Freyne Land

The top political strategist advising Vermont Democrats at the Statehouse - Bill Lofy of Jericho - has been signed up as a top strategist for the "Stop Sununu Campaign" in New Hampshire. Check it out here.

Let's face folks. It's the end of the Age of Bush and incumbent GOP Sen. John Sununu, a Bush lap dog, has a tough reelection race ahead against former Democrat Gov. Jeanne Shaheen.

Lofy, 35, is a former staffer for the late, great U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. He's also written a brilliant biography of Wellstone, the professor-turned-politician who was killed in a Minnesota small plane crash in 2002.

Lofy and wife Jamie moved to Vermont in 2005. They have a four-month old - Ben.

Mr. Lofy's the reason House Speaker Gaye Symington and Senate Prez Peter Shumlin formed a political action committee - so they could raise the bucks to hire him as their political "consultant."

Nice.

But let's face it, folks. The 2008 race in Vermont for state offices like governor isn't looking real exciting at the moment is it?

The latest buzz has Windor County State Senator, and former Florida cop, John Campbell looking like the most likely Democrat who'll stand up to three-term Republican incumbent Jim Douglas.

John who?

Anway Freyne Land has also learned that Lofy the Writer has another book coming out in March on campaign management. It's called Winning Your Election the Wellstone Way and will be published by the University of Minnesota Press.

Trust me, the U. of Minn Press is a lot better than the Gophers' football team [1-9 this season].

St. Patrick of Middlesex was “live” on CNN International Wednesday. Sen. Leahy of Vermont chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee that handles money for our “ally” Pakistan. Ah, yes - Pakistan! That's where President Pervez Musharraf has put the uniform back on and is playing Ol’ Gen. Musharraf, suspended the judiciary and declared a “state of emergency.”

But he's got a little problem named "Patrick J. Leahy."

Leahy: I still think we should move to cut off the aid unless they restore democracy. When you remove the courts - by definition - you do not have a democracy.  Unless you have a free judiciary, you don’t have a democracy. I’ve talked to a lot of senators, both Republicans and Democrats who are just outraged with what their seeing on television - lawyers being arrested, members of the judiciary being set aside. The reaction against Ge. Musharraf is very, very strong here.

CNN: What are you going to do about it?  Are you going to cut off aid? Can you force anything to happen?

Leahy: I think there’s going to be a very strong effort in Congress to cut off aid unless there are changes and I’ve talked to the State Department and told them that message has to go out, otherwise I will be one to make efforts to cut off that aid.

Baghdad's mayhem and murder is on the airwaves non-stop, but Burlington, Vermont is a very different place, isn't it?

Here in Freyne Land, on the South-side of Big Bad Burlap [that's a shot taken on Maple Street the other day with those Adirondacks in the distance], one is not concerned about driving over an IED and getting blown to kingdom come.

Rather, we have other concerns regarding safety. As veteran baseball umpire, City Councilor and State Rep. Bill Keogh articulates it in the latest online edition of the "Five Sisters Neighborhood Forum":

The perception of some folks is that many cars are speeding in our neighborhoods, thus potentially endangering pedestrians and children using our streets.

If you have a neighborhood area in which you think cars are speeding, work with me to make that determination.

Lt. Scott Davidson of the Burlington Police Dept. has given me an orientation and loaned me a radar speed gun to determine the speed of vehicles.  I’d be happy to work with someone who can check the speed of cars in their neighborhood.

For those folks who want to help in this effort, determine a time of day, the day of the week and the location.  You and I can sit in the car and clock traffic as it passes.  No, we don’t stop cars and we don’t write down license plate numbers. All we do is write down whether this car is above or below the speed limit (usually 30 mph unless posted otherwise).

I’ve done it twice, once on Pine St. the other on Home Ave.

What a guy!

Plus, Ol' Bill often gets taken for me when he's out on his bike.

It's the white hair and the Irish genes, sure it t'is.

Everything changes.

Sooner or later, eh?

