(crossposted at five before chaos)

I was just going through a quick news peruse and something caught my eye. I was reading this article about Bush threatening the Dems’ latest effort to end the war (this time it’s by getting a mandated withdrawal date). Something stood out:

Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have struggled in recent days to come up with an approach on the war that would satisfy liberals reluctant to vote for continued funding without driving away more moderate Democrats unwilling to be seen as tying the hands of military commanders.

Democratic aides said their greatest concern was persuading liberals to come aboard, and they were hoping anti-war organizations would come out in favor of the House measure.

I don’t remember the last time I read a mainstream news article where the world ‘liberal’ wasn’t used as a slur or pejorative. Even when reading about things Democrats say, the usual tone is that like we’re the crazy uncle that they want to hide in the attic.

Now, I’m not going to read too far into this, but it might be another indicator of that pendulum swinging back. I’m going to keep an eye out for more of this and see if this is really a change in tone from the media and the Democrats.

For those of you following the town meeting/impeachment resolution issue, I’ve put together this handy-dandy roundup from all around the state and a few other places. If you see something I’ve forgotten, let me know in the comments and I’ll get it up here.

Impeachment chorus gains 10 new voices (Brattleboro Reformer)

Vermont: 36 towns call for impeachment probe of president (Vermont Guardian)

Jericho joins impeachment “chorus” (Burlington Free Press)

Impeachment of Bush widely supported at Vt. town meetings (Times Argus/Rutland Herald)

more below the jump…

East Montpelier passes impeachment (Times Argus)

Emotional debate on war dominates Calais meeting (Times Argus)

Douglas tries to stop impeachment discussion (Times Argus)

Hartland passes impeachment article (Rutland Herald)

Shaftsbury voters overwhelmingly pass troop resolution (Bennington Banner)

Impeachment tally: 36 towns support petition (Burlington Free Press)

Vermont Towns Vote to Impeach — UPDATED (The Nation)

In Vermont, impeachment talk dominates Town Meeting Day (WCAX)

Vermont towns want Bush impeached (MSNBC)

Putney, Vermont Votes Again To Impeach Bush (iBrattleboro)

and finally, in case you missed it, it’s Thirty-Five Vermont Towns Vote to Impeach by our very own Kagro X. (Daily Kos)

If you’re tired of this, my apologies, but I know some of our readers are still following it, for it involves GMD. Cathy Resmer has a great article in the new Seven Days about the downfall of the Second Vermont Republic:

The mood was more somber last Sunday, when seven SVR supporters – including founder Thomas Naylor, his son, and Jim Hogue, dressed in period garb as Ethan Allen – huddled in the snow around Allen’s gravesite in Burlington for a second mock funeral. Naylor opened the short ceremony by playing a recording of Chopin’s death march.

Turns out the deceased may as well have been SVR itself. The drop in attendance and change in tone is the result of a recent controversy; as reported here last week, in early February, Vermont bloggers began questioning SVR’s ties to white supremacist groups such as the League of the South. The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies LOS as a hate group.

R.I.P.

[UPDATE — by Vermonter] And don’t forget to attend this fun event at UVM tonight:

Wednesday, March 7, Campus Center Theatre, Billings, 7 p.m. – Vermont Humanities Council

Who: Frank Bryan, professor of political science, and Paul Gillies, former deputy secretary of state, moderated by Mark Johnson, WDEV radio host

The lecture: “The Great Debate: Is it Time for a Second Vermont Republic?“

The word from a friend in Rochester, VT:

Rochester’s town meeting voted 57-53 in favor of impeachment.  A motion to pass over the article had been made and rejected, followed by short discussion and then the vote.

Also, Westminster passed it, 107-29.
It was tabled in Stamford, and wasn’t brought up for a vote in Rupert. More to follow…

(crossposted at five before chaos.)

The NYT’s Frank Rich, one of their better columnists, really tackles one of the biggest problems facing Hillary Clinton. In his ‘Bring Back the Politics of Personal Destruction’, he asks the question that Hillary should be asked every single day until the race is over:

The issue is not that Mrs. Clinton voted for the war authorization in 2002 or that she refuses to call it a mistake in 2007. Those are footnotes. The larger issue is judgment, then and now. Take her most persistent current formulation on Iraq: “Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn’t have been a vote and I certainly wouldn’t have voted that way.” It’s fair to ask: Knew what then? Not everyone was so easily misled by the White House’s manipulated intelligence and propaganda campaign. Some of her fellow leaders in Washington – not just Mr. Obama out in Illinois, not just Al Gore out of power – knew plenty in the fall of 2002. Why didn’t she?

