Just a quick announcement, since a fair chunk of our readership works for the state. From the Gov’s office: “…all state offices have been authorized to  be completely closed on Monday, August 29, 2011. State office buildings will not be open for business, and only specifically authorized critical staff members should report for work at their designated alternate work sites. We anticipate that the state will open as normally scheduled on August 30, 2011. Employees should pay close attention to news and website updates before leaving for work on Tuesday, August 30th.”

Tell us what’s happening where you are (so long as you have power, at least). Click on “Irene” below to track the storm.

NOTE: Tracker below (moved to extended diary) only updates every few hours, as it’s linked to updates from the National Hurricane Center only.

I finally decide to post something, get through a reasonably thoughtful piece (for me) about the wind debate, and the browser crashes taking the unsaved diary with it. Crud. Oh well.

Here, this seems topical:

As you have read in the comments last week, there was some polling going on in Vermont a few days ago. We now know some of what was being polled (besides the gov-stuff), and it was kind of an eye-roller. From Public Policy Polling (PPP):

If there’s any state where you could imagine there being a serious desire among Democratic voters to replace Barack Obama with someone further to the left next year it would probably be Vermont. Not only is it one of the most liberal states in the country it’s also the home of 2 liberal icons, Bernie Sanders and Howard Dean, who if there was going to be a viable primary challenger seem like plausible candidates.

The results were predictable, and the poll largely a waste of time. First of all, there’s no primary challenge to Obama in sight anywhere, and while Vermont may be “liberal” (it’s actually more complex than the “liberal” stamp outsiders slap on us, of course – as PPP shows in their analysis), Obama is immensely popular here – possibly more popular than in any other state (at least from unscientific appearances).

According to PPP’s polling, Sanders would trail trail the President 52-33, but in a bit of a surprise (to me, anyway) would defeat Obama 50-38 among voters describing themselves as ‘very liberal.’ That difference gets wiped out among the ‘somewhat liberal’ set, where Bernie came out with a 39 point deficit. He also showed a 32 point disadvantage with moderates at 57-25.

Despite the fact that they tracked with similar approval/disapproval numbers, Obama would beat Dean by an even larger margin: 61-24, as Dean is not as popular with the ‘very liberal’ set (many of whom remember his center-to-right tenure as Governor, no doubt). Obama’s came in at 45 points better against Dean than against Bernie with that group. The spread among the other ideological demographics was similar.

All in a all a goofy poll. It was probably fun chatting up the idea around the PPP meeting room table, though.

In the more meaningful column, PPP did poll GOP-oriented voters in Vermont on their primary choice. Here was the spread:

Mitt Romney: 26%

Michele Bachmann: 16%

Sarah Palin: 16%

Rick Perry: 10%

Herman Cain: 9%

Ron Paul: 7%

Newt Gingrich: 6%

Jon Huntsman: 3%

Tim Pawlenty: 1%

Look at all that love for Herman Cain! This could be his state (well, relatively speaking). Wonder if the secessionists will claim Ron Paul as their own and try to fluff up their traditional performance on the ballot with his numbers.

Without Palin, here’s the spread: Romney: 29%,  Bachmann 21%, Perry 11%, Cain 10%, Gingrich 9%, Paul 8%, Perry 2%, Huntsman 1%.

“I find it interesting to see S&P so vigilant now in downgrading the U.S. credit rating. Where were they four years ago when they, and other credit rating agencies, helped cause this horrendous recession by providing AAA ratings to worthless sub-prime mortgage securities on behalf of Wall Street investment firms?  Where were they last December when Congress and the White House drove up the national debt by $700 billion by extending Bush’s tax breaks for the rich?”

“I find it interesting to see S&P so vigilant now in downgrading the U.S. credit rating. Where were they four years ago when they, and other credit rating agencies, helped cause this horrendous recession by providing AAA ratings to worthless sub-prime mortgage securities on behalf of Wall Street investment firms?  Where were they last December when Congress and the White House drove up the national debt by $700 billion by extending Bush’s tax breaks for the rich?”

Totten:

“What I’ve been pushing from the beginning is an increase in debt ceiling to avoid default, but have a clean debt ceiling vote,” Welch told Johnson. That means, just a vote on increasing the debt ceiling and debate budget cuts and tax increases another day.

