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[UPDATED Turnout beat expectations] Hey, go vote today!

local/regional,

Update #2 : It looks like Vermonters turned out to vote and beat expectations!

Predictions on possible turnout made before the primary for Vtdigger.com by party experts and one political science professor ranged from 20,000 to 30,000 to as many as perhaps 40,000 votes would be cast  in Democratic primary.On the Republican side it was thought around 15,000 might show up.

Well based on some very rough math using the Sec. of State’s webpage showing unofficial results for governor the total number of votes cast in the Democratic race for governor was 67,234.The republican race had 36,432 total votes cast. there was no Progressive party candidate running.

Taking both totals together there were 103,666 votes cast in the primary yesterday. As of July 31, 2018 Vermont had 473,442 registered voters.

Update #1: You can find the latest unofficial primary election results as they come in here at the Vermont Sec. of State web-page.

August 14th is 2018 Primary Election Day — so go out and vote for someone! govoteThat’s right  — if you aren’t one of the record number of people who got absentee ballots — TODAY, Tuesday, is the day to vote to decide who is your party’s (or the team that has the most folks you’d like to see in office) candidate in the general election in November. The Vermont Secretary of State’s webpage had plenty of information available — a final list of ALL the candidates, and if you care to dig deep, they also have posted all  the latest candidate financial disclosure information filed with the state.

Vtdigger.com reports: As of Aug. 9, the Thursday before the primary, 13,590 voters had requested early ballots, according to data from the Secretary of State’s Office.

That number is more than double what it was in 2014 at 6,034. In the 2016 primary, 20,038 residents had requested absentee ballots by the Thursday before the primary.

But most say that early ballots aren’t necessarily a good indicator of how many voters will actually head to the polls on primary day.

The general expectation is turnout will be “sleepy.” I hope that’s wrong  and turnout  isn’t too sleepy:  it is time to WAKE UP — even for primaries. You want a choice? GO VOTE!

ICE and CoreCivic’s bottom line: when the money goes away, so does CoreCivic

Business, National, ,

CoreCivic private prison corporation runs eight detention and immigration centers under contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). On Monday demonstrators targeted CoreCivic’s Nashville, Tennessee headquarters. [See Vermont CoreCivic connection below*.]

TheHill.com: Police in Nashville, Tenn., arrested 19 people on Monday after they blocked the entrance of the headquarters of a private prison company that operates migrant detention centers.

Demonstrators from the No Exceptions Prison Collective arrived around 5 a.m. to protest at the headquarters of CoreCivic, which operates eight detention centers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The activists linked their arms through heavy barrels, and one protester suspended themselves 25-feet in the air on a swing-like seat using a large stand.

Folks of a certain age may recall how in 1967 DOW Chemical, the manufacturer of napalm for U.S. military use in Viet Nam, was targeted on college campus by students and activists. In  demonstrations — sit-ins and marches — they called for an end to the presence of that company’s job recruiters on campus and for universities to cease investing in DOW Chemical stocks. Organizers at Harvard blockaded a Dow recruiter in an office for 7 hours, and similar such stories were commonplace on campuses across the US. Protests did not stop investment or campus recruitment — but perhaps weary of disruptions and bad PR, DOW ended production of napalm in 1969.

SPLC corecivic

In the present frenzied political environment, it impossible to predict what effect the “abolish ICE” movement may have toward the goal of curtailing widespread DHS immigration abuses at private prisons. But it is worth remembering the for-profit nature of these prison corporations. If/when their sacred bottom line suffers, CoreCivic’s ultimate loyalty is only to profits for shareholders and not to ICE or to the administration whose policies it carries out.

The question is, would abolishing ICE just funnel more money to private operators like CoreCivic? Or would it have a strong enough negative affect on the company’s bottom line to prompt its recreation in a different line of work? And if not, what actions would affect CoreCivic’s bottom line?

*Vermont CoreCivic connection: After being lobbied last year by CoreCivic officials Governor Scott and his administration were reportedly considering partnering with the prison business to build a 925-bed prison in Vermont, specifically in Franklin County. That project is currently reported to be on hold after negative feedback from the public and virtually every public official and legislator, regardless of political affiliation.

“A pleasant surprise”: Governor Scott grabs one from the Koch machine

local/regional, National,

Scottand koch machine2This is so common place now it hardly raised an eyebrow, but the Koch brothers once again opened up their wallets big time in support of Vermont Governor Phil Scott. Vtdigger.com reports: Just two weeks before the primaries, a political action committee funded by the Republican Governors’ Association has spent nearly $100,000 on TV ads for Gov. Phil Scott.

The RGA, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that backs conservative gubernatorial candidates, has poured $225,000 into a PAC called “A Stronger Vermont” this cycle, according to the latest filings with the Vermont Secretary of State’s office.

And you know it’s just great — as far the Scott campaign is concerned — to accept help from the ultra-conservative climate-change-denying Koch machine. Brittney Wilson, Scott’s campaign manager called the money pouring in to the campaign on their behalf a “pleasant surprise.”

