( – promoted by JDRyan)

Here they go again…

A Rutland Herald article and a VT Progressive Party blog post are both trumpeting the sense of outrage, OUTRAGE!, that Pollina and the Progs are feeling over what they are trying to characterize as “swift boat-style attacks” on them by the Democratic Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz and Attorney General William Sorrell over the recent campaign contribution interpretation.

Let’s be clear about what’s going on here. This is really nothing more than a distracting political ploy by the Pollina/VPP camp. It’s a campaign of false outrage in the tradition of the McCain/Rove playbook. Pollina and the Progressives want Vermonters to think that it’s important to talk about the fact that the AttGen and SecofSt came out publically against the legality of their 2-election contributors.

Here’s basically what the AG & SoS said:

The campaign laws say that you may take donations of up to $1000 per contributor for each election; with the primary and the general being separate elections.

They said that once Pollina made the surprising move to run as an independent, he was not participating in 2 elections since he would not be in a primary, and he was thereby limited to only $1000 per contributor, at most. A pretty reasonable argument to make. There are legitimate concerns about the underlying fairness of allowing the big party candidates to double contributions because they have a token primary election, but these concerns are legally irrelevant to this current matter, and beside the point in examining this political tactic.

Pollina and the VPP are now calling this very reasonable interpretation a “swift boat-style attack”.

The court determined that Pollina actually did “participate” in a primary election because the language defining “participation” includes intention to participate, or incurring any campaigning expenses and is very loose. This is an interesting judgment to say the least, and is open to interpretation. To say, alternately, that Pollina did not “participate” in a primary because there was no primary is a matter of differing, and reasonable legal judgment, not a partisan attack.

Just like the McCain campaign architects, they are counting on people not really paying attention to sell this sense of outrage!

I hope that voters are smart enough to see through this ploy and will keep their focus on the more substantial issues that are being discussed in this campaign.

I was encouraged by the vote to stop the bailout plan today. It’s interesting to see how the roll call panned out, with the more… umm passionate members of both sides voting against the bill and most leaders of both parties supporting the plan to send $700 Biliion to Wall Street.

Seems like a stand by the rank and file members against the political powers that be, a bit of an uprising maybe, or am I reading too much into things?

I was curious to see how contributions by the financial sector paid off in this vote, see the results below…

Securities & Investment: Top Recipients

Candidate Amount Voted

1 Emanuel, Rahm (D-IL) $600,500 Aye

2 Shays, Christopher (R-CT) $362,720 Aye

3 Rangel, Charles B (D-NY) $329,850 Aye

4 Paul, Ron (R-TX) $313,129 Nay

5 Allen, Tom (D-ME) $277,640 Aye

6 Gillibrand, Kirsten E (D-NY) $269,050 Nay

7 Udall, Mark (D-CO) $249,568 Nay

8 Kirk, Mark (R-IL) $243,850 Aye

9 Kanjorski, Paul E (D-PA) $241,849 Aye

10 Bean, Melissa (D-IL) $207,100 Aye

11 Bachus, Spencer (R-AL) $206,900 Aye

12 Hoyer, Steny H (D-MD) $184,499 Aye

13 Cantor, Eric (R-VA) $176,800 Aye

14 Frank, Barney (D-MA) $176,400 Aye

15 Crowley, Joseph (D-NY) $171,550 Aye

16 Klein, Ron (D-FL) $166,700 Aye

17 Mahoney, Tim (D-FL) $166,040 Aye

18 Murphy, Chris (D-CT) $164,290 Aye

19 Murphy, Patrick J (D-PA) $154,750 Aye

20 Maloney, Carolyn B (D-NY) $154,325 Aye

This article shows that the Douglas administration is against allowing ballooning mortgages to be adjusted by a judge to help homeowners be able to make reasonable (and still profitable) payments to their banks and keep their homes:

In USA Today, States consider privatizing lotteries, Douglas shows how he subscribes to the corrupt and destructive philosophy of feeding the greed of Wall Street at the expense of taxpayers, and shucking it as a benefit to the public:

MONTPELIER, Vt. – Betting on the state lottery for some quick cash?

Get in line: State governments across the country are thinking the same thing.

