You know, if that's a Republican baby, maybe she'll stand up to the wingers after all. And help keep their numbers down, too.

He ran an honorable race, but the writing was on the wall for Bill Richardson. From the AP:

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson ended his campaign for the presidency Wednesday after twin fourth-place finishes that showed his impressive credentials could not compete with his rivals' star power.  Richardson planned to announce the decision Thursday, according to two people close to the governor with knowledge of the decision. They spoke on a condition of anonymity in advance of the governor's announcement…

He portrayed his campaign as a job application for president, and ran clever ads that showed a bored interviewer unimpressed with his dazzling resume. The commercials helped fuel his move to double-digit support in some early state polls, and advisers argued he was poised to move past former vice presidential nominee John Edwards for the role of third-place challenger.

But he was not able to build the momentum and came in a distant fourth place in Iowa and New Hampshire. Richardson didn't get quite 5 percent in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday and came in with just 2 percent in the Iowa caucus last week.

Could a cabinet post be in the works for Richardson? He certainly has the resume to warrant it. We shall see. 

Well, this is interesting. ABC News is reporting that turnout in today's primary is “absolutely huge”, and like towns like Portsmouth, Keene, Hudson and Pelham are actually concerned about running out of Democratic ballots.

[Dep. Sec. of State]Scanlan said that the Secretary of State's office is sending additional ballots to Portsmouth and Keene (traditionally Democratic strongholds), Hudson (Republican leaning with significant numbers of independents) and Pelham (large number of independents).

According to Scanlan, the ballot strain seems to be on Democratic ballots, which suggests that the undeclared voters are breaking for the Democratic primary. New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner predicted that 90,000 undeclared voters would vote in the Democratic primary compared to 60,000 voting in the Republican primary.

This doesn't bode well for Clinton or McCain. Could a blowout be in the works?

(I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it's got a bit of relevance here, considering the history with GMD. Plus it's a nice distraction from Iowa overload.)

crossposted at five before chaos.

What, besides languishing in obscurity? Not a heck of a lot. But apparently, Second Vermont Republic's Thomas “Obviously a Good Confederate” Naylor isn't getting his “neo-con” fix enough from his recent appearances on hate talk radio. He has two events planned next week, that exemplifies the strategy that did them in last year…play nice with the lefties as though nothing's wrong, while sucking up to neo-Confederates simultaneously. More below the jump.

As Rowley at VT Secession tells us, SVR has two events scheduled on January 15th, as part of his “Vermont Independence Day” celebration. The first is a banquet in Montpelier with the theme, “The Vermont Village Green: Alternative to Empire.” This one has a few speakers, including Kirkpatrick Sale (winner of an SPLC award that I'll get to in a minute), and is obviously in the vein of the sympathies of left-leaning Vermonters, whom they were able to successfully exploit until last year.

As Rowley points out, last year's event was promoted and sponsored by its sister organization, Vermont Commons. The Commons also took a beating last year with its digging in in its heels in support of Naylor. This year, they're nowhere to be seen in regards to the event. In fact, the only other promotion of this event is over at the white-supremacist Vanguard News Network site by someone listing their location as “Mount Zion – Jew York Shitty” (I'm not linking to them). Simultaneously, Naylor is also hosting a 2-day “North-South Secession Summit” in Charlotte:

The North-South Secession Summit meeting will include senior representatives from the Middlebury Institute, the League of the South, the Southern National Congress, and the Second Vermont Republic. Recognizing that the American Empire is immoral, illegal, unsustainable, ungovernable, and unfixable, these secessionists have called for the peaceful dissolution of the United States of America. Through a “Genteel Revolution” they hope to help save America and the rest of the world from the American Empire.

Yeah, who better to save us from the American Empire than a bunch of Neo-Confederate hacks led by a guy who swears he's not a racist but seems incredibly comfortable around them? And a big congrats to Naylor's co-conspirator Kirkpatrick Sale, of the Middlebury Institute. Sale was the recipient of one of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hatewatch's “1st Annual Smackdown Awards”:

7. Weirdest Political Alliance Award The honors here go to Kirkpatrick Sale, director of the New York-based Middlebury Institute, dedicated to secessionism. Known for decades as a left-wing intellectual, Sale last year buddied up to the white supremacist League of the South (LOS) — a group that opposes racial intermarriage, defends segregation, and calls for a return to “European cultural hegemony” in the South — to the point of actually co-sponsoring the Oct. 3-4 Second North American Secessionist Convention in Tennessee with the LOS. Now, the left-right love affair promoted by Sale has turned positively torrid, with a “North-South Secession Summit” planned for January. Attending will be top officials of the Middlebury Institute, LOS, the Southern National Congress, and the Second Vermont Republic, to seek “the peaceful dissolution” of the United States.

