Somebody already brought this subject up in another thread, but I think it deserves to be in a thread of it’s own.

I am not a Ron Paul supporter.

I’ve seen mention of these articles for a month or better now, but I’ve yet to see an actual original source. I would like to know more about those newsletters: Was Paul’s name simply on the banner or did he take active part in publishing them? Who wrote the racist articles, who (if anyone) edited them and who put them into print?

It is a possibility that Ron Paul is directly or indirectly responsible for these, but then again if you read this CNN article you’ll see that Paul disavows the content and language of the articles.

Let’s not let the rumor mongers do to Paul what the rumor mongers did to Joe and Valerie Wilson simply because we don’t like Paul’s politics.

In addition, I ask that the Legislature join me in urging the State retirement boards to designate a percentage of their funds for investment in the creation of green jobs. This could generate up to $10 million in additional capital for investment in entrepreneurship and job creation.

(Gov Douglas’ State of State address)

So Douglas agrees with me on directed investments. I’ve also noticed he’s coming around to my view on the cannabis prohibition and is willing to engage in a conversation regarding decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana.

So where do I collect my lobbying fee?

Vermont’s network of hospitals announced Friday a new statewide policy not to seek payments from patients or insurance companies for medical errors that result in serious harm.

. . .

Representatives of the hospitals outlined eight areas of medical error that they would not collect payment for, such as performing surgery on the wrong body part or wrong patient or injuries arising from being prescribed incorrect medications.

(Vt. hospitals change policy on medical errors, Times Argus, 01/05/08)

That’s a relief! Next time they cut off my leg when I’m in for stitches to my hand I’ll still have pocket cash for a night on the town.

Of course one would think we wouldn’t be charged for gross negligence in the first place … but … ***sigh*** … that’s the medical business folks.

But I don’t know if that’s the most ridiculous part of the story. Farther down we find

Under the surveillance program, hospitals will report to the state all medical errors to determine the root causes and to get a handle on the total number of cases, according to Jill Olson, the vice president of policy and operations quality for the hospital association.

“Under this system, the hospitals will report to the Health Department any medical errors and then will work with them to determine if there are any root causes,” she explained.

Well Rama told me it is really annoying to be charged for crappy ‘news’ reporting.

“It is really annoying to be charged for crappy ‘news’ reporting,” Rama explained.

I guess it’s fair. If I lose the wrong limb it’s a freebie. If they lose their journalistic capabilities it’s on my dime … damnit!

For years I actively and publicly supported then Representative Bernie Sanders. Not because I agreed with everything he said and did, but because I agreed with enough and above all he offered a new type of politics.

And the Bernie of those days taught me a bit too. When I was hosting a local talk show in Barre during the second half of the ’90s, Sanders was a regular guest. We had many discussions about “free” trade and the up and down sides thereof.

I listened, watched and came around to Sander’s thinking on that topic because he was right.

What I liked best of all about Sanders was his obdurate political independence. Here was someone who had broken the glass Dem/Rep barrier, and Sanders regular drum beat that our political problems lay with an unflinching support of the two towering twin parties of American politics found a rapt statewide audience including me.

I listened, watched and came around to Sander’s thinking on that topic because he was right. (Oh yeah … I started my Vermont politics as an active Democrat including a stint as the Williamstown Democratic committee chair.)

And then Sanders ran for senate. And Sanders threw away any legitimate claim to an “I” after his name despite his fraudulent use of it to this day.

After all Sanders wanted the support of the Democratic Party establishment. He actively discouraged other than Democratic or Republican entrants into the field of federal Representative wannabes.

And he didn’t need to pander to the Democratic powers that be. Sanders was a 60% plus vote getter under any circumstance, and everybody knew this. Nonetheless Sanders threw his lot in with the Democratic big whigs of DC.

That walking away from the politics of people in favor of machine politics convinced me Sanders’ lacked long term credibility. He built his fame on one song, and he changed his tune at the first opportune moment.

And then there is such as his op-ed in today’s Rutland Herald/Times Argus Sunday paper (sorry, no electronic version available).

The title is “Ending Iraq War tops Bernies’ wish list for 2008”.The op-ed is pretty standard Sanders, and it does talk to a lot of necessities: education, poverty, health care, jobs and such.

But Sanders ends the piece with a prime example of why I find him less than genuine nowadays:

As Vermont’s senator, it is my view that Congress must become more forceful in its opposition to President Bush’s disastrous policies and more aggressive in fighting for the middle class and an end to the war. If Republicans in the Senate want to defend the president’s policies by filibustering every major piece of legislation, as they have over the last year, then the Democratic leadership should keep the Senate open 7 days a week 24 hours a day. Our country is in trouble and the people want a change in direction. We must not fail them.

