nope, Scheuermann’s only hope is Bruce Lisman forming a Vermonters First-style SuperPAC. His recent retreat from active leacership in Campaign for Vermont frees him to take such an active, partisan role. Scheuermann is a founding partner in Campaign for Vermont, and she has strongly promoted CFV’s ideas on education and ethics this year. I’m really surprised that Davis failed to see this.  

The April 16 edition of the Burlington Free Press brought us, courtesy of veteran State House scribe Terri Hallenbeck, a lengthy exploration of The Life And Times Of Heidi Scheuermann, Republican state representative and potential candidate for Governor.

Deep depth, I tell ya. Not only did Hallenbeck recount Scheuermann’s emergence as a top Republican critic of the Shumlin Administration, she also explored Scheuermann’s formative years as “a good student, determined athlete and team leader,” her sevice in the Peace Corps, her political resume, and her day job: managing her family’s Ski Town rental properties.  

No stone unturned.

Well, with one little tiny exception: her close political alliance with one Bruce Lisman, founder of Campaign for Vermont and one of the few Vermonters with the resources and willingness to put a whole lot of money into Vermont politics. She has been CFV’s chief legislative water-carrier this session, the group’s first as a State House presence. Lisman’s name does not appear in the article, at all; “Campaign for Vermont” puts in its one and only appearance at the 1550-word mark in this 1923-word epic. And it doesn’t concern CFV’s connection to her political ambitions; it’s about school funding:

As Scheuermann spoke up for repealing the current system, Democrats shot her down for failing to have a replacement plan.

… Scheuermann argues she does have a plan, one that the policy advocacy group Campaign for Vermont adopted and through which she became a founding partner of that group.

In a very long exploration, that’s all Hallenbeck has to say about Scheuermann’s ties to Lisman or Campaign for Vermont. Curious, to say the least.

Because without Lisman’s backing — tacit or overt — it’s hard to see how a state representative with no name recognition outside of Stowe and Montpelier could hope to compete against a popular incumbent with over a million bucks already in his warchest and a clearly superior party organization behind him. She’d also be getting a very late start, almost as late as the then-better-known Gaye Symington in 2008. And we all know how that turned out.    

I have previously put forward the notion that the only way Scheuermann can be competitive — not win, mind you; just avoid embarrassment — is if Lisman pulled a Lenore Broughton: pumping lots of money into a (cough) independent committee to hammer away at the incumbent.

Which makes Hallenbeck’s omission seem doubly curious: how can you assess Scheuermann as a rising politician without considering the primary factor in her rise?

I don’t subscribe to a conspiracy theory on this one. I don’t think Hallenbeck was deliberately obscuring the Lisman connection in furtherance of any stealth political plot on his part. The simpler explanation is the all-too-common myopia of the Political Stenographer’s Class: to see things through the standard prism of the “inside the Beltway” crowd. (There’s no Beltway in Montpelier, but there’s definitely a D.C.-style shared mindset among State House scribes.)

Hallenbeck’s narrative sticks to the two-party system and the palace intrigues of the State House. Her quotes regarding Scheuermann’s political standing are from the Usual Suspects: House Speaker Shap Smith, VTGOP chair David Sunderland, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott.

Her vision was too narrowed to include Bruce Lisman, even though he’s not exactly an unknown, even though my GMD theorizing must have penetrated the Freeploid’s perpetual fogbank, and even though Lenore Broughton provides a perfect, and recent, example of how a wealthy person can lift an obscure candidate into putative relevance.

Despite all that, the limited perspective of the political journalist appears to have triumphed over good sense. As a result, in spite of her otherwise solid work, Hallenbeck’s profile is fatally flawed.  

Ah, springtime. The snow has finally melted — save perhaps in the shaded corners where municipal plows dump their loads — and after a long, hard, seemingly endless winter. the warming temps and lengthening days foreshadow life’s renewal.

Well, except in one particular location, where the springtime is a harbinger of death.