And it is all fine, good, and legal because the Scott campaign jokes that they didn’t even know who the Koch brothers (one of the major backers of the RGA and giant[$]force  in the GOP for years) were. And naturally if you believe that you can believe there is never a slight bit of co-ordination between them. But for the Koch’s latest buy-in to the Scott for Governor campaign Brittney sent her heartfelt thanks and approval loud and clear via the media: “They really did a nice job running ads that portrayed the governor in a fashion that he wants to be portrayed,” she said of the ads the RGA ran for Scott’s 2016 campaign.

So, Vermont, I guess there’s just nothing to see here. And what could Phil Scott possibly be doing that might fall in line with the Koch agenda? I mean other than oppose his own commission’s carbon tax recommendation, just for one example. But he’d never go so far or be as stupid as Florida Governor Rick Scott (no familial connection that we know of, just political and philosophical brothers) and try to edit climate-change language from any state documents.  … Oh wait … come to think of it Phil’s administration did do that.

All it takes is a little Koch $$$$ to teach the world to sing in perfect conservative harmony — with the occasional anti-Trump sour note and copious coughing from fossil-fuel smog.

“Youthquake”voters: see Vermont and New Hampshire react

National, , , ,

In 2017 the Oxford Dictionaries chose “youthquake” as their word of the year. The term they said saw a 401% increase due in part, they said, to young voters mobilizing in that year’s general elections in the UK and New Zealand.yutequake

Here in 2018  most of the US  young voter registrations are up significantly. NBC News reported recently: […] young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 years old make up an increasing share of those registering to vote in a handful of key states.

Pennsylvania has seen the sharpest increase — 61 percent of new voter registrations come from young voters, compared to 45 percent before the [Parkland, Fla. school] shooting.

Target Smart, a Democratic data firm, found a two percent nationwide uptick in registrations by youth (18 to 29 years old) — who skew more liberal on many issues. Since the Parkland shooting, gun control measures have been a particular motivator, they find.

Vermont and its upside-down doppelganger New Hampshire are clearly reacting differently to the potential “Youthquake” voting.

In Vermont, since 2016 you can automatically register eligible voters who apply for a driver’s license or state ID. The state has seen 18-to-29 year-old voter registration up 6 percent in 2018. As Vermont Secretary of State and more recently as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, Jim Condos is almost constantly in the news working to increase voter access and to guard election processes from cyber-attacks.

Meanwhile New Hampshire — home of the first-in-the-nation Presidential Primary © ™ — the reaction differs.  Governor Sununu (R, of course) last month signed legislation to take effect in July 2019 that will limit election participation by many college-age voters originally from out of state. From Slate.com: [the law] effectively imposed a poll tax on college students, compelling many of them to pay hundreds of dollars in fees to establish residence in the state before they’re permitted to vote in New Hampshire. Once it takes effect, the law is almost certain to chill the franchise of younger Democratic-leaning voters — to an extent that could swing the state’s famously close elections

Note that in the 2016 New Hampshire election, 19 percent of the general election voters were under 30 years old. And these more liberal young voters proved significant to Hillary Clinton’s popular vote total and electing former Governor Maggie Hassan as their Democratic U.S. Senator in 2016.

It says “live free or die” on New Hampshire license plates, but if they want the franchise, young voters  might be freer if they “see Vermont.”

Von Trapp EB-5 Brewery’s small beer job creation

Business, local/regional, National, , , ,

The headline says von Trapp Brewery so far unaffected by closure of Vermont EB-5 center but how about 900 jobs they promised?VonTEB5beer

Last week the United States Immigration Customs Service (USCIS) handed down their decision to shut down and terminate the Vermont EB-5 Regional Center, which is run by the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development (ACCD). The closure comes as a direct result of the EB-5 Jay Peak Ponzi scheme. Bill Stenger and Ariel Quiros defrauded millions of foreign investors while under the ACCD’s and Vermont EB-5 Regional Center’s oversight.

But there are other Vermont businesses participating in the Regional Center’s EB-5 program, and as the Jay Peak dust settles those programs are getting some attention.

The EB-5 program is designed to provide capital investment by foreign investors and stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation. Approved participating businesses present the Regional Center with plans on how they would create a certain number of new jobs with their foreign investor funds — but as with so many other business incentives programs there’s little follow-up verifying actual results.

From Vtdigger.com’s article as published in The Stowe Reporter — von Trapp’s hometown paper:

Sam von Trapp said he’s seen no indication that his company will need to refund any investors.

He doesn’t know how many of those investors have received their permanent resident status, but says most of them have achieved “early levels of approval.”

“We’ve had an effective project, and our people are not at risk, but it is going to be a distraction and an annoyance if we indeed have to move to a different regional center,” von Trapp said.

It may all feel like a “distraction” for von Trapp, but for immigrant investors it is quite a blow. They trusted the Vermont Regional Center, investing millions expecting they’d actually get green cards as promised; now many are out of luck along with losing their investments.

And the promised new local job creation used to create positive buzz and sell EB-5 projects?  The von Trapp Family lodge pitched EB-5 jobs angle as Jay Peak and other businesses did. And like them the von Trapp organization made pretty BIG promises about new job creation.

