Many of you know that I’m one of the volunteers who helps put together DemocracyFest. This year I’m trying to juggle the task of arranging speakers and trainers.

As you might expect, in the 2 weeks before a big event, it gets really, really busy. It’s kinda important to be able to communicate.

Here is the tale of annoyance that is my life at this moment. There’s no rantiliciousness, juicy gossip, or anything really interesting, just another installment of the bizarre reality I seem to live, below the fold.

I have a part time job, which I’m in the process of leaving, in order to free up time to try to actually build the dang house we keep wanting to build.

So right now, in the midst of the most insane portion of the planning/organizing process for The Big Event, I’m not only doing my job, but training my replacement. She’s great, so it only requires a little extra time, and not so much extra time that I won’t be able to make phone calls and send emails. Ok, so far so good. I can deal.

But, alas, extra work was not a sufficiently curvy curveball for life to toss my way.

Last week, my ISP apparently decided it would be a really good time to upgrade their email servers. This meant email outages, lots of them. For hours at a time (something was misconfigured on the servers). On the second day, when I still couldn’t log into the web mail client, I used their nifty real-time messaging customer support dohickey, and eventually connected with an IT tech, to whom I sent a few linux forum posts about the massage their servers were giving, and how to fix the configuration.

Fast forward a few hours: Yay! Email was back. … but it was painfully slow. However, I figured I could deal with slow. And I did.

Until the cat knocked my laptop out of my lap.

It bounced, sideways, in the middle of a disk access. Aaaaargh! So then it sounded like someone was sending morse code, and my spacebar didn’t work anymore, and I couldn’t save files, and some wouldn’t open, and two really small ones that I really needed to open decided to become 43 MB, making them require more memory than my computer thought it had, even though it did have it. Then the g key didn’t work, but it came back. And it somehow decided that it’s now running the Eastern European version of Windows, but still using English as its language, and the time zone is stuck at some location in the Atlantic ocean.

So I had to get a new computer.

I’m part of a small web dev business with a couple of friends, and we have enough business to cover a replacement, so the money didn’t have to come straight out of my pocket, it’s more a matter of it not going in later, which is sort of OK. I could deal.

So, I muddle through a couple of days, trying to install software and get email running on the new computer, trying to retrieve stuff from the broken one. Juggling phone calls, winging it a lot of the time, because I don’t have all the files I need. It’s going OK. I can deal.

I even made my very first ad, using software built into the laptop! It took like 20 minutes, and that included learning how to run the software and export the mp3 – 24 seconds of me talking really fast.

I don’t have a radio voice. 

So, I sent the script to a radio station in Manchester, NH, who had their in-house production crew record their own version using a person with a radio voice and some music in the background.

In the mean time, we’d been limping along with this phone whose handset is broken (we used the speaker phone), because we didn’t want to go pay for a new phone that we can’t use off the grid, but we did want an answering machine, so we can stop paying for he answering service. Anyway, my husband chose this weekend to surprise me with a new phone (plus he finally rigged up the thermostat for the experimental refrigerator, so we can have refrigerable groceries again).

It’s awesome!  A cordless handset, caller ID, the whole kit & caboodle. With my brand spanking new laptop, a refrigerator, and a “real” phone, I feel like I’ve returned to the 20th century!

Then all of a sudden, yesterday the ISP got weird again. Emails were delayed anywhere from 1 to 28 hours. This, oddly enough, makes it hard to communicate. So I gave up, and switched to a different email address through a different ISP. So, it was OK. I could deal.

Today, the event getting closer, the phone started ringing. A lot.

I was taking calls faster than I could take notes, but it was going well.

Until…

This afternoon, a thunderstorm hit. It was a big storm. The whole house shook from the booms, over and over again. The kids and I started unplugging things, shutting things down, protecting the new refrigerator, the modem, the computer.

My daughter asks, “What will happen if lightning hits?”

I answer, “If we were on the grid, and lightning hit a phone pole or something, a spark could jump through the wires and fry some of the stuff that’s plugged in. In our case, it’s less likely, but if it hit the ground near where the wires run from the solar panels, it could do the same thing.  And least likely of all, since our phone line is underground, the phone could be fried, but that would be really, really unlikely.”

Here’s where life decided to be really, really funny:

Minutes after our conversation, lightning struck right next to the house. The flash and boom were something to behold. And then – a great big blue flash … from the phone connector on the wall. 

The phone – a hallmark of our return to the 20th century, was dead. Aaaargh! My phone number is on flyers, on the web site, on people’s speed dial and in their rollodexes. I’m expecting phone calls and I have no PHONE!

So I run out to grab the old broken phone from the deck. I plug it in, and call the answering service – in the 3 minutes of phone-less-ness, we had received 2 calls – one from Obama’s NH campaign office, and one from a panelist who needed travel details.

Oy.

I call back using the tinny speaker phone of the old broken phone we thought we were done with. On the second call, I joke about how they may have to contact me through email if the second phone gets fried by another lightning strike.

I hang up, and start to hang the old phone back on the wall.

Guess what?

Lighting strikes again!

A huge spark shoots out of the phone connector again!

The lightning, of course, fried that phone, too!

Once again, I am phoneless. It’s been less than 5 minutes!

I pile the kids in the car and off we go to the store to buy a new new phone.

We make our purchase, another wireless handset model with caller ID. We wend our way home in the wind and rain. We walk in the door, and the first fried phone is shining its little red “I’m Happy!” light. It’s working again!

