"Senator" Wagner Is Digging In on His More Than One Month Old Lie

It's fascinating to watch as Ripton, VT's Robert Wagner, the primary organizer of a campaign to throw out every Vermont state senator for being "corrupt," for "stealing from us," and for being "pathological liars," repeatedly lying on his own website about the number of Vermont secesher, er, independence candidates. Thus far, the list includes only five of the usual secesher losers whose electoral showings are normally single digit or often just a fraction of that - loopy Dennis Morrisseau, nasty Peter Garritano, flaky Peter Moss, newbie but longtime secession promoter and Second Vermont Republic honcho Michael Patno, as well as his own sorry, unaccomplished self, a member of Rob Williams' stable of headcase bloggers at "Vermont Commons", Robert Wagner.

"... we must vote out the incumbents, starting with the Vermont Senate. 30 seats. We can do it, will you run with us? I’m recruiting senators… the pay’s decent, we’ve got six so far."

Although I'd normally link to "Senator" Wagner's post, this one contains photographs that gratuitously conflate the violence in Libya with some of Wagner's usual cheesy arguments. The guy is becoming a true asshole.

5 ≠ 6





* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.

"Secessionists Seek To Balkanize America"

In a piece published last Friday, August 19, 2011, at Business Insider, writer Vincent Trivett handicaps the meager secessionist efforts in several states, including Vermont's own Second Vermont Republic. While quoting SVR's baas, the Dixie singin' Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, Trivett handicaps the likelihood of the seceshers succeeding at seceeding by saying in this understatement of the matter,

"The movement has faltered since Bush left power."

Trivett also quotes from the Boston Globe's Alex Beam's New York Times Op-Ed that I first wrote about here:

"'Our mission was a lot easier when Bush was in power,' Naylor told The New York Times back in July. 'In a left-wing state like Vermont, politics are basically grounded in anger and fear. Vermonters really disliked Bush, and when Bush went away, there was this notion that Obama walked on water.' In the last election, Steele, the party's gubernatorial candidate came in third, winning less than one percent of the vote."

Read Trivett's entire piece at the Business Insider here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.

Eye on "The 30" - Monthly Update

Just a brief update on "Senator" Wagner's progress in making truthful his July 20 boast that he had 6 candidates of the 30 needed to takeover the Vermont Senate.

As you may recall, I pointed out in this post that he'd only named 2 of the 30 as of August 1. On August 2 he added a graphic that showed 4 names (he forgot his own). Then on August 5 he added his own name which brought the total announced by him to be running to 5. (See graphics here)

It's now one month since he first made that boast that he already had 6 candidates running and yet still that sixth candidate remains a mystery.

5 ≠ 6

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.

Eye On "The 30" - Michael Patno

You might ask, as I did, who the hell is this guy, Michael Patno, who's running for one of the Vermont Senate seats in Addison County?

According to the Dixie singin', Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, Patno's a founder of the Second Vermont Republic whose involvement with secessionist groups goes back to the failed New England Confederation:

"(T)he New England Confederation('s)... objective was to have New England split away from the United States and establish itself as an independent nation-state. Unfortunately, the Confederation turned out to be mostly an Internet website rather than a real political organization. However, its website survived several years after the demise of the Confederation itself under the leadership of Bristol, Vermont resident Michael Patno."

"On March 4, 2003, two weeks before the second war with Iraq began, Michael Patno and I met for lunch in Burlington to discuss the possibility of organizing a serious, peaceful, participatory independence movement in Vermont opposed to the tyranny of the U.S. government, Corporate America, and globalization..."

"The following day I spoke at an anti-war rally at Johnson State College and decided to test-market the idea of an independent Vermont."

"Basically my pitch to the students was, “If you want to prevent future wars in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq, we have no choice but to break up the United States into smaller regions, and that process should begin with Vermont declaring its independence from the United States.” They were stunned, but they got it. Their positive response literally provided the energy for Michael Patno and I to launch the Second Vermont Republic."

Thomas Naylor, August 1, 2011

It's hard to resist at this point asking Patno and Naylor, "How's that workin' out for ya?"

Since there is no evidence from that time to today of any popular campus organizing on behalf of secession, it's fair to say that they're doing as well with their newest iteration, SVR, as they did with the New England Confederation, with both now being "mostly an Internet website rather than a real political organization." Sure, there are a couple of local professors with connections to white supremacy and some League of the South racist ideologues also involved with SVR but as a campus movement this one has all the less appeal than the Stamp Club.

