Vermont's highest-profile Republican official, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, is temporizing just a bit on the state GOP's clear choice for President, Mitt Romney.
Scott told the Vermont Press Bureau on Thursday that he will likely pull the lever for Romney on Super Tuesday, but an endorsement is an extra step he wasn't willing to take.
...Endorsing Romney would mean he would have to get "100 percent behind the candidate," said Scott, something his isn't able to do.
His big objection seems to be Romney's social status -- which is kind of odd for the party that insists America is a classless society. Be that as it may,
"I come from a blue collar background and feel like I'm still blue collar, and I'm not sure Mitt Romney - and it's not his fault - but I'm not sure he understands some of the struggles we all face," said Scott. "He lives in a different world than I do."
I know how you feel, Phil, I know how you feel. I do have to wonder how the rest of the state party establishment views his electoral diffidence.
And I realize Phil Scott is a man of principle, but did he perhaps take a gander at that new poll showing Romney getting trounced by Obama in Vermont? You don't want to be too close to the guy in the shadow of a falling piano. Or, in T-Road terms, you don't want to tail a car with a smoking engine.
Wennberg is a former Vermont Commissioner of Environmental Conservation [under Jim Douglas], a former Rutland City Mayor, and a public policy consultant. Wennberg assumes the responsibilities of VHCF from founder Darcie Johnston on March 1, 2012. Johnston is leaving the organization to focus on her consulting business.
Seems rather sudden. Why, just the other day, she was hosting an "informational session" in the NEK under the flag of convenience "Vermonters for Health Care Reform."
My guess? She's been a longtime advisor/consultant to Sen. Randy Brock, the putative Republican gubernatorial candidate*. At last notice, he didn't have a campaign manager. You do the math.
*VT GOP chair Jack Lindley said last week that "the ship has sailed" regarding other candidates, and that Brock will be the Republican challenger to Gov. Shumlin.
So, Andrew Breitbart, right-wing blogger, provocateur, professional Angry Man, and patron of the execrable James O'Keefe, has died at the age of 43. He left a wife and four children, who I'm sure are in a state of shock and grief.
And he left a thoroughly detestable public legacy. He was a bully. He played a major role in the coarsening of political debate, and helped push the Republican Party further and further to the right. He fundamentally perverted the concept of "journalism," using it as a partisan cudgel with absolutely no regard for the truth. He provided a high-profile platform and backing for a variety of snakes and weasels, most notably James O'Keefe. He killed a fine organization in ACORN and soiled the reputation of Shirley Sherrod, among many others.
I can't say this about many people, but America's public life will absolutely be better off without Andrew Breitbart. He joins the ranks of the Thankfully Dead, alongside Father Coughlin, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and Lee Atwater.
If you'd like to read a more measured Breitbart remembrance from a lefty, see Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. He's a bigger man than I. Or maybe it's that he knew Breitbart personally, so he has a different perspective. Me, I only knew the public figure, and that's what I can evaluate. Speaking of him purely as a public figure, I'm glad he's gone.
(Late add 3/1, 12:00 noon: We've received a response from one of the groups mentioned in this diary. See addendum below.)
We've blogged at length on GMD about the Campaign for Vermont, the public-policy nonprofit that seems to be a vehicle for promoting its founder Bruce Lisman. (Who is also its sole funder, according to Andy Bromage of Seven Days. Lisman won't divulge how much money he's spent on CFV, which is a bit strange for someone who promotes transparency in government.)
Lisman and CFV first came to my attention through their ubiquitous radio ads on WDEV and elsewhere. Lately, another "issue ad" has been filling the airwaves: a spot urging Vermonters to reject the wireless "smart meters" that CVPS plans to start installing in the near future. The ads warn of a possible loss of privacy and potential health effects of exposure to wireless transmissions.
The group sponsoring the ads is called "Wake Up, Opt Out." I did a little digging on the Interwebs to see what I could discover about them. I found some very curious, very interesting stuff; it raises some important questions, and makes me doubt the group's bona fides.
After the jump: Two organizations, two PR guys from out of state, and a dearth of financial information.
Should illegal farm workers get Vt driver's licenses?
The article summary reads:
They don't live in Vermont legally, but illegal immigrants want the right to drive here. And several state senators support the idea. Why the idea is so controversial.
So here's the problem with this framing: the phrase "illegal immigrants" is that it classifies the people themselves as illegal. You can argue that they're here illegally and you can argue that it's against the law for them to be here, but you can't legitimately call the people themselves illegal. They are human beings. They are not acts. They are behaviors. They are people.
And, frankly, when media outlets frame things in these terms, it feeds easily into right wing and anti-immigration arguments. In fact, the use of the term "illegal" to refer to undocumented workers frames pretty much every argument about their presence here. It's shoddy and reprehensible journalism to lead your piece with such a thorough and non-objective approach to the issue.