The Gannett chain's top man in Vermont, Burlington Free Press Publisher Jim Carey, a hometown boy and the man in charge on College Street since 1991, is being replaced.

Today's edition breaks the news:

Bradley I. Robertson, formerly vicepresident/advertising at The Des Moines (Iowa) Register, has been namedpresident and publisher of The Burlington Free Press. He replaces JamesCarey, who will become chairman of the Free Press.

Robertsonbegan his Gannett career in 1994 as a circulation analyst for The NewsJournal at Wilmington, Del. He moved to the Fort Collins (Colo.),Coloradoan as a manager of circulation sales, then became manager ofsales and marketing at the Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader.

In 1999, Robertson became director of circulation sales forthe Detroit Newspaper Agency. He was named director of businessdevelopment at Des Moines in 2003 and vice president of businessdevelopment there in 2004. He was named vice president of advertisingfor Des Moines a few months later. Robertson is a graduate of NorthernIllinois University with a bachelor's degree in communication.

"Tough and gruff" would be the way to describe Carey. Hasn't spoken to yours truly since he hung up the car phone on me 10 years ago right after he made the mistake of answering it. [His secretary had "mistakenly" given me the number.]

Carey was an ad sales guy. He also was a social conservative who'd been known to drive a car [his wife's?] that bore a "Jesus" bumper sticker.

But Jim Carey will be remembered most as the publisher who forbade his editorial page from taking a stand or even commenting on the great Vermont battle over same-sex marriage during the 2000 Legislative Session that passed the landmark civil-unions law.

Meanwhile, down Route 7, the editorial page writer at the Rutland Herald, David Moats [caught here on the Church Street Marketplace a few weeks ago], won a Pulitzer Prize for his editorials on the gay marriage debate, an issue Vermont, and the Rutland Herald, led the nation on.

Unfortunately, Burlington's local daily - the state's largest -  was silent.

Welcome to Vermont, Brad.

And best wishes, Jimbo!

Really.

None of us are getting any younger, but there's always room for "wiser," eh?

Yes, that is Lake Champlain Chamber Prez  "Tommy Guns"  Tom Torti on the far left; Ol' Bernardo, a.k.a Bernie Sanders, the only socialist senator America's got; former U.S. Navy submarine captain and Democratic State Rep. Al Perry from Richford; and "Save the Environment" Paul Burns, VPIRG's "Top Gun."

All on the same side on this one!

They want the Bush Administration to force Verizon Wireless to, among other things, provide 100-percent geographic cell phone coverage in Vermont when their purchase of Unicel inevitably goes down. (Most likely next month.)

What have they been smoking?

Hey, if no one could require the Bush Administration to come up with real, actual evidence to justify invading Iraq, to start an endless war, or come up with a nominee for Attorney General who actually opposes torturing prisoners, what makes 'em think they can make the Bush Administration require a corporate giant do something current law does not require them to do?

"What we're asking is kind of unique," acknowledged Sen. Sanders with a twinkle in his eye, "but I think we are right on the issues. We are going to look at all of the opportunities that we have in the Senate to make Verizon an offer they can't refuse."

What does that mean, Don Corleone?

"That means they have got to know that if they don't treat Vermont fairly, we will do everything we can to try to stop this merger.

"That's what it means."

P.S. It's Tom Torti's birthday (53rd).

Happy birthday!

Caught in the act: Burlington Free Press political reporter Sam Hemingway and his, until now, unidentified source.

Captured on film Saturday afternoon in Burlington's Battery Park.

Sam's the one on the left.

More in the Sunday Freeps....

Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced his decision on whether he will support President Bush’s nomination of Michael Mukasey to be Attorney General at his Burlington office on Wednesday afternoon.

Mukasey, a former federal judge in New York, had been considered a shoe-in when he was nominated to fill the vacancy of Bush’s political ally, A.G. Alberto Gonzales, who resigned under a dark cloud of bipartisan criticism.