Why didn’t she, indeed? The one frustrating thing about this is, isn’t a little too late to be asking this question? I was asking it of John Kerry back in ’04. That’s why John Edwards’ mea culpa doesn’t hold water with me. So many of us knew how bogus this war was from the get go. All it took was a bit of time to seek out the facts. And almost all of what we were saying back then has turned out to be true. How did so many in the Senate and Congress, with all of the resources they have that we don’t, manage to miss something that was so obvious to many Americans? That is a question that they all need to answer, not just Hillary. Considering that the truthful answer probably has to do with fear of the right-wing noise machine and being branded ‘unpatriotic’, I’m not holding my breath waiting for that answer. It seems to be more motivated by a lack of courage, conviction and principle than being taken in by misinformation. And that, folks, should seriously raise a red flag on any of those candidates’ ability to lead.

Another Sunday, another linkdump…

Don’t you just love it when there’s a natural disaster and the media does its best to show how ‘concerned’ Bush is? The great photojournalism analysis site, ‘BAGNewsNotes’, has a good take on the spin on Bush’s appearance at the recent Alabama tornadoes with ‘The Compassion Gulf’.

Liberal blogs under the microscope again, this time in regards to the ‘nasty, vulgar’ anonymous comments on the blogs after the near-miss explosion with Cheney in Afghanistan. Because, of course, the best way to illustrate what we’re all about is by looking at our anonymous posters and trolls, right? Think Progress has the scoop on Howie Kurtz’s latest idiocy.

Something of agricultural/food interest; the Washington Post is reporting about FDA rules overriding serious warnings about a new antibiotic for cows. Another reason for organics, huh?

Siv O’Neal over at Smirking Chimp has a powerful writing about the 16 million Americans living in severe poverty: ‘The Invisible People Living in a Land of Plenty’.

The Rude Pundit’s maximum rudeness on Bush in New Orleans, with ‘Bush in New Orleans: I was a Drunk and an Idiot’.

And finally, something you should bookmark: The VT Legislature’s Scheduled Committee Meetings Page. Not a heck of a lot going on this week, but it’s a good resource to have on hand to keep an eye on the legislature.

Happy Sunday!

Just wanted to let our readers interested in agricultural issues know that the VT delegation will be having a field hearing on Monday, March 12 at 10 AM, in the House Chamber of the Vermont State House in Montpelier.

From the press release:

The hearing will include testimony from several panels of witnesses representing a broad cross section of the Vermont agricultural community who will be invited to provide information and perspective on issues of particular importance to Vermont in the Farm Bill, including dairy policy, conservation programs, forestry, organic agriculture, rural development, and nutrition issues.

Today’s Times Argus is reporting that the Vermont Senate committee which is hearing testimony from anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan want to have a balanced discussion on the matter. Problem is, they can’t find someone willing to testify in support of the war:

Committee Chairman Sen. Vincent Illuzzi, R-Essex-Orleans said Monday that he has been unable to find anyone to testify in favor of the four-year-old war during the noontime hearing in the Senate chambers later this week.

Illuzzi said he has contacted the state departments of Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion, along with representatives of the Vermont National Guard Enlisted Association, but none wanted to come before the committee opposite Sheehan.

“I wanted a balanced hearing to show that there are two sides to the question,” Illuzzi explained. “But so far everyone had declined the opportunity to speak in favor of the war.”

Why not ask Barre City Rep. Leo Valliere? He seems to have some strong opinions on it, considering he has spoken out against the VT legislature’s antiwar resolution:

Rep. Leo Valliere, R-Barre, spoke twice against the resolution because of the message he said it would send to the American military and the enemy. “I wasn’t elected to aid and abet the enemy.”

You’d think someone with such strong opinions as Valliere would relish the opportunity to take one of the right-wing’s favorite targets, Cindy Sheehan, right? Don’t hold your breath. The hearing will be held at noon in the Senate Chamber in the Statehouse, Montpelier, Friday, March 2nd. 

(In light of odum’s departure, I found it important to front page this, if only to shed some light and let the folks at SVR know that this isn’t going away. – promoted by JDRyan)

Note from JD – I put this on my blog, five before chaos last night, when it was first brought to my attention. Considering they’ve now put the letter in question on their website (with revisions), I feel it is important to have this post here. )

UPDATE: In an incredibly stupid move, SVR has posted their attack piece on John Odum on their website. Before reading my post here, go have a look, then come back here. And let me know if you don’t agree if it sounds more like the insane rantings of a paranoid demagogue than a well-respected (until recently) academic.