In addition to his involvement in ineffectual secesher websites like the New England Confederation and SVR, Patno's served as a corporate officer for the secesher propaganda rag, "Vermont Commons" and was a participant at the ludicrous ceremony establishing the secesher provisional capital in Hancock, VT, on Dec. 13, 2010:

"Finally Michael Patno, a founder of the Second Vermont Republic, closed the conference with a brief note on the importance of accountability."

Source

Honestly, if you made this stuff up and proposed writing an article about it to an editor, you'd get thrown out of the office.

What I can't find on Patno is any record of public service. Nothing at the Secretary of State's website. Nothing at any of the voter education sites, like Project Vote Smart. Unlike his probable opponents for the Addison County Senate seats, he doesn't seem to have done any work for, say, his local school board. I checked his hometown selectboard minutes in Bristol, VT, going back for a year and found no contribution there or at Bristol's Town Meeting. Remember, seceshers everywhere clamor for the return of the fairytale of Town Meeting as the fount of state governance, something that's been ruled unconstitutional, by the way, so why hasn't he been involved at his own Town Meeting of late?

Even the link to Patno's webpage from "Senator" Robert Wagner's hastily thrown up collection of links to "The 30" (who should probably be more accurately described as "The 5") takes you to nothing more than a placeholder containing zero information on the candidate for the Addison Senate seat, Michael Patno.

So far, all there is on Michael Patno is that he's probably a 50 year old Colchester high school grad with no discernible record of public service but who's got a solid record of failure as a secesher.

That should say it all.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.

Eye On "The 30" - Their Senate Campaigns Are To Be Buttressed With Sappy Glurges

Oy!!

After running two of the most lackluster, over-the-line stoopid campaigns for the Vermont Senate in 2010, the neo-Confederacy of Dunces comprised of "Senator" Robert Wagner (Addison-I) and the Second Vermont Republic's "Very Foreign Minister", Dennis Morriseau (Rutland-I), apparently think that a mawkish strategy based on sheer bullshit about the past is now the way to go.

Their distorted view of the 1960s is so appealing to these two secesher Mad Men that Denny passed along an urban legend, commonly called a "glurge," that's been getting chain emailed everywhere during the past six months. It's about recycling and such, and is called "The Green Thing." The "Senator" asked for the author of the original email chain letter to contact him so he could provide attribution for the piece. This one is so new that Snopes.com hasn't written about it yet but already, as the "Senator" could have easily found for himself, you get 230,000 hits for "The Green Thing."

Email chain letters like "The Green Thing" often have a sappy ring of truth to them that ignores the reality of such times. The "Senator" goes so far as to suggest that court ordered reapportionment in the 1960s, designed to eliminate disproportionate control of the legislature by small towns, was a bad thing and mistakenly suggests that it was the legislature that "usurp(ed) the authority of Town Meeting." No, "Senator." It was as a result of a "one person, one vote" ruling and order from the federal court in Buckley v. Hoff (1964) that the stranglehold of small towns like Ripton, VT on the legislature was eliminated.

Some of the other cool things that the "Senator" and Denny have forgotten or misremembered about the 1960s that don't get a mention in "The Green Thing" are: both Kennedys, Malcom X and the King assassinations; anti-miscegenation laws to protect against race mixing, something that at least one major SVR financial supporter, James Duncan, has a problem with even today; Jim Crow Laws; riots everywhere, from Detroit to Stonewall; the treatment of women (more on that below); ramping up the Vietnam War; raw sewage being piped directly from individual homes and businesses into Vermont's streams and rivers, as well as untreated waste and industrial chemicals, so much so that in many areas the streams and rivers had ecological "dead zones"; lesbians and gays being legally proscribed and medically defined as mentally ill; job and housing discrimination was legal; poll taxes; "Hey Jude"; the Voting Rights Act (the "debt crisis" political fight of its day); and, smokers were everywhere. Good times, eh guys?

You can find handy tips about how to spot an urban legend here.

