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Political notes from Free Press staff writers Terri Hallenbeck, Sam Hemingway and Nancy Remsen


4.16.2007

 

Give and take

The Douglas administration is bristling over the Lunderville-Fitzgerald incident, claiming that Transportation Secretary Neale Lunderville is being unfairly raked over the coals by allegations that he offered Rep. Jim Fitzgerald help with a road project in return for his vote to sustain the governor's veto on the budget adjustment bill. Lunderville said no such connection was made between the vote and the road.

I wish I'd been there for their conversation because I don't know how we'll ever know what was really said or implied.

The administration claims that a conversation that took place last month between Senate President Pro Tem Peter Shumlin and Rep. Daryl Pillsbury, an independent from Brattleboro, amounts to the same sort of thing that Lunderville's being accused of.

Pillsbury called Shumlin at home on a Friday night and asked him to speak at a Brattleboro global warming event. Shumlin told him he couldn't because he was scheduled to speak at a Montpelier event at the same time. Shumlin asked Pillsbury how he was going to vote on the impending veto. Pillsbury said he wouldn't vote with the Democrats, and launched into a litany of complaints he has against them. One of those complaints was a lack of state money to pay for the Brattleboro Union High School construction project.

Shumlin said he offered to set up a meeting for Pillsbury with House Speaker Gaye Symington, Majority Leader Carolyn Partridge and Assistant Majority Leader Floyd Nease. "I told him I wasn't interested," Pillsbury told me.

Pillsbury said Shumlin offered him nothing more than to set up that meeting, but he speculated he would have been offered more if he'd gone through with the meeting. "I don't know what I could've gotten out of this, but I think I could have gotten something," Pillsbury said. "I can't prove it."

"How can you speculate about what would have happened?" Shumlin asked. "Daryl's expectations and mine are different."

Pillsbury said, however, he didn't think his conversation with Shumlin was on par with the Lunderville-Fitzgerald accusations. "I think there's a huge difference," he said. Legislators help each other out with support for issues all the time, he said, but not with a check.

The administration is angry that the Pillsbury-Shumlin conversation is not getting the media play that the Lunderville-Fitzgerald conversation did. Is it the same thing?

- Terri Hallenbeck

Comments:
NO! It's not the same thing. This is classic Karl Rove tactics. Paint the accuser(s) as the demon and those at fault as the victim. Legislator to legislator dealing is expected. Executive to legislative is NOT expected, nor kosher. And we know what Lunderville was offering. We have no idea what Shumlin may or may not have been offering. Even the Doughboy admits to that fact, irregardless of his rant in the Reformer. Douglas's flaks need to stop trying to duck responsibility and start owning up to responsibility. What works for Bush in DC, doesn't often work in Vermont. If you believe Douglas, Gibbs and all the rest of Team Jim, I've got some swampland in Ludlow you might want to purchase.
 
The Vermont press is OVERWHELMINGLY left of center so of course Shumlin will get off the hook and Lunderville won't. Did you ever hear of ANY hard questions asked of Howard Dean? Liberals always get a free pass in Vermont because the papers are so pro-democrat (except the Caledonian). Look at who runs the Times-Argus for example!Can you imagine Sue Allen ever giving a leftie a hard time???
 
Both sides do this dance.
 
Some say, "Both sides do it, so it's okay"

But it isn't okay. What Lunderville did was corrupt.

Lunderville needs to be fired.

Bring back Robert Ide. He was a right wing nutjob ... but at least he didn't bribe legislators.
 
Didn't receive your Free Press this morning? Log onto all of the BFP's blogs and sound off! Together, we will force BFP management to get their circulation operation back on track (and stop ripping off advertisers and subscribers alike).
 
Let's face it - it is the same thing.
 
"Let's face it - it is the same thing."

This response posted by the same uninformed mind that still believes there are WMDs in Iraq.

Paid for by the Vermont RNC.
 
The Governor violates his own code of ethics ... it's a big deal.

Vermont's taxpayers derserve more. Our money should not be used to bribe legislators.

Down with Lunderville.
 
The Shumlin sleaze got plenty of media play in Brattleboro - front-page.

Let's face it, both Lunderville and Shumlin tried to pull a fast one. Both got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. I don't know anything about Lunderville, but Shumlin has totally turned his back on Windham County.

He has shown himself to be sleazy (Pillsbury vote for schoool scandal) and dishonest (about face on impeachment).
 
Hey Terri - aren't you missing the bigger story here?

Seems that the Dems just pissed away any chance of overriding a veto, by pissing off Daryl.
 
Yeah. I'm sure Brattleborions will embrace Doughboy voting with the GOP on a consistent basis. Another tragic case of the left eating the left, while the right licks it's chops.

Again. With repsect to Shumlin "getting his hand caught in the cookie jar." Do tell what he was offering that mirrors the road project in St. Albans? (cue crickets chirping)
 
He just has better technique!
 
What about Floyd "the kneecapper" Nease? Is anyone going to hold him accountable for his shinanigans?
 
Are you going to describe these alleged "shenanigans" ??

Or should we just hang the guy because you said so?
 
Sure...

Lets start with how he threatened to take funding from VSAC unless they stopped supporting the governor's scholarship proposal.

Shall I continue?
 