Yep, I’m talkin’ the State House. This is the one location where the dead of winter is a time of newness, creativity, and promise, while spring is The Reaper’s Time: when once-lauded legislation is quietly, ruthlessly dispatched. Usually behind closed doors or in whispered hallway conferences.

Case in point: the bill that would have placed a two-year moratorium on privatizing public schools. It passed the Senate, no problem; it also gained approval by the House Education Committee. But this week, it suddenly up and died.

The question of whether voters should be allowed to “flip” public schools into private entities has churned for months in Vermont. After lengthy debate on the House floor Wednesday, the issue has been tabled.

The bill’s mysterious demise came after Minority Leader Don Turner introduced an amendment that would have removed the moratorium but retained a study of the issue: always a popular alternative to, y’know, doing something.

Usually, Turner’s dutiful rhetorical flourishes go nowhere… but this time:

After a break and several minutes of informal huddles, a motion was made to order the bill “to lie.” It’s a rare move in the House, and most often means legislation gets put on ice and left there to freeze.

Representatives agreed overwhelmingly on a voice vote to shelve S.91.

And just like that, months of legislative debate end with instantaneous death.  

VTDigger’s brief account, quoted above, offered no explanation whatsoever; nor did the Times Argus’ story (hidden, as usual, behind the Mitchell Family Paywall).

Over in the Freeploid, Terri Hallenbeck managed to get this succinct rationale from House Cryptkeeper Shap Smith:  

Smith said of the bill’s future,, “It’s not a top priority of the House.”

Gee, Shap. Thanks for sharing.

To me, the bill itself isn’t that big a deal. But its quick and unexplained demise? I’d think Our Glorious Leaders would feel some responsibility to explain their actions — err, inactions — to the people they supposedly represent.  

Well, well. Earlier this week, the State Senate passed a tax bill including a provision that would impose property taxes on fraternity and sorority houses. The action has sparked a tizzy in Greek circles: We can’t afford it! We’ll have to close our houses! A couple dozen frat boys and sorority sisters descended on a House committee meeting to try to kill the provision.

And, given the predilection of Our Glorious Leaders to run away screaming from any sudden outbreak of controversy, I fully expect that the Greeks will win this one.

My first question upon reading the story was: Wait, so frat houses are tax-free? We’re all helping to subsidize the Greek system?

Yep, we sure are. But as part of a wide-ranging review of tax exemptions, the Senate decided to pull the Greek giveaway. Senate Finance Committee Chair Tim Ashe says it’s a matter of fairness: non-Greek students have to cover the cost of property taxes, and his committee couldn’t come up with a reason to give preference to the Greeks.

But wait, say the brothers and sisters. We are nonprofit organizations that conduct charitable activities and perform thousands of hours of volunteer work every year. We deserve a tax break.

Snort. Yeah, it’s true that the Greeks do some good things. But according to the student life office at UVM, fraternity and sorority members will raise $140,000 for charitable causes this year. That includes the nine with actual houses, plus five others without. And according to Ashe, the estimated annual tax on those nine houses would be about $160,000. Hmm: investing $160,000 to get roughly $90,000 in support for charities? Sounds like a bad deal to me.

And that’s leaving out the other side of the Greek balance sheet: its long and unstoried history of hazing, substance abuse, and sexual assault. Let’s look at the record:  

Earlier this year, UVM fraternity Alpha Epsilon Pi received a five-year suspension over failure to abide by an interim suspension over alleged alcohol and hazing violations last fall. Frat brothers also “refused to cooperate with the police investigation.”  

In 2011, UVM frat Sigma Phi Epsilon was first suspended and later shut down over a survey that

included the question “If [you] could rape someone, who would it be?”

Also that year, four officers of Phi Gamma Delta were fined for violating the state’s anti-hazing law.

Now let’s turn our attention to the Rogues’ Gallery that is the Dartmouth Greek system.

