Three years of Rational Resistance

I don't always write as much as I intend to, but I just thought I'd notice (the first time I've actually noticed the anniversary before it happened) that today marks three years of writing Rational Resistance.

Follow the link for some “greatest hits”.

It isn't often that I'll think it's good news that a Democrat loses an election, especially an incumbent Democrat in Congress, but this time it definitely is:

 “Dollar Bill” Jefferson (D-LA) Loses Re-Election

Rep. “Dollar Bill” Jefferson (D-LA) has lost his seat in tonight's Louisiana elections to Republican candidate Joseph Cao, giving the Dems their own case of Ted Stevens Syndrome — that is, a safe and well-entrenched incumbent, who holds a seat that ought to be an easy win for his party, going down to defeat on a corruption scandal.

Yes, that's right, the guy caught hiding bribe money in his freezer, but still hasn't been tried, in large part because of overreaching by the prosecutors, is out.

I think this is great news for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that we all benefit from the ejection of a corrupt politician. Maybe he was serving his district, but he wasn't doing that nearly so much as he was lining his own pockets.

The other reason is that for years now, as we have talked about the legions of Republicans involved in public corruption, the wingers have gleefully pointed to him, saying “Yeah, but you're sticking with Jefferson.”

Now they don't have that argument.

If the case ever goes to trial, despite the Feds' efforts to screw the case up, he will presumably be convicted and sent away, and I say good.

Pardon season is upon us. As Bush pardons some of the criminals on his side, let's see if he hands out a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card to Jefferson.

This couldn't have happened any better if they'd planned it.

Yesterday Shay Totten's column at Seven Days reported on the profitability of the Burlintgon Free Press for its corporate masters at Gannett: 

In fact, excluding Gannett papers in Guam and tiny Tulare, California, the Free Press ranks in the top five within the company’s Community Newspaper Division in terms of profit margin.

Here’s the skinny: According to the financials posted by Hopkins, the Free Press in the first three quarters of 2007 had ad revenue of $21.3 million and a profit margin of more than 36 percent. That translates into roughly $7.7 million in profit through the third quarter, and excludes the holiday ad spending frenzy reserved for the fourth quarter.

It took some real doing for Shay to get the information, as the people at the Free Press were very tight-lipped about their financial condition, going so far as to tell Shay that they wanted him not to print the financial information he had found. And, on the subject of the recent layoffs, they said:

The axe could begin to fall again this week at some of Gannett’s dailies, but not, apparently, at the Free Press. Robertson told “Fair Game” that he’s not ready to announce “anything that relates to layoffs” at his shop.

 Well, maybe he wasn't “ready” to announce anything earlier this week, but what appears in the pages of the Free Press today?

The Burlington Free Press will lay off nine employees and eliminate five open positions publisher Brad Robertson said today.

Robertson declined to identify the laid-off employees at this time; the work force reductions included newsroom staffers.

 So let's just put this together: Gannett across the country is facing financial hard times. The local Gannett outlet is one of their five most profitable operations. We know that they've already shipped some functions, like customer service, out of state. And still, they cut more staff here in Burlington.

In other words, Vermonters' job losses are boosting the bottom line here and supporting corporate losses in other parts of the country.

Nice job, Freeps.

From Twitterings by Townsend, the daily blog of the executive editor of the Burlington Free Press, recounting a visit to the editorial board by Peter Shumlin:

Since all meetings of the Free Press editorial board are on the record, we were told but only one area “where the state made promises it cannot keep: Catamout Health is a wonder program we cannot afford…I am not saying I am going out there to say we get rid of Catamount. But we have to talk about it.”

From the Platform of the Vermont Democratic Party:

 Health Care

1. We believe that every human being must have access to appropriate, quality medical care.
2. We are committed to reducing costs and improving services within a system where every Vermonter, without regard to employment, has access to health care, required prescription drugs, and long-term care. The system must offer a choice of health care providers, who are accountable to the public for quality of service, and patient fees must be based on ability to pay.

 Now I've been critical of Catamount more than once in these pages, but even I would say that Catamount Health is better than nothing for those Vermonters who rely on it. For some it is literally the only shot they have at getting health insurance.

So tell me this: what is the Democratic President Pro Tem, who has run for statewide office in the past and presumably has designs on higher office, doing talking about even the possibility of throwing those people overboard? We already know that Douglas is going to be attacking all kinds of human services programs, and we know that there will be a big fight to keep them. Still, don't you think we're starting off behind if our own leaders are saying things like this?

VPR had a good story this morning contrasting the approaches that Richard Snelling took to the huge budget deficits we were facing in 1991 and the approach Douglas is taking today.

