Monthly Archives: March 2017

Gov. Sununu carries water for EPA’s Scott Pruitt

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Vermont better keep an eye on this if only because we “share” the Connecticut River and for that matter a planet, with New Hampshire. It appears that state’s new Republican Governor Chris Sununu wants a little jump start on polluting his state waterways and may want to take a time out from his ongoing voter suppression campaign.waterdownhill

To those ends Sununu sent a letter inviting to New England Scott “big oil BFF” Pruitt, the new head of the US Environmental Protection Agency,  to explore loosening “burdensome” regulations governing storm water rules. His letter references a program that requires towns that collect and dispose of storm water to get a special permit. Such disposal can pass pollutants into water systems.  Do you suppose Sununu cc’d his invite on this one to his fellow New England Republican Governors, his  buddies Phil Scott and Charlie Baker?

Pruitt, the new head of the US EPA might enjoy a diversion after he came under fire last week for comments openly questioning accepted facts about climate change science. By the end of week the EPA’s telephone voice messaging system was overwhelmed with a massive number of calls.

Governor Sununu will always enjoy discussing tearing up a few clean water regulations and Pruitt will get a nice friendly regional platform to spew Trump’s anti-regulation initiatives.

But no worries: Sununu claims that, as if by magic “if these federal mandates disappeared tomorrow, New Hampshire would not cease to keep our waters clean.”  He may starkly figure ‘so what’ about a polluted NH or planet: after all, we ‘live free and die.’  Besides, it all runs downhill (out of New Hampshire) doesn’t it, Governor?

Darcie Johnston & Trump’s little shop of hires

local/regional, National, ,

ProPublica has compiled an online directory of 400 political hires Donald Trump has quietly made across the federal government. And as we know, Vermonter Darcie Johnston made the cut. The anti-Obama healthcare advocate and former Trump for President Campaign leader got herself a real job in the Federal Government. She’ll be working at Health and Human Services as a Special Assistant. The job is rated GS-14 which pays from $88,136.00 – $114,578.00 yearly.

Trumplsohires2

 

The list assembled by ProPublica is a complete accounting of names that would normally just have dribbled out to the press. It shows the appointees to Trump’s so-called beachhead team. These are Donald loyalists named to federal jobs that need no senate confirmation: Trump’s true believers or just berserkers ready on day one, they said, to to begin laying the groundwork for the president-elect’s agenda.

Several of Donald’s more noteworthy best and brightest are spotlighted. Here are three likely worth keeping an eye on: A Trump campaign aide who argues that Democrats committed “ethnic cleansing” in a plot to “liquidate” the white working class found a home as Special Assistant to the Secretary, Department of Labor.

At the Department of the Treasury a former reality show contestant whose study of societal collapse inspired him to invent a bow-and-arrow-cum-survivalist multi-tool will test his mettle as a special assistant.  And finally, hailing from New Hampshire a Trump supporter who has only recently graduated from high school.

Maybe Darcie  and this kid will carpool back home to New England on holidays.

VT Dems’ New Chair Has to Hold Big Tent Together

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I was so proud to be a member of the Vermont Democratic Party State Committee on Saturday when Faisal Gill, a Pakistani-born Muslim-American was elected Interim Chair. Over the next few months the VT Dems will need our new Chair to hold the big tent of the VDP together.

Out-going Chair Dottie Deans, while thanking the committee and staff for their hard work in her remarks, also issued an impassioned plea for the committee to stick together in spite of disagreements. She mentioned some tough conversations about issues like renewable energy siting that have split the committee in the past. The biggest challenge now will likely come in the form of keeping disillusioned “Berniecrats” active within the Vermont Dems.

Faisal Gill was elected Interim Chair of the Vermont Democrats, Saturday March 4, 2017. Photo courtesy of Faisal Gill
Faisal Gill was elected Interim Chair of the Vermont Democrats, Saturday March 4, 2017. Photo courtesy of Faisal Gill

Faisal Gill won the election for Chair in a race against Nick Clark, who was very active for Bernie during the 2016 primary and has been an avid organizer of progressive Democrats and the founder of the Upper Valley Young Liberals. During the campaign I was personally accused of “exclusivism and elitism” for supporting Gill over Clark by one Upper Valley Young Liberal. I spoke with several of Nick’s supporters after Saturday’s election, and urged them to stay involved. I heard “I think I’m done with the Democratic Party after this.” from one UVYL member. “We need a change and this is just more of the same top-down elitism.” From another UVYL supporter, clearly frustrated with the State Committee’s 31-7 vote for Gill. He said “It’s like no one in the Vermont Democrats gives us any credit for what we’ve done, except the occasional mention.”

