As I looked through my news feed this morning, I managed to break through the usual morning fog to do a bit of a double-take after reading this op-ed on VT Digger from Representative Bob Helm (Rutland-R), about how “Good Public Policy Comes From Sharing Ideas”. Sounds reasonable enough, right?

Now of course, a red flag goes up whenever I hear or read a Republican use the term, “good public policy”, and it didn't take very long to have that flag justified, in the very first paragraph:

The Green Mountain State is home to some of America’s most thoughtful and hardworking people. Vermonters deserve good policy that addresses the issues closest to them, and there is no better way to find good policy solutions than by sharing ideas with others. One way to do this is through membership at ALEC.

ALEC. M'okay.

ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council, a far-right organization that, to put it bluntly, a major force in much of the radical legislation you've been witnessing with horror that has cropped up in many state legislatures in recent years. What kind of ideas are Representative Helm interested in sharing with the Green Mountain State? Go below the jump and find out. You aren't going to be too happy, to put it mildly.

ALEC's mission?

The American Legislative Exchange Council works to advance limited government, free markets, and federalism at the state level through a nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector and the general public.

So, basically, the tea party nonsense that's been steamrolling across the country, making things far worse for most Americans? ALEC's your people! 

ALEC Exposed is a great, meticulously documented source for all things ALEC. And it's a horror show, lemme tells ya.  Here's a few of the “good public policy” ideas that ALEC has “shared” with legislatures in recent years:

– Stand Your Ground laws

– Arizona's SB 1070 immigration law (the “show your papers” law)

– Opposing the Consumer Financial Protection Agency 

– Anti-union “Right to Work” laws 

… and that's just a small sampling, but you get the idea – school voucher programs, about a billion laws to benefit the super-wealthy, Koch Bros.-approved anti-environmental legislation (they get a lot of money from Koch) – we're talking about a major force behind the radical right-wing agenda that we've been fighting almost non-stop for the last two decades. If it's a shitty law, you can safely bet that ALEC has its hands in it.

If you click on the “Right to Work” link (as well as many other links at ALEC Exposed), you'll see “Model Legislation” documents from ALEC. Or, as Helm would put it, “independent thinking.”

Cue Bob Helm, again:

 Independent thinking is integral to the democratic process, and Vermont’s motto is a good reminder of this fact. Freedom and Unity can be achieved through thoughtful discussion and debate, and using all available people and resources to solve state policy solutions is a smart idea. Good policy is not created in a vacuum, and by using the tools ALEC has to offer, Vermont state legislators are better equipped to address the issues Vermonters care most about.

Independent thinking. Sounds reasonable, enough, again, right? Like this? 

Michigan Passes “Right to Work” Containing Verbatim Language from ALEC Model Bill:

 Amidst massive pro-labor protests, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has signed sweeping legislation attacking private and public sector unions, just hours after passing the lame-duck legislature. The operative language in the bills is nearly identical to the American Legislative Exchange Council's “model” Right to Work Act (comparison at link)

Or even better, in another example of this “independent thinking” that Mr. Helm praises:

In November, Florida state Rep. Rachel Burgin (R) introduced a resolution (PDF here) that would officially call on the federal government to reduce corporate taxes, but she apparently forgot to remove ALEC’s mission statement from the top of the bill, which she seems to have copied word-for-word from ALEC’s model bill.

If you click on that one, you can actually see, in the bill, the first words are “WHEREAS, it is the mission of the American Legislative Exchange Council…”

Yes, they really are that brazen and stupid. And this is what Mr. Helm hopes to bring to Vermont. With my curiousity still unsatiated, I was kind of curious as to what ALEC's been up to, lately, and, as luck would have it, PRWatch had a great article on ALEC's goals for 2014.

Just a quickie on something I caught over at VT Digger, by parting has-been/never-was/oh-forget-it auditor Tom Salmon, who, if you follow these kinds of things, never has a shortage of ridiculous things to say.

Given that “good judgment” is generally absent in most of Salmon’s actions, he chose to leave us on a high note.It starts of like “blah-blah-Constitution-blah-blah’, then jumps to a tired old “class warfare” talking point:

Any group trying to whip young people into frenzy over unfairness, in the name of the Constitution, is manipulating, especially if the result finds people skirting their responsibilities. This is not a time to blame others for the imperfections of a nation, but to foster and maintain accountability as American citizens.

Methinks that Salmon’s missed the big point that those he’s accusing of “blaming others” are those very same people fostering and maintaining the accountability he’s talking about. Not to outdo himself (and I don’t know if he’s just got great timing, or what), he channels Mitt Romney:

Currently, we have a nation where approximately half the people vote and half the people pay income taxes. This is a strange contract, or form of participation, since government spending in Vermont for citizens ($2.245 billion in 2000, $5.125 billion in 2013 according to nonpartisan VTtransparency.org) has virtually exploded in its efforts to serve the people.