So on the table next to me right now are 3 phones: the un-dead zombie phone, the dead dead broken phone, and the new replacement phone, which will go into storage as the emergency backup phone.

It’s been a very strange week.

But, hey, I can deal…

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Well, anyone reading this blog knows that the Vermont Democratic State Committee passed an impeachment resolution yesterday.

It was an interesting meeting, beginning with some “dirty tricks” wherein someone claiming to be from the Democratic Party HQ had apparently called the venue and cancelled the reservation sometime during the week. Our new Executive Director, Jill Krowinski, handled the situation admirably, securing the space for the day after a brief discussion with the building supervisor.

The meeting began with Peter Shumlin, President Pro Tempore of the VT Senate, who had some sobering reflections on the Governor’s lack of leadership ability. While the Governor is very good at the public face portion of his role (things like ribbon cuttings and other public appearances), he is woefully inadequate at his more important management role, leaving the legislature in the difficult position of having to not only do policy, but to provide the leadership and management that should be the Governor’s responsibility.

Some examples provided: On jobs, the Governor has failed to recognize the decline in skiing and maple syrup industries and prepare for the future induced by global climate change. As a result, the Governor has done little to support the creation of a robust alternative energy industry in the state, which could easily supplant the declining industries with the kind of jobs that we really need.

The Governor hasn’t created jobs, seems not to understand that next economic revolution will be global warming-related. If VT can get a piece of it, then we will be part of the boom. People will come from out of state for those jobs. This Governor doesn’t have the management skills to do it.”

He also discussed the way the Governor, rather than “do” anything about the state hospital in Waterbury, relied on the crutch of federal regulations as an excuse for an absurd plan to build a huge hospital, someday, on one of the most expensive pieces of land in the state.  A Governor who was a good manager would have made a few phone calls to get a waiver from those regulations – regulations designed for states with very large populations – so a plan appropriate to our small state could be developed. Governor Doesless, unfortunately, failed to figure this out, and instead has proposed another Fletcher-Allen style high-cost boondoggle.

He then went on to dicsuss global climate change, from the perspective of someone who has lived, farmed, and hunted on the same piece of land for half a century. He mentioned that the governor’s version of “leadership” on the issue is to say “There’s not much Vermont can do,” then fly off to China to “advise’ them on how to deal with it.

One arresting quote on this topic:

Governor Aiken once said: “Only Vermont could take 4 ft of snow and 20 below and turn it into economic opportunity.”

I bet Aiken could never imagine a Vermont that couldn’t keep snow on its mountains. “

He ended with a brief mention of impeachment:

If one can have impeachment hearings for an indiscretion, then one should be able to have impeachment hearings for a war that killed many Vermonters, Americans, Iraqis, and others.

He stated that he sympathizes with Speaker Symington’s position – the House has a lot of business to address this session, and working people in our citizen legislature need to get back to their real lives in May, it’s hard to do it all. But in the final sentence, he said “I personally would like us to do it, but I’m out of the loop with others on that.”

After Senator Shumlin’s remarks, a discussion of property taxes (worth its own diary), and the usual mundane committee stuff regarding office space, new hires, budget, etc, we came to the impeachment discussion. The discussion was remarkably brief (in stark contrast to the “unusual” discussion in Brattleboro).

Highlights from the discussion and the resolution after the jump:

I don’t know all the speakers’ names, so for consistency’s sake, I’ll leave them out. Also, things were moving so quickly, it was hard to catch the exact wording of all the comments. As a result, some of the comments below are paraphrased slightly. I did my best to capture the meaning and context of each comment. If I misrepresent anyone’s comment, I encourage the commenter to let me know, and I will be more than happy to correct the record.

The last few sentences of this comment struck a chord:

What is the harm? I see no harm in asking our legislators. It may not go anywhere, but how can we look ourselves in the mirror and see ourselves as people who did not do every single thing possible to stop this administration. I don’t want to be a “Good German.”

This commenter was pretty frustrated by some of the excuses we’ve been hearing about the “lack of time” and “other priorities”:

I have a problem with this “priority” thing we keep hearing about. This IS a priority. I propose an amendment: change “early passage” to “2007 passage” in last the paragraph of the resolution.

And a constitutional angle:

The Constitution says the legislature “shall remove…” It doesn’t say anything about “unless it’s politically inexpedient, or inconvenient.” It says “shall.”

Another constitutional angle:

Impeachment is not mandatory. It’s archaic, risky, with an uncertain outcome.  There are alternatives that will leave historical record that this outlaw president has done more damage than any other in history.  Be careful what you wish for.

There was also a bunch of discussion about how hard the legislature works (or not, depending on who was speaking).  One speaker suggested that the legislature may have “impeachment deficit disorder.”

It was also noted that as a result of last year’s resolution, 69 members of the House and Senate sent an official letter to the Vermont delegation in DC “asking them to pursue all remedies available under the constitution.” 