A much bigger story than all this is the sorry-ass delivery operation at the Free Press. Anyone else in Montpelier NOT receiving their BFP on a daily basis? BFP treats Central Vermont very, very, very poorly. Nice to see that others are finally sounding off about it instead of getting treated like crap every day from BFP customer service.

I give BFP 5 years max before they are replaced by a statewide daily. And I can't wait for that day to arrive!
 
"Lets start with how he threatened to take funding from VSAC unless they stopped supporting the governor's scholarship proposal."

Actually, VSAC President Don Vickers said that never happened.

Rep. Floyd Nease said that never happened.

The person who tried to spread that rumor was one of the Governor's lowly henchmen.

The story is total BS.
 
Yet another right-wing conspiracy quashed....
 
"Actually, VSAC President Don Vickers said that never happened.

Rep. Floyd Nease said that never happened.

The person who tried to spread that rumor was one of the Governor's lowly henchmen."

Source please....
 
The legislature should stop wasting time and start hearings into the Free Press delivery issue!
 
"Source please...."

Where is YOUR source?

Are you saying that Nease is guilty until proven innocent?
 
Everyone's innocent until proven otherwise. All I'm saying is that if you're going to make political hay out of the horsetrading and arm twisting that goes on in Montpelier, you need to recognize that BOTH SIDES should be held accountable.
 
You said Rep. Nease should be "held accountable" for some mysterious "shinanigans".

I'm asking you to tell us what these "shinanigans" are.

And since you insist that other people cite sources for facts they use ... you should do the same.

What are these "shinanigans" ????
 
They never have any facts to support their allegations. Too easy to just throw crap out and hope it sticks.
 
Both sides have their "shinanigans"
 
Before you try to smear another person, make sure you have your facts straight.
 
You mean the "facts" that Lunderville and Fitzergerald seemed to have straightened out over coffee today?

The same "facts" that Symington blasted the administration with last week? Those "facts"?

Oh, and why did Shumlin push Symington to do the hatchet job on Lunderville instead of doing it himself?

Oh - that's right - because Shumlin had a few dirty "facts" of his own "smeared" all over his hands. Must have been from wiping that sh*t-eaten grin off his face.

Or was that from sticking his nose where it didn't belong?

Some things never change.
 
WOHA ... “Shumlin pushed Symington” … now you are just making up crazy stories.

But here are some facts:

FACT: A State Rep made a claim that the Transportation Secretary tried to bribe him.

FACT: The Transportation Secretary has no prior experience in the field of transportation

FACT: The Transportation Secretary is a former political operative for the state GOP -- a partisan.

FACT: Lunderville's conduct violates the ethics guidelines established by the Executive Branch.

You still have not substantiated your far out allegations against Floyd Nease ... now you are making up new rumors defaming Symington ???
 
"FACT: Lunderville's conduct violates the ethics guidelines established by the Executive Branch. "

Didn't Symington just take this off the table because it's not a FACT? Hello? That hearing on Wednesday? Ummm - didn't that get cancelled? FACT?
 
Check out Freyne's blog - he's right - Shumlin's nose is growing bigger.
 
Prediction: next legislative session will be much different. Symington will gladly return to the rank n' file and leave the Speaker duties to someone else. Shumlin will foolishly run for Gov and get creamed in the primary - by Buster the Wonder Dog!
 
"Didn't Symington just take this off the table because it's not a FACT"

No. In FACT, Symington instructed the Rules Committee to clarify the ethics guidelines for the Governor.

In FACT, Rep. Pillsbury still says that Lunderville bribed him.

Just because Symington isn't going to parade Lunderville in front of an ethics panel, does not make the facts of the case any different.
 
"In FACT, Rep. Pillsbury still says that Lunderville bribed him."

Huh? Now you're just making stuff up. It was SHUMLIN that was trying to bribe Pillsbury.

Buster the Wonder Dog vs. Shumlin the Shady - that's a primary match up that I'd love to see.
 
"Settled over a cup of coffee because that's the Vermont way?" Un-f***ing-believeable. You think Mazza and Scott are changing Lunderville's diaper for him now too? Cleaning out what he left after making a monumental--and ethically wrong--decision and then being called out on it. True Vermonters demand answers and justice, not folksy theatrics.
 
What is really un-f***ing-believable is the Free Press' delivery operation in Central Vermont. Now THAT'S a real scandal!

p.s. get used to these posts - a group of us are going to be posting nonstop on these blogs until BFP gets it's act together.
 
What can I say. The Dems could have had some fun with Lunderville, but Shumlin F'd it all up with his own stupidity (and questionable ethics).

The only way out to bail Shumlin out was to give Lunderville a free ride!
 
FACT, Rep. Pillsbury still says that Lunderville bribed him.

Read the newspaper. It's all there in black and white.
 
I can't read the newspaper. I didn't arrive yet again today!

but I do know enough to know that Rep. Pillsbury was talking about SHUMLIN! Don't YOU read the news? Maybe you should go back and read the articles again . . .
 
http://www.reformer.com/search/ci_5666165
 
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ... right wing propoganda ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ... right wing propoganda ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
 
Oh - so that's how you respond to facts...
 
Haven't seen any "FACTS" from you ... just foolish smear jobs on Democratic Representitives.

I think you get your "FACTS" from FOX News ... or perhaps they get their "facts" from you ???
 
Everybody plays this game until it doesn't suit them - then they scream like babies.
 
Shumlin = Lunderville. Both ethically challenged.
 
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