In 2013, Dartmouth suspended Beta Alpha Omega for hazing violations and providing alcohol to underage students.

Also that year, Dartmouth suspended Theta Delta Chi for five violations including alcohol abuse. TDC had been suspended in 2012 for similar violations, and in 2005 for a hazing incident involving a members of a campus sorority.

2013 also saw the infamous “Bloods and Crips Party” thrown by two Greek houses, in which members — predominantly from the cloisters of white privilege — dressed up as inner-city gang members. Hilarious, right?

The year before, an ex-Dartmouth frat brother named Andrew Lohse blew the whistle on hazing rituals that included making pledges “swim through a kiddie pool of vomit, urine, fecal matter, semen and rotten food products; eat omelets made of vomit; chug cups of vinegar, which in one case caused a pledge to vomit blood; drink beer poured down fellow pledges’ ass cracks… among other abuses,” and described a culture of “pervasive hazing, substance abuse and sexual assault.”

After Lohse went public, a former Dartmouth sorority sister wrote an account of her hazing: a night of extreme alcohol consumption that ended with her in the Intensive Care Unit with a blood alcohol level of .399, a nearly fatal dose.

And in case the Greeks among us would shrug off these incidents as aberrations, I direct your attention to Bloomberg News’ devastating series on fraternity abuses including the deaths of more than 60 people since 2005 in incidents linked to fraternities, plus an “epidemic” of injuries, hazings, assaults, sex crimes, and substance abuse that seems to reveal a deeply dysfunctional culture in the entire system.

In light of all this, the question about the Senate-passed bill is not “Why should we force these groups to pay property taxes?” Rather, it is “Why should we subsidize their existence?”

But leading House liberals are already sounding the retreat. The Freeploid quotes the usually reliable Rep. Kesha Ram as urging “a step back” from what she says is the “targeting” of the nine Greek houses. Which ignores Tim Ashe’s sound reasoning. But then, Ram’s district includes many of those houses, so her political antennae are twitching.

There’s also Janet Ancel, chair of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee; she doesn’t want to consider the idea on its merits, but rather “whether we are completely out of the mainstream.” In other words, what do other states do?

That’s my idea of leadership.

Not.  

(Hey, didja miss me? Been gone a couple of weeks. Lots happened while I was out, and I’ll try to catch up as I go along.)

This month has brought us the new, improved Burlington Free Press. Not only are subscribers unwillingly subjected to a section of USA TODAY content, but the Freeploid website has been dumbified in USA TODAY style, banishing serifs, emphasizing pictures and minimizing text, and inducing more page-clicks per visit.

And the rest of the newspaper has been embiggened through the strategic use of generous margins, supersized fonts, and gigantic photos (some by actual photographers, but many shots from other Freeploid staffers or no-cost sources).

Clearly, its new slogan oughta be “The Paper For Folks Who Don’t Like to Read.”

The New Era of Freeploid Stupididity was launched on March 30 with another brimming-over-with-happy column by Jim Fogler, Grand Poobah of FreePressMedia. And as all astute Freeploid readers know, when Jim Fogler writes a column, it’s time to duck and cover.

His column was all about MORE! More national news and other USA TODAY “content.” “More information and more pages” … “as we nearly double the amount of local content.”

Please note that he said “content,” not “news.”

(There was also this subtly alarming sentence that should have Terri Hallenbeck and Nancy Remsen updating their resumes:

See what’s missing? The State House and state politics. The Freeploid has been diminishing state news for quite some time, but here’s Jim Fogler saying it out loud. Heck, I give ’em credit for keeping a two-person State House bureau as long as they have. But if I were Hallenbeck or Remsen, I’d be watching my back.)

To see how this commitment to MORE plays out in print, let’s take a look at a few pages from today’s Freeploid. (I’ve made the images small enough so the text is unreadable. I hope that mollifies the ‘Loid’s aggressive copyright enforcers.)  