It will be a challenge to keep these passionate, progressive Democrats in the fold for the 2018 election cycle. Frankly, their expectations of the VDP are unrealistic. Change comes slowly, and the State Committee has activists and organizers that have been with the party for decades who are skeptical of any new faction asserting authority. However, I agree that the VDP is an institution that could use new blood (including relatively new voices like Faisal Gill).

My advice to the UVYL is this: Keep working with the Vermont Democratic Party. Get on your Town and County Committees, seek the change you want from within. People will welcome you and listen to you, but you also should listen to them. Learn what works and doesn’t work in political organizing and demonstrate your value helping candidates you can support get elected to office.  This party sent at least one of your members to the DNC as a delegate. We may not have voted for your candidate for Chair, but you’re not being ignored. We want you and we need you. I want your voices at the table, but I’m not ready to hand over the gavel to you yet. Politics and party-building are about compromise.  If your strategy is all or nothing, you aren’t going to accomplish anything.

The election of Faisal Gill is great for the Vermont Dems. It’s a powerful message that we reject racial and religious discrimination. However, I think that Faisal’s commitment to organizing, fundraising and herding cats at State Committee meetings is impressive on its own and he’ll be great. He has big shoes to fill, but I’m excited to see what he can do to get us ready for what’s likely to be a crazy election cycle next year.

Nuke security report: “opportunities exist for program improvement”

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Vermont Yankee is in the decommissioning process; its owner Entergy has plans to sell the out-of-operation plant to an industrial demolition company, NorthStar Group Services Inc. However, VY may not be ready to cool down as an issue yet: Vermont’s attorney general is asking to intervene in the state Public Service Board’s review of the sale of the closed Vermont Yankee power plant, saying significant environmental and financial issues are at stake.

It seems Vermont AG Donovan wants to keep a sharp eye on good old Vermont Yankee. Considering Entergy’s past, spotty record on safety (or lack of it) – underground leaks, fire and a spectacular cooling tower collapse – and security (or lack of it, as in sub-contracted Wackenhut Security guards sleeping on the job) this is probably a good idea.

weakvylink

Almost a year ago Entergy significantly scaled back its emergency notification and management protocols. And security concerns may also be an issue to watch as spent  nuclear fuel will remain onsite for some time to come. This February the NRC signed off on Entergy’s security changes for the now out-of-operation plant. Specifics regarding the changes are not public,as a precaution, but it is likely they involve lowering certain requirements.

One thing the NRC and certainly Entergy didn’t mention in public was that it was  auditing security rules for nuclear plants going through decommissioning. The NRC Office of Inspector General’s report, now available, recommends: [the NRC] clarify which fitness-for-duty elements licensees must implement to meet the requirements of the insider mitigation program; and to establish requirements for a fatigue management program. [PDF here]

Threats from “insiders” are defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as individuals with authorized access to nuclear facilities or nuclear material who could attempt unauthorized removal or sabotage, or who could aid an external adversary to do so. 

In language laughably similar to the NRC’s well worn classic: “there was no apparent danger to the public” line, the OIG report notes that although security is now adequate, “opportunities exist for program improvement.”

It appears Vermont AG T.J. Donovan is correct in operating on the assumption that Entergy is still Entergy and the NRC is still the NRC: ineffectual and always willing to protect the bottom line over the health and safety of host communities. Kind of ironic that while the US Border Patrol has been unleashed on innocent Canadian shoppers hoping to visit Vermont, someone should be doing a better, sharper, more aggressive job guarding spent nuclear fuel just a few hundred miles south.

Eyes on the sideshow while the Big Top burns

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One mistake that Democrats made in the 2016 presidential race was to allow themselves to be distracted from an issues based campaign by the constant barrage of outrageous behavior that Donald Trump exhibited throughout.

