I was at a discussion board I freqeuent when someone asked why liberals always seem to be dissatisfied with America. Here’s what I came up with.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when we were ruled by a foreign king.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when people were allowed to own other human beings as slaves.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when unregulated markets allowed tainted food and dangerous drugs to be freely sold to the public.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when women were denied the right to vote.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when children could be forced to work instead of going to school, and when workers were forced to work seven days a week in unsafe working conditions.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when workers who had lost their jobs had no income, and waited in bread lines for meager handouts to feed their families.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when workers were fired for trying to join together to improve their wages, hours, and working conditions, and when they had no say in any of them.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when workers retired into poverty.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when black children were not allowed to attend the same schools as white children, but were relegated to inferior and poorly funded institutions.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when the poor and elderly could not afford medical care.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when minorities could be denied equal access to employment, housing, and public accommodations.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when corrupt Southern politicians beat and imprisoned black Americans who tried to register to vote.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when our leaders used lies and fabrications to convince us to embark on wars of aggression against countries and people who posed no threat to us.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when people with disabilities were denied educational and job opportunities.

Liberals were dissatisfied with America when patriotic Americans were denied the right to serve their country because of their sexual orientation.

Liberals are dissatisfied with America when we see that not all families are treated equally.

Liberals are dissatisfied with America when we see that the share of income received by the highest one percent of the population is higher than it has ever been, and when the chance that a person born into a lower income family has less opportunity than ever for an affluent or middle-class life.

Liberals are dissatisfied with America when we see that millions of our fellow Americans still cannot afford basic health care.

Liberals are dissatisfied with America when we see that banks that defrauded millions of their life savings and took their homes away are propped up with our tax dollars, while the wealthy speculators who caused the crisis have not been brought to justice.

Yes, there are still many reasons for liberals to be dissatisfied with America. Fortunately, there are also many of us who continue to work for the day when this great country will fulfill its promise to all Americans.

Congratulations are in order for Allen Gilbert, the executive director of the Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. At a banquet last week Allen was honored with the Matthew Lyon Award for his lifetime commitment to the First Amendment and the public's right to know the truth in Vermont.

Gilbert, himself a former reporter and editor for the Times Argus and Rutland Herald (pre-strike, for those with a long enough memory for that), has been in the forefront of the fight for government transparency in Vermont. As the Bennington Banner reports:

 Vermont Press Association President Maria Archangelo, publisher of the Stowe Reporter and Waterbury Record, said Gilbert has been on the front lines in fighting for greater public access to government records, for public disclosure about police misconduct, and for blocking efforts to hide the cause of death on public death certificates in Vermont.

“Allen has been a key figure in tracking what the Legislature has been doing, especially dealing with transparency in Vermont government,” Archangelo said. “He is a big reason that Vermonters now have a new public records law, replacing a statute that was one of the weakest in the nation. ” While the Vermont Press Association and the ACLU don't always agree, it's important to acknowledge Gilbert's extraordinary work through the years as a journalist, as a government official, and with the ACLU, Archangelo said.

In other work, Gilbert was probably most visible this year as the field general who led the campaign to defeat the legislative proposal to allow the State Police access to prescription drug records, remaining at his post on the House gallery even as the closing speeches were being given at the end of this year's legislative session. 

And who was Matthew Lyon, you ask?

 Lyon also has the distinction of being the only person to be elected to Congress while in jail. On October 10, 1798, Lyon was found guilty of sedition, in violation of the Alien and Sedition Acts; which prohibited malicious writing of the American government as a whole, or of the houses of Congress, or of the President of the United States. Lyon was the first person to be put to trial for violating the acts on charges of criticizing Federalist president John Adams for his pretense of going to war against France.

Here at Green Mountain Daily, government transparency and robust dissent are very important, so we congratulate Allen for this well-deserved honor.

Local activist Marilyn Hackett was successful this week in her long-running suit seeking an injunction against the conduct of an official prayer at the Franklin Town Meeting.

Rejecting a number of bogus procedural challenges and some equally spurious arguments by the town, the Franklin Superior Court ruled that including prayers at the beginning of a town meeting violates the Vermont Constitution's prohibition on compelling anyone to "attend any religious worship, finding that "The court rejects the town's suggestion that the history of prayer at town meeting renders it non-religious and concludes that the prayers at issue constituted `religious worship'".