And now, without further ado, the Resolution:

WHEREAS, on April 8, 2006 the Vermont Democratic State Committee by unanimous vote adopted a resolution calling for the impeachment, trial and removal from office of George W. Bush, President of the United States, and directing the State Committee Secretary to send the resolution to the Vermont General Assembly for “appropriate action”, and

WHEREAS, twenty-one members of the Vermont  House, including many Democrats, are co-sponsoring Joint Resolution 15 (JRH 15) that incorporates substantially most of the April 8, 2006 State Committee resolution, and

WHEREAS,  on February 15, 2007 JRH 15 was referred to the House Judiciary Committee where it awaits action, and

WHEREAS, on March 6, 2007 more than three dozen Vermont towns passed resolutions calling for the impeachment, trial and removal of George W, Bush as President of the United States, and/or Richard B. Cheney as Vice President of the United States, and

WHEREAS, the State Committee recognizes that  a President and Vice President can abuse his or her authority and power, thereby oppressing the people, diminishing their liberties, imperiling their lives and impoverishing their substance in illegal wars and conflicts, all in subversion  of the Constitution and the rule of law, and

WHEREAS such abuses and subversions can, and should, be checked and restrained by the Constitutional engine and remedy of  impeachment,

NOW THEREFORE, be it

RESOLVED that the Vermont Democratic State Committee transmit this resolution to the Speaker of the Vermont House of Representatives, the President Pro Tempore of the Vermont Senate, and the Vermont delegation to the US House of Representatives and Senate, and

RESOLVED that the Vermont Democratic State Committee advocates that JRH 15 be amended to include Vice President Richard B. Cheney, and

RESOLVED that the Vermont Democratic State Committee strongly supports and advocates, as “appropriate action” the 2007 passage of JRH 15, for the State of Vermont, under Section 603 of Jefferson’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice, for the US House of Representatives to submit, as soon as possible, impeachment charges against George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney for their trial and removal as President and Vice President of the United States.

This Saturday morning, Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin (D-Windham) will address the Democratic State Committee – where he will discuss one of the most important issues facing our country – the Constitutional crisis posed by an out of control President.

Senator Peter Shumlin may discuss other topics as well – such as the property taxes that affect us all, but he also plans to ask the committee to urge the legislature to begin the solemn process of repairing the US Constitution. For this, he will ask the committee to urge the legislature to transmit an impeachment resolution to the US house.

Senator Shumlin has opened a dialog with House Leader Gaye Symington (D-Jericho), urging her to let the bill (which seems to be under lock-down) in the House Judiciary Committee to come to the floor.

Follow me below the fold…

The following resolution is on the agenda for the State Democratic Committee meeting:

WHEREAS, on April 8, 2006 the Vermont Democratic State Committee by unanimous vote adopted a resolution calling for the impeachment, trial and removal from office of George W. Bush, President of the United States, and directing the State Committee Secretary to send the resolution to the Vermont General Assembly for “appropriate action”, and

WHEREAS, twenty-one members of the Vermont House, including many Democrats, are co-sponsoring Joint Resolution 15 (JRH 15) that incorporates substantially most of the April 8, 2006 State Committee resolution, and

WHEREAS,  on February 15, 2007 JRH 15 was referred to the House Judiciary Committee where it awaits action, and

WHEREAS, on March 6, 2007 more than three dozen Vermont towns passed resolutions calling for the impeachment, trial and removal of George W. Bush as President of the United States, and

WHEREAS, the State Committee recognizes that a President can abuse his or her authority and power, thereby oppressing the people, diminishing
their liberties, imperiling their lives and impoverishing their substance in illegal wars and conflicts, all in subversion  of the Constitution and the rule of law, and

WHEREAS such abuses and subversions can, and should, be checked and restrained by the Constitutional engine and remedy of impeachment,

NOW THEREFORE, the Vermont Democratic State Committee strongly supports and advocates, as “appropriate action” early passage of JRH 15 for the State of Vermont, under Section 603 of Jefferson’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice, for the US House of Representatives to submit as soon as possible impeachment charges against George W. Bush for his trial and removal as President of the United States.

There will likely be a friendly amendment when it’s introduced, adding Vice President Cheney to the list of impeachable characters.

The bill in the House had an identical twin sitting ready in the Senate (it’s a joint resolution – meaning it comes from both halves of the legislature).

Oddly enough, THAT version has also been stuffed into committee to die with no action.

The committee chairs in both houses swear they will not let the resolution see the light of day. They will not allow the people we elected to discuss and vote on this essential piece of legislation, legislation that the people of Vermont asked them to write.

Rumor has it that the pressure on them has come from above – Senators Leahy and Sanders, who have served us so well at the national level over the years, don’t want to have to deal with the messy process of permanently ending the precedents set by this President. Precedents such as:

• Invention of the Magical Signing Statement Pen – which Mr. Bush believes gives him the power to legislate from the oval office, even though the Constitution says that’s illegal.
• Ignoring Article 6 of the Constitution, which turns any treaty we sign – even the Geneva Conventions against torture – into Federal Law.
• Taking away the right to freedom of speech, having people arrested or barred from events because of the words on a shirt, or the bumper stickers on a car, or the political party to which they belong.
• Taking away the right to freedom of assembly, by stuffing people in to mini-prisons, and insultingly calling them “free speech zones.”
• Taking away not just the right to a speedy trial, not just the right to a trial by a jury of your peers, but your right to a trial at all, your right to know the charges against you, and your right to see or hear the evidence against you.
• Taking away your right to privacy, and worse doing so in direct violation of the law that was passed in direct after Nixon’s out-of-control spying on innocent people, and even worse, doing so intentionally, and even worse, when he got caught, saying he’ll continue to break the law.
• Diverting troops and funds from a war to capture those who attacked us to a new one against innocents, killing and wounding thousands upon thousands, and causing grave injury to our Democracy.
• And so much more …

As a matter of fact, there are so many ways in which this President has violated the law and threatened the Constitution – the only protection between us and dictatorship – that entire books are required to catalog them all.