Regarding women, it appears that Denny's views about them haven't evolved much since the 1960s. On February 16 of 2010, as he became aware that Anne Galloway at VTDigger was not going to agree to publish promotional material on behalf of the views of the "Very Foreign Minister" of the Second Vermont Republic, he wrote in that ALL CAPS way of his of her publication:

"WITH OUT A DOUBT, Digger is excrescence of CIA.......
Still....we gotta use the MAN'S media to extent that we can.
While biulding(sic) our own internal and external communications..."

On May 27, Denny wrote in response to a sexist nickname used by the "Senator" who had referred to Galloway as "VT GoldDigger":

"The Lady is CIA, and if she wants to sue me for the remark, she is welcome to."
DM/VFM (Very Foreign Minister)

On May 30, VTCommons publisher/editor Rob Williams chimed in about Galloway:

"CIA spook that she is..."

In a later exchange on June 1, between the "Senator" (who complained that his pithy comments were being deleted from VTDigger) and VTCommons publisher Rob Williams, Williams wrote something that explains the lack of any objective quality at his propaganda rag:

"Most reporters regurgitate press release as "fact," and call it objective journalism, friends."
"When they dare to have an opinion, they put it on the OP/ED pages."
"It ain't right, and we need to challenge it (as everything else...)"

Following in his "she's-a-CIA-operative" theme, Morrisseau responded about Anne Galloway:

"a sycophant or sucking for a job......or earning her little stipend now......What's the difference?"
"Spooks come in many varieties as do the rest of us.

But this tone had been set back on February 16 when Morrisseau wrote of how to handle VT Digger publisher, Anne Galloway:

"We will seduce her."

To which James Duncan, the racist and homophobic contributor to Dennis Steele's campaign responded:

"You are such a womanizer Denni."

But the real Morrisseau, vis-à-vis how he today sees a professional journalist who happens to be a woman, shines through in this comment to the rest of what Dixie singing Thomas Naylor likes to call his "Internet cowboys":

"Because I savaged her in our first few exchanges."
"Now I am making nice. And she likes that better. So she is liking me better......"
"Before I punched her, she did not know me or care a fig........"
"Now she sees I can laugh, I am playful....possibly intelligent...and I differ with her........"
"She begins to be intrigued."
"We have to be lovers to these sorts...... I know that is a little crass....but it's DO OR DIE time."

And so on May 28, under the subject line, "I've had enough of Galloway. VT GoldDigger" Morrisseau wrote:

"No reason for her to breathe OR DO WHAT SHE DOES.....unless she is a SPOOK."
"NOBOCY(sic) is that venal from stupidity."

To date, not one of Naylor's "Internet cowboys" who were active recipients on the secesher listserv has made any public statement condemning Morrisseau's outrageous, violence laced, sexist diatribes. Not the publisher of VTCommons, Rob Williams; nor Washington Senate candidate Gaelan Brown; nor educator & rocket scientist Gary Flomenhoft; nor the very strange Franklin County perennial loser, Peter Moss; nor homophobe and racist bigot James Duncan; nor the failed lite guv candidate, and now the present day candidate for a Chittenden County Senate seat, Peter Garritano; nor, of course, Morrisseau's self-described "friend," Addison County's Senate wannabe, "Senator" Robert Wagner.

Unless the secesher boys club take steps to address their indisputable sexism problem, they are destined for another round of exceptionally failed electoral campaigns. No doubt that VTCommons' anti-Semitic blogger and sometimes ardent feminist when it suits her agenda, Carol Moore, will be taking the boys club to task over their vile, long-running wallow in misogyny - yeah, right.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.

"Senator" Robert Wagner Is Clueless

I've just read his recent expansion to a post that Addison County's wouldbe senator, "Senator" Robert Wagner, put up yesterday here. It's astounding both for its ignorance of the facts and its chessiness, in that he seems to suggest that violence is a path that Vermonters might be on the brink of considering. He says,

"Vermonters: you should be angry. But you should also know what to do with that anger… read on…"

"From Montpelier: cuts to teachers pensions, with more cuts and school closures in the offing. From London, the same: see the video. They’re just a bit further along than we are. London’s on fire. How long can you permit your state rep and senator to act in a fiscally irresponsible fashion?"

When he wrote that this picture of a woman leaping for her life from flames set by criminals was everywhere:



Story here.

If "Senator" Robert Wagner believes that the situation in London is comparable to that in Vermont, as he would seem to want us to think, he's nuts.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.

