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Read Paul Beaudry's response to the defamatory editorial published in the Wednesday Burlington Free Press by Bill Lofy, Vermont Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign Communications Director and a communications consultant for the Democratic leadership of the Vermont House and Senate.

How About Leading by Example?
By Pete Behr

Morocco has no coal; it is imported from South Africa. So their electrical demand doubles every eight years. Can we convince them to forgo lighting, refrigeration and, when they can afford it, air conditioning? (In July and August, the temperature regularly exceeds 110 degrees.) Imagine Phoenix without air conditioning. Should we send Peter Shumlin, with a delegation from VPIRG, to Morocco, with a population nearly sixty times that of Vermont, to tell them of the crisis they face?

The Wrong Stuff
By Robert Skinner

John Edwards: "My position is very clear. The time has come for decisive action to eliminate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. I'm a co-sponsor of the bipartisan resolution that is presently under consideration in the Senate. Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave threat to America and our allies. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons today, that he's used them in the past, and that he's doing everything he can to build more. Every day he gets closer to his long-term goal of nuclear capability."

Hate and Bigot Accuser Caught In The Act
By Steve Cable

In Bill Lofy’s shrill and distorted response to The O’Reilly Factor’s impromptu interview of Bill Lippert, he accuses both of his targets – Bill O’Reilly and local conservative radio host Paul Beaudry - of hate, intolerance, slander and bigotry without a shred of evidence (O’Reilly’s Bigotry Has No Place in Vermont, commentary 5/17). Ironically, his own statements are a perfect template for all four repugnant behaviors. Alas, he is not alone.

Shed No Tears for Bill
By Paul Beaudry

Before anyone sheds another tear for Rep Bill Lippert, D-Hinesburg, Chair of House Judiciary Committee, the public should know that Rep. Lippert bears much responsibility for the episode with the O’Reilly camera crew, from his own actions in the legislature.  The public, including victims of sexual abuse, need to know his real record of opposing important sex offender legislation.  This is the real story you won’t see in the Vermont media.

Open Letter to Vermont Yankee

Vermont Yankee, you should feel privileged to pay Senator Shumlin & Party’s 35% of your “excess” profits. After all, it is going for a good cause - Vermont is going to invest this money into research so we can develop a renewable energy source so we won’t need you by 2012 when your contract expires. We are asking you to pre-pay your funeral expenses! 

Hopefully we can come up with a viable alternative to supply 1/3rd of Vermont’s energy needs prior to 2009 so you won’t have any of those “excess” profits Sen. Shumlin is trying to extort. To date, Entergy’s new energy competition is wind, except we require invisible windmills, hydro power, which would be good except it blocks the waterways, and wood, if only it didn’t come from trees. We also have contract concerns with Hydro Quebec, we like the methane from landfills but no one wants a landfill in their town, we like “cow power” but too many cows pass too much gas and it effects the ozone.  We still have 5 years to re-invent energy but in the event we cannot find a replacement for at least a third of our energy needs please understand it wasn’t personal and it is only money and we don’t want any hard feelings. We ask you to negotiate in good faith (again) and to continue to supply us with the cleanest (no greenhouse gases) and least expensive energy available. 

Chet Greenwood,
Derby, VT

Paul, 
I met you at the Orleans County Republican meeting last Friday. I am the chairman of the Derby Republican Caucus. Best of luck in getting your signal in our area, it would be a welcome addition.

Chet Greenwood 

Visiting Vermont.............

Wow it was so refreshing to find your radio station on a recent visit to Smugglers Notch, Warren and surrounding towns.  We managed a visit to your state capitol and were very impressed that we were able to walk right in to the Capitol and into the Governors Office, even stayed to watch a signing of a proclamation proclaiming Foster Care Month....  ....I think month and not week.  We are from Forest, Virginia ( Lynchburg ) and even this small place has searches before you can enter the courthouse. 

I found you when I was searching for Rush Limbaugh and had began to think that their were no conservatives residing in your little state. I saw several Impeach Bush bumper stickers on my first few minutes driving through Burlington, my husband said we would just keep our opinions to ourselves. I plan on visiting your web site and hopefully we will be able to visit your lovely state again.

Keep up the good work and GOD BLESS AMERICA.

Charles and Mary Linda Hunter
Forest, Virginia

"The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other." -- Alexis de Tocqueville

"In the collectivist society now emerging the school should be regarded, not as an agency for lifting gifted individuals out of the class into which they were born and of elevating them into favored positions where they may exploit their less-favored fellows, but rather as an agency for the abolition of all artificial social distinctions and of organizing the energies of the nation for the promotion of the general welfare...” --Dr. George S. Counts on the real purpose of Dewey's "progressive education"

VT's Energy Bill: The Issue Beneath The Issue
Caledonian Record Editorial, May 23, 2007

So what is the issue that precipitated the veto certainty? It is, quite simply, taxes, and even more simply, should the government pay with new taxes whenever the Legislature decides the public needs something. That question subsumes just about every issue of substance in every legislative session. And that is the bedrock collision between Republicans and Democrats. Gov. Douglas adamantly believes that the costs of government programs should be contained, and the funding sources should not turn to taxation except as a last and only option. Sen. Shumlin and Rep. Symington are firm believers in the "nanny state," i.e., that taxpayers should foot the bill for everything that the public needs, and in their opinions, that is everything.