Some are afraid that using tough love on President Temper-Tantrum will be unpopular, that it could cost them votes. But in those places around the country where a few brave souls ran for office with a “get tough” stance, they’ve won. Even in our neighboring red state, New Hampshire, the “Live Free or Die” state, Carol-Shea Porter handily beat Jean Shaheen, her much better funded Democratic opponent. Shea-Porter beat the candidate who played it safe, the one followed the conventional wisdom that said “don’t stand strong against this President.”

It turns out that the “wisdom” derived from fear was unwise. The people see what the media doesn’t report. The talking heads on TV may spin and smear, but they DO NOT speak for us.

So thank you to Peter Shumlin for taking a stand against the very conventional “wisdom” that failed Jean Shaheen, is failing our legislators, and is failing our country.

Speaker Symington needs to let the existing bill out of committee, allow the House to vote on it, and get the little waiver needed to send it to the Senate.

In the House, Representative David Zuckerman (P-Burlington) is advocating for the bill to be released from committee. The bill in that body needs to also emerge for a vote.

And then the Joint Resolution needs to be sent to our Freshman Congressman, Peter Welch, who can take his place in history, by beginning the process of healing our wounded Democracy.

It’s time to put this administration on the short leash.

Long ago and far away, there was a time when network television poked fun at power. It was a time when light hearted satire skewered cold-hearted politics. It was a time when Saturday Night Live was still funny, and SCTV made Canadians laugh ’til they cried.

Sadly, those times are gone. Network TV has ruled out funny in favor of stupid, or harmful, or propagandistic:

This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind “24.” Finnegan, who was accompanied by three of the most experienced military and F.B.I. interrogators in the country, arrived on the set as the crew was filming. At first, Finnegan-wearing an immaculate Army uniform, his chest covered in ribbons and medals-aroused confusion: he was taken for an actor and was asked by someone what time his “call” was.

In fact, Finnegan and the others had come to voice their concern that the show’s central political premise-that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security-was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. “I’d like them to stop,” Finnegan said of the show’s producers. “They should do a show where torture backfires.”

But in the dark recesses of a network known mostly for it’s special blend of “stupid” and “propaganda,” there comes an occasional spark. Fox, the progenitor of what some call Faux News, has brought us this little satirical gem:

So whaddaya think folks? Isn’t it about time Apple cuts the funding for the iRack?

More seriously, the skit’s reference to “No Exit (plan)” calls to mind Sartre’s play about hell, coincidentally titled “No Exit.” In the play, hell’s not really so bad, it’s just that there’s no way out. The condemned are consigned for eternity to to stay right where they are. They can handle it … for a while .. but then the endlessness of the situation begins to take its toll.

This administration intentionally failed to devise an exit for the Iraq war, and as a result, created a hell on earth.

Let’s hope that the Democratic House and Senate use all the best tools in their toolbox to craft an exit that is really a way out. And be sure not to leave loopholes that allow the President to pull the sort of dishonest shenanigans that are his hallmark. Shenanigans such as, perhaps, relabelling all the “combat” troops as “support” troops, and leaving them right where they are, leaving them once again, with No Exit.

Two days ago, the VT Legislature passed troop withdrawal resolutions. Some view state-level resolutions as meaningless – they’re non-binding on anyone for anything. However, they send a “sense of the state” to the national delegation. The national delegation doesn’t have to follow up in any way, but they often do. Why? Because the state legislature only sends a message if there’s overwhelming public support.

Today, Senator Leahy had the spoke on the Senate floor. Here is a choice quote:

As one who for years has fought for veterans benefits, for fair treatment for the National Guard, for armor for our troops who were sent into battle unprepared, and for replacing the depleted stocks of essential equipment that our troops need and depend on, the absurd accusation that it is unpatriotic to disagree with a policy that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and created a terrorist haven in a country that before posed no threat to the United States, has worn thin.

…

It reminds me of my days as a prosecutor.  When a defendant was caught red-handed, the predictable response was to attack the accuser. …

The full text is below the fold.

[crossposted elsewhere]

Before dropping into the full text, however, I ask anyone outside of Vermont to take the lesson from Vermont’s approach and apply it in your state – especially if you live in a state with a presidential hopeful or with a Republican legislator who is up for re-election in ’08.

Get the message sent from below that constituents’ will cannot be ignored forever. Give them a reason to jump the party ship on this war, and to do the right thing for our troops, our country, and the world.

Thank you Senator Leahy, for standing up for our country and our troops. Thank you for standing with Senators Obama and Feingold in working to bring a real end to this unjust war.

Remarks Of U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy
The War In Iraq
February 15, 2007

Mr. President, a week ago the distinguished Majority Leader tried every which way to provide the Senate with an opportunity to debate a bipartisan resolution on Iraq.  That effort failed because it was blocked by some in the Minority party, who insisted on a separate vote that was nothing more than a political ploy.  Instead of a debate on the President’s policy, they wanted the debate to be about who “supports” the troops.

As has so often been the case when anyone has asked a question, expressed reservations, or outright opposed the President’s failed policy in Iraq, his defenders accuse his detractor of not being patriotic or of not supporting the troops.