Courted by Wall Street investment houses, Vermont is one of more than a dozen states where proposals have been floated to lease state lotteries to private investors.

Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas is a strong proponent of the idea, and has been talking up a proposal by investment bank Lehman Bros. under which the state would get a one-time, up front payment of $56 million – plus annual payments growing from the $23 million annual profit it earns now – if it leases its lottery to a private concern.

The goal would be to “allow someone with some new ideas to innovate and make it more successful,” Douglas says.

And there’s just plain bad judgement:

“I am quite confident that any nominee for the vice presidency has been well vetted by Sen. McCain’s campaign,” Douglas said.

“I believe Gov. Palin is qualified,” said Douglas, who has gotten to know Palin as a fellow state chief executive.

Sep 3, 2008  Barre Montpelier Times Argus

To say my head is spinning is an understatement at this point:

To rebut rumors, Palin says daughter, 17, pregnant

Sarah Palin, Committed to all Americans:  

Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” asked her about the possibility of becoming McCain ticket mate.

Palin replied: “[A]s for that V.P. talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the V.P. does every day? I’m used to being very productive and working real hard in an administration. We want to make sure that that V.P .slot would be a fruitful type of position, especially for Alaskans and for the things that we’re trying to accomplish up here for the rest of the U.S., before I can even start addressing that question.”

Backed by Ted Stevens.

Being compared to another inexperienced VP pick.

Seems like a shallow, panic pick to me, designed to get attention, obviously.

( – promoted by odum)

Shockwaves crashed through the internet today as two major sources of rumors merged in a supercollision of media frenzy.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama ended weeks of intense speculation by announcing his choice for Vice-president. The announcement stunned the mainstream media and sports reporters alike as the identity of the choice emerged, but by initial accounts, pundits were praising the choice for it’s strong appeal to Hispanics, legal immigrants and ironically, both oppressed workers and insanely overpaid wealthy elites.

Obama’s VP pick below the fold:

Obama had strong words of praise for Ramirez in his announcement, made on MSNBC and ESPNDeportes, saying “Manny will be Manny, which is much more than a bucket of warm spit, and that’s plenty of credentials to fill this position.”

The announcement, however, did spark an outcry from disgruntled supporters of Alex Rodriquez, who felt that their candidate should have been chosen. “I’s completely unfair and I’m seriously considering becoming a soccer fan and a Libertarian.” said one teary-eyed protester outside of the Obama announcement.

The Democratic Party has also announce that the Boston Red Sox have now retained the draft rights to Bill Richardson to complete the deal for Manny Ramirez.

I just heard on VT This Week, and confirmed on her website, that Gaye Symington has a fairly bold new proposal out to address energy issues.

? The “Efficiency Pays” plan enables homeowners, building owners and tenants to purchase and install efficient heating systems and complete weatherization projects with no up-front payment and no debt obligation. Those who benefit from these money-saving investments will pay for them through a monthly charge on their utility bill, but this charge will be lower than the estimated savings that the improvements produce.

“Efficiency Pays will help Vermonters overcome the obstacles of having cash upfront or taking on debt to pay for money-saving efficiency projects. Because they only pay back as they save money, this system should be very attractive to a wide range of Vermonters,” explained Symington.

More analysis below.

For the past few months, as I lay awake at night, I’ve been mulling over the question of how government could most effectively bring about some real change in the energy area, and this is pretty much the plan that I thought would work best. For financing, it looks at the fact that we are already spending money on energy, in many cases, more than we would if we could afford to weatherize our homes. So the most practical (we Vermonters like practical) solution would be to somehow divert that monthly utility money to pay for improvements that will recoup the cash over time.

I’m sure there will be some details to work out that may raise new issues, but I love this proposal by Symington. It’s bold, it’s smart, it will hopefully not be very bureaucratic, and it’s a practical and effective response to a serious issue facing VT.

I think that plays very well into Gaye’s best approach to this race – that she’s a practical, Vermont-style leader who will make government work for us. This plan is a good step in reinforcing that image.

My one further suggestion is to get a catchier name than “Efficiency Pays”.

How about the “Green Vermonster Plan”?