The court also ruled that the prayer at town meeting violated the constitutional provision that "nor can any person be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of religious sentiments, or peculia[r] mode of religious worship." The court held that to establish a practice that required Ms. Hackett to remain outside of the meeting room while part of the meeting was being conducted, simply because the town insisted on the prayer, would deprive her of the right to attend the entire meeting.

The town's argument that the prayer does not constitute religious worship is of particular interest here. Whether it's "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance, "In god we trust" on coins, or religious invocations at the opening of sessions of Congress, those who want to impose their religion on others are fond of arguing that these are not true religious statements, but simply neutral acknowledgements of the religious beliefs of the majority of the population. One wonders, of course, why the religionists fight so hard to keep them if they are not there to express their religious beliefs, or whether they would so willingly accept a change to "under allah" or "In allah we trust".

As a result of its decision, the court granted Ms. Hackett a declaratory judgment that the town's practices have violated her constitutional rights, granted her a permanent injunction prohibiting the prayer at town meetings, and will be holding another hearing to determing whether to award her damages. The full decision can be read at the ACLU web site.

Congratualtions to Marilyn Hackett, the ACLU, and ACLU volunteer attorneys Bernie Lambek and Julie Kalish! 

[UPDATE: I had dinner Friday with the plaintiff, Marilyn Hackett (and a dozen other Franklin County lefties, Democrats and Progs at our regular “first Friday” beer and burgers drop-in confab).

Hackett also said that the reporter for the Associated Press, among other media representatives, asked her what religion she “is.” “I refused to answer. I told them that that is irrelevant, that the whole point is not to mix religion and government, and it doesn’t matter what religion I might practice,” she said. ~ NanuqFC]

Philip Baruth and the St. Albans Messenger are reporting that Sara Kittell will be stepping down after seventeen years representing Franklin County in the Vermont Senate.

Because of her committee assignments first in the General Affairs and Housing and then in the Health and Human Services committees I had the chance to work with Sara on a number of bills. I was always impressed by her instinctive empathy for and understanding of tenants, people labeled with mental illness, and others who are structurally powerless in our society. This is something that you don't necessarily see among everyone, even Democrats, and even people who come around to support you intellectually. In fact, it's rare.

There's one story, though, that really says all you need to know about Sara. David Moats, Pulitzer Prize winning writer from the Rutland Herald, tells it in his book Civil Wars: A Battle for Gay Marriage. In 2000, after the Vermont Supreme Court's Baker decision, when civil unions were the big issue in the Legislature, things were really ugly. Legislators who were known or suspected of supporting civil unions were getting threatening calls and even messages from constituents telling them that they would be going to hell; good legislators lost their offices in the Take Back Vermont backlash because of their support for civil unions. Then as now, Democrats had a strong majority in the Senate, and since Sara comes from a conservative county the Senate leadership went to her and told her that there were plenty of yes votes in the Senate, they didn't need her vote, so it would be okay if she voted no to avoid the almost certain personal attacks and potential loss of her seat. Sara knew what was right, and she was right there voting yes no matter what the cost. She later told a colleague, Mark McDonald, another civil union supporter, that it had never occurred to her to do anything else.

She was reelected anyway, but she certainly didn't know that at the time. This was a true profile in courage.

I'll miss Sara when the Senate returns next year.

The State Committee of the Vermont Democratic Party met yesterday in Randolph, and probably the issue that drew the most interest was the endorsement of candidates for statewide office.

On yesterday’s agenda were requests to endorse Doug Hoffer in his second run for Auditor of Accounts and TJ Donovan for Attorney General.

The Hoffer endorsement was pretty straightforward, and nearly unanimous (there was one “no” vote). Doug spoke to the committee and expressed his desire to be the guy who actually wants the office he’s running for, unlike Tom Salmon, who seems to be interested in just about everything except doing the job he was elected to do.

The bigger question was the endorsement of TJ Donovan, and that’s probably what brought the press out (Andy Bromage from Seven Days was in the front row). Part of the question was that there was a motion to endorse TJ, but there was no motion before the body to endorse Bill Sorrell, who was also in attendance. Consequently, some members raised the question of whether we should endorse one candidate, and what that would mean for the candidates and the message it would send to the public.

This all arises from the peculiar endorsement rules for the State Committee. Our bylaws provide that we can endorse more than one candidate for a single office, and we have done that in the past. For instance, in 2010 all the Democratic candidates for governor received the endorsement.

