Plato's Republic (book IV) as window to the Republican mind
I taught a Philosophy of Education class and it forced me to read Plato's Republic real close. I chose Book IV to assign because it seemed to work well as a stand-alone chapter. Little did I know that...
View ArticlePlato's Republic redux: justice courage and beating the Republicans
Here I finish Plato's Republic(book IV) as window to the Republican mind. First off, I`d like to underline the context I stated in the first diary. I read The Republic for teaching a Philosophy of...
View ArticleDeclare the Decade a Do-over
I think the key to winning in Novemeber is to talk about the decade. We're more than halfway through now and the Zeroes are the Republicans. Dems had the 60s, 40s, 30s, teens, and the nineties have...
View ArticleETHICS: Voting Republican in an Open Primary (VT-Sen, AL)
So I go to vote in Vermont's primary today and the lady hands me four ballots -- Democratic, Republican, Liberty Union, Progressive. I am to take all 4 to the voting booth but only vote on one of them....
View ArticleWhy we must have an A's/Mets World Series
I know I know. An unpopular war premised on deception worsens, the Constitution's in tatters, institutionalized Republican corruption and cover-up own Washington, and I'm wasting my time on a baseball...
View ArticleGay homophobes and teetotalling drug addicts
These are people with serious demons. They have decided to move their psychological problems into the political arena. They have feelings and desires that they believe to be wrong so they bring that...
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Bush Vs. Bush on War-making Power.
The idea that war-making power is vested in the Congress has become a shameful joke that mocks the original intent of the Constitution. Practically, war-making has originated in the executive,...
View ArticleIs Daily Kos your home page?
I hope this is not too irritatingly meta, but I resisted having Daily Kos as my home page for months. It has been my first stop on the internet since last spring, but I still kept Google as my...
View ArticleBREAKING: Gerald Ford still dead, Tim Johnson off sedation
Saturday Night Live premiered during the Ford years, and SNL's Chevy Chase lampooned the "deathwatch" mentality of network news with updates on the health of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, fascist...
View ArticleSen. Leahy responds to torture inquiry
10 days ago, Ca 48 Steve Young posted a diary entited Did Gonzalez respond to Leahy's deadline? In it he recounted a Senate Judiciary Hearing where Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez stonewalled on...
View ArticlePaula Zahn attacks booty rap for black history month
We get no TV here in the hills and I catch up with the cable world when I visit my folks. I get caught up on what people reference here and also get a zietgeist check. The internet is a great way to...
View ArticleThe gReatest invention in WoRld HistoRy (w/poll)
It keeps happening everytime I go on a bikeride, I find myself thinking "The bicycle is the greatest invention in the history of the world." Then I think that it must be the wheel. Then I think that...
View ArticleBernie Sanders on Lou Dobbs: Who's co-opting who?
Bernie Sanders was on Lou Dobbs last week (transcript posted here) and he was civil, non-combative, dare-I-say Senatorial. I am thrilled that now that Bernie is no longer in the minority among 435, but...
View ArticleRice decries Executive Power grab. . . in Russia
DAY OLD BREAD alert: I better publish this mishmash of quotes and links before it goes completely stale. Call it the perspective of a few days, or call it an inability to meet self imposed deadlines....
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Pre-debate love: Obamamania in Lebanon NH
Before we commence with the Nevada festivities, I 'd like to share some pictures and thoughts from a rally I attended at the Lebanon High School gymnasium this Monday. The local newspaper, The Valley...
View ArticleHostage taker in cuffs and in custody
Okay WMUR has just shown video of the hostage taker leave the building and give something up and lie on the ground. It appears to be over. Based on a report from theFosters Daily Democrat, Leeland...
View ArticleSix students shot getting off school bus in Vegas
Some more sad news today. Shortly after 2pm today, at least two teens shot six people as they got off a school bus. It looks like 2007 is ending in a flurry of violence on the homefront. This story...
