Freyne Land

This afternoon's Iraq antiwar protest in Vermont was conducted by a respectful, thoughtful group of 20 who visited U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy's Burlington office on the fourth floor at Courthouse Plaza on Main Street.

Unofficially, 10 of them were arrested, handcuffed and removed from the building after Leahy's Vermont chief-of-staff  Chuck Ross (in the red tie), let them know the office was closing, folks working there had families to get home to.

Some like Marmette Hayes, 82, getting handcuffed below, were arrested at previous antiwar protests at the offices of Rep. Peter Welch and Sen. Bernie Sanders. A couple were first-timers. They were led downstairs, taken outside and giving trespass citations and released.

After it was all over we had this little back and forth with Mr. Ross:

Q. What was it like today having folks who probably voted for Patrick Leahy in here protesting his vote and committing civil disobedince?

Mr. Ross: “It was a very respectful conversation  and nice, fair even-handed give and take. It was helpful to learn where they’re coming from and I think they have a better idea where Sen. Leahy’s coming from."

Q. What’s your understanding of where they’re coming from?

Mr. Ross: “I think they’re very committed to seeing the war stopped and they believe the only way to stop the war is to stop the funding right now.

"There were many other messages exchanged in the conversations, but I think that is clearly one of them."

Q. Congress is “enjoying” a one-week recess. Where’s St. Patrick?

Mr. Ross: “I don’t know the exact location, but he is with Marcelle having a nice time right now.”

Q. “Do we know what country? What continent?”

Mr. Ross: “Caribbean somewhere. I not sure what island, but he’s in the Caribbean somewhere.”

Cuba, eh?

Just kidding.

Peter Welch thought he'd be talking mostly about renewable energy at Draker SolarDesign on Burlington's North Street.

He was, after all, kicking off a week-long "energy tour" around the state he represents in Washington D.C. to promote the growth of renewable/alternative energy businesses in the Green Mountains.

But last week's U.S. House vote on continued funding for the Iraq War - with a deadline for pulling out - and the Monday morning 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision saying the EPA actually can regulate the carbon dioxide pouring out of our car/truck/SUV tailpipes took precedence.

The automobile industry doesn't run the entire world anymore!!!

Why should we care about the U.S. Supreme Court decision?

Replied the Democratic Congressman from Vermont:

"It means we’re going to have a fighting chance to get the Environmental Protection Agency to protect the environment and our health. It took a Supreme Court decision to say that carbon pollution was bad for your health and therefore could be regulated.

"It's quite astonishing that the Bush administration resisted this. It's consistent with what has been their approach on global warming which is to deny that it existed, then reluctantly acknowledge that it does exist."

"And it's a tremendous opportunity for us to get focused on addressing what is the issue of our time and it is global warming."

Regarding last week's Iraq War vote, Vermont's lone congressman, a war opponent, described his "yes" vote for the funding-bill that passed as the most effective way to bring the U.S. involvement in war in Iraq to its quickest closure. War opponents have protested at his Burlington office. Said Pedro:

"And the opposition is right!  We’ve got to end that war.  If I had had a vote we never would have gone to war.

"If I had the bill passed that I want, we’d be out of that war yesterday. But here’s the question: Every decision I make on the war is based on will that decision accelerate and hasten the day when we end the war, or will it delay it?

"We had to get 218 votes to pass something in the House. The Senate had to get 50 votes. The question is - are you going to make the 'unattainable perfect' be the enemy of the 'barely achievable good?'"

Were this Merry Olde England, or even modern Great Britain, the government in such a parliamentary system, noted Welch, would have fallen twice by now.

“We have a federal system where the President of the United States has independent authority over the war. And we’ve got a tough adversary in President Bush. This is a man who’s willing to go down with the ship and take everybody with him on his Iraq Policy.

"My goal is to take concrete constructive steps to end this war as soon as we possibly can. This is doing real damage to our country.”

And I just heard for the 10th fricken’ time that I "looked really good" on the “Vermont This Week” reporters' rountable on Vermont Public TV this weekend.

Hadn't been on in a couple months - not since the visual effects of the ol' cancer chemo started to kick in.

Thanks.

You guys/gals are very, very sweet, BUT, I watched the program, too. Not all of it, just as much as I could take. And I didn’t think I looked so bloody good.  Fellow panelists Kristin Carlson from Ch. 3 and Bob Kinzel from Vermont Public Radio - now, they looked good!

Ah, Pedro, is that really you?

With most of my hair fallen out, my beard gone and the “other state-of-beingness” that I’ve found to be a byproduct of the, so far, marvelous R-CHOP cancer chemotherapy, it was a wee shock for meself to see meself. [I'm slowly getting used to it.]