As one who for years has fought for veterans benefits, for fair treatment for the National Guard, for armor for our troops who were sent into battle unprepared, and for replacing the depleted stocks of essential equipment that our troops need and depend on, the absurd accusation that it is unpatriotic to disagree with a policy that has resulted in the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and created a terrorist haven in a country that before posed no threat to the United States, has worn thin.

It reminds me of my days as a prosecutor.  When a defendant was caught red-handed, the predictable response was to attack the accuser.  That is what has been going on here since President Bush, Vice President Cheney and former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, ignoring all advice to the contrary, led us into this costly fiasco.  These flawed policies have thrust our troops into the maw of a bloody civil war.  Our troops are not responsible for the mistaken policies they have been asked to implement.  Policymakers in Washington are responsible for that.  And only decision makers in Washington can change those policies. 

The polls show unmistakably that a majority of the American people wants the Congress to debate and vote on the President’s policy in Iraq.  They know that Iraq is the key issue of today, they see that it is a widening civil war, and they want their sons and daughters out of there, in as sensible a timeframe and as sensible a plan as we can muster. It is that simple, and that is what we should be debating.

The costs of this misadventure have not just been onerous; they have been catastrophic.  More than 3,000 Americans killed, and more than 20,000 wounded.  Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have lost their lives.  In material terms we are fast approaching the one trillion dollar mark, throwing money out the door at a rate of more than $2 billion per week to fund this war.  Our international reputation and the influence it brings, including among our allies, has been badly tarnished and diminished.

Where are we in Iraq?  We are in the midst of a civil war among religious and ethnic factions, an insurgency that shows no sign of diminishing, and out-of-control organized crime.  It is hard to say that we have made any real progress toward the larger objectives of bringing democracy to Iraq or the Middle East.  It is time we face the grim reality, and it is time we deal with it.  Our soldiers’ lives are in the balance.

I made a brief statement on Tuesday about an column in last Sunday’s Washington Post by retired Lieutenant General William Odom.  General Odom has one of the most distinguished military intelligence careers, and he continues to provide powerful insights on national security.  In his piece entitled “Victory in Not an Option,” he outlines how this Administration’s entire policy on Iraq, including the so-called surge strategy, is based on a self-defeating inability to face reality.

The reality, according to the general, is that we are not going to make Iraq a democracy and that the longer we stay, the more likely Iraq will be anti-American at the end of our intervention.

Our invasion made civil war and increased Iranian involvement in Iraq inevitable, and no amount of military force — especially after so many errors of judgment — will prevent those outcomes. 

Meanwhile, our presence is only stoking al Qaeda’s involvement in Iraq.  The reality is that supporting our troops does not mean keeping them there to carry out a failed strategy.  It means pursuing a course that protects the country’s interests and prevents more Americans from dying in pursuit of an ill-defined, open-ended strategy that cannot succeed. 

General Odom knows that we need to begin an orderly withdrawal from Iraq.  He argues that we should join with other countries in the region – those whose input this Administration has often ignored – and seek to stabilize the region through sustained, high level diplomacy.

These views are in line with those of some our senior military officers, other national security experts, many of us in Congress, and a majority of the American people.

Yet look at what the Administration and it defenders in the Minority party offer instead.  We get filibusters that stymie a debate on our Iraq policy.  We get the same old rhetoric about not supporting the troops.  And we get a bill from the President for another $100 billion to send 20,000 more troops and continue the war.

If the President cannot face the reality that even members of his own party increasingly have come to accept, then it is our responsibility, our patriotic duty, our moral duty, to act.  A non-binding resolution that sends a clear message in opposition to an escalation of troops is better than years of the silence of a rubberstamp Congress.  But we know the President will ignore it; he has already said so.  It is only a first step.

I support binding legislation by Senator Obama and Senator Feingold to begin a phased redeployment of our troops out of Iraq.  It is not our role to choose sides in a civil war.  It is not our troops’ role to die trying to force these warring factions to settle their age-old differences.
We need to continue to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  We need to deploy sufficient forces and intelligence assets to track down international terrorists around the world.  We need to do a lot better job of policing our borders without denying entry to innocent people who are fleeing persecution. 

General Odom is right.  Keeping our troops in Iraq is not making us safer.  We should begin bringing our troops home.  Congress has it in its power to force the President to change course.  That is what the American people want, and that is what we should be debating.

( – promoted by odum)

Then I screamed at my daughter to get out of the house…

… and leapt toward the fire extinguisher.  The tiny bits of flaming foam insulation that had landed on me had gone out without any damage, but the fireball had also ignited the foam along the crack I had just filled, and the masking tape around it.

Thus our experiment in low-carbon living has taken a short hiatus.

We live a very strange life.  As an example, on the first multi-day car-less bike trip my husband and I took, we had to buy a lawn mower. It’s a long story…

So people who know us in real life, would not be surprised to hear me say that we’ve moved in with Dad for a short time because our refrigerator became a blow-torch. They’d just wait for the story, and try very hard (well, maybe not) to not double over laughing.

As my daughter shivered in the 14 degree air, short-sleeved and sock-footed, I sprayed the fire extinguisher at the flames, then raced to the main gas shutoff for the house. I have no memory of covering the territory between the refrigerator and the gas shut-off, but I remember brushing the snow off the protective cover so I could open it and get to the knob.

So what happened?  It was actually much less dramatic than it sounds.