They overestimated voters interest in and ability to follow the bouncing ball of policy consequences from the relatively brief attention that policy received when Donald Trump himself was not the subject of hyperbolic conversation.

Now, we are all in danger of falling for the same bait and switch during the reckless reign of Citizen Trump.

While we and the media react in slack-jawed disbelief to every new demonstration of Trump’s impulsiveness, and every new hint that the Russians might be his handlers, the real policy impact of the Trump presidency only gets attention as an afterthought.

Meanwhile, the administration is moving quickly to try and reduce the U.S. government to a single purpose war machine.

With the stroke of a pen, vital safeguards for streams and waterways are eliminated; with another stroke, outgo consumer protections.

Trump has installed as his cabinet people who have contempt for the very institutions they now oversee. His picks have the added advantage to someone bent on crippling government agencies, of being demonstrably incompetent.

While we focus on the trail of Russian toilet paper that dangles from Trump’s right shoe, he is dismantling important environmental regulations, gutting entire agencies and defunding almost every social service in order to finance the biggest military build-up in modern history.

Why do you think he’s doing that? Wrong question.

Never mind why HE is doing that. He probably just wants to play soldier. More to the point: why do you think his advisers are encouraging him to do that?

We don’t really know enough about son-in-law Jared Kushner to speculate on his world view, but we know that Steve Bannon belongs loosely to that lunatic fringe who see Armageddon as the only way to salvation…and if you don’t want to be bested in Armageddon, you better have enough military might to crush all comers in a single earth destroying act.

Many of Trump’s most ardent supporters would be perfectly happy with this scenario, because they fervently believe that we are in the End Times and have no interest in preserving the natural world for future generations, or providing for the real needs of a population that may soon cease to exist.  Others simply don’t care because their interests are so narrowly focussed that they simply don’t see beyond sunset in their own backyard.
Now that Mike Flynn has been ejected, the generals in Trump’s cabinet represent the only real bench of competence in his sphere. Even Rex Tillerson seems to have been relegated to a back seat as the State Department prepares for massive funding cuts in favor of nuclear and conventional armaments.

Military leaders are a boon to Trump’s agenda, not only because they are unlikely to object to massive spending in their sector and elevation of “readiness,” but also because they come from a culture of unquestioning obedience to the will of the Commander in Chief.

No one seems to care that all he is offering is a lot of talk and a handful of magic beans.

Trump’s tame billionaires and bankers are cooing contentedly over a roaring stock market, convinced that they can be long gone before Trump’s voodoo math hits the fan.

Don’t look to Republicans for a timely rescue. They, too have sold their souls for a Supreme Court pick and one final chance to railroad the bigotry and fear of their voting minority into policy advantageous for the privileged.

Here it is six weeks into an administration that threatens to dismantle all the hard won refinements of our enlightened democracy and all we’re talking about this Sunday morning is another unhinged wee hours tweet from the Screwball-in-Chief.

If we don’t start to pull focus on policy immediately, we can only expect the worst.

Saffron or Algae Blooms?

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I’m sure I wasn’t the only Messenger reader who noted the ironic coincidence of headlines in last nights paper.

Just as President Donald J. Trump signs his second attempt at a Muslim travel ban, the early cost of this administration’s arbitrary agenda is vividly illustrated by two local examples.

Saffron: Vermont’s next cash crop?

The feature story tells us that, thanks to an Iranian postdoctoral student, we may soon see an extremely valuable cash crop, saffron, cultivated in our own backyard…at St. Albans Bay.

In the “brave new world” of Donald J. Trump, just being Iranian would be sufficient to invoke the President’s travel ban against him. That Dr. Ghalehgolabbehbahani is also a man of science would surely serve only to reinforce the administration’s antipathy toward him.

The President’s clumsy attempts to target Muslim countries for exclusion is already impacting interest in travel and study in the U.S. That doesn’t bode well for several industries which heavily depend on foreign dollar infusions.

Over to the side, on the same front page, is a warning from Senator Patrick Leahy. Being in a position to know, Sen. Leahy predicts that Donald Trump’s massacre of the EPA budget will imperil cleanup of Lake Champlain.

