The Latest Episode of Rob "Wile E. Coyote" Williams vs. Thomas "Road-Runner" Rowley

You can tell that we're approaching the silly season when Rob Williams at "Vermont Commons" makes a transparent attempt to gain some traction in the upcoming election cycle for that clown car that is the slate of vanity candidates [1] for the Second Vermont Republic, by calling out the "John(s)", JD Ryan at Five Before Chaos and John Odum at Green Mountain Daily and, by way of some kind of reference, me.

Much as "Wile E." Rob would like for me to peck away at his explosive powder labeled as birdseed or chestnuts or whatever he's calling it this time [2], that's not going to work... again.

Thanks, Rob, for the invite to your lame attempt to create a media event for yet another of your soon to be failed attempts on the playing field of politics [3] but I'm doing something better that day, whatever day it is. [4] You and "Team SVR" aren't likely to fill a phone booth, if you could find one, for any event you announce but if you landed "Thomas Rowley" for the card, well that might finally get you the notice that you crave so.

In the meantime, do you think you can ever get around to answering the questions that I've posed here and elsewhere, if not for my sake, then for the sake of political transparency for your so-called campaign(s)?

You remember:

Why were the questions from that phony SVR poll that claimed that 8% of Vermonters supported secession that you posted deleted from the SVR/VTCommons website(s)? [5]

What were the questions to the second phony SVR poll? You know, the poll that you guys say was a "UVM poll" that showed in just a year that "support" had grown by more than 60% but were really the results of some rather sleazy, outcome directing questions that Thomas Naylor had fine tuned and "commissioned" (his word, not mine) and that he bragged about when he was celebrating Confederacy Month with an interview segment (one of two) at the white supremacist web radio program of James Edwards called The Political Cesspool? [6] [7] [8] [9]

How are you doing at getting Vermonters to add a question to their town meeting warrants about secession? You do remember that you couldn't even get 3% of voters to sign a petition on behalf of the question even in the town where you live and where a family member of yours was in town government?[10]

And while we're at it:

As you know, the number of printed copies (10,000 you claim now, down by 30,000 from earlier "circulation" claims for your agenda ridden rag) means squat. How many paid subscribers do you have? No fair counting the giveaways.

While we're talking about giveaways, how many ads have you given away and how many real fully paid for (not discounted) ads do you have?

Since it's the primary political, print mouthpiece for your vanity candidates this year, what's the source of funding for Vermont Commons?

Also, as a Vermont "publisher," you are aware that the Rutland Herald and the Randolph Herald are two very different publications, no? [11] In your zeal to find any kind of new content for your predictable blog and Daily Mewl, you failed to vet this supporter's letter published in the Randolph Herald, consistent with your "Don't Ask, Don't Care" policy when it comes to supporters of secession. [12] You see, within two weeks of you having re-published his letter of support, he'd also had a letter submitted to the US District Court in Burlington in support of no confinement for a "remorse(less)" convicted kiddie porn trafficker who'd been found not amenable to sex offender treatment. David Atkinson of Braintree, VT, indicated in his support letter that he had felt that the convict's offenses constituted a "thought crime."

"He is the last person I would send to prison," said Atkinson in his letter. "Sending John (Perry Ryan) to prison, in my estimation, would be like giving him a death sentence. I request that you allow John to live out his sentence (for a thought crime?) at home."

According to the facts considered at sentencing, the convict, Ryan, had more than 24,000 images of prepubescent children and toddlers being sexually assaulted, in some cases involving some form of bondage, along with nearly 150 similar type videos. This "prolific" trafficker was also found to have engaged in chats that sought "snuff" videos of children and had indicated his own desire to personnally cause harm to such children. [13] Atkinson's plea for leniency for this despicable convict came despite the fact that Atkinson resides in the very same Vermont town where a child was murdered less than two years ago and whose former step-father has been charged with possessing similar kiddie porn in another juridiction. And Atkinson's your supporter too. Go figure.

I'll be looking forward to reviewing the sparsity of information in your candidates' Campaign Reports or likely lack thereof. [14]

I'd also challenge you and Thomas Naylor to authorize UVM's Center For Rural Studies to release all questions used in polls commissioned by you and/or Naylor and/or VTCommons/SVR, as well as all results, published or not.

It should come as no surprise that Naylor refers to the Tea Partiers a "patriots" and that they "will have no other place to turn than to peaceable secession and the eventual dissolution of the Union." [15] That's an apt and unsurprisingly daffy alliance.

Let's see exactly how transparent you and your group intend to be with Vermonters in this campaign. Based on your past misrepresentations and acts, I'd say that's not very probable and that you'll instead launch into spin mode rather than address the relevant questions.

It's been more than two years since my last post. Let's see if it takes as long for you to stir me again.

Beep, beep.

CLARIFICATION: Sunday, March 14, 2010 4:50 PM
In the paragraph above regarding David Atkinson's letter to the editor of The Herald of Randolph responding to Editor M. Dickie Drysdale's editorial of February 4, 2010, [16] Atkinson is identified as a supporter of SVR. In fact, Atkinson wrote in his letter that,

"I am one of the wackos (you [Dickie Drysdale] mention) who is a member of the Second Vermont Republic (SVR) (sending my $25 annual dues) since reading their first copy of “Vermont Commons”..."