In fact, since VTW Host Stewart Ledbetter had announced on the program weeks ago that yours truly had come down with cancer, I expected he’d bring up the "C" subject before the end of the program. Make some reference. Television is, after all, a “visual” medium, is it not?

Besides, it was a big cancer week newswise with Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow going public with their latest cancer diagnoses.

But Ol’ Stew pretended nothing had changed and it was the same old me. even though I obviously looked. and I think, sounded a bit different. In fact, I lost my train of thought at one point - drugs will do that to you.

C’mon Stew. We talk about it in public now. And the more we talk about cancer in public, the quicker we’ll develop better, more effective tools/strategies to beat it.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Thank you, Tony.

The New York Times had a great cancer series on Sunday including an eye-opener by a dude named Ralph Moss, a weekly cancer newsletter-writer from State College, Pennsylvania:

WE could make faster progress against cancer by changing the way drugs are developed. In the current system, if a promising compound can’t be patented, it is highly unlikely ever to make it to market — no matter how well it performs in the laboratory. The development of new cancer drugs is crippled as a result.

The reason for this problem is that bringing a new drug to market is extremely expensive. In 2001, the estimated cost was $802 million; today it is approximately $1 billion. To ensure a healthy return on such staggering investments, drug companies seek to formulate new drugs in a way that guarantees watertight patents. In the meantime, cancer patients miss out on treatments that may be highly effective and less expensive to boot.

In 2004, Johns Hopkins researchers discovered that an off-the-shelf compound called 3-bromopyruvate could arrest the growth of liver cancer in rats. The results were dramatic; moreover, the investigators estimated that the cost to treat patients would be around 70 cents per day. Yet, three years later, no major drug company has shown interest in developing this drug for human use. More here.

Ah, well, I sure "feel" much better than I think I "look." That's what counts. Eating well, gaining a few pounds back.

So far, the drug that stimulates production of white blood cells - the must-have infection-fighters - is doing its job well. And this steroid-thingy whatever it’s called, I think I’m starting to like.

And meeting and chatting with more and more people with whom I now share the ol’ cancer connection has been a wonderfully mind-opening and enriching experience.

Talk about "getting real," eh?

Back to Reality - Meet the Mess, er, Press!

The pants of the current Attorney General of the United States of America, Alberto Gonzales, a George "WMD" Bush political crony from his days as Texas governor, are absolutely, positively on fire!

The only question is how much damage the GOP will allow the current shameless occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to inflict on his own political party before ending his self-absorbed delay of the inevitable.

This from Vermont U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy's appearance this morning on NBC's Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Leahy, a very serious question, do you believe the chief law enforcement official in this country, the attorney general, has lied?

SEN. LEAHY: "I believe he has not been accurate. I believe—I believe he has not been truthful.

"In fact, when some of these statements came out, first in the press, which indicated he had not been accurate, he came up to me at a meeting at the U.S. Supreme Court and said, 'I, I want to come up and clarify this, have another meeting.' I told him I didn’t want any more of these private meetings where we’re told either half truths or untruths.

"I said, 'Our next meeting will be in public under oath.' Quite frankly, Tim, I’m fed up about it. I really am. Just tell the truth. You know, in the long run, telling the truth is the best thing to do."

MR. RUSSERT: But if the president says, “I’m sorry, Senator Leahy, this is executive privilege. I need honest, unfettered advice from my staff. Karl Rove was not confirmed by the U.S. Senate. He’s not going before your committee. You can do whatever you want, he’s not going,” what do you do?

SEN. LEAHY: "Well, first, the president hasn’t claimed executive privilege yet, and, according to the testimony, the president was not involved directly in these things, so it wasn’t a question of advice going to the president. It was more of a, a question of orders coming from Karl Rove, Harriet Miers to the attorney general, who seems to act as though he’s still a member of the White House staff instead of being of the attorney general of the United States. Entirely different thing.

"I, I think the most important thing, especially in light of the fact that in two years we’re going to have a new president, new attorney general, let’s establish exactly what went wrong here. We know a lot of things went wrong. With the idea that at least with the next president, whoever the next president might be, won’t make these mistakes again."

MR. RUSSERT: But what if Mr. Rove refuses to come before your committee?

SEN. LEAHY: "Well, let’s see if that happens."

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe he will?

SEN. LEAHY: "Let’s see if that happens."

MR. RUSSERT: Do you have indications he might?

SEN. LEAHY: "No, I don’t. No, in fact, they’ve given us a take it or leave it. They said we’ll—the White House said we’ll only allow a discussion behind closed doors with no transcript and a limited agenda and not under oath. Everybody knows that’s a nonstarter.

"There’ve been so many misstatements back and forth by people within the administration, I want it in public under oath. I want both Republicans and Democrats to be able to ask questions.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Leahy, do you believe that Alberto Gonzales will resign?