The weather report indicated the next day would be below zero. We had a couple of spots with discernible air leaks, which had resulted in frozen pipes the week before, so I grabbed some spray foam insulation and started filling those gaps.  Alas, it turns out that the air from the last gap on the list just happened to flow directly to the pilot light on the refrigerator, several feet away. It also turns out that the propellant in the spray foam was butane.

“Wait,” you ask “a pilot light on the refrigerator?” Yep. We’re off the grid, so our now former refrigerator was propane-fired.

Butane is flammable – very flammable, which is why it’s used in cigarette lighters. As a result, when enough of the stuff reached the pilot light, the refrigerator morphed from an ordinary appliance into the “Killer Refrigerator of Doom (Dun, Dun, Duuuun…).”

The actual experience was one of those surreal compressed-time moments: The was a “FOOOF!”, a blast of heat and light, a spattering of flaming foam bits, then the soft hiss of flame. The little bits of foam went out pretty much instantly as they landed. The big snakes of fresh foam, however stayed lit, as well as the stuff that was still coming out of the can, and a small blow-torch style flame – about 6″ tall – continued to burn just above the pilot light.

Luckily, our insurance company insists that anyone with a woodstove have a big honking 20 lb fire extinguisher installed in an easily-accessible location. So as soon my brain registered the thought “it’s not going out,” I was able to grab the fire extinguisher and blast the flames.

It was a definite “two-steps-backward” moment.

We were in this situation because we had decided to try an experiment: reduce our carbon footprint to as near-zero as possible.  It’s a huge challenge. We probably would not have tried the experiment if we hadn’t been enjoying “Fun with Dual-Unemployment and Huge COBRA Payments.” We weren’t interested in homelessness, and had hoped not to have to do the cliched “move in with the parents” thing (heh). So we started planning, sold the house, bought some land, and began the oddyssey to build a straw-bale active- and passive-solar house.

We got the foundation footers in. There’s a story to go with these, but it’ll have to wait to another day… then ran out of time before the cold set in. We were close to running out of money, so we decided to build what we call the “energency backup cabin.”

It’s supposed to be a pottery studio, but for now, it’s home sweet home.

It literally comprises 2 garden sheds (for Monty Python fans, we can now use the “Arthur ‘Two-Sheds’ Jackson” joke in real life). The small part on the left was delivered whole, and the rest was built from plans.

It’s super-insulated. In order to reduce the cost and the energy impact of a new building, it uses low-e windows, and most were gathered from building material recycling centers, some are from the “bargain barn” at the local builder’s supply – customer returns.

So anyway, we made the best of it, building sleeping lofts in the bigger shed, putting a composting toilet and sink in the small one. We have a gas range, a woodstove, a recently-added instant-on water heater (water heating was done on the woodstove in cold weather), and, until now, a refrigerator.  It’s powered by a combination of 2 solar panels, 4 batteries, and a backup generator (there’s a story there, too). We squeezed in a sofa, a recliner, a dining table, some storage, clothes, bedding, 4 people, and 4 cats. We have 320 square feet (not including the lofts). All in all, it’s been very “Little House on the Prairie.”

There have been many moments of frustration, and many moments of joy. The location is beautiful, the neighbors are typical no-nonsense, get things done, independent souls with a real sense of community (some day I’ll have to write about the snow plow incident).

We’ll be elsewhere until we can afford to replace the refrigerator. I do NOT want a propane one again. So we have to get not only an electric refrigerator, but the solar panels, batteries, and charger needed to power it. Ugh.

Interestingly, we have learned that the best Energy Star refrigerators use less electricity than the most common “off-grid” refrigerator used by our friends. So we can buy a conventional refrigerator and associated solar panels for about $1000 less than a refrigerator designed for off-grid living and the associated panels and batteries. I guess it pays to do your research…

And our biggest lesson-learned in the latest adventure? If you have any gas appliances in your home, and you plan to use spray foam insulation: Turn off the gas first.

Where we started, Where We’re Headed

Back in the year 2004, there was an election – a Presidential election. Leading up to that fateful day there was a primary.  In that Primary was a candidate named Howard Dean, a Doctor who had been Governor of the tiny state of Vermont.

Sure there were other candidates, some of them quite good, but Dean had a message that resonated with many of us who were looking to change the Republican tide that had swept over the country 4 years earlier: You Have the Power.

From those 4 words, a movement was born – a movement that accidentally united average folks with computer geeks, creating the phenomenon we all now call the “netroots.”  The netroots isn’t just bloggers, it’s people committed to democracy using tools that provide tremendous power for networking and information sharing. Tools that were truly in their infancy until some tech-savvy folks decided to attach them to the Dean campaign, morphing those words – You Have the Power – from slogan into reality.

[more after the jump…]

After the campaign was over, people who had experienced the sweet flavor of empowerment were not content to go home and wait a couple of years for the next call to action by one candidate or another. Instead, they kept working, kept learning, kept sharing, kept networking, and kept blogging.

One group decided to have a party, to celebrate all we had learned, and added some training so we could learn more – to become better at politics, organizing, and doing all the things necessary to build the infrastructure that could support candidates at all levels throughout the country. That party was DemocracyFest. The first DemocracyFest was not the last. Due to popular demand there was a second, and a third. From the second came Yearly Kos.

And now, we’re ready for the Fourth Annual DemocracyFest. Once again there will be speakers, trainings, and celebration. There will be the famous Blogger’s Breakfast, there will be candidates, and there will be music.  And there will be US – the netroots coming together with average people, to get even better at what we’ve learned to do.