Here’s page B1, the front of the Vermont section. (Mistakenly labeled as C1 on the website’s E-newspaper, oopsie.) The cover story is a brief writeup of high water on Lake Champlain, whose text is dwarfed by photos. (The half-page photo, worthy of supersizing or not, is a staple of The New Freeploid’s layout.)

This page contains 148 words of text — but look: thanks to the purty pitchurs, it’s a full page of CONTENT. The story jumps to an interior page, also including gigantic photos and an additional soupçon of text.

And all the photos were taken, not by an actual photographer, but by Freeploid editorial writer Aki Soga. Presumably he sauntered down to the waterfront on his lunch hour and snapped a few shots on his smartphone. Who knew photojournalism was so easy? Take that, Margaret Bourke-White!

Next we have the first page of the sports section, with a timely piece about the Boston Bruins’ quest for the Stanley Cup, which begins tonight. The page is, credit where it’s due, artfully arranged. But it’s one page of “content” that includes a mere 116 words.

Written, not by a Freeploid scribe, but by an Associated Press reporter.

There you go, “readers”: Another page of “content.” I don’t know if this is counted as a page of “local content” even though there’s absolutely nothing local about it, but the Bruins are the home team for most Vermonters. So I suspect that this does qualify as “local” in the minds of Freeploid bean counters.

And now, for your very brief reading pleasure, we present a half-page of “content” containing four stock photos plus an incredible 241 words about selected upcoming events in the Burlington area.

This is the sort of thing that, in a real newspaper, would be accompanied by actually relevant local images. For Record Store Day, maybe a photo of Pure Pop Records or Burlington Records (‘sup, Jacob). For the theatrical production, maybe a shot from a rehearsal. If that’s too much effort for the downsized Freeploid staff, you can usually get decent pix from event organizers or publicists. It’s not hard. But instead, we get uninspired and uninspiring stock photos. Most likely the layout was done in some central office in New Jersey or Mumbai or some other non-Vermont location. Sheesh.

Finally, we have the second Opinion Page. No text at all (except for word balloons and captions), just three shamelessly oversized cartoons. None of them local.

Hey presto! An entire page of “content” with no pesky words to vex the uneducated. And brightly colored cartoons, perfect for attracting the youthful, presumably text-averse audience.  

These pages are all too typical of the new, “improved,” bigger-but-not-better Burlington Free Press. Indeed, there are worse offenses, like half-page blow-ups of photos submitted by readers, and a “food column” consisting of a single paragraph, a recipe, and an oversized photo, and a local-history feature Hamburger Helpered with pix and illustrations.  

I can’t complain too much if the ‘Loid’s subscription rates stay the same. But the Gannett brass has already foreshadowed price hikes to go with the embiggened “content.” Well, Jim, your paper is definitely larger — but it’s not any better. Not at all.

 

As a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, billionaires and large corporations can now spend an unlimited amount of money to influence the political process.  The results of that decision are clear.  In the coming months and years the Koch brothers and other extraordinarily wealthy families will spend billions of dollars to elect right-wing candidates to the Senate, the House, governors’ mansions and the presidency of the United States.  These billionaires already own much of our economy. That, apparently, is not enough.  Now, they want to own the United States government as well.

Four years ago, the Supreme Court handed down the 5-4 ruling in Citizens United vs the Federal Election Commission.  A few weeks ago, they announced another horrendous campaign finance decision in McCutcheon vs. FEC  giving even more political power to the rich. Now, many Republicans want to push this Supreme Court to go even further.  In the name of “free speech,” they want the Court to eliminate all restrictions on campaign spending – a position that Justice Thomas supported in McCutcheon – and a view supported by the Chairman of the Republican National Committee.  Importantly, as a means of being able to exercise unprecedented power over the political process, this has been the position of the Koch brothers for at least the last 34 years.

The Koch brothers are the second wealthiest family in America, making most of their money in the fossil fuel industry.  According to Forbes Magazine, they saw their wealth increase last year from $68 billion to $80 billion.  In other words, under the “anti-business”, “socialist” and “oppressive” Obama administration, their wealth went up by $12 billion in one year.  