At least he said “income tax”. He closes it out by wagging a finger at us, and implores us to think of the Constitution and make sure we are “doing our job” and “upholding our personal responsibilities”. Given Salmon’s abysmal track record, like Mitt Romney, it’s apparent that self-awareness is not one of his strong points. Nice knowin’ ya, Tom.

Not really.

It’s been a long while since I’ve gotten out to do some urban exploring (or, in the following example, rural exploration). Me and the sweetie recently had a Catskills weekend, hitting up the old “Borscht Belt”, the term given to the region where in the middle part of the 20th century, many Jews from New York City and surrounding areas would come for vacation and leisure. With the advent of cheaper airfares, the resorts, such as the Tamarack, The Pines, and Grosssinger’s, among others, eventually saw business decline and they went out of business. With the exception of Grossinger’s (unless I’m missing something), they’ve all been torn down or burned down. The Tamarack, which we wanted to visit, burned down last month, on my birthday.

On the northern part of the Catskills, in the area between the Catskills and the Adirondacks, lies the small town of Sharon Springs. Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, when the “restorative health spa” craze was all the rage (and, in many cases, on par with patent medicines in terms of actual efficacy), Sharon Springs was quite the hotspot, with its natural sulfur springs.  The town was replete with massive hotels and boarding houses,many of which, after the Holocaust, catered to an immigrant Jewish clientele.

One of the many sulfur springs in the town.

Much more, and slideshows, below the jump.

Unfortunately, after the craze died out, as well as with the increase of competing options brought on by cheaper airfare and extravagances like Disneyland, the town went into a long decline, and almost all of the boarding houses closed up, where they sit around the town in various states of disrepair. Some are half collapsed, some have burned, and a few are still structurally sound, but who knows for how much longer? The town is trying its best to revitalize, due to its location to Cooperstown and Howe Caverns, among other things.

Two of the less decrepit boarding houses were the Hotel Columbia, and Hotel Adler. I could see both of them from the B&B we were staying at. The Columbia was the more modest of the two, so we looked at that, first:

One of the things we noticed and read about was how, when the hotels started getting less and less visitors, they’d close down the highest floors. Eventually, they stopped maintaining them, too. We saw beer cans in a janitor’s closet on the top floor that were the old steel kind that you had to open with a churchkey. Considering those were over 40 years old and the hotel was open until the 90’s, that’s a long time for a janitor’s closet to be ignored.

Next up was the Hotel Adler, which I believe was the biggest and most well-known. It closed in the mid-2000’s. It was humongous, as you can see from the slideshow below. The colors in this place were amazing. It’s like they redecorated it in 1973 and never bothered to again in the remaining three decades it stayed open. In the entire basement was a bunch of spa tubs, at least 40 or so.

What is tragic about these places is, even though they are structurally still salvageable for now, there is no incentive to do so, given their massive size. As nice as Sharon Springs is, there simply is no need for a massive hotel there, let alone two or three more. A few years ago, a group of Korean businessmen bought the Adler, the Columbia, the Imperial Springs, and a few other properties in town, with promises of rebuilding and revitalizing them. Somewhere along the way, they must have realized the folly of their decisions, as all of the properties sit in a state of decay, a reminder of a very different time. I will not be surprised at all to find out in the next few years that the Adler and/or Columbia have burned to the ground. That’s how these things often pan out.

Before getting to Sharon Springs, we went to Grossinger’s Resort, the last of the great Borscht Belt resorts. In its heyday of the 1950’s and 1960’s, it was the place to be:

Although there is a country club/golf course that is still in operation, the remaining buildings of the resort lie in an advanced state of decay. It’s been picked pretty clean in terms of what’s been left behind, but it was still most certainly worth the trip. Both of the massive swimming pools are still in there, as well as the clubhouse and the beauty salon in the basement of the indoor pool room. The indoor pool was something to see, as the ferns and mosses were growing along one side of it:

There’s a lot more on Grossinger’s here:

Wonderful Borscht Belt Memories

Catskill Archive

Grossinger’s 1919-1986

There’s also more on the Adler and Columbia here:

Kingston Lounge: Hotel Adler

Kingston Lounge: Hotel Columbia

Sharon Springs Spas

As y'all know, our current plans to go forward with a single-payer health care system is not exactly welcomed by all. Although there are certainly arguments that can indeed be made against it, perhaps licking the corpse of Ayn Rand is not the best way to go about it, when you're trying to make your case to those who don't share your "selfishness is a virtue" worldview.