The Wall Street Journal reported: In [2013] offering materials, Mr. von Trapp’s economist asserts the finished project will not only preserve 200 jobs at the lodge, but also will create 904 new jobs within three years – 66 jobs at the Trapp Lager brewery and restaurant, and the rest “indirect” jobs as the capital spending ripples through the economy.[added emphasis]

Following the 2008 recession The von Trapp Family lodge qualified as a “troubled business” under EB-5 regulations. The reasoning was that some investor funding could be used to help maintain existing jobs, not spent on creating new ones.

Stowe Reporter: von Trapp Brewing and Bierhall used investments from 40 immigrant investors.

von Trapp wouldn’t say how much funding was used from those immigrant investors, though a 2013 Wall Street Journal article states Johannes von Trapp had a goal to raise $22 million from 44 investors by June of that year.

By March 2013, the brewery had raised $2.5 million from five immigrant investors, according to the Journal.

More than 50 jobs were created during construction and operation of the brewery and the Bierhall, von Trapp said, although only brewery jobs count toward the green-card program.

Rather than sending “ripples through the economy” as von Trapp promised the EB-5 funded brewery comes up flat on job creation with something less than fifty jobs — and that hardly rates even a good belch. Calling Doug Hoffer …

The Onion: “6,000 Mike Pences pouring out of a small wormhole”

Uncategorized

For anyone watching it’s been a long, long week of zigzagging statements and generally crazy news from source Donald. But right now it’s Friday at last and the reports have slowed to a crawl. And it’s quiet, almost too quiet. A no doubt exhausted President Trump fled Washington D.C. for one of his golf courses — but it’s likely only a matter of time before he feels the urge and lets go on his twitter account again.

But until he does here’s something from The Onion.com:

WASHINGTON — Revealing that the physical world could no longer bear the weight of numerous contradictory realities, sources confirmed Friday that dozens of Whites Houses have begun to leak from a temporal vortex as President Trump’s rapidly changing story of meeting Putin tears apart space-time. “A White House is blinking in and out of reality atop the Washington Monument, and another has materialized inside the wall of a Georgetown apartment building—it appears the fourth dimensional plane is collapsing in on itself as Trump’s untenable, competing statements rupture the very foundation of time and relativity,” said astrophysicist Maria Steagall .[…]

trumpvortex

One witness reported seeing 6,000 Mike Pences pouring out of a small wormhole in the Cabinet room before suddenly vanishing. Countless universes are colliding and folding over each other every time Trump disputes his earlier statements; this is one of the greatest traumas the fabric of the universe has suffered since the Big Bang.

And that either would or wouldn’t be funny.

The state of play for Trump’s enablers

local/regional, National, ,

nydailynews71618The New York Daily News front page on the day Trump met with Vladimir Putin in Finland and trashed the United States references his 2016 Iowa campaign remark that he could: “[…] stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,”

And his GOP enablers? Well, the New York Times reported some Republican leaders (mostly it seems those headed out the door for retirement) are expressing qualified outrage.

Yet as of today: “[…] no Republican in Congress pledged any particular action to punish Mr. Trump, such as holding up his nominees or delaying legislation, nor did any Republican promise hearings or increased oversight.”

More pointedly  Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration tweeted:

RReich716

In rare show of GOP courage one southwest Ohio state official resigned from the party as “a matter of conscience, and my sense of duty.” Here in Vermont?  Well, crickets so far — no press releases or remarks from Governor Scott that I know of or from anyone in the  VTGOP remotely  critical of Trump’s performance with Putin.

It was in Helsinki and not on Fifth Ave but for now it looks like Trump — as he predicted — may just be allowed by default to get away with this “shooting.”

And the GOP across the nation and in Vermont will be sure to stand at attention for the playing of “Taps” over the grave of our Democracy, while offering their ubiquitous and ineffective “prayers and thoughts” to the family and friends, as they do after every mass shooting that could have — should have — been prevented.

Vermont to allow “pop-up” business marketing on state’s rural trails

local/regional, , ,

“Surprising hikers on the trail where they would least expect it.” Merrell Magic

Coming to a Vermont state hiking trail on July 16th will be a commercial marketing campaign consisting of a “pop-up” back country lemonade stand sponsored and set up by Merrell Outdoor apparel and Backpacker Magazine. Vtdigger.com reports: The free lemonade is part of a social media marketing campaign called Merrell Magic to “celebrate the trails by surprising hikers and trail crews when they least expect it,” according to Merrell’s website.

pinkpopuplemonade

 

The “magic” usually takes the form of weary long distance hikers stumbling upon a cooler with ice cold sports drinks on the Appalachian Trail or a water cache in dry areas of the Pacific Crest Trail. Merrel Magic representatives have even cooked [?] beef tartare with duck egg for backpackers in Providence Canyon State Park in Georgia and thrown a pizza party for a Mount Rainier National Park trail crew.

That’s right. Vermont — the state that in 1968 (fifty years ago) banned highway billboards and has strictly enforced it to the point of challenging a town’s “vintage” style painted roadside mural (painted on a barn no less) — will now have businesses “popping-up” lemonade stands on state trails “… where they least expect it!”