You know, when observing how the Second Vermont Republic is dealing with this ever-increasing scrutiny over their ties to Neo-Confederate organizations, the best comparison I can possibly make is to the tactics of the Bush Administration (ironic, considering how much the SVR rallies against the Bush-led imperialism). Straw man arguments, attacking the messenger, disingenuous innuendo, and bald-faced lies.  Did Karl Rove lend them his playbook?

The latest outrage is a letter sent out by Second Vermont Republic’s guru/leader, Thomas Naylor, to its members, which is basically a hit piece on John Odum, the Green Mountain Daily blogger who first drew attention to the story broken on the Vermont Secession blog. For an organization that likes to continuously attribute the motivations of its critics as coming from ‘fear of the success of SVR (while completely ignoring that to many, SVR is merely a novelty or punchline), they’re sure acting like they’re the ones with something to be afraid of.

First, they relocate the Langdon St. Cafe appearance, out of concerns of ‘risk’ (as in the ‘risk’ of being questioned and confronted about the allegations). Now, they send out this letter. You’d need a Camel’ s Hump-sized shovel to get through all of the bullshit in Naylor’s letter. Now, Odum’s more than capable of defending himself, but considering he’s getting all of the heat and attention, and it’s involving personal matters now, I thought it was best that I let those of you who are interested know about the latest lies from Naylor, because the SVR certainly isn’t going to point you to five before chaos (but they sure do see to spend a lot of time there, reading).It’s curious that FBC has stayed under the radar during all of this, considering the criticisms there on the site have been harsh, and for the most part, accurate.

1) Naylor states that anonymous blogger Rowley’s ‘only source’ is the Southern Poverty Law Center (a credible source by any means, except if one is in one of the hate groups watched by the SPLC). Naylor offers no proof on this allegation whatsoever. Must have heard it from the ghost of Ethan Allen.

2) Naylor the gets into calling Odum a ‘Democratic party hack’ and, horror of horrors, a ‘supporter of Bernie Sanders’. He then keeps insisting that Odum has a problem with the Lincoln revisionism and that he doesn’t know the well-known quote from Lincoln about being okay with him not freeing the slaves to save the Union, (which one doesn’t obviously have to be a Neo-Confederate to know-just a Howard Zinn reader). He also says that Odum thinks ‘Abe Lincoln was their greatest president’ and ‘is vehemently opposed to peaceful  secession.” Once again, there is no record of this as motivated by ‘objections to Lincoln revisionism’, and Odum has been on record as stating the idea of secession as ‘somewhat appealing’.  Naylor is just pulling this one out of his ass.

3) He then goes on to somehow insinuate that Odum’s non-profit workplace is somehow behind this. He accuses him of calling into the Brattleboro radio show last week on company time, in an apparent attempt to jam him up with his job. Problem is, Naylor’s too lazy to look out the window, because there was a huge blizzard that day, and NOBODY went to work, including Odum. The fact that Naylor is resorting to these kinds of attacks (without even bothering to check the weather) is very telling as to who the ‘scared’ ones are in this.

UPDATE: The above thing about the calling in on the snow day was removed from the website, but not on the actual letter that was sent out. out. A bit late on the fact-checking.
Here’s the original clip where they try to get odum in trouble with his job:

4) He then cites that oft-cited poll  (that nobody seems to be able to obtain specifics on) that ‘found that 40,000 Vermonters  support secession’.  It’s a bit misleading, considering that we can’t find out exactly how many people were polled, but I’ll bet it wasn’t 40,000. And one poll doth not a movement make.

5) He once again defends the League of the South, Basani and DiLorenzio, while downplaying the racism rampant in the organizations these people associate. Remember , as SVR’s Rob Williams said, ‘they don’t know and don’t care’. He then goes off on some Bernie AIPAC rant. I guess that one plays well with those ‘Zionist conspiracy’ types who might be listening.

6) He talks about the VNN controversy… apparently there was some posts on the hate site, of dubious origin with DiLorenzio’s name on them that I pointed out in the comments section of GMD. Since then, I and numerous others have acknowledged that their veracity may be in question (they’re still there, as to not insinuate we’re going back and doing some kind of whitewash). Naylor then accuses the ‘the blogger’ of a cut-and-paste fabrication. That may be true, but the ‘blogger’ in question is whoever put the posting on VNN, not FBC, Rowley, or Odum, as Naylor is trying to infer.

7) Naylor goes on to list his lifelong opposition to segregation and racism. I don’t doubt his accounts on this. He then once again goes on with the blatantly false accusation that Odum has accused Naylor of being racist. Must be Ethan Allen’s ghost whispering in his ear again.