  From over at VTDigger, an op-ed from Tom Licata, who seemingly convinces himself that he's oh-so-damn-clever by rewriting a segment of Rand's gawdawful paean to Social Darwinism (and the real Bible to the current crop of DC GOP nutters), Atlas Shrugged, to frame his opposition to the new healthcare plan (in the voice of brain surgeon, Dr. Thomas Hendricks):

These legislators supposedly consider only the “welfare” of the patients,  with no thought for those who are to provide it. That a doctor should  have any right, desire or choice in the matter seems regarded as  irrelevant, selfishness; his is not to choose, they say, but “to serve.”

I have often wondered at the smugness at which Vermont’s Legislature  asserts their right to enslave me, to control my work, to force my will,  to violate my conscience, to stifle my mind — yet what is it they  expect to depend on, when they lie on an operating table under my hands?

The Vermont Legislature’s moral code has taught them to believe that it is safe to rely on the virtue of their victims.

Well, that is the virtue I have withdrawn.

 To that, we say:

Licata may indeed think he’s being clever, but he certainly isn’t a brain surgeon. That’s for sure.    

(crossposted at five before chaos)

As I was going through my usual Sunday morning newsdump, this article over at Alternet caught my eye, which asked the important question:

When local police departments are armed with military grade equipment, the soldier's mentality is not far behind. Domestic policing has come to resemble a string of combat operations in a scene that repeats itself every time an Occupy encampment is raided, which raises the question: exactly what type of policing equipment is in the arsenal of law enforcement agencies in America?

The article then goes on to answer the question, detailing the process that has led to our ever-increasing militarization of our civilian police forces, as well as all of the nifty crowd-destroying gadgets that are rapidly becoming available to them.  Several major cities are mentioned, and then, much to my surprise, this:

The Vermont State Police are now the proud owners of a BearCat G3 as well. A $189,400 DHS grant, in addition to $65,998 worth of forfeited assets from convicted drug dealers, were used to cover the vehicle's $255,398 cost. The state police say they plan on sharing it with city and county law enforcement agencies, should they “face an active shooter, high-risk warrant subject, or barricaded suspect.”

This is a Bearcat G3:

Photo: VSP

According to Police Magazine:

The vehicle can carry 10 fully geared-up tactical officers, who respond with the truck. It’s powered by a diesel engine, provides higher-riding clearance, and allows officers to deploy less-lethal chemical munitions from inside the vehicle.

The PM article makes it sound more like it’s something they needed for natural disasters, yet I can think of few where less-lethal chemical munitions need to be deployed from inside the vehicle. It’s just a reminder that as much as we like to think that in Vermont, we’re somewhat insulated from a lot of the civil unrest (and more importantly, its ever-increasing retaliation and suppression), that those days are over. Don’t you feel safer, now?

This was in my Google reader recently…  

(note from JD – I’ve posted this piece by my friend and organizer Heather Pipino, as this is important and the word needs to get out)

We are here today to witness the tragic end of a long conflict and mourn the failure of a community to protect and take care of it’s people. Mr. Huang’s story is not unlike many other residents of Barre who struggle to make ends meet and try to act within their rights, only to face tremendous barriers when seeking assistance.

An increasing number of Vermonters – both long-term and recent citizens alike – face deteriorating housing conditions, unaffordable heating expenses, and are living in unsafe and undignified situations. On the advice of fair housing non-profits and Vermont Legal Aid, Kai Sun Huang withheld rent. Frequent flooding from the roof was commonplace, broken pipes due to responsibility for heating ensued, crumbling walls, flaking lead paint, and long-standing mold and water damages were not repaired safely or at all. Withholding rent for housing that isn’t up to building code is perfectly legal in Vermont. While the City of Barre Inspector deemed the unit was “no longer to be used for human habitation,” Huang lost in court due to alleged refusal to permit access to the apartment and for being an unclean person. Huang did not have legal representation and as a result, was ordered to pay over $18,0000 in back rent. Huang has paid the back rent in full and is being evicted today.

(more below the jump)  

After meeting with Mr. Huang and learning about his story, I discovered many troubling things – that it’s mysterious and sad why this conflict continued so long; that it’s very difficult to find a lawyer for tenant-landlord disputes; and that there aren’t enough advocates to support the most vulnerable within our communities.

Our state and nation’s wrongheaded budget priorities – most notably our inability to tax higher income earners – have created a tenuous situation where it’s nearly impossible to achieve any sort of human right to fair housing. For example, there remains only one tenant advocate at CVOEO (the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity), which is the statewide agency for tenant’s rights. One person to help all tenants in Vermont.