View ArticleAnyone for good news?: NJ abolishes death penalty
Sure I know, you'd rather a diary trashing a Democratic candidate or some latest documentation of our ineffectual Congress. Or maybe you're looking for the latest dangerously theocratic pronouncement...
View ArticleDoes Huckabee win states today? (POLL)
Huckabee's been quite a character and he's added a lot to the living dead Republican race. I was quite impressed with his Iowavictory speech think we've learned three very important things through this...
View ArticleMarlboro VT votes to indict Bush Cheney
Lots of talk about Brattleboro VT's measure to indict the Bush/Cheney crime syndicate, but Marlboro VT also had something to say to Washington DC in its Town Meeting today. From WCAX:In a non-binding...
View ArticleMassive 5 yr Farm Bill would only cover 2 yrs in Iraq
So I'm listening to the car radio and the news was reviewing the $289 billion Farm Bill that just passed the House by a 3 to 1 margin. A spokesperson for the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition described...
View ArticleForget Lieberman-- The real "I" supports Obama
The other Independent in the Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, announced that not only is he supporting Barack Obama for President, he has offered to campaign for him. This is actually some pretty big...
View ArticleVerizon eviscerates Usenet
This week I got an email from Verizon explaining that they are vastly limiting access to newsgroups.On June 24, 2008, we will be modifying our Newsgroup offerings to only offer groups in the Big-8...
View ArticleExpand the blogosphere to public access TV!
I've been spending some time working on a Public access television show. So before you start thinking "Wayne's World," here's the first 10 minutes of the debut episode of VTblogosphereTV.It will be...
View ArticleSanders on FISA: "what we mean by freedom is..."
This won't be much of a diary but I just ran across this video of Bernie Sanders from late last week. The man has an incredible gift for calling out the rhetorical hypocrisy of his opponents and also...
View ArticleJiveblogging the repubs: Frist and Brownback back to back
OUCH it's brutal. The last three speakers have been Sarah Pawlenty, Bill Frist, and now it is Sam brownback. It appears tonight the they are playing the "humanitarian" angle talking about AIDS in...
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McCain website schizophrenic about debate
John McCain's campaign website leads with "Remarks on the Economy"It is time for both parties to come together to solve this problem. We must meet as Americans, not as Democrats or Republicans, and we...
View ArticleLet the Smearing Begin: Fox on 9/11 Families and Gitmo
It's not often I see a headline that turns my stomach, but 9/11 Families Outraged by Obama Call to Suspend Guantanamo War Crimes Trials did the trick. But of course this Fox News story quotes only...
View Article"much farther to the right than Mr. Bush"
Skeeter Sanders has had quite a bit of success posting on DailyKos and he's been publishing The 'Skeeter Bites Report since the end of '05. Central Vermonters also know him as the DJ of The Quiet Storm...
View ArticleVT-GOV: Star Trek vs. Star Wars, The Candidates Respond
I am fairly certain that Vermont is the only state in the Union where each of the Democratic candidates for governor would appear on a public access TV show about blogging. We value the access we have...
View ArticleThe War on Christmas as a Labor issue
So I'M DIGGING out from a storm that was more noise than snow. It'd be generous to say we got six inches, and after throwing blowing snow around in the wicked wind, I'm not feeling too generous. So I'm...
View ArticleHope from Vermont: the filibernie and single payer
As is the tradition at VTblogosphereTV, our year-end holiday special features John Odum of Green Mountain Daily. Last Yuletide season, John described how the pivotal bloggers' summit set the goals of...
View ArticleDrive to single payer begins today! Keep an eye on VT
Big week in Vermont. This morning Senators Patrick Leahy, Bernie Sanders, and Rep. Peter Welch are going to join with our new Governor Peter Shumin to discuss health care reform. Specifically, they...
View ArticleVermont moves to tax churches
So Vermont is proud of its precedent-setting history, and we hope to add to our list of firsts with functional single payer by decade's end. But wait you say, after outlawing slavery and allowing same...