He wraps up with the laughable and by-now-tired notion, once again, that our motivations are because we somehow fear what this organization represents. First it implies we’re in stark opposition to secession (once again, an outright lie), and second it implies that they’re much further along in their goals than they actually are. Does he actually believe the words coming out of his mouth?

It would be nice if Naylor could actually point to some real example of these allegations, instead of listening to the voices in his head. Maybe he thinks you’re too stupid to bother trying to figure it out for yourself.

I REALLY want to be done talking about this. I have better things to write about.The people who needed to know about this now do, and in the grand scheme of things, SVR doesn’t really matter all that much outside of its supporters. But if Naylor’s idea of a defense is completely sidestepping the issue here while lying his ass off, it’s important you know about it. Hopefully, this will be my last post on this for a while, so those of you who in SVR who are checking this site religiously every few hours out of fear of some new allegation, rest easy. Go back to looking at Confederate memorabilia sites or something.

( – promoted by odum)

Seems like there’s more buzz on the possibility of Bush’s favorite Senator, Joe Lieberman (CT-Party of One) picking up his toys and jumping the fence to join the Repugs (officially, that is – Joe’s been unofficially one for a long time).  Joe’s been filling up a diaper load on a daily basis with his obsessive love of all things Iraq, not giving two shits to the overwhelming majority of his constituents who oppose the war.

The panic line seems to be that if Holy Joe jumps ship, he’ll ‘return control of the Senate to the Republicans’. Not completely true. At that point, it would be a 50-50 Senate, with Dick Cheney breaking any tied votes. But a point to ponder… considering the way the Senate has voted lately, and with Repubs jumping ship on Iraq quickly, the chance of 50-50 votes on anything is becoming extremely unlikely. The other concern is that if he did, there would have to be some new kind of power sharing agreement in regards to committees and such, as there was when Sen. Jim Jeffords left the Repubs a few years back.  I can’t remember where I read this, but I think that once the Senate rules are in place and agreed upon at the beginning of the term, they can not be changed, short of a supermajority. If anyone has more details on this, please leave something in the comments and I’ll update it. But if that is indeed true, him leaving  the Dems won’t really do much in terms of shifting the power.

There are a lot of reasons for him not to make the switch. If indeed, the Senate rules stay in place, it’s a damn good bet that he’ll lose his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Considering it’s the committee responsible for overseeing his buddy in the executive branch, nothing would be better than to get him out of there. He seems intent on not overseeing the President on anything, as evidenced by his response to investigating the Katrina debacle.

It’s amazing how the mainstream media is spinning this, as evidenced by the garbage Time put out today on the matter:

If he were to jump ship, the ensuing shift of power to Republicans would scramble the politics of the war in Iraq, undercut the Democrats’ national agenda and potentially weaken their hopes for the White House in 2008.

What kinda horseshit is that? Lieberman has recently made it his life’s work to undercut the Democratic agenda. By what stretch of the imagination would he somehow undercut it more in the GOP? And potentially ‘weaken their hopes for the WH in 2008’? How? I thought that was Hillary’s job. If the implication is that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would somehow have some chance in hell of winning, then methinks someone at Time’s been spending too much time with the crack pipe.

David Sirota has a good take on how Joe jumping ship works out to be a positive for the Dems:

Democrats control the House, and as we’ve seen on the Iraq debate, a narrow majority in the Senate effectively stops that institution from doing anything. Thus, we have basic gridlock right now. Additionally, most believe that President Bush will veto any good legislation that manages to get out of Congress right now – meaning that gridlock is ensured by the White House. Throwing the Senate to the Republicans by one vote wouldn’t change this gridlocked situation at all. Democrats would still have the House and filibuster-ready Senators to stop anything awful from getting to Bush’s desk. Meanwhile, Democrats would still have investigatory/oversight power from their House chairmen…

So, to sum up: I hope Lieberman switches because A) it would be advantageous for Democrats in the long-term B) it wouldn’t hurt Democrats or progressives in the short-term, if Senate Democrats developed the spine to filibuster horrible nominees (admittedly an “if”) and C) while he already is politically irrelevant in terms of actual power, Lieberman’s switch would, finally, make him widely perceived as irrelevant, meaning that he would cease to have any effect on the national debate and that his melting, Emperor-from-Star-Wars face would stop appearing on my television set and freaking out my dog, Monty.

So those of you who are frettin’ over this, don’t. He’s nothing but a liability to you Democrats. Him leaving would just hasten his demise into political irrelevancy. So relax. Heck, send him flowers if he does it. He’ll need all the friends he can get at that point.

crossposted at five before chaos

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