Eye On "The 30" - 5 ≠ 6

Apparently "Senator" Wagner was a bit stung by my observation in the August 1 Eye On "The 30", that only two of the six candidates that he's bragged about are announced as running as the "Gang of 30."

The "Senator" intends to sweep the 2012 Vermont election cycle and Take Back the Senate® in the name of secessionist, constitutional strict constructionism and, after my criticism, he's put up the list of the other four announced candidates names on his website. He just forgot to put himself on his list but that still wouldn't have brought the total to the six that he announced on his website on July 20:

"So lobbying around the legislature for a few word changes in this or that amendment isn’t really going to take us anywhere or save our bacon. If you want to live free here and be able to make an honest living too, in agriculture or at all, you need to get into this fight."

"WE NEED TO RUN 30 DECENT VERMONT NON-POLITICIANS FOR THE VT SENATE NEXT YEAR AND WE NEED YOUR HELP TO ACCOMPLISH THIS…..SO WE CAN STOP MONSANTO & LOCKHEED’S TAKEOVER OF OUR STATE. STOP IT COLD WITH A ‘NO’ VOTE IN OUR SENATE……OURSELVES." (All caps his)

"Because no one else is going to have the integrity and courage to do this… no one now sitting will do this for us. They have all already caved."

"If we do this… when we just get near the goal, I am telling you the whole world will notice, and help for our cause will come gushing in. So far we have six of the Thirty." (emphasis mine)

"Please join us. Help recruit those 30 decent Vermonters."
Source

Get it? The present members of Vermont's Senate are all indecent. He's called his neighbors who serve in the legislature thieves, so why not indecent? I suppose that's what "Senator" Wagner's baas of the Second Vermont Republic, our own Magnolia Vermonter, Thomas Naylor, was refering to when he told Boston Globe columnist, Alex Beam:

“In a left-wing state like Vermont, politics are basically grounded in anger and fear."

That Naylor's slate of candidates in the 2010 election cycle had injected a theretofore unheard of degree of rancor and invective into the campaign is undisputed. His handpicked gubernatorial candidate, Connecticut native Dennis Steele, had gone so far as to "(thank) the Vermont Press Association 'for allowing (him) to take pot shots at 'Colonel' Dubie'" at a debate [1] - almost as classy as when gubernatorial candidate Steele stood at the side of a road and waved his middle finger at Vice President Biden. [2] or when Steele openly accepted campaign donations from an out-of-state bigot. [3]

And still wincing from his own utterly failed campaign for the lite guv slot, "Vermont Commons" blogger Peter Garritano, one of the five announced candidates for the Vermont Senate, ironically pronounced civil rights as "irrelevant" to Vermonters just days before Martin Luther King Day. [4]

In all my years I'd never seen such a persistently negative degree of campaigning from such an irrelevant group, the Vermont seceshers, to the Vermont body politic. True, there have been instances in the past when Vermont pols have drifted into such negative territory, normally only seen in the national campaigns, but invariably they all pull back and resume the civil exchange that Vermonters are accustomed to. Not so the seceshers. From the time they announced in January 2010, the barrage of negativity was the staple of their various campaigns. No doubt that given Naylor's homage to campaigns "grounded in anger and fear" above, we should expect much more of the same from his lackeys again this time around.

Problem is, even if you use the Teatard math and economic reckoning that "Senator" Wagner relies upon so heavily or how many times he changes the graphics at the Robert Wagner for Vermont Senate 2012 website, five still does not equal six.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.

Eye On "The 30"

Beginning this month I'll be updating, as circumstances warrant, the efforts of "Senator" Robert Wagner (I-Addison) (yes, yes, I know that he's never been elected to a senatorial post but the guy's so friggin' needy that he calls himself "Senator," so let's humor him) to take over the Vermont Senate in 2012, as well as his cohorts in the Vermont secesher movement.

So far, it's only him and perennial electoral loser, Denny Morrisseau, "The 30's" token candidate for Rutland county who've recently publicized their intentions. A couple of the others of Vermont's perpetual loony candidates have indicated a desire to run but it may have just been their recent 2010 losses that prompted those claims - let's see if they come to their senses before treating their "one-more-time" candidacies for every office under the sun at the same time seriously. Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann would have a better chance of taking Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco congressional seat than Morrisseau ever has of making a decent showing in Rutland county. In true fringer fashion, Morrisseau, who likes to call himself "The Very Foreign Minister of the Second Vermont Republic," garnered a whopping 1.8% of the vote in his 2010 senatorial bid.