In their 2012 campaigns, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney each spent a little more than $1 billion.  For the Koch brothers, spending more than Obama and Romney combined would be a drop in their bucket.  They would hardly miss the few billion dollars.  

Given the reality that the Koch brothers are now the most important and powerful players in American politics, it is important to know what they want and what their agenda is.  

It is not widely known that David Koch was the Libertarian Party vice-presidential candidate in 1980.  He believed that Ronald Reagan was much too liberal.  Despite Mr. Koch putting a substantial sum of money into the campaign, his ticket only received 1 percent of the vote.  Most Americans thought the Libertarian Party platform of 1980 was extremist and way out of touch with what the American people wanted and needed.

Fast-forward 34 years and the most significant reality of modern politics is how successful David Koch and like-minded billionaires have been in moving the Republican Party to the extreme right.  Amazingly, much of what was considered “extremist” and “kooky” in 1980 has become part of today’s mainstream Republican thinking.    

Let me give you just a few examples:

In 1980, Libertarian vice-presidential candidate David Koch ran on a platform that called for abolishing the minimum wage.   Thirty-four years ago, that was an extreme view of a fringe party that had the support of 1 percent of the American people. Today, not only does virtually every Republican in Congress oppose raising the $7.25 an hour minimum wage, many of them, including Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell and John McCain, are on record for abolishing the concept of the federal minimum wage.

In 1980, the platform of David Koch’s Libertarian Party favored “the abolition of Medicare and Medicaid programs.”  Thirty-four years ago, that was an extreme view of a fringe party that had the support of one percent of the American people.  Today, the mainstream view of the Republican Party, as seen in the recently passed Ryan budget, is to end Medicare as we know it, cut Medicaid by more than $1.5 trillion over the next decade, and repeal the Affordable Care Act.  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Under the Ryan plan, at least 40 million people – 1 in 8 Americans – would lose health insurance or fail to obtain insurance by 2024. Most of them would be people with low or moderate incomes.”

In 1980, the platform of David Koch’s Libertarian Party called for “the repeal of the fraudulent, virtually bankrupt, and increasingly oppressive Social Security system.”  Thirty-four years ago, that was an extreme view of a fringe party that had the support of 1 percent of the American people. Today, the mainstream view of the Republican Party is that “entitlement reform” is absolutely necessary.  For some, this means major cuts in Social Security.  For others who believe Social Security is unconstitutional or a Ponzi scheme this means the privatization of Social Security or abolishing this program completely for those who are under 60 years of age.

In 1980, David Koch’s Libertarian Party platform stated “We oppose all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes … We support the eventual repeal of all taxation … As an interim measure, all criminal and civil sanctions against tax evasion should be terminated immediately.”  Thirty-four years ago, that was an extreme view of a fringe party that had the support of 1 percent of the American people.  Today, 75 Republicans in the House have co-sponsored a bill that Paul Ryan has said “would eliminate taxes on wages, corporations, self-employment, capital gains, and gift and death taxes in favor of a personal-consumption tax.”

Here is what every American should be deeply concerned about.  The Koch brothers, through the expenditure of billions of dollars and the creation and support of dozens of extreme right organizations, have taken fringe extremist ideas and made them mainstream within the Republican Party.  And now with Citizens United (which is allowing them to pour unlimited sums of money into the political process) their power is greater than ever.

And let’s be very clear.  Their goal is not only to defund Obamacare, cut Social Security, oppose an increase in the minimum wage or cut federal funding for education.  Their world view and eventual goal is much greater than all of that.  They want to repeal every major piece of legislation that has been signed into law over the past 80 years that has protected the middle class, the elderly, the children, the sick and the most vulnerable in this country.  Every piece of legislation!  

The truth is that the agenda of the Koch brothers is to move this country from a democratic society with a strong middle class to an oligarchic form of society in which the economic and political life of the nation are controlled by a handful of billionaire families.