One really has to wonder what keeps these people even bothering in Vermont, having very little, if any, support. As it's been pointed out before by odum, perhaps due to our high percentage of white people here in VT, it's a lot easier for these people to fly under the radar.

This is mostly as an aside to Julie's post on the Kos/Obama dust-up. I read a few comments over ther but had to leave because my eyes started bleeding- it was like listening to a bunch of fifth-graders.

Nevertheless, like many, I've been quite distressed at Obama's apparent lurching farther and farther to the right in this campaign. It's almost as bad as Hillary, but from a different angle. Matt Stoller at Open Left ad this to say in his Reality-Based Candidate Evaluations post that sums up the Obama phenomenon better than I ever could, and gives us much to be concerned about:

Let's do a thought experiment.  Let's say I were to put a generic candidate forward, and ask whether Democrats should choose him or her as our nominee.  This person rejected the Iraq war at the time of the war authorization vote and has a very liberal voting record as a Senator, though, like much of the caucus, has done little of substance to lead us out of the war.  He has a good if unremarkable career as a Senator, and is loved by Democrats all over the country for inspiring rhetoric.

Since declaring for President, this person has called Social Security a 'crisis', attacked trial lawyers, associated unapologetically with vicious homophobes, portrayed Gore and Kerry as excessively polarizing losers, boasted as his central achievement an irrelevant ethics bill, ran against the DC establishment while taking huge amounts of cash from DC, undermined Ned Lamont in 2006, criticized NAFTA while voting for a NAFTA-style trade agreement, compiled opposition research on the most effective liberal pundit in the country, refused to promise that American troops would be out of Iraq by 2013, and endorsed the central plank of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy doctrine, the war on terror.

How would you react?  You could concoct a 'theory of change' and argue that all of this is just deceptive, and the candidate is worth supporting anyway.  You could make arguments that this person can change the electoral map, with no evidence, and support him for that reason.  Or you could decide that this person means what he says and is running a campaign promising the country premised on conservative ideas such as the war on terror, maintaining an American presence in Iraq, and 'fixing' Social Security…

We like to think we live in the reality-based community.  And if you know all of these things, and you still support Obama, you have to concede that you are supporting a conservative candidate for President.  And that's fine.  But just go into this with clear eyes.

I'm just worried that people aren't paying attention enough to see this.  I wouldn't fully agree with Stoller that Obama's a full-blown "conservative" but he's hardly the progressive we need to get things going in the right direction. If we do indeed get yet another mushy "centrist" candidate, we can fully expect to remain in the political wilderness for some time to come. The stakes are higher than ever right now, and in view of this, Obama's "change" mantra is starting to sound Orwellian.

This is mostly as an aside to Julie's post on the Kos/Obama dust-up. I read a few comments over ther but had to leave because my eyes started bleeding- it was like listening to a bunch of fifth-graders.

Nevertheless, like many, I've been quite distressed at Obama's apparent lurching farther and farther to the right in this campaign. It's almost as bad as Hillary, but from a different angle. Matt Stoller at Open Left ad this to say in his Reality-Based Candidate Evaluations post that sums up the Obama phenomenon better than I ever could, and gives us much to be concerned about:

Let's do a thought experiment.  Let's say I were to put a generic candidate forward, and ask whether Democrats should choose him or her as our nominee.  This person rejected the Iraq war at the time of the war authorization vote and has a very liberal voting record as a Senator, though, like much of the caucus, has done little of substance to lead us out of the war.  He has a good if unremarkable career as a Senator, and is loved by Democrats all over the country for inspiring rhetoric.

Since declaring for President, this person has called Social Security a 'crisis', attacked trial lawyers, associated unapologetically with vicious homophobes, portrayed Gore and Kerry as excessively polarizing losers, boasted as his central achievement an irrelevant ethics bill, ran against the DC establishment while taking huge amounts of cash from DC, undermined Ned Lamont in 2006, criticized NAFTA while voting for a NAFTA-style trade agreement, compiled opposition research on the most effective liberal pundit in the country, refused to promise that American troops would be out of Iraq by 2013, and endorsed the central plank of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy doctrine, the war on terror.

How would you react?  You could concoct a 'theory of change' and argue that all of this is just deceptive, and the candidate is worth supporting anyway.  You could make arguments that this person can change the electoral map, with no evidence, and support him for that reason.  Or you could decide that this person means what he says and is running a campaign promising the country premised on conservative ideas such as the war on terror, maintaining an American presence in Iraq, and 'fixing' Social Security…

We like to think we live in the reality-based community.  And if you know all of these things, and you still support Obama, you have to concede that you are supporting a conservative candidate for President.  And that's fine.  But just go into this with clear eyes.

I'm just worried that people aren't paying attention enough to see this.  I wouldn't fully agree with Stoller that Obama's a full-blown “conservative” but he's hardly the progressive we need to get things going in the right direction. If we do indeed get yet another mushy “centrist” candidate, we can fully expect to remain in the political wilderness for some time to come. The stakes are higher than ever right now, and in view of this, Obama's “change” mantra is starting to sound Orwellian.