Still, the question was whether endorsing one candidate in May and another candidate at our next meeting, probably in July, would send the signal that the party is favoring Donovan over Sorrell.

To be absolutely clear, that’s just wrong. Many speakers specifically said they were voting to endorse Donovan yesterday and they intended to endorse Sorrell at our next meeting.

On the other hand,this is more evidence that TJ has gotten his campaign organized ahead of Sorrell’s. They were both present with their teams at yesterday’s meeting and at last week’s David Curtis Award dinner. Yesterday they both gave good speeches that were well received, and they are both lining up lists of important and prominent Democratic supporters.

Still, The fact that he got his petitions in first seems to be an indication that Donovan recognizes that he has to work hard to unseat an incumbent.

Does that mean it’s a sure thing? Absolutely not. For one thing, it’s always hard to defeat an incumbent. For another, TJ indicated yesterday his support for the drug database access bill that never became law this year. He argued that the bill was not the civil liberties nightmare its opponents painted it to be, but his support of this legislation may cost him support among the Democratic base.

This should be an interesting race.

Finally, one last observation: I always enjoy going to these meetings at Randolph Elementary School because of the great, large-scale student artwork on display, and yesterday was no exception. Randolph, like so many Vermont schools, clearly understands that schools are more than just test-taking machines.

Support for marriage equality has been growing faster than any other civil rights issue that I can think of.

Now, fresh off President Obama's announcement of his support for marriage equality, we learn that his Defense Department has decided it will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act.

From the Vermont Freedom to Marry Coalition:

 On Wednesday, a Veterasn Affairs Department legal memo announced the VA’s refusal to defend the “Defense of Marriage Act” in veterans benefits cases.  The VA will not fight Fifth Amendment claims based on equal protection under the law brought against DOMA, says the memo signed by VA Counsel Will Gunn on behalf of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.

So who's left to defend DOMA? It's John Boehner's BLAG, spending taxpayer money on things that are apparently more important than economic recovery or benefits for poor people.

People obviously need to keep the pressure on,but this is another sign of President Obama making the personal operational.

MONTPELIER, VT.  Today, Vermont Democratic Party Chairman Jake Perkinson, heralded the historic news that the President Barack Obama supports full civil rights for all Americans and affirmed his belief that marriage equality should be available to all people.  The President said today “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”  

Chairman Perkinson stated “President Obama’s statements this afternoon in support of marriage equality mark a watershed moment in this deeply important civil rights issue.”  Vermont is one of the few states in the union that permits same-sex marriage and has been at the forefront of this issue for over a decade.

Chairman Perkinson continued, “I am personally gratified that the President has made clear that his personal view is that it’s wrong to prevent couples who are in loving, committed relationships, and want to marry, from doing so. This is a great step forward for civil rights in the United States and I am proud that the President is leading on this issue just as many courageous people in Vermont, including our own Governor Shumlin, and others elsewhere, have done before him.”

The Obama Administration’s consistent record in support of the LGBT community also includes:Repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; Ending the Legal Defense of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA); Signing Historic Hate Crimes Legislation:  Ensuring Hospital Visitation Rights for LGBT Patients and Their Loved Ones; Preventing Bullying Against LGBT Students; Developing and Implementing a National HIV/AIDS Strategy; Expanding Access to Health Coverage;  Addressing Health Care Disparities; andTaking Steps to Ensure LGBT Equality in Housing and Crime Prevention.

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ABC News and CNN are reporting that Michele Bachmann, shown here ripping pages out of our version of universal health care, has received citizenship in Switzerland.

Don't worry about losing her from Congress, though. When asked if she was going to run for office she said yesterday that that would have to wait until she is fluent in Swiss.*

*Not intended as a factual statement. 

Just wondering what those people who have been saying there is no difference between President Obama and a potential President Romney, or President Obama and President Bush are thinking now.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQGMTPab9GQ

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_KoBK7v7eM

Some have tried to argue that the election of Barack Obama has ushered in a post-racial society. Others have angrily disputed charges of racism on the part of President Obama's opponents.

This might be a good time to let the facts speak for themselves, eh? Take a look at this post from Mother Jones, and look closely at the two pictures

One of them is an actual photograph of President Obama. The other is the same photo as published by a right-wing anti-Obama group called Vets for a Strong America.

Do you notice any difference?

Now tell me you think racism has nothing to do with the opposition to President Obama.