View ArticleNeed opinions on Rolling Stones "Salt of the Earth"
So we had 3 days where we didnt see double digits. Yesterday it got into the teens and of course we finally ran out of porch wood. Brought in the last of the pieces on the back porch and knew I had to...
View ArticleWill VT tax churches to help finance single-payer?
Late last year I reported on the work of Vermont's Property Tax Exemption Study Committee and its moves to tax public, pious, and charitable organizations. The one concrete action forthcoming is now...
View ArticlePrairie View TX City Council approves "Sandra Bland Parkway"
I was heartened to hear the news from Democracy Now! that it looks like the street where Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia forced a lane change from Sandra Bland will now be renamed to honor her.And in...
View Article[VT-GOV] Meet Bill Lee, the anti-Curt Schilling
Lovely day for a baseball diary!So a former Red Sox All-Star pitcher has activated from the fringes in 2016. But instead of bilking the tax payer's of Rhode Island, the guy I’m talking about settled in...
View ArticleFirst case new SCOTUS chose concerns public access TV: huge 1st Amendment...
So Brett Kavanaugh was installed onto the high court October 6, 2018 and on October 12, 2018, SCOTUS announced that they would hear Manhattan Community Access Corporation v. DeeDee...
View ArticleMy Gen X AOC theory involving Fast Times
Look I know AOC’s fabulous BU promotional video references The Breakfast Club. I get that. But in order to truly understand misogynist dudebro obsessions, we must turn to the Book of Ridgemont. So...
View ArticleTrump Praises "people of faith" for "abolition of civil rights"
So the National Prayer Breakfast is sickeningly hypocritical enough with Trump emoting "Every life is sacred and every soul is a precious gift from heaven,” all while caging children and separating...
View ArticleSCOTUS just heard case to define public forum and state actor-- and I was there!
Oh my what a day! I’ve been geekin out on this SCOTUS case MCAC v. Halleck since I interviewed DeeDee Halleck last fall. It’s got big questions about who is an agent of the state, when does the 1st...
View ArticleEntire GOP line of attack on Cohen was an extended anti-Semitic trope
Is anyone going to say it?Perhaps we all remember the recent non-story attacking Rep Ilhan Omar (D-MN 5th) for trafficking in anti-Semetic tropes. Apparently her offense was having the concept of money...
View ArticleMedia Accountability Made Easy: Contact the newspapers that called for...
Eric Boehlert was atop the rec list on Monday with What will it finally take for newspapers to demand Trump resign—the way they did Bill Clinton?. It left me with that “somebody oughta do sumthin”...
View ArticleMedia Accountability Made Easy: USA Today's response
Thank you all who used the information in Media Accountability Made Easy: Contact the newspapers that called for Clinton resignation to write the newspapers editors that called for Clinton to resign in...
View ArticleOne grandstanding Rep forced a live in-person vote this week in Vermont,...
Okay now I know the world is turned upside down because I agree with Rep. Pete King. In reference to Rep Massie (R-KY) indicating he'll force an in-person vote on the Stimulus Bill, King...
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Jimmy Carter energy got me through election season. Now Georgia can end the...
I was born in 1966, which perfectly lined me up for the Reagan years. Graduated high school 1984, college 1988. When Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were installed on the Supreme Court, I felt like I knew them...
View ArticleMental Health Check-in: Why did I wake up today angrier than ever?
Usually when dealing with wrongdoing, I find the anger dissipates with time. The wrongdoer’s motives become more complex, the situation isn’t as “black and white” as I originally thought, the time to...
View ArticleLive-blogging OH Senate debate
Stand by for stream!oh boy getting excited. And it’s on, link above is working. Two big personalities face off and will move opinions in Ohio and nationally. Tim I’m requesting a gorgeous takedown of...
View ArticleYikes! Arsonist targets Senator Sanders Burlington VT office
UPDATE: Sunday, Apr 7, 2024 · 4:39:31 PM +00:00·Randolph06Update: Suspect arrestedSenator Bernie Sanders’ Burlington office was hit by an arsonist today. The fire at the entrance briefly trapped...
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