It may sound alarmist to some, but there's been some rather chilling developments in the realm of public surveillance lately that you should know about. There's plans from the Department of Homeland Security for a spy satellite program, which they assure us, "won't be used to spy on Americans".

Even more chilling, like something out of the sci-fi flick "Minority Report" is the WaPo story that lets us know about a new program that the FBI is up to:

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

More below the jump… 

What this means is a huge database of people's individual characteristics:

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

So between the satellite and the biometrics database, where will one be able to go without risk of being watched? It seems like our options are increasingly limited. And of course, it's all being done in the name of "fighting terrorism". The technology is still somewhat new, and far from accurate, but even if it were 100% accurate, would that make you feel any better?

Another chilling aspect is that usually, when one applies for a sensitive job (such as certain federal positions or jobs that involve children or the elderly), often fingerprints are taken to ensure that the applicant is not a criminal, and then these prints are destroyed or returned. That's apparently changing, as well:

But the FBI is planning a "rap-back" service, under which employers could ask the FBI to keep employees' fingerprints in the database, subject to state privacy laws, so that if that employees are ever arrested or charged with a crime, the employers would be notified.

It really seems that the government is intent on collecting as much information on you as possible.You have nothing to worry about as long as you're not a terrorist, right? 

As climate change continues to gather more steam as an issue both in Vermont and abroad, I'm continually and increasingly perplexed as to what neurons are misfiring in Whinin' Jim Douglas' brain cavity.

First, a bold and comprehensive energy bill gets shot down by Douglas so he can keep his VT Yankee buddies from paying their fair share of taxes. In Douglas' perpetual taxpayer funded campaign stops “Set The Agenda Tour”, Jimbo says that he's not really hearing much about global warming. It's all about that that nasty, overtaxed, harsh business climate that Douglas seems intent on promoting Vermont with (the only “climate” he seems to be interested in). Then, the guv's Commission on Climate Change issued a report detailing the severity of the problem, seemingly contradicting the short shrift the guv' seems to be giving it. 

On Wednesday, the Bush toadies at the EPA (soon to be renamed “Exploitation Propagation Agency”) rejected California's request for a waiver allowing the state to implement a law reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles. From the Sacramento Bee:

The EPA's rejection kills copycat rules that have been adopted by 12 other states and are under serious consideration by six others. Top officials from many of those states, representing both major political parties, were quick to condemn the EPA.

As you probably know, Vermont is affected by this, as we've recently adopted similar standards to California. But the mind-boggler here is a quote in the article from Whinin' Jim himself…

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas, a Republican, said the EPA “is out of touch with the reality of climate change.”

WTF? Anybody see a bit of mental disconnect with what Douglas is saying here? Sorry, Jim, it's not just the EPA that's “out of touch” with the reality of climate change. You're full-fledged out to lunch on it yourself.  

Douglas will say something like this and he next three things he says in Vermont will completely contradict it. Chalk it up as yet another issue he's extremely vulnerable on next year, provided we can get a candidate out there in time.

Now, I'm not one to shill for candidates, but in light of yesterday's action from Chris Dodd, it's at least important to hear his message on it. It's a rather inspiring one, to be honest- inspiring in that it's real action, not rhetoric, like some of the other candidates seem to pass off as having 'leadership". And remember, Clinton, Obama, and Biden all apparently thought staying in Iowa was the best way to stand up to Bush :

I'm sure Kagro X will have an update on this sooner or later, but some good news for you, for a change. Senator Dodd's filibuster threat seems to have convinced Harry Reid to pull the FISA bill until January. From Huff Po:

But the threat of Dodd's filibuster, aimed primarily at the latter measure, persuaded Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, to table the act until January. A compromise on the immunity will ostensibly be worked out in the interim period. “We have tried to work through this process and it appears quite clear at this stage on this bill that we're not going to be able to do that,” said Reid. “We are at the last few hours of the last few days of this year's session of Congress… I think its very clear we're not going to be able to move into the amendments…. I've spoken with a number of Senators and we feel it would be in the best interest of the Senate to take at look at this when we come back next year.” A smile on his reddened face, Dodd was at once gracious and joyful by the turn of events. He had been arguing his case for approximately eight hours.

Obama, Biden, and Clinton remained on the campaign trail, all demonstrating serious leadership on this issue by… oh, wait, nevermind.

It seems that there was indeed a large swell of reaction to this, as many people contacted their Senators about it. Sens. Boxer, Feingold, Kennedy and a few others stepped up to support Dodd today, as well. This indeed gives us some more time to build upon this and hopefully, maybe the Dem leadership will do the right thing after all and work to defeat the telco immunity provision. And a big hat off to Senator Dodd.