It's worth a listen. The story points out that although Douglas considers Snelling his mentor, heis taking the exact opposite course, refusing to even consider tax increases on any segment of the population to address our current and coming deficits.

Of course, that's no surprise. What we have learned to expect from Douglas's years on the Fifth Floor are two things: rigidity and demagoguery, and they are both amply demonstrated in the story.

In addition, there is a striking contrast between Snelling's willingness to walk across to Speaker Ralph Wright's offce without preconditions and work out a plan for deficit reduction, and Douglas's “my way or the highway” approach to dealing with that pesky legislative branch.

What should also not go unheeded is Bob Kinzel's last observation:

Legislative leaders seem to agree with Douglas that the 2009 deficit can be erased without raising taxes but there's less agreement if this policy can be maintained for the 2010 budget.

 We have a nearly 2-1 advantage in the House, a more than 3-1 advantage in the Senate, and our leaders won't even talk about raising taxes, evenon the richest segment of the population, to address a crisis?

What the hell is going on here?

So what do you think? Should “Under Zeus Allah Thor God” be in the Pledge of Allegiance?

 Try this poll.

Cross-posted at Beyond Vermont State Hospital:

Louis Porter has an investigative piece in today's Rutland Herald/Times Argus. The information is suggestive at this point, but it could be that publishing this first story will help to get more information out. There is no question that the CIA was running a clandestine program called MK-ULTRA that involved giving drugs to mental patients; what is yet to be known is whether Vermont State Hospital was involved.

By Louis Porter Vermont Press Bureau – Published: November 30, 2008

The patient, Karen Wetmore, is convinced that Hyde and other researchers subjected her and possibly other patients to experiments paid for by the CIA at the Waterbury facility.

A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York died after he was trampled by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a Hobbesian frenzy.

At 4:55 a.m., just five minutes before the doors were set to open, a crowd of 2,000 anxious shoppers started pushing, shoving and piling against the locked sliding glass doors of the Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., Nassau County police said. The shoppers broke the doors off their hinges and surged in, toppling a 34-year-old temporary employee, Jdimypai Damour, 34, of Jamaica, Queens, who had been waiting with other workers in the store’s entryway.

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

CORRECTED–Thanks, MadamPince

These are the words of Portia, defending Antonio in court against her own father in The Merchant of Venice. Apparently Portia doesn't qualify to work at the Washington County State's Attorney's office.

You see, Matt Manning pled guilty today to the heinous act of hitting Governor Douglas with a pie. I'm one of those who thought he shouldn't have done it. Matt feels that way too, saying in court today:

I don’t see anything good that has come from it,” he said, describing himself as “… a disappointment to my community” and offering his apologies to Douglas, his family – several of whom were in the courtroom – and the community at large.
“I’ve learned that it wasn’t funny,” he said, describing the prank as “a mistake.”

 That sounds like a good outcome, doesn't it?. Nobody got hurt, a young man realized that he made a mistake and harmed the community, and it's pretty clear he's not going to be doing it again.

Not good enough for State's Attorney Tom Kelly, though. He's asking for forty-five days on the chain gang.

“If you had a scale of one to 10 on disorderly conduct your honor it’s a 10 and I think the court should impose a sentence that reflects that,” he said,

 Yes, you read correctly: disorderly conduct.

So in this season of pardons for turkeys, both the winged and human kind, you can thank your lucky stars that you're probably safe from a pie attack this year, unless what you're really worried about is overeating.

Over at another site I was debating the nature of conservatism. My interlocutor claimed that he was standing up for “true” conservatism. The conservatism of Burke and Russell Kirk. You often hear this kind of thing, often from the same kinds of people who say they are “real” liberals, by which they mean the kind of liberals that existed back in the 17th or 18th Century, but never since then.

These guys commonly argue that McCain, and even Bush, are not real conservatives, bt that if the American people knew what real conservatism is, they would be.

So in this discussion I thought I'd point out what I think the elements of real conservatism are. Maybe some of them will look familiar to you.

Bush and Douglas are what conservatism is:

Favors the wealthy over the disadvantaged at every opportunity.

Militaristic to the point of imperialism.

Simplistic, dualistic view of international dynamics.

Hostile to civil liberties, and evidencing a fondness for repressive police and military policies.

Committed to using the powers of government to enforce conservative moral and religious values.

Opposed to using the powers of government to serve the common good or to redress the legitimate grievances of disadvantaged groups.

Hostile to environmental protection or other impediments to unrestrained capitalism.

Oh, and if you haven't noticed, Burke left the building a long time ago.