Our communities have forgotten how to Put People First – our political leaders and media pundits talk of this great economic crisis whereby we must cut more public jobs, cut more employee benefits, and cut more services for people in our community, without considering the option of raising revenue by taxing high income earners.

We must not forget our capacity to love our neighbors. We must not be disingenuous to our fellow Vermonters by feeling pangs of remorse or finger-pointing when we see suffering, without taking appropriate corrective action to address the systemic failures. Why do we ask so many of our neighbors, including the most vulnerable Vermonters, to get by with less, without focusing on those that have the ability to give more? Our political leaders need to look beyond the Statehouse soundbites of what is “poltically possible” and acknowledge stories like Mr. Huang’s and the rising tide of inequality across our state to rectify decades of misguided budgetary priorities that have created such suffering. Vermont as a state has lead the nation on many social advances. Stories like Mr. Huang’s, and so many other similar stories, show us in heartbreaking detail that if we are to truly ‘Put People First,’ we must develop budgets based on human rights to ensure that people’s economic and social rights are protected, even in times of economic crisis. We must remember that the needs of our communities outweigh the risks of alienating the few with money and power.



We would like to invite you, housing advocates, and others concerned with conditions in Barre to join us on Thursday, April 28th from 6-8PM (at the Aldrich Public Library) to begin the conversation about how to ‘Put People First’ and address the barriers to achieving the human right to affordable, safe, and dignified housing.





Hallway at 46 South Main Street

Just a quick kvetch…

This morning on VPR, they were talking to Peter Welch, and he was talking about the looming budget standoff with the GOP, and a few things that are deal breakers for him… defunding the CPR and Planned Parenthood, and defunding Obamacare. Yes, Obamacare.

Perhaps if Mr. Welch, who I’m sure had nothing but good intentions in the interview, plans on using right-wing frames to describe healthcare, at least he could throw us a bone and use the term teabaggers next time he mentions the teahadists? Just for the sake of fairness, if nothing else.

I went to the rally at the Statehouse today for solidarity with the workers in Wisconsin and other places that are under attack. It was cold as hell, but the sky was clear, and in my guesstimate, there were 4 to 5 hundred people. I arrived right after Governor Shumlin spoke, so I didn’t catch that, but there were many other speakers… Speaker Smith, Senator Pollina, someone from Sanders’ office, as well as several union/labor activists (I was moving around a lot and didn’t get names… sorry). Spirits were high and people were fired up.

Perhaps as a good measure of the popularity of the teabaggers in Vermont, there was one person standing there with a sign that said “Union Greed is Hurting America”. Musta been confused.

All in all, it was a good vibe. These actions over the last week (still unfolding, of course) are some of the most inspiring things I can remember happening in this country in a very long time. Too long.

(UPDATE: WEAC, the Wisconsin Education Association Council has called for teachers STATE-WIDE to call in sick tomorrow and Friday.)

I don’t really know much about Wisconsin, other that Madison has always seemed to be a rather liberal oasis. Recently, their new Republican governor has almost literally gone to war with the state unions.

State budgets all over the country are hurting…we see that right here in Vermont just about every day. Governor Scott Walker, since taking office has not only not negotiated with the state unions, he’s supporting a “budget repair bill” that will sharply curtail their collective bargaining rights, make them increase their contributions to their pensions, and double their contribution to healthcare. This is par for the course with Republicans, as they’re doing everything they can to make public employees the new punching bags in the public eye.

It gets worse. He’s actually threatened to deploy the National Guard in the event of a walk-off as his own personal intimidation force, and even after a flood of criticism, reiterated his intentions last night.

Thankfully, there’s been a backlash. Today, an estimated 13 to 30,000 protesters came to the statehouse, 1,000 of which spent the night sleeping in the building’s rotunda. Walker dismissed the impressive numbers, pointing out how there are “about 5.5 million people in the state.”

There have been signs that the public outcry is having an effect, as the Republicans in the statehouse have hinted they are open to changing some of the issues about collective bargaining, undoubtedly to as little as they think they can get away with. The protests are expected to continue tomorrow.

There are far-reaching ramifications for this, as if Walker is successful, other union-busting governors will undoubtedly be emboldened by this. Ohio, for example is getting ready to push a bill that would fire strikers and eliminate collective bargaining. Gov. Christie of NJ plans on “punching” the public unions. Ed Schultz has a good rundown, as well as as talk with John Nichols, about why this is so damn important. Must watch, it’s not bad for MSM:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I’m so cynical at this point, but this potentially has the chance to explode across the nation. Let’s hope so.