So, Senator Sanders, did you write this while on your Christmas vacation and safely ensconced in Vermont? Or are you right this moment in Washington D.C. doing what you tell us is so urgently needed?

Problem is we have a bunch of rhetorical heroes that practice practical milquetoast in our elected Democratic (including Sanders) politicians.

We will only get more of that if we extend fusion politics beyond that currently practiced by the Dems and Repubs to the Progressive Party.

If I could ever see evidence that “fusion” in politics worked to empower individuals and local communities instead of centralized control freaks I would happily change my mind.

But Sanders showed me the true flavor of fusion politics, and I don’t like it one bit.

That is why  I no longer support B. Sanders.

Well, maybe you can have instant runoff voting.

S.108 is in the House ready for hearings and then a trip to the floor. While it doesn’t deal with the statewide races, it does give a great confidence building start.

But YOU have to do something!

You have to contact your legislators, write letters to the editor, talk to neighbors and friends and and family, and in general insist upon it.

I’ve talked to many people and organizations about instant runoff voting, and the organization that blows me off the quickest is Vermont’s Democratic Party. This is a Dem supporting blog in general … do something about that.

You can see the VermontIRV blog for much, much more.

(This diary seems to have started a good discussion.   – promoted by JulieWaters)

and our Governor.

In light of another now very long thread talking about investment and whether it should/can be directed rather than allowed to flow freely where investment wants to go:

“FairPoint’s financial projections fail to take into account risks that have the potential to lead to a reduction in service quality, to less investment in the Vermont infrastructure, and to slower deployment of broadband services than is acceptable.”

“But for these financial risks, we would approve the merger,” the board members wrote. “Therefore, we will leave this docket open for a period of time to allow FairPoint and Verizon to modify their proposal.”

(Verizon-Fairpoint deal denied, Times Argus, 12/22/07)

Is it okay to insist Fairpoint meet a level of certainty regarding re-investment into Vermont?

If so, then why shouldn’t we expect our state’s various investment funds do the same?

Yes, I believe we would have invaded Iraq even with a President Gore. Why? Well here’s just a taste of what can easily be found regarding Gore and Iraq:

For a Man of Peace, Gore has plenty of blood on his CV. Looking back through the 1980s, we find that on every relevant issue, whether it was supporting the contras or Reagan’s bombing of Libya in 1986, shilling for the Pentagon’s latest weapons systems, voting for nerve gas or backing the Reagan/Bush position on NATO deployments in Europe, Gore’s hawkishness was unflagging. In the course of his career he voted for the neutron bomb, the B-2 bomber, the Trident II missile, the MX missile and the Midgetman. He also backed the mini-Star Wars plan. The defense contractors always loved Al, the same way the nuclear plant manufacturers do today.

(The Real Al Gore, The Nation, 10/18/07)

More follows below the fold

So let’s continue a bit more …

When it came to Bush Senior’s attack on Iraq, Gore’s antics astounded even his hardened colleagues in the Senate as they debated the war resolution. Of course he had long since decided to vote aye on war, having been a hardliner on Iraq since 1988. But on January 12, 1991, he spun out his supposed travails in coming to this decision in prime-time posturing, speaking of his “heavy burden of conscience” and the lonely weeks “questioning, probing, searching for the truth.” Saddam, he proclaimed, “has more troops than Hitler did in the early years of World War II.” In the New York Times he wrote, “We can no more look forward to a constructive long-term relationship with Saddam Hussein than we could hope to housebreak a cobra” and that the Iraqi dictator is not “an acceptable part of the landscape.”

In Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign Gore was told to earn his keep with constant pummeling of George Bush Senior for having been soft on Saddam. Gore duly crisscrossed the country yoking Saddam and Bush in fervid denunciation. “The cover-up of Bush’s arming of Saddam was,” Gore shouted, “bigger than Watergate ever was.”

In January 1993 Vice President-elect Gore announced that there could never be normal relations with Iraq so long as Saddam remained in power. He reiterated the call for a coup, if not by the Iraqi military then by the CIA. Vice President Gore was then given authority in the Clinton Administration for Iraq policy. In this capacity he presided over the sanctions that led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many of them children. The mid-1990s saw Gore as a major voice urging NATO’s bombing of the Serbs. In his 2000 presidential campaign he publicly distanced himself from the Clinton Administration on Iraq policy, reiterating that Saddam had to fall and pledging support for Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress.

On May 27, 2000, Gore laid out his foreign policy and military strategy in a commencement speech at West Point. It was a neocon manifesto. He said he would pursue a more robust form of Clintonism, highlighted by quicker interventions, less diplomacy and more firepower against the “rogue states…that represent the emerging threat to our country.” He called this approach “forward engagement,” a phrase redolent of his fellow Peace Prize winner Kissinger’s “constructive engagement,” which meant backing brutes like Suharto, Somoza and Pinochet.