After the tremendous victories of last week, we need to gear up to take it to the next level.

We know many people here plan to go to Yearly Kos, as do many of us. Luckily, the events complement one another. There is so much to learn and there are so many more people to meet and network with, even if there were 100 events or 1000, we would not cover half the territory between what we know, and what we have yet to learn.

We also know that some people can’t make one event or the other, and we encourage everyone to make it to whichever one you can. There is still too much at stake to rest for long.

Are you ready to join us at the 4th Annual DemocracyFest, taking place at the historic Wayfarer Inn, in Manchester, NH on June 9 and 10, 2007?

When you buy a ticket for the weekend you get:

– 2 Breakfasts (including the one-and-only Blogger’s Breakfast),
– 2 Mid-day snacks,
– 2 Dinners,
– All speakers,
– All panels,
– All entertainment,
– Free parking at the Wayfarer Inn,
– Optional Friday night Meet and Greet

And to top it off, all of this is available for a limited time at a special Election Celebration Discount Rate of $135. This special price expires November 20, so be sure to order today!

While supplies last, early purchasers will also receive a free November 7 commemorative T-shirt.

Are you ready to carry the momentum from last Tuesday’s election forward into the 2008 Primary Season? Then be sure to buy your tickets today.

If you don’t think you can make it, but want to support our training and networking events, become a sponsor! And don’t forget, if you can’t make it to DemocracyFest, please consider YearlyKos.  We need to keep our skills fresh and our enthusiasm strong for the long hard slog into 2008.

If we do keep learning, networking, listening, and celebrating our victories, we can ? no we will ? make the US safe for Democracy once again. With last Tuesday’s election, we made a great stride toward a future in which our children will have a future. That is where we’re going. Let’s keep working together to get there!

And let’s show the nation and the word that, yes, indeed, We Have the Power!

The Torture Bill passed the House today, in the shiny wrapping paper of an immigrant-hate bill, literally adding insult to injury.  Tomorrow it will likely be voted on in the Senate. Friday it will probably become law.

Other administrations protected our basic constitutional rights in the face of whole nations, armed to the teeth with massive numbers of extraordinary weapons that threatened to wipe us all out in a few hours. Other administrations faced dangers so grave that the entire world literally hung the balance, and they did so with the Geneva Conventions intact. Other administrations faced  unprecedented dangers without fearing every person’s right to a day in court, to face their accuser and see the evidence against them – a guarantee that has been in place for nearly 800 years.

But this cowardly crew is so frightened by a rag-tag band of thugs they’re cutting and running from the very basis of democratic society.

Retreating from democracy is the realm of cowards.

Any legislator, in any party, who votes for this bill, no matter what other bill it may have been cloaked in for the day, is not worthy of the trust bestowed by the voters and should be run out of office.

Washington DC Subway Ad, 2003

[UPDATE: Added an excerpt of Leahy’s input during the day of the Bush Torture Act hearings in the comments. Please click here and THANK Senator Leahy.]

Today was the first day of Arlen Specter’s show hearings regarding the President’s bill retroactively making torture and rape legal, and rescinding of the right to a trial.

I watched the hearings live, and must say “Thank You” to Senator Leahy for stating clearly that this bill is utterly UnAmerican. I hope, as the hearings continue he will continue to do so.

[more after the jump]

During the hearing, the Senator entered the following editorial into the Congressional Record. The editorial identifies this bill as a constitutional crisis [emphasis mine]:

In the blizzard of expensive TV ads and scathing stump speeches as the midterm elections approach, I doubt if any of the candidates and their supporters will focus on, or even mention, this assault on habeas corpus. But nine retired federal judges have tried to awaken Congress to this constitutional crisis. Among them are such often-honored jurists as Shirley Hufstedler, Nathaniel Jones, Patricia Wald, H. Lee Sarokin and William Sessions (who was head of the CIA and the FBI).
  They write, particularly with regard to Mr. McCain’s concerns about torture, that without habeas petitions, how will the judiciary ensure that “Executive detentions are not grounded on torture”? The judges also remind Congress that the writ of habeas corpus has been suspended only four times in our history — and then, the Constitution states, only in “Cases of Rebellion or Invasion (when) the public Safety may require it.”)
  To be sure, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas during the horrors of the Civil War; but in 1866, the Supreme Court declared that action unconstitutional because the civilian courts were still open during the war — as they still are right now. So, if this suspension becomes law, say these deeply concerned retired federal judges, “there will be protracted legislation for years to come” — and many detainees may never experience justice.
  These judges also remind us — and Messrs. Warner, McCain and Graham (the latter has long wanted to undermine habeas) — that, as Chief Justice John Marshall declared, and warned, “ours is a government of laws, not men.” Having certainly acted on principle in putting the president on the defensive, McCain and Warner should now stand up for “the ‘Great Writ.'”
  And Thomas Jefferson, as the Constitution was being written, objected even to the inclusion of a clause suspending habeas corpus because of the danger that suspension could be “habitual.”

Remember, the whole concept that every person deserves a trial, to ensure that they weren’t just imprisoned for pissing off the wrong guy, was originally included in the Magna Carta. It was subsequently suspended, and not reinvoked in Brittain until the 1670s, when the members of Parliament realized that their lives were on the line after the peasants decided that perhaps they, too, deserved some rights.