SEN. LEAHY: "I don’t know. You know, it’s going to be up to—this is up to the president. If the president feels that Mr. Gonzales sets the highest standard that he wants to show for his administration, then he stays on.

""If the president feels that this is what he wants as the state of law enforcement is, he’ll stay on.

"Now, Senator Hatch says he’s always found him to be truthful. Unfortunately, he was not truthful before the United States Senate, and that is why he’s coming back.

"Previous administrations have looked for ways to cooperate with the Congress. This administration goes out of its way to find ways not to cooperate, and I think that’s why the stonewalling has come up."

Ask yourself this - if you were a Democrat running for President in 2008, wouldn't you want Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to hang in there?

Wouldn't you wish, hope and pray that the man who made him attorney general would show the world he's a real man by ignoring any and all calls - even those from Republicans - that Alberto hit the showers ASAP?

Please, Mr. President!

Life is short, folks, isn't it?

It's not a dress-rehearsal.

That's what Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie (left), a Republican airline pilot, and State Sen. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat and International Student Travel Service Manager, have finally realized. Both tell "Freyne Land" they want to be governor of Vermont and they've come up with a plan that should satisfy both of them.

Over the last three months, Shummy and the Doobster have, shall we say, gotten to know each other in a way they never imagined they would.

Dubie, as lieutenant governor, is the presiding officer in the 30-member Vermont Senate.

Shumlin, as president pro tem, is in charge of setting the smaller, "upper body's" agenda, deciding what happens and when it happens. The boys have had to work together.

You may have noticed the Senate has operated smoothly this year. Very smoothly. Well, it isn't just because the Democrats have a "huge" majority, holding 23 out of 30 seats.

Dubie and Shumlin, longtime married heterosexuals who have each fathered several children, tell "Freyne Land" they have, this Montpeculiar winter, discovered their homosexual selves. They giddily told us the other day they will be getting a Vermont civil union as soon as their divorces go through.

AND - are you ready for this? - and they hope to run for governor in 2008 as the "Two for One - Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun" ticket.

Sounds unbeatable, eh?

Can incumbent Republican Gov. Jim Douglas cut enough ribbons to hang on for a fourth term?

Also, here's a shot of Burlington Rep. Chris Pearson, chair of the itsy bitsy, teenie weenie, six-seat House Progressive Bikini, and the tallest Progressive under the Golden Dome, announcing, "Size does not matter, it's what you do with it!"

Pearson the Prog (like Democratic Jog-Bra State Sen. Hinda Miller, a Canadian citizen until recently), told reporters at a Prog Presser in the Cedar Creek Room that he, himself, is "clearly the smartest, best-looking, most articulate and intelligent person to ever serve in the Vermont House and it's time the stupid media and the rest of the low-watt-bulb members acknowledged it."

We do!

APRIL FOOL T0 EVERYONE!!!  JUST KIDDING!!!

Went downtown this Saturday afternoon - the coffee & newspapers run - and the heart of the largest city in the state of Vermont, the smallest "largest" city of any state in the United States, was positively jumping with homo sapiens. Blazing sun more than made up for the still chilly temps.

Having the University of Vermont four blocks from the Church Street Marketplace doesn't hurt, but I met folks from way out-state, like the ladies from Brownsville, Vermont in the photo with Bernie Sanders, or Joe from Enosburg Falls who comes to the Big City to work on his websites via laptop at Uncommon Grounds (which just started providing online access for customers).

Actually, I go there to get away from the keyboard & mouse at home and put newsprint between my fingers and conversation between my lips, as do a few others.

[Five minutes into the NBC Nightly News, the anchorman just announced Vermont's other U.S. Senator - Patrick J. Leahy - will be on Meet the Press Sunday morning.}

United States Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT) went there today to meet up with the dude who succeeded him as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont way back in 1989 - Peter Clavelle.

Ol' Mayor Moonie has not enjoyed similar post-mayoral electoral success, losing the 2004 gubernatorial race to Vermont's Republican "master of the message" - Jim Douglas. Peter's out of the politics game for now, at least candidate-wise.

Came away from our chat with an upbeat U.S. Senator with the clear impression he's getting into the energy issue big-time as a member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

I know, if you live long enough, you see it all - Bernie Sanders turns energy-efficient tree-hugger!

Hey, it's all about the cost of energy...and the amazing potential for innovation and invention on the technology front.

When's someone going to invent a light bulb that lasts for 10, 15 or 20 years?

How many power plants would not have to be built?

Dozens and dozens.

Money makes the world go 'round,
the world go 'round,
the world go 'round......

The Associated Press eventually decided to describe it as a news conference in which Democratic House Speaker Gaye Symington of Jericho (at right with House Democratic Caucus Leader Carolyn Partridge of Windham), "became emotional a few times out of frustration."

