Every time we see a Janet Jackson boob or the FCC passes out fines, the Puritans and our puritan heritage.  Well, stop it.  It’s not their fault.  The Puritans were Congregationalists.  Orthodoxy and congregational governance don’t mix.  The famed Salem witch trials reflect the breakdown of Calvinist orthodoxy.  Every time you see a 2nd or 3rd Congregational church in New England, it’s because the founders broke from the first which had to add that number to its name. 

The so-called Puritanism arises mainly from evangelical protestants and conservative Roman Catholics.  The irony is that the so-called Southern Baptists are an enormous part of this cohort.  And they don’t know their own heritage!  If one looks at protestant governance, it is a continuum of devolution of Roman Catholic hierarchy ranging from Episcopal to the virtual anarchy of the Baptists who believed in the priesthood of the baptized.  The notion that a Baptist denomination could have disciplinary powers over its members or congregations is a true oxymoron. 

The lack of understanding of history is breathtaking.  From those who call themselves `conservatives,’ it is frightening and fascistic. 

Americans really don’t understand constitutional government.  They have a simplistic view of constitutionalism based on a legalism that boggles the mind.  I say this because of my enormous respect for British constitutionalism that understands that a constitution is not just law but also custom and usage.

Hence lame ducks and dead ducks.  There is nothing as undemocratic as lame ducks.  I don’t mean the time when an office holder is not willing or able to run again, I refer to the time after an election takes place and before the newly elected take office.

In Britain, that period can be as short as a matter of hours. 
There is no reason whatsoever for there to be any delay other than delay caused by an undetermined result. 

And this leads to my point about constitutionalism.  Yes, the documents say that a new Congress doesn’t begin until January 3rd or a new President doesn’t get inaugurated until January 20th with similar situations in the states. 

In the British based systems, a electorally defeated  Prime Minister has the legal right to wait in office until the new Parliament meets and defeats him/her on the Throne Speech.  However, the custom and usage calls for resignation as soon as the results are clear.  Equally important, if there is a lame duck period, which begins when the election is called, the government can only act as a caretaker.  Good and democratic. 

For instance, nothing prevents a President ending his period in office from having his/her Vice President resign the day after the election and then under the 25th Amendment appointing the elected successor.

This would also have the enormous impact of reducing the bloated and redundant staff that enclose our elected leaders in bubbles.

Anyone running for office should be prepared to take over at a moment’s notice. 

The K Street Projectile

Basically the strategy of Delay Rove et al was to turn the political system on its head.  Just as Abramoff was not about obtaining influence for his clients, but influence for himself and lots of money to that end.  So the entire Republican strategy was really designed to get lots of money for the advisers, consultants, lawyers, and lobbyists who encircle the elected members.  And this group is not very smart. 

A local example.  The Republican candidate, Rich Tarrant, for Senate spent seven million of his own money to be trounced 2 to 1 by Bernie Sanders.  That?s about $75 per vote.
Much of the money was spent on TV and on glossy mailers attacking Bernie.  Vermont has only one member of the House and it?s been Bernie since 1990; he?s run and won eight times.  The negative stuff works best when the object of the negativity is unknown or the negativity has some basis (however slight) in fact.  Vermonters know and like Bernie.  So why go negative?  Simple, the litteratti of the Republican party know how to play that game and few others.  And Tarrant?s money (ill-gotten from the worst sort of health care parasitism) was good and plentiful. 

In short, why have the Republican members of Congress been so bad and so rubbier-stampish?  What do expect from cash cows?  Rich Tarrant did represent Vermont ? bovine Vermont.  Mooove over.

This is a republic not a democracy.  Of all the right wing claims, this is the most insipid and meaningless.  It not only reveals the right’s contempt for democracy, but their basic inability to reason.