“We have to have a balanced outcome,” Welch added. “If we’re going to move to a fiscal balance, there’s got to be shared sacrifice. This [Republican] plan in my view lacks that balance there’s no revenues whatsoever.”

To which Johnson added, “Wait, I’m confused here. You say you would have voted in favor of this bill if you had been the deciding vote?”

“Yes,” Welch added.

So this was like, what – a Nader protest vote in 2000? I don’t think it’s supposed to work that way in Congress. (Podcast link)

Okay, this is getting scarier. VPR:

The Vermont Health Department says the radioactive substance strontium-90 has been detected in the flesh of a fish north of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant.

…this is the first time strontium-90 has been found in a part of a fish that is edible.

The Health Department says it cannot determine the source of the substance

Strontium-90 is one of the most dangerous constituents of reactor waste. It is a “bone seeker” and is associated with bone cancer, cancer of the soft tissue near the bone, and leukemia.

Yikes.

Unnecessary (emphasis added).

(Senator Patrick) Leahy: “I’m not happy with [the Reid/McConnell debt ceiling bill currently being voted on] at all and I’ve made that very clear to the leadership and to the White House. But I also realize what the alternative was and I was pragmatic enough to do that. The easy thing would be to say, ‘Look, I’ll vote against this because it’s not good enough for me.’ Well, the fact is it’s this or default. It’s not the choice one would like but it’s the choice we have.”

Disagreement is one thing. We are entitled to our own opinions, after all – but we are not entitled to our own facts. It is not a fact in any sense of the word that “it’s this or default.” There are numerous other options being floated: unilateral action under the 14th amendment, printing of currency offset by the Fed’s “qualitative easing” activities to make it currency-neutral, the running of an “overdraft” account with the Fed, effectively transferring the debt – and more. Any one of these may or may not work, but that’s the point. What Sen. Leahy dubs a “fact” is anything but.

Not to mention that if it’s really that cut and dried, what is he effectively saying about Senator Sanders and Representative Welch, who oppose the deal? Try and tell them they are choosing default and ingnoring the “facts.”

Need a more knowlegable authority than me? A more qualified economic mind than Sen. Leahy? Here’s economics Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman:

And even now, the Obama administration could have resorted to legal maneuvering to sidestep the debt ceiling, using any of several options. In ordinary circumstances, this might have been an extreme step. But faced with the reality of what is happening, namely raw extortion on the part of a party that, after all, only controls one house of Congress, it would have been totally justifiable.

At the very least, Mr. Obama could have used the possibility of a legal end run to strengthen his bargaining position. Instead, however, he ruled all such options out from the beginning.

But wouldn’t taking a tough stance have worried markets? Probably not. In fact, if I were an investor I would be reassured, not dismayed, by a demonstration that the president is willing and able to stand up to blackmail on the part of right-wing extremists.

UPDATE: The bill has just passed on the floor of the House. The D’s were withholding their yes votes until they got all the R’s on record.

The following Editors and Contributing Editors of Green Mountain Daily, after consideration and discussion, do not and cannot in good conscience support the Reid/McConnell U.S. Default bill. The legislation is not, as its sponsors claim, a “compromise” solution to a default crisis manufactured by GOP maneuvering. The bill, in its current form, is not a “compromise” under any reasonable use of that word. The bill accedes to radically extreme Republican Tea Party demands and does so at the expense of government responsibility. The bill does not solve the Republican manufactured default crises. Instead it rewards the Republican Tea Party for their reactionary intransigence, and their unwillingness to take their congressional responsibilities seriously.

At the same time, it is clear that default on our debts is not an option. Executive Branch options available to President Obama to avoid default without congressional approval, while distasteful and unprecedented, would all be preferable to the option currently under consideration. Unilateral action under the 14th amendment would be far preferable to the wholesale dismantling of critical discretionary programs and the crippling of medicare through unsustainable cuts to providers, that would ultimately be triggered under the Reid/McConnell bill. In addition, the destructive consequences of draconian cuts to other critical programs and jobs as our economic recovery is showing signs of failing would be intolerable.

We therefore urge Senator Leahy and Representative Welch to follow the example of Senator Sanders and vote against the McConnell/Reid bill which would be harmful in the extreme to Vermonters, as well as middle and working class families across the country.

BP

Jack McCullough

Eddie “kestrel9000” Garcia

Maggie Gundersen

odum

Sue Prent

Caoimhin Laochdha

greenvtster

JDRyan

mataliandy

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