Our great nation must not be hijacked by right-wing billionaires like the Koch brothers.  

For the sake of our children and our grandchildren, we must fight back.  

Snowden asks Putin LIVE: Does Russia intercept or store comms?

RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air

Subscribe to RT! http://www.youtube.com/subscri…

RT (Russia Today) is a global news network broadcasting from Moscow and Washington studios. RT is the first news channel to break the 1 billion YouTube views benchmark.

“““““““““““““““““

Everyone who has read MAD magazine remembers “Spy vs Spy” slapstickish antics.

Always thought it was a a caricatured “us vs them” Cold War cartoon.

In this newer version they bring it close to home with the revelations of Obamas massive surveillance network used to spy on ordinary Americans telecommunications & computer activity as well as world

leaders:

http://www.madmagazine.com/blo…

Also spawned a video game:

http://www.madmagazine.com/blo…

In this spy vs spy exchange, Snowdon briefly “interviews” Putin via videolink.

International

Putin Tells Snowden That Russia Doesn’t Do Mass Surveillance

by Mark Memmott

April 17, 2014 7:55 AM ET

[..[exchange between the young American who has leaked information about U.S. surveillance efforts and the Russian leader came during Putin’s annual appearance on Russian TV in which he takes questions from the public. Snowden, who has been given temporary asylum in Russia, connected via video link and asked Putin: “Does Russia intercept, store or analyze in any way the communications of millions of individuals?”

Putin began his response by telling Snowden that “you are a former agent, a spy. I used to work for an intelligence service [the KGB]. We are going to talk one professional language.”

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw…

More, slightly expanded version

Wowza. Sounds like Vlad is impressed with the fledgling spy which takes some doing — and looks kinda like a job offer. Rollin with the big dog(s) now. Interestingly, Vlad loves his best friend Koni, the oh-so familiar dog who accompanies him on state visits as well as inside the visits including the sit-down with vistitee.

http://www.businessinsider.com…

Softer side of Vlad:

http://webecoist.momtastic.com…

As I looked through my news feed this morning, I managed to break through the usual morning fog to do a bit of a double-take after reading this op-ed on VT Digger from Representative Bob Helm (Rutland-R), about how “Good Public Policy Comes From Sharing Ideas”. Sounds reasonable enough, right?

Now of course, a red flag goes up whenever I hear or read a Republican use the term, “good public policy”, and it didn't take very long to have that flag justified, in the very first paragraph:

The Green Mountain State is home to some of America’s most thoughtful and hardworking people. Vermonters deserve good policy that addresses the issues closest to them, and there is no better way to find good policy solutions than by sharing ideas with others. One way to do this is through membership at ALEC.

ALEC. M'okay.

ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a far-right organization that, to put it bluntly, a major force in much of the radical legislation you've been witnessing with horror that has cropped up in many state legislatures in recent years. What kind of ideas are Representative Helm interested in sharing with the Green Mountain State? Go below the jump and find out. You aren't going to be too happy, to put it mildly.

ALEC's mission?

The American Legislative Exchange Council works to advance limited government, free markets, and federalism at the state level through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector and the general public.

So, basically, the tea party nonsense that's been steamrolling across the country, making things far worse for most Americans? ALEC's your people! 

ALEC Exposed is a great, meticulously documented source for all things ALEC. And it's a horror show, lemme tells ya.  Here's a few of the “good public policy” ideas that ALEC has “shared” with legislatures in recent years:

– Stand Your Ground laws

– Arizona's SB 1070 immigration law (the “show your papers” law)

– Opposing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency 

– Anti-union “Right to Work” laws 

… and that's just a small sampling, but you get the idea – school voucher programs, about a billion laws to benefit the super-wealthy, Koch Bros.-approved anti-environmental legislation (they get a lot of money from Koch) – we're talking about a major force behind the radical right-wing agenda that we've been fighting almost non-stop for the last two decades. If it's a shitty law, you can safely bet that ALEC has its hands in it.