Other possibilities included "getting teary-eyed" or "choked-up" or "showing signs of stress."

Hey, we're all human.

Regardless of the description, Friday's was a House Speaker's Brown-Bag Lunch you didn't want to miss - even if there were no "brown-bag lunches" in sight. And lucky for Speaker Gaye, no TV cameras showed up either.

The cause of the Vermont House Speaker's "frustration" was the crash-and-burn of the education spending "reform" bill she wants passed this year. Unfortunately for Gaye, her beloved "reform" bill is so Caspar Milquetoast weak, lame and inconsequential, it fails to excite even enough of the 100 Democrats and Progs to get the 76 votes needed for passage in the 150-member House.

Members of the Statehouse press in attendance at the Speaker's Friday "Brown Bag"" in addition to your favorite blogger were Ross Sneyd of the Associated Press, Louis Porter of the Vermont Press Bureau, and Nancy Remsen and Terri Hallenbeck from the Freeps "Capitol Bureau."

The Symington Spin is that the "reform" bill (which would have "saved" all of $9 million in a $1.2 BILLION annual state public-school bill) got pulled from the House Floor this week because of Republican Gov. Jim Douglas' "lack of leadership." It's all his fault, damnit!

Here's a taste of the back-and-forth:

Madame Speaker: "I did not expect that the governor was going to be  as out-of-the-picture, as in terms of trying to move something through.

"I didn’t expect, I didn’t know, (guffaw), the governor had not asked - I mean, the leadership of the Republican Caucus was never asked to garner support for the bill. The governor basically figured it was enough to sit in his office and say it doesn’t do very much and that was leadership?"

Press: "This is what I don’t get. You’ve known for weeks that the governor has not been real crazy about this bill. He hasn’t kept that exactly secret. You really thought that, while he was out in public hammering it behind the scenes, he’s trying to win votes for you? There was never a conversation between you in all that time?"

Madame Speaker:  "There were conversations every week saying, ‘Governor, this isn’t going to pass without your being part of helping it pass.’”

Press: "Did he ever commit and say 'I’ll do that', or 'I want this to pass?'"

Madame Speaker: "Did he ever commit? He never said ‘I promise I can get you X votes.' They understood that I needed their help to move this bill."

Press: "And the Progs [the Progressive Party Caucus of six members] said that they had never been approached. That doesn't add up to trying to line up votes for this thing."

Madame Speaker: "That’s where we are now. I’m realizing it falls entirely to the Legislature to make this bill pass."

[About fricken' time, eh? How long has she been in the House?

Oh, only 10 years!]

Press: "Why didn’t you talk to the Progs?"

Madame Speaker: "I don’t understand why the [Democratic] Leadership wouldn’t have talked to the Progressives. I can’t answer that question."

Press: "What kind of score would you give your leadership, Madame Speaker?"

Madame Speaker: "I believe I’ve worked really hard to move this bill through, and given the level of resistance to many of the ideas in the bill....I think that the leadership, that our leadership, has -  I’ve done well in terms of moving this bill forward."

Pat on the back - self-inflicted! Nice work, Madame Speaker!

Madame Speaker: "Well, I think there’s a certain amount of gamesmanship going on now in terms of just, ‘Let’s watch them fail.’

"That’s gets back to the point are we playing games here and playing politics? Or are we gonna try to move  forward with what’s best for the state and if people just want to play games with it, that’s one thing."

Press: "Isn’t it always both, though?"

Madame Speaker: "Well, that’s the constant rub in this position, and you know, I have to tell you, there are so many other things I could be doing with my life than this. So many other."

Press: "Name three?"

Madame Speaker: "Being with my kids. Being with my husband. Traveling...I don’t sit in this position because I enjoy the role of making one group of people look better than another.

"I’m trying to sit in this position because, I am sitting in this position, because I’m committed to figuring out what’s best for the kids of this state. I know it sounds old-fashioned. I know it sound hokey, but there is no other reason that I get up in the morning and take this job."

Press: "Madame Speaker, those are your intentions and those are noble intentions, indeed. No one would question that, but what would you say to those who would say you have a personal style, one you are echoing again right now, of the desire to take the politics out of politics?"

(Scene from Julian Scott's Battle of Cedar Creek painting at Statehouse.)

Madame Speaker: "You know I have to tell you I think the people of this state are sick of the politics in politics. I think the people of this state believe that good policy can be good politics. I think the people like that, not everybody. It makes for less spectacular events, but I think in general people want to have their politicians focusing on what’s right for the state, and working together and they get sick of the back-and-forth and the gamesmanship and they tune it out!" 

And the winner of the 2007 Vermont "Noblesse Oblige" Award is _________________?