It’s a pretty easy guess that Leahy’s prediction will prove accurate. In the new federal budget, funding for clean-up of Chesapeake Bay has been slashed from $73-million down to just $7-million. Somehow I suspect that if the waterways lapping near to Capitol Hill merit so little support from the Trump administration, Lake Champlain, way up here in blue country, will receive less than none.

It should be noted that, even though funding for water protection is being sacrificed on the pretext that an exponential hike in military spending is urgently required, the President isn’t prepared to abandon his frequent getaways to Mar-a-Lago (four so far) that had already cost the tax payers $10-million before the paint was even dry in the Oval Office. That’s $3 million more than the Chesapeake Bay clean-up funds! The indignity is only worsened when a translation of “Mar-a-Lago” is considered. (Look it up!)

So, once the clean-up funding runs out and the stench of algae blooms hangs heavy over St. Albans Bay, perhaps we will at least be grateful that one Iranian chose to locate here before Donald Trump closed the door.

LocaVote: Town & School Meetings Need You

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If there’s one place where you can vote, and that vote makes a difference in your life, it’s at Town and School Meetings.

It’s Democracy, dude. It works when you get woke and go all in.townmeeting

 

And it’s the same idea, whether your town has an actual annual meeting to decide budgets and elect the select board and the town listers (who evaluate the worth of your property for tax purposes) and the town clerk and the treasurer; or whether you vote only by ballot, no actual interpersonal interaction required.

It’s Democracy, people, and it only works well when you’re plugged in. When you read the reports. When you are present and accounted for. When you listen hard to others asking questions about where the money’s going, and what about that new dump truck.

It works better when you figure out enough about what’s going on to ask questions of your own. When you raise your hand and the Moderator (who runs the meeting) calls on you, and everyone listens to what you have to say.

That’s locavote empowerment, baby!

And if you don’t believe me, just look at what Frank Bryan and Susan Clark have to say:

Town Meeting is the one day of the year when regular Vermonters can assume the role of legislators, says Frank Bryan, a leading authority on town meeting as a Vermont institution and the author of Real Democracy: The New England Tradition And How It Works.

“Most Vermonters — all Vermonters, if they want to … can be a participant in the democratic process that 95 percent of Americans can only dream about,” says Bryan, who is a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Vermont. “You can’t do this in Pittsburgh and in Buffalo, or San Francisco, even. You can’t do it. You can’t be a legislator and amend from the floor and change policy in real time.”

“There’s a sense of community and a sense of togetherness that we have here,” says Susan Clark, a co-author, with Bryan, of All Those In Favor: Rediscovering the Secrets of Town Meeting and Community. “There’s a fabric … Town Meeting has created a culture. Just the way Colorado has a cowboy culture, we have a Town Meeting culture. And it’s something that we need to recognize and we need to feed. Otherwise, it will go away.”

So, I’m askin’ you all to perform Democracy Tuesday, March 7, or whenever your Town meeting might be. It’s what will save our state and ultimately our nation. You, me, him, her, them: asking questions, getting answers, holding local governments accountable.

Practicing Democracy. Performing Democracy. Doing Democracy.

Go to your Town Meeting. Go vote by “Australian (paper) ballot” on budgets and the people who will make your town work (or not).

Speak, ask, vote. It matters.

Your Friday Trumping

National, ,

It has been another in a line of dizzyingly chaotic news weeks since Trump became president. It started off well enough for Trump. As President, Donald managed to read a teleprompter speech to the US Congress in a suitable tone — “Nationalism in an indoor voice.” And following through on campaign promises he made, his new EPA head started slashing away at the agency, proposing to cut their budget by 24%.

Rounding off the week, Commander-in-chief Donald started boosting his plans for a U.S.  arms build-up with a speech given to sailors aboard the soon-to-be commissioned aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford.

Not sure if any political pundits noted it, but I’m probably not the only one impressed by the remarkable restraint Trump showed  not pinning any shiny gold medals to the military styled jacket and cap he happily donned after they were given to him by sailors aboard the aircraft carrier.

trumpslonging

However by weeks’ end, the growing problem over questions of Russian attempts to influence his administration hit close to home. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was shamed into recusing himself from any investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election. Reports then surfaced of a previously undisclosed meeting Trump advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner had in December at Trump Towers in New York  with the Russian ambassador to “establish a line of communication.”