But the tide turned on Mukasey’s second day before Leahy’s Judiciary Committee when the Bush nominee declined to declare that the form of torture known as "waterboarding" was, in fact, illegal and a violation of US Law. In fact, he said he didn't know if waterboarding was "torture." Said St. Patrick:

When it comes to our core values, the things that make our country great, that define America’s place in the world, these values do not waiver or change from president to president. They are America’s values. They are not values that are owned by any president, or any administration or any Congress or any attorney general. They are the values of a great and good country.

America should continue to stand against torture.

Leahy told reporters in response to a question that he has asked Mukasey both publicly and privately to reconsider and take a public position on "waterboarding," but Mukasey, he said , has firmly declined.

I wish I could support his nomination, but I cannot. America needs to be  certain and confidant of the bedrock principle deeply embedded in our laws and our values that no, no one in our country  is above the law.

So when the Judiciary Committee meets on Tuesday morning, I will vote “no” on the nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey to be Attorney General of the United States.

Asked to respond to President George W. Bush’s criticism made  before the right-wing Heritage Foundation Thursday that the nation is at war and in desperate need of having an attorney general in office, Leahy told reporters “In some ways the nation has been without an attorney general since Alberto Gonzales was installed.”

Ouch!

It was the big political story of Friday afternoon as Democrats divulged how they'd vote. A freelance TV crew was there to feed CNN. Dave Gram was in from Montpeculiar's Associated Press Bureau - here he is letting the world know on the sidewalk outside. And a crew from the new local Fox News operation, too. They're expected to hit the local airwaves shortly.

Can't wait.

With one year to go before the votes are counted, would it be impolite of me to declare rookie Democratic U.S. Congressman Peter Welch the winner of the 2008 Vermont U.S. House race?

At the moment, Welchie's only political critics in the Green Mountains are folks on the antiwar left who are upset that Ol' Pedro has not supported the impeachment of the Liar in the Oval Office or voted "no" on any and all Iraq War money.

No Republican in Vermont is showing any interest in what would surely be a political suicide mission.

Congressman Peter Welch and New Jersey Democrat Rob Andrews, a 10-term veteran considered a "centrist" Democrat, told reporters on a telephone press conference from Capitol Hill Thursday they have introduced a bill to repeal legislation passed by the Republican Congress in 2000 that deregulated energy markets.

Dubbed the "Enron Loophole" - the legislation removed any government oversight of natural gas and heating oil markets that the congressmen say resulted in windfall profits for speculators while consumers bills have soared.

Q. How come the "Enron Loophole" hasn’t been closed up to this point?

Word from Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders' office that the subcommittee Ol' Bernardo sits on on the Environment and Public Works Committee that handles global warming approved on a 4-3 vote today "a global warming bill that Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) opposed because it would not reduce emissions of greenhouse gases as much as scientists say is necessary to stop catastrophic changes in Earth’s climate.

“This bill is a step in the right direction, but it simply does not go far enough to do what scientists tell us must be done to stop global warming,” Sanders said. “If we are not extremely bold and aggressive, this planet faces a catastrophe in the years to come.”

"Catastrophe?"

Yep. That is what many reasonable, intelligent people are saying.

Still, it could have been worse. A lot worse. Were the Republicans still the majority party, there wouldn't have even been a global warming bill!

Look at the bright side!

As Paul Burns over at the Vermont Public Interest Research Group pointed out to yours truly, "Bernie actually proposed nine different amendments to strengthen the bill, one of which was accepted.  Most of the others were defeated 5-2 or on a voice vote.  It's really true that no one in the Senate (perhaps the US gov't) is doing more than Bernie Sanders to fight global warming."

The Senator's release notes that, "Added to the bill was a Sanders provision that would encourage automobile manufacturers to improve fuel efficiency. To be eligible for a pool of new funds to produce more fuel efficient cars, auto makers first would have to manufacture vehicles that get at least 35 miles per gallon."

See.

A tree did grow in Brooklyn, after all!