Gore also denounced George W. Bush’s recent call for deep cuts in the US nuclear arsenal, cuts that Bush said the United States should consider making on its own. “Nuclear unilateralism will hinder, rather than help, arms control,” Gore said. “Reductions alone don’t guarantee stability…. If you’re not careful, you could have a reduction of missiles and a more dangerous world.”

(ibid)

So apparently odum has taken it upon himself to follow my posts around and attempt ridicule rather than engage in discussion.

Now I know what public bulletin boards are about, but I’m not speaking about some anonymous poster stopping by for a drive by posting. I’m talking about the board’s operator.

So do you think it’s appropriate for odum to be responding to my posts with attempted ridicule?

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(Good discussion here. – promoted by JulieWaters)

Visit VermontIRV at http://www.vermontir… for more on instant runoff
voting.
Vermont is a three party state. It's that simple. The Vermont Progressive Party is just as capable of seeing their candidates get elected or make solid showings as are the Democratic and Republican parties. The “spoiler” charge is not a legitimate argument against a strong non-Democratic/Republican challenge.

Because of this we are going to see more and more vote splitting and elections being won by candidates with far less than a majority vote. Vote splitting occurs when generally like minded candidates share a pool of voters who disagree on relatively few topics. The non-majority winner occurs when three or more strong candidates are on the ticket and there is no requirement to reach more than 50% of the vote to win.

We've seen what happens WITHOUT instant runoff voting in recent years in races that ended with non-majority winners for Governor , Lt. Governor and State Auditor.

We need instant runoff voting, and that's where you come in. Connected, Vermont (http://www.connected…)is currently working with an ad-hoc gathering that includes Common Cause, Fair Vote, League of Women Voters and others. We ALL want to see S.108 (a Vermont bill that will institute IRV for the federal House and Senate races) passed into law THIS YEAR.

In today's (11/16/07) Times Argus the ugly spoiler charge was leveled via a letter to the editor in what is surely just the beginning: “My heart sank when I saw that Anthony Pollina plans to run again for governor. With a great candidate like Peter Galbraith, the Democrats have a real chance of unseating Douglas and Pollina can do nothing but act as a spoiler. The few Progressives with whom I am still speaking seem to have a blind spot on this question and cannot believe that voting for Pollina is just a way that the self deluded vote Republican. If the Progressives want to do something really progressive they should back and vote for Peter Galbraith.”

I am not a member of the Progressive Party, but I take great umbrage at this “vote Democratic or you're voting Republican” stance.

Your letter to the editor is desperately needed! Letters to the editor are well read and very influential on your community. You can make a huge difference by writing a one, two, three or more paragraph letter. Using your own words you can tell your community how you feel about instant runoff voting and why. You can inform the folks around you that we already have S.108 passed by the Vermont Senate and waiting on passage by the House and Governor.

Do you have questions that will help you put a letter together? Great … reply to this post with your questions, comments or whatever. I'll be more than happy to either find you help or help you myself.
 

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Gag me with a … well you know what I mean. I'm still hearing/reading this “poor Peter Welch” line. Welch is part of the problem at this time. No matter what he tells us he is solidly behind a pro-war, helpful to Bush Democratic leadership in D.C.

Want to solve a problem? Okay, start with what the problem is. When it comes to our federal government the federal government is the problem. We have a congress led by a Democratic “leadership” that refuses to take a serious stand on anything.

Sure when the Republicans hand the Dems a win on a silver platter, such as the water bill, the D.C. Democrats can shine, but what have they done each and every time the Democrats have run in resistance? They've collapsed, claimed they tried and moved on.

The failing in D.C. is a group failure. Sure there are some individuals who have said and voted in ways that make sense and look to actually make a difference, but the only meaningful action will be to change direction of the group. Washington politics is not about this person or that person. Washington politics is about coalitions and caucuses and whatnot. So when an agenda doesn't move forward in Congress it's because group politics has failed somewhere.

So what can Welch do as an individual to change the group direction? Well he can stubbornly vote against war funding, constantly vote to reduce the rest of the bloated military budget and push, push, push for impeachment because that is really the only way to end the disaster we know as the Bush administration.

Perhaps most importantly he can withdraw any and all support for Pelosi as Speaker and start working with others to do so too.

If one wants things to change, one changes the way one does things.

For my individual part I know I have three things to offer any politician: my time, money and vote. I can promise Welch and any other Democratic, Republican, Independent or whatever politician they will not receive any of those items from me unless they move to impeach Cheney/Bush.

And I mean as a group … not individual. As long as Welch insists on undying loyalty to a failed Democratic “leadership” he is as guilty as anyone else for the decisions made therein.

No, it's not poor Peter Welch … it's poor United States of America.