It was then included in the Constitution, because the Founding Fathers had witnessed firsthand the abuses of a government that reclassifies people who disagree with it as criminals and locks them up indefinitely without cause.

And ever since that time, with a few exceptions which were roundly denounced by the Supreme Court, it has held as the law of this land.

Past administrations defended this country against entire nations without sacrificing our rights, but this crew can’t even protect us from a rag-tag band of thugs without destroying everything we stand for.

The right to a trial is the stepping stone that makes all of the other rights in the Constitution mean something. If you can be carted away for no reason whatsoever, and imprisoned without ever coming before a court of law, then you have no rights. You can have no “due process” those rights laid out in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights as amendments 4, 5, and 8, if you can’t even get into a courtroom to be heard.

All that has to happen for one to lose everything is to be declared an “enemy combatant” by someone, which means that without any evidence, without any warrant, without having committed any crime, you can lose your future. If this bill passes, you will have no right to a trial to make sure that you’ve been locked up for committing an actual crime. As an added bonus, most of the immoral and  counter-productive procedures formerly known as torture and rape will be re-defined as “forceful interrogation,” making them “legal.”

This means that, for the simple act of pissing off the wrong person, – or worse having the wrong name or looking suspicious –  you can spend months, years, or the rest of your life in a filthy cage, having other people’s genitals forced down your throat without it being considered rape, and you can have your face wrapped in Saran Wrap, then have water poured over your head repeatedly, so you’re suffocating and feel like you’re drowning, all while strapped down and unable to move, without it being considered torture. Note: You’ll actually be tortured and raped, but the torturers and rapists will be get off scott-free, because someone called you a combatant, like the guy from Canada who was dragged off to a rent-a-gulag in Syria and tortured for the horendous crime of catching a flight home.

So, again, thank you to Senator Leahy for this first salvo today. Please keep up the good work. Please do whatever you can to keep this piece of wicked doggerel from making its way to the floor for a vote.

If you think there is any way your constituents can help prevent this bill from seeing the light of day, let us know. We’re listening.

While we focus on the immoral “torture” part of the new torture bill, we’re missing a more insidious little tid-bit: removing the right to a trial.

In England, way back in 1679, it was made illegal to stuff people in prison without charges and leave them there to rot.

This was done because imprisonment had become the government’s favorite means of suppression. Parliament thought this was a really bad idea, mostly because the peasantry had become so fed up with being silenced in this way, that the Lords who ran Parliament were in fear for their lives. So Parliament wised-up and passed a law to stop the practice.

[updated to include Magna Carta info]

Produce the Body

Note: In the following excerpt, I’m removing the long lists of people to whom one can appleal, the lists of who can make appeals on one’s behalf, lists of who can be served a writ, and shortening other lists, such as “warrant or warrants” and removing some adjectival expressions to shorten the text and make it easier to understand. The full text is available here: http://www.constitution.org/eng/habcorpa.htm

Note 2: “Habeus Corpus” below means “show me the defendant” (or literally, “produce the body”)

… it shall and may be lawful to and for the person or persons so committed or detained … or any one on his or their behalf, to appeal or complain to … any one of his Majesty’s justices … (4) and the said … justices… are hereby authorized and required … to award and grant an habeas corpus…, (5) to be directed to the officer or officers in whose custody the party so committed or detained shall be, returnable immediate  before the said … justice; (6) and upon service thereof … the officer shall … bring such prisoner or prisoners before the said … justice … true causes of the commitment … (7) and thereupon within two days after the party shall be brought before them, the … justice … shall discharge the said prisoner from his imprisonment, taking his or their recognizance, with one or more surety or sureties, in any sum according to their discretions, having regard to the quality of the prisoner and nature of the offense, for his or their appearance in the court of the … city or place where … the offense was committed, or in such other court where the said offense is properly cognizable … (8) unless it shall appear … that the party so committed is detained upon a legal … warrant … for such matters or offenses for the which by the law the prisoner is not bailable.

Or, in short: Every prisoner must have his or her day in court. Every prisoner should be able to defend themselves against accusations – just in case those accusations turn out to be nothing more than the spite of someone who doesn’t like you.

Prior to that, the Magna Carta, in 1225, had granted the same:

To any man whom we have deprived or dispossessed of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, without the lawful judgement of his equals, we will at once restore these.

This concept has been recognized as a basic element of civilized societies for 781 Years.

In dictatorships, the “Writ of Habeus Corpus” does not exist – prisoners have no right to trial, no right to defend themselves. Heck, they don’t even have to be accused of any crime. They can simply be tossed into some dingy hell-hole because they pissed off the wrong person. In such countries, the government gets in the habit of “disappearing” people it doesn’t like.

Until now, we in the United States have firmly believed in freedom. Until now, we have believed the fact that people shouldn’t be thrown in prison unless they had done something wrong. Until now, we have believed that everyone has the right to defend themselves in a court of law. Until now, we have believed that people who didn’t commit any crime should be allowed to live free.

Until Now.

For hundreds of years, people have given up their lives, their limbs, their youth to defend those rights.

But now those who, upon taking office, swear to protect those rights against ALL threats have decided to turn their backs on freedom:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Those we trusted to care for the most precious element of our democracy – our freedom – are ready to sign it away.

Cowardice pushes them to want to appear “tough.”

They are not brave enough to keep our democracy alive.

The fertile field of democracy, first planted 230 years ago, has been abandoned to a harvest of fear.

[cross posted elsewhere]

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