Now to today's installment of "Eye On 'The 30'": over the weekend "Senator" Wagner posted another of his poorly considered choices for issue analysis (no, not another Teabagger this time) from a contributor to a racist, neo-Confederate publication that is loosely allied with the League of the South called Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, as well as to that incubator for neo-Confederate thought and theory, The Ludwig von Mises Institute, Justin Raimondo, here. You'd think that the "Senator" would have started to do a little homework to ensure that he doesn't make the same mistake that his associates at SVR and VTCommons have repeatedly made by tying themselves to neo-Confederate, white supremacist groups and individuals. A quick Google search reveals scads of material in which Raimondo is described as "an American neo-Fascist," as virulently opposed to marriage equality and is an oddly long-time supporter of the homophobic and openly racist Pat Buchanan:

Gay Buchanan Backer Defends His Candidate
San Francisco Chronicle
Jim Herron Zamora
February 23, 1996

Justin Raimondo is an openly gay man who believes that "Pat Buchanan is absolutely the best thing for America."

A longtime activist in conservative and Libertarian circles, Raimondo headed Buchanan's operation in San Francisco in 1992 and is volunteering for the 1996 campaign.

"I see no conflict between my political beliefs and my personal life," said Raimondo, 44. "Being homosexual is not like being a Libertarian or a socialist."

Raimondo's political affiliation flies in the face of the the views of many gay people, who consider Buchanan a bigot and hatemonger.

Buchanan has said he will keep openly gay people out of top White House positions if elected. But, according to Raimondo, the candidate knows and apparently doesn't care that his San Francisco supporter is gay.

"The whole gay agenda is just a sham," Raimondo said.

"The whole thing they say that Pat Buchanan wants to round us all up and send us to concentration camps is just a bunch of crap. It's a lie and a smear. He welcomes gay workers in his campaign.

"He does not think that homosexuality is all that great a thing. But I don't need his approval. Why does any gay person need anyone's benediction?"

Raimondo said a person's sexual orientation should be a private matter and that gay or lesbian people should not "force their sexuality on an unwilling public."

He also said he does not believe that gays and lesbians need "special protections" against discrimination.

Raimondo said he agrees with Buchanan on most issues.

"I'm a right-wing populist," Raimondo said Thursday.

"I support this political platform. I support America first."

He also endorsed Buchanan's opposition to U.S. intervention in Bosnia, the North American Free Trade Agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Raimondo, a New York native who has lived in San Francisco for 24 years, does not agree with Buchanan on every issue.

"I am pro-choice. But I agree with so much that Pat stands for. He has really gone beyond right and left to revitalize this country."

Raimondo, an analyst at the Center for Libertarian Studies in Burlingame, is the only Republican on the March primary ballot seeking the opportunity to challenge Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, in November.

In the 1992 campaign, Raimondo worked from his home handling media, organizing rallies and recruiting volunteers for Buchanan. This time around he hopes to help Buchanan "go all the way to the White House."

Buchanan wrote the foreword to the second edition of Raimondo's 1993 book, "Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement."

Raimondo's perception of Buchanan's stance on gays does not sit well with San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who is gay.

"He has a history of comments like this and is shunned by the gay community and their supporters," Ammiano said of Raimondo. "He loves to see his name in print. He's so contrary to what the perceptions are that it makes him so different people will write about him."

Buchanan has drawn the wrath of the nation's largest gay and lesbian Republican organization, Log Cabin Republicans, with 10,000 members in 30 states. Its executive director, Richard Tafel, in Washington, is urging members to help defeat the conservative commentator.

"The Republican Party is beginning to reap the harvest of pandering to the far right," Tafel said. ". . . Buchanan's irresponsible rhetoric about gays and lesbians should cause all Americans to shudder. Stopping Pat Buchanan now should be the goal of every gay and lesbian American."

"Senator" Wagner lauds this nutjob Raimondo as a "conservative voice" whose "good analysis... illustrates what the Independen(ce) movement in Vermont is all about."

Here is how conservatives describe "Senator" Wagner's nominee for an out of state "conservative voice" Vermonters need to hear.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the archive of the Free Vermont Framework listserv, click here.