(Can somebody explain to me why the Governor’s official spokesman is discussing the Governor’s campaign, and doing campaign message work on state time?? Hmmmmmm…..?????? – promoted by odum)

A Douglas spokesman clarified the issue of whether the Legislature should vote for the plurality winner or not:

Jason Gibbs, a spokesperson for Douglas, said Pollina’s speech Thursday was “angry and bitter.” He said he sees little differences between Symington and Pollina as candidates and that come November differences between those two candidates and Douglas will be clear to voters.

“Voters will have a clear choice,” Gibbs said. “On one hand there is Symington and Pollina, two political peas in a pod. On the other hand there is the governor, who is focused on making Vermont more affordable and prosperous.”

I’m glad they cleared this up, because frankly, I thought this would be a difficult discussion. But fortunately, Gibbs has very clearly laid out the dynamics of the race. If a majority of voters chose one of the two peas in a pod, they are clearly not chosing Douglas and one of those peas should be elected.

(Amen – promoted by JulieWaters)

Sometimes I wonder about our country. I wonder how we can let ourselves be stuck in the situations we find ourselves and not speak out, or vote out the people responsible.

I see the government getting ready to provide massive bailouts to the banking industry as they foreclose on homeowners who made ill-advised borrowing decisions based on unsound lending practices, and I know that we will let it happen.

I see a war in Iraq that we actually had some passion about for while, but that was few months ago and now we are pretty much rolling over on that one too.

I see a government that tramples civil rights and practically laughs in the face of feeble attempts at oversight, while a legislative maneuver delays the FISA bill so the passion will recede on that too. And we go along with it.

We have the most expensive health care system in the world, by far, and for all that money we get mediocre systemic care and record corporate profits.

We have the largest carbon footprint in the world, we undermine attempts to address global warming internationally, and we have record, all-time record, corporate profits.

We have an emerging mercenary military force with hired thugs who rape, detain and threaten female soldiers, and are paid ten times what enlisted American soldiers are paid, and their parent corporations are making obscene profits on no-bid contracts.

We have an education system increasingly obsessed with testing and an accountability system designed to lead us to privatization and more opportunities for corporate profits, at the expense of our children’s education.

We have a tax code that has been manipulated to the advantage of the wealthiest 1% of individuals in this country, while working people and the middle class have seen wages stagnate.

We have trade agreements that benefit multi-national corporations, and in return we get lead in our toys.

So, have I become “shrill” yet?

Does calling someone shrill make any of this more easy to dismiss or capitulate to?

I have seen John Edwards 4 times in person over the past year, and I have never heard him be anything that I would call “shrill”, despite the repeated dismissals of him on this basis. He is the only one who is willing to lay these problems out for everyone to see clearly and the only one who is willing to take these problems on directly on behalf of the American people. Clinton will not. Obama will not. To think or claim otherwise is to ignore every bit of evidence from his actions and words in this campaign, and in his previous legislative track record of avoiding divisive issues. It’s practically his campaign motto that he won’t be divisive.

When members of Congress voted to extend the Iraq war, or allow unwarranted wiretapping, or open up access to sweatshop labor markets or any of the many other actions that we may find unfathomable from Democrats especially, I bet they had their own justifications; that this was bipartisan, they were not being divisive or shrill, and gosh, all the mainstream papers were in favor of it. And they can sleep at night apparently. And they will be reelected mostly.

And nothing will change if Democrats, and Democratic voters, capitulate yet again.

In case you didn’t catch this in the MSM:

Marc Ambinder reports:

On Monday, the Edwards campaign recorded more e-mail sign-ups than almost any day in its history.

Over the weekend, the campaign was forced to add four new servers to handle all the web traffic.

Contributions are up online: Thursday and Friday, the two days after the debate, made for one of the highest 2-day totals they’ve seen in months. . . .

Not only has Edwards been greeted by unusually large crowds for him, he is outdrawing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton head-to-head. In Des Moines Monday, Edwards drew 400 to Hillary Clinton’s 200; in Mason City on Saturday night, Edwards drew 600 to Obama’s roughly 300.Edwards has been a credible, legitimate candidate all along, but has probably received the absolute worst treatment from the press — measured both by the quantity and quality of the coverage.