For something to be A and not B, A and B must be mutually exclusive.  One can say, in a silly example: this is an elephant not an ant.  Democracies and republics are not mutually exclusive.  Democracy refers answers the question: who governs?  Republic refers to the question: how is the head of state chosen?  The opposite of a republic is a monarchy.  In a republic, the head of state is chosen by some mechanism of choice.  In a monarchy, the head of state is determined by some form of the hereditary principle. 
Forms of government can range from democracies to constitutional non-democracies to the authoritarian and to the totalitarian.  All these forms of government can be found in republics in monarchies.  Fascist Italy was a totalitarian regime with a monarch as the figurehead; Saudi Arabia is a totalitarian regime that can also be called an absolute monarchy.  In either a republic or a monarchy, the head of state may either be a figurehead or also the head of government.  Monarchies that are constitutional democracies include the UK, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Australia etc.  Republics that are constitutional democracies with a figure head as  head of state include Germany, Israel, India.  Republics with a head of state who is also head of government include the US, Costa Rica, and South Africa.  Constitutional democracies may be based on the parliamentary model or the Presidential.  Although the President of South Africa is both head of state and head of government, the system is parliamentary.

In one respect, Republics and Monarchies do differ fundamentally and that is the issue of pomp and pageantry.  It is the theatrics of monarchy that are part of its very nature.  Republics eschew that pageantry.  It is most telling that the US Presidency is looking more and more like a monarchy all the time in its pageantry and the enormous budget of the White House.  The only purpose of supplying the head of government with a house is not to equal a palace, but it is way of saying that a head of government (in whatever system) is so important that he or she must, as it were, live above the store.  Had we had a President who understood this, we might well have avoided 9/11.  If we really do want a republic it’s time to sell the White House.

I just realized something amazing: more gay men voted for the Defense of Marriage Act than voted against it.

The idea being: no one’ll suspect I’m gay if I gay bash. 

When Republicans and others gay bash, it’s a confession.

Weissman’s law says it: people who are down  on gays in public have been down on gays in private.

In addition to mass murder, tyranny, and grand larceny, Bush Cheney and the Republican party are guilty of identity theft.  Who’s identity?  America’s.  They took over the government despite losing the election of 2000 and proceded to take our identity away from us as a people who are under the rule of law, believe in due process, and expect the government to perform its functions competently and honestly.

Instead they have turned our identity into that of a mindless group of thugs, liars and crooks illegally invading another nation and kidnapping and torturing nationals of many nations. 

We want our identity back. 

So Martha the mouth has decided that she has a patent or is it trade mark or is it a copyright on the name Rainville and woe be those who are named Rainville who do anything to cross our war criminal as candidate. 

The Republicans are not just desperate but have placed themselves out of civil society.  Rush’s attach on Michael J. Fox is an outrage.

You know the desperate Tories in Canada in 1993, knowing they were about to lose power in a landslide against them also went to the very dark side running an ad against challenging LIberal Leader Jean Chretian.  The ad?  A phony person in the street set of interviews all of whom expressed embarrassment should Canada have a Prime Minister who looked like Jean Chretian. 

I’m not making this up.  The result was a total defeat of the party going from a comfortable majority in the House of Commons of 170 seats to 2.  Two.  TWO.

So let’s let the Reps have a seat in stinking Mississippi and another in some other racist swamp. 

I finally got it!! I know why the dubster has only been a very part time Lt Gov.  His opponent is Matt Dunne.  It stands to reason, dub would want to keep his day job.

It’s in the 14th Amendment! If any adult male (through the 19th it becomes any adult) qualified to vote is denied the right to vote, then the state in which it happens shall lose representation in the House of Reps (and the Electoral College) to the extent of that denial.

If we posit an Australian standard of 100% turnout, then the electoral votes and representation for each state can be reduced to the extent that turnout doesn’t meet that standard.  Thus, if turnout in, say South Carolina, is only 33% the SC would lose 2/3 of its members of the House etc.

Had the standard existed in 2000 and 2004, Bush would have lost

In September of 1941, Vermont declared war against Nazi Germany.  That’s three months before Pearl Harbor. 

So…if elected as state representative, I will introduce a resolution declaring peace with Iraq and ordering the A-G of the Vermont National Guard (who is elected by the legislature) to remove all Vermont members of the Guard immediately.  What’s my time table?  How about the 5:15?

The war is illegal and has nothing to do with 9/11.  Frankly, Martha Rainvillle is a war criminal and responsible for the deaths of every Vermonter she sent to slaughter. 

I look at her and  think “Hanna Arendt was right, evil is banal.”