If you click on the “Right to Work” link (as well as many other links at ALEC Exposed), you'll see “Model Legislation” documents from ALEC. Or, as Helm would put it, “independent thinking.”

Cue Bob Helm, again:

 Independent thinking is integral to the democratic process, and Vermont’s motto is a good reminder of this fact. Freedom and Unity can be achieved through thoughtful discussion and debate, and using all available people and resources to solve state policy solutions is a smart idea. Good policy is not created in a vacuum, and by using the tools ALEC has to offer, Vermont state legislators are better equipped to address the issues Vermonters care most about.

Independent thinking. Sounds reasonable, enough, again, right? Like this? 

Michigan Passes “Right to Work” Containing Verbatim Language from ALEC Model Bill:

 Amidst massive pro-labor protests, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has signed sweeping legislation attacking private and public sector unions, just hours after passing the lame-duck legislature. The operative language in the bills is nearly identical to the American Legislative Exchange Council's “model” Right to Work Act (comparison at link)

Or even better, in another example of this “independent thinking” that Mr. Helm praises:

In November, Florida state Rep. Rachel Burgin (R) introduced a resolution (PDF here) that would officially call on the federal government to reduce corporate taxes, but she apparently forgot to remove ALEC’s mission statement from the top of the bill, which she seems to have copied word-for-word from ALEC’s model bill.

If you click on that one, you can actually see, in the bill, the first words are “WHEREAS, it is the mission of the American Legislative Exchange Council…”

Yes, they really are that brazen and stupid. And this is what Mr. Helm hopes to bring to Vermont. With my curiousity still unsatiated, I was kind of curious as to what ALEC's been up to, lately, and, as luck would have it, PRWatch had a great article on ALEC's goals for 2014.

Posted for Meagan Gallagher, the Executive Director of Planned Parenthood of Northern New England 

I recently came across posts questioning Senator Leahy's commitment to women's health, but you have gotten it dead wrong. The reproductive health community is not pitted against Sen. Leahy–we stand together in support of access to quality, affordable health care for women.  As Chairman of the Judiciary committee, Sen. Leahy championed the successful passage of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act in 2013, repeatedly voted to protect access to women's health programs domestically and internationally and has led efforts to address vacancies on the federal bench.

We applaud his work to confirm fair-minded judges who are prepared to respond to the unconstitutional attempts to restrict women's access to health care, especially as a record breaking number of abortion restrictions pass in state legislatures.

Sen. Leahy has his work cut out for him.  The judicial confirmation process is difficult in a good year; last year, some Senators engaged in such extreme obstructionism that they forced a rules change to allow even non-controversial judges to be confirmed. This change, supported by Senator Leahy, allowed for the confirmation of Nina Pillard, who supports access to safe legal abortion, to the DC Circuit Court of appeals.

Of course, we may disagree with particular nominees. But there is no doubt that Sen. Leahy has stood strong with the women of Vermont, and we are proud to stand with him.

Meagan Gallagher
President & CEO

Planned Parenthood of Northern New England

I have a report from Bristol that for the last three weeks at least, Fox 44 has turned off their RF transmitter during the air time of the new Cosmos TV show.  The person giving that report doesn’t have cable or Dish, and uses the proper HD antenna and receiver.  He says he gets Fox 44 all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday, but the signal goes to static by the time Cosmos is supposed to come on.

Any body else on here receive TV by old-fashioned RF?

I’ll press my contact for more details…

UPDATE:

44 was on this morning and past few days, but it is not on now when Cosmos is about to come on.

I dont know about every weekend.  I havent tuned it in regularly.  This morning it is weak with a blocky picture.  Probably strong by this afternoon.

On Saturday it was clear and nice. Today it was no signal.  Doesnt seem like just suddenly bad reception.

I sure would like a second source for confirmation.  Anybody else have RF reception for TV?