I know what you did last session...
Democrats damaging Vermont's economy
Vermont GOP, 5/24/2007

"Ho hum" job growth and Peter Shumlin's Yankee Tax illustrate exactly why Vermont needs to R-evitalize. Economist Jeff Carr expects Vermont’s economy to lag well behind the rest of the nation for at least the next five years. An interview with the Burlington Free Press outlines Carr’s concerns. "The risks specifically facing Vermont's economy…are the perception of Vermont as a 'high-tax state with an inadequate work force, a relatively high price of electricity compared to the U.S. as a whole, and a perception that a high cost of living in Vermont could deter entrepreneurs from investing in and growing a business in the state.'" (See next item below).

Vermont report predicts ho-hum job growth
By Dan McLean, Burlington Free Press, May 24, 2007

The pace of economic activity in Vermont is expected to lag behind the nation as a whole in every major variable with the usual exception of the state's relatively lower unemployment rate," Jeff Carr, president of Economic and Policy Resources Inc. of Williston, wrote in the report. The number of jobs in Vermont is expected to grow at 0.6 percent for 2007 and not exceed 1 percent growth for the next five years, Carr said. As a comparison, U.S. job growth is forecast to be 1.1 percent and New England growth is expected to be 0.9 percent this year.

Related: State ignores youth migration at its peril

Disaster Writ Small
Caledonia Record, May 22, 2007

What's harder to believe than FEMA's distributing goodies to everybody in sight, is the craven begging by what used to be self-sufficient Vermonters. One disgusted citizen remembered a few years ago when a small town in the Northeast Kingdom turned down the freebies after a storm had damaged their bridges, roads, and culverts. Their selectmen said, "We can handle it. We don't need a handout." Would that that pride in independence were still true.

Jack Murtha: An Embarrassment To The Democrats?
 Caledonia Record, May 25, 2007

If Rep. Jack Murtha, is not an embarrassment to the Democrats, he should be. He is the Pennsylvania Democrat who has always painted himself in the patriotic colors of a war hero. He knows quite well that those colors can cover up a multitude of sins and they have, indeed, done that for him. Back during the ABSCAM corruption investigations, Murtha was recorded by an undercover agent doing everything except finally accepting a $50,000 bribe. He didn't accept it because he thought he may have smelled a rat, but there is no question that he was positioning himself to be on the take.

Names To Remember In 2008
Caledonia Record, May 26, 2007

The only category in which Vermont will rise faster than the rates of the rest of New England is the number of unemployed. Do you think that the Peter Shumlin new-tax-desperation-search will exacerbate that problem? Do you think that the message delivered to Vermont Yankee and business generally of pay up and shut up will reorient new business to other states? We do, and we think that those who voted for new taxes should be identified and ridden out of town on a political rail in 2008.

Economic chaos looms in Iran
Thomas Lifson, American Thinker, May 25, 2007

The left wing UK Guardian reports  that Iran's economy is facing severe difficulty, as President Ahmadinejad ham-handedly (oops! I mean mutton-handedly) intervenes in the economy, defying the law of supply and demand, in addition to sharia law.

By Any Other Name?
The global whatever on terrorism
By James S. Robbins, National Review Online, May 25, 2007

"It is true that there are problems associated with using the term "war" to describe this conflict. But we incur substantial risks when we stop thinking about it in those terms. This was evident in the 1990s, when the threat of terrorism was not taken seriously, and the counter-terrorism mission was defined doctrinally by the DOD as one of the 16 Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW). It wasn’t war, it was other-than-war. Like non-dairy creamer, you didn’t know exactly what it is, but you knew for certain what it was not. Because counterterrorism was seen through the lens of law enforcement, emphasis on process came to dominate it, to harmful lengths. The 9/11 Commission report’s critique of the way information was stove-piped in the FBI for example. Or the "firewall" established by then-deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick that prevented intelligence sharing between foreign intelligence and domestic law enforcement agencies. It took the shock of 9/11 to cut through the bureaucracy and short-sighted policies to enable the kind of information sharing vital to defeating the terrorist threat.

Related: U.S. frees 42 al Qaeda kidnap victims in Iraq

14,000 increase in Iraqi Army since beginning of May
The Second Surge
By DJ Elliott, IS1 (SW), USN (Ret) Milblogs (Daily Archives), May 24, 2007

Think about it. 14,000 more IA personnel. A Division's worth of new troops added to a 10 Division force. I had to write the headline myself a week after the data was released to the public since the press did not bother with this major news item.