"We found that it is much more prevalent for people in the higher ranks of society to see  greed and self-interest ... as good pursuits," said Paul Piff, lead author of the study and a doctoral candidate at Berkeley. "This resonates with a lot of current events these days."
Sure does.
After the jump: Seven signs of malignity, and Rick Santorum restores my peace of mind.
To my mind, Marilyn is making the ultimate argument for that freedom of conscience that some would call "religion."
Every year, Marilyn requests that Town Meeting not commence with the customary Christian invocation, and every year that invocation nevertheless takes place; but Marilyn does not give up.
She's been told that she is welcome to leave the room before the prayer begins, and to return once it is over; but Marilyn quite reasonably argues that this essentially "closes" the meeting to her, and asks instead that a secular invocation distributed by the Vermont League of Cities and Towns be substituted for the Christian prayer.
Those who must share a prayer can do that elsewhere before coming to Town Meeting, which is supposed be an open citizen interface, in adherence with Vermont law:
Chapter I, Article 3 - Freedom in religion; right and duty of religious worship That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God; and that no person ought to, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of conscience, nor can any person be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of religious sentiments, or peculiar mode of religious worship; and that no authority can, or ought to be vested in, or assumed by, any power whatever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in any manner control the rights of conscience, in the free exercise of religious worship. Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of Christians ought to observe the sabbath or Lord's day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God.
This year, Marilyn has the ACLU in her corner; and yesterday, her arguments to end public prayer at Town Meeting were considered by the State Superior Court.
One of the biggest players in Northeastern broadcasting is about to vanish, a victim of overly aggressive expansion and impatient creditors. And it has big implications for the Vermont radio scene.
A bankruptcy judge has ordered Nassau Broadcasting to auction its 46 radio stations, including 12 in Vermont. And the 12 include some of the biggest stations outside of Burlington. A few names: WORK ("Frank FM") and WWFY ("Froggy") in central Vermont, WXLF ("The Wolf") in the Upper Valley, WMOO ("Moo 92") in the Northeast Kingdom, and WEXP ("The Fox") in Rutland. Complete list below.
As is the case with every corporate radio chain, Nassau's stations feature homogenized formats and syndicated personalities, often spiced up with a local morning show and occasionally a bit more. But very standard, uninspiring stuff; the kind of mass-marketed programming that's turned radio into the vast wasteland it is today.
(This story comes from the Rutland Herald, whose content is behind a paywall, so I won't bother including a link. But it was listed on Google News this morning, and if you go through Google News you somehow evade the paywall. Go to Google, click on "News," and type "Nassau Broadcasting" in the search box.)
After the jump: Big debts, the station list, and a lament for a (mostly) lost medium.
You may recall that last Thursday, the Caledonian-Record, in advising of a "Health Care Program Monday In Lyndonville" misrepresented the name of Darcie Johnston's anti-reform group as "Vermonters For Health Care Reform."
As those following the issue are well aware, the name of Johnston's group is, "Vermonters for Health Care FREEDOM." Today, the Caledonian dutifully reported on Monday night's anti reform soiree.
And just as dutifully to their far-right agenda, they lied again. This time, adding a nice big headline to the mix, again touting the group as "Vermonters for Health Care REFORM", which, of course, is exactly what it is NOT.
Now one instance of this could be an honest, if sloppy, mistake.
But TWICE? With a nice big headline to underscore the point?
I can only conclude that the Caledonian is deliberately disinforming, either at its own behest or that of Darcie Johnston.
I call upon Johnston and the Caledonian Record's publisher Todd Smith and Executive Editor Dana Gray to explain this distortion of truth put forth not once, but twice, in the context of an objective news item.
This is inexcusable, and can only be attributed to gross incompetence at best or gross dishonesty at worst, somewhere in the Caledonian's hallowed halls.
Someone I know lost her job yesterday. Worked for most of her adult life at IBM in New York State. She's now in her mid-50s, got a month left on the job, then six months of severance pay. (Furloughed workers get one week of pay for every six months of seniority.)
Thank goodness she'll get her 30 years and qualify for a pension. Some of her colleagues will fall just short, and they're well and truly screwed. But the pension isn't nearly enough to live on, so she has to find work. She's got some good computer skills and a strong work ethic, so her chances are pretty good. But it's still a real shock, like suddenly stepping into an unseen abyss.
IBM laid off an unstated number of people yesterday, mostly in white collar jobs, many at its Poughkeepsie headquarters or nearby. The company refuses to give a number, supposedly for competitive reasons -- but the real reason, obviously, is that the bastards don't want the blast of bad publicity that comes with a mass layoff announcement. (There were enough layoffs for IBM to have the police on hand outside its headquarters in case trouble started.)
Alliance@IBM, a union local, is counting layoffs on its own and keeping a running tab on its website. As of this writing, the total is 1202. According to Alliance, IBM's American workforce has shrunk by 35% in the last seven years, from 134,000 in 2005 to an estimated 98,000 now. (IBM ain't telling.)
After the jump: I'd call it evil, but it's really amoral.
250-1
150-1