And finally The Onion reports the Russians are far ahead of their timeline to carefully undermine the legitimacy of the American political system

MOSCOW—working frantically to readjust the schedule they had outlined back in June 2015, Russian officials admitted to reporters Thursday that they have been left scrambling after seeing their plan to delegitimize Western democracy move much faster than they had intended.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said: “[…] we never thought so much public trust in the White House would erode in a matter of a few weeks. We’re pleased, of course, but keeping up is going to be a real challenge.” Lavrov went on to say he was deeply concerned that Trump’s impeachment would occur well before the president could cause the amount of damage to America that the Kremlin had originally intended. [Ed. note: not real news, for humorous use only, not to be taken internally]

All this leaves one to wonder as President Trump charges off to Florida today if Donald will grow tired of “winning” all the time? Perhaps he will stop-over at Mar-A- Lago, his shining gold-plated palace in Florida, get in a couple rounds of golf and all the world will be right again — at least in his own mind.

The Trump-Sessions administration decides to go full-racist

National, Uncategorized

We knew it, right? Ever since November 8 (well, actually, ever since Trump got his start in politics by making a frank appeal to racism) we knew that this would be an administration of nearly unprecedented evil. We knew it even though we’ve been able to watch SNL and laugh at the spot-on impressions of Trump, Conway, and Sphincter. It was easier when they were just acting awful but not making much attempt at governing.

Now, department by department, we’re going to see what it means. As a lawyer my mind naturally goes to what is still, unaccountably, called the Department of Justice, headed by someone who was too racist to be confirmed as a federal judge thirty years ago but apparently not too racist to get the Republicans in the Senate to confirm him today.

One thing that happens, which I suppose is a kind of progress, is that they will pretend to be not merely opposed to, but actually appalled by racism. They know enough to know that they shouldn’t admit it, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to actually not be racists.

What we get from them is all kinds of assurances about how awful they think racism is and how they would never, no never, act in a way that is the slightest bit racist. For instance, here’s Jefferson Beauregard in his confirmation hearings:

Sessions said: “I abhor the Klan and what it represents, and its hateful ideology.” He denied ever condemning the activities of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as “un-American” or describing a white attorney in Alabama as a race traitor.

Hey, we know he was lying, but at least he made the effort, right?

But now he’s on the job, he’s showing up every day, and he’s starting to put his plans into place. Where does he start? By signing up to support racists in two of their most visible and vicious manifestations.

First off, voter suppression. There’s a case going on down in Texas right now filed by the Department of Justice in which the trial judge found not only that a set of new ID measures adopted by the Republican legislature (“the lege”, as Molly used to say) had a disparate impact on racial minorities, but also that the measures were adopted with the clear intention of discriminating against the blacks and the browns–you know, the darker races. And this is a case that is not only pending, but the government and civil rights activists have actually won, both in the District Court and on appeal to the Circuit, with the remaining issue being whether there is enough evidence to support the finding of intentional discrimination.

So what does Sessions do? You know already, don’t you? He sides with the racists. But the Justice Department under President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a judge on Monday that it was withdrawing its claim that Texas enacted the law with a discriminatory intent.

Fortunately the case still goes on because the DOJ wasn’t the only plaintiff, but he has clearly told us in this one which side he’s on.

Come to think of it, he’s done it twice this week.

You know how, when the police kill an innocent, unarmed black person there’s always a call for the feds to investigate? You know, because you can’t trust the local prosecutors to investigate their buddies on the police? Kind of an important protection. In fact, [t]he Justice Department currently has 19 agreements with police departments across the U.S. to work on targeting minorities and use of excessive force.

No more, though. If you’re an innocent victim of police violence Sessions has one thing to tell you: he doesn’t care, or as they say in Russia, tough shitsky.

“We need, so far as we can, to help police departments get better, not diminish their effectiveness. And I’m afraid we’ve done some of that,” Sessions said during a meeting with attorneys general from across the country.
“So we’re going to try to pull back on this,” he continued.

So let’s count it up:
Siding with racist politicians against minority voters? Check.
Siding with racist cops against minority victims? Check.

I’m assuming we’ll see him pull off the racist hat trick this week,, but it’s only Wednesday night. Give the man a chance.