Tiny Minority, Big Problem
Even a few suicide-bomber sympathizers is still far too many
By Michelle Malkin, National Review Online, May 23, 2007

"It is a hair-raising number," Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, told the AP. Indeed. The numbers should be a wake-up call, not another excuse for the mainstream media to downplay the threat of homegrown jihad. The poll comes on the heels of the Fort Dix jihadi terror bust involving young, American-raised Muslims and the conviction this week of Muslim doctor Rafiq Abdus Sabir — born in Harlem, based in Florida — who had pledged loyalty to al Qaeda and vowed to treat injured al Qaeda fighters so they could return to Iraq to kill Americans. A Brooklyn bookstore owner and a Washington, D.C., cab driver also pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison in the case. The tiny minority of jihadi sympathizers aren’t just sitting around stewing harmlessly about their beliefs. They are recruiting, proselytizing, plotting, and growing.

The Hamas Ideology of Hatred and Genocide
Islamic supremacy over the world, destroying Israel and Jews, promoting terror and violence
By Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook - Palestinian Media Watch, May 24, 2007

In light of the escalating conflict between Hamas and Israel, it’s important to review the Hamas ideology and understand how Hamas views the conflict. Hamas ideology, as expressed in the Hamas Charter, sees Hamas as part of the worldwide Muslim Brotherhood (Article 2) that seeks world Islamic domination. Israel is said to exist on territory that is Islamic Waqf (Article 11) and therefore Islam demands that Israel be destroyed. Accepting Israel's existence is a violation of Islamic law (Article 13). The Hamas charter presents the killing of Jews as God's will, and the inevitable extermination of Jews as coinciding with the "Hour of Resurrection" (Article 7). The charter expresses eagerness to participate in and promote this killing of Jews: "Hamas has been looking forward to implement Allah's promise [killing Jews] whatever time it might take" (Article 7). Finally, violence and terror (called "resistance") are presented as legitimate tools.

Fatwah can't silence 'warrior woman' poet
Donna Baver Rovito, The Morning Call, May 23, 2007

The president of northern India's All India Ibtehad Council recently announced a 500,000 rupee (U.S. $11,319) bounty on Nasreen's head. ''She should be killed and beheaded and anyone who does this will get a reward from the council,'' declared cleric Tauqeer Raza Khan, because Nasreen made ''derogatory references against Prophet Mohammed in her writings.''

Remembering
By Fred Thompson, National Review Online, May 26, 2007

This is our quandary. Memorial Day is about remembering. It’s about remembering those who died for our country; but it’s also about remembering why they believed it was worth dying for. Too many Americans, though, have never been taught our own history and heritage. How can you remember something that you’ve never learned?

Al Gore's Insolent Assault on Reason
By Robert Tracinski, Yahoo! News, May 23, 2007

More broadly, this is what the left has traditionally meant by "reason." For decades, the left has dominated the intelligentsia: the media, the universities, and the other institutions that provide credentials for "experts"--another term Al Gore has been harping on. This leads the left to act as if the latest consensus among its favored experts--whether it be the superiority of socialized medicine or the imminent threat of global warming--must be what every "rational" and well-informed person thinks, because it is the consensus of the elite. Thus "reason," as Al Gore uses the term, refers to the ability of the leftist elite to impose its conventional dogmas on the national debate, without the need to persuade or convince others.

Immigration, National Security and Federalism
By Clarice Feldman,  American Thinker, May 22, 2007

Although not apparent at first glance, there is a close connection between our inattention to the principles of federalism and the problems with the new immigration bill, as well as our failings in the realm of national security. Let me explain.

Tolerating Trafficking
By Fred Thompson, May 21, 2007

Still, people keep telling me that the U.N. is a force for good -- and I'd like to believe it. The world could use an organization capable of dealing with international problems like slavery. According to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people are sold across national borders annually. More are enslaved within nations. Most are women; about half are children, and the majority are sexually abused. That's why accusations made by former U.S. ambassador John Miller are so disturbing. Miller accuses the United Nations of promoting human trafficking by failing to punish U.N. officials and peacekeepers who have engaged in the trade.

Media Ownership Rules vs. Separating Speech and State
Which Serves Consumers, and What Should FCC Do?
By Clyde Wayne Crews, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Media ownership rules harm consumers and speech. It will take vast resources to build the broadband networks of tomorrow and to create the increasingly narrow-casted content that consumers are demanding. Mergers and cross-ownership freedom, perhaps on an unprecedented scale, are part of the market processes needed to take communications services to new heights.

Taxpayers are Free at Last
by Doug Bandow, Competitive Enterprise Institute

Unfortunately, Tax Freedom Day has been getting later. The Bush tax cuts dropped the day from May 1 in 2001 to April 21 in 2002 and April 18 in 2003. But it moved back to April 19 the following year and moved a full week into April in 2005, to April 26. It was April 28 in 2006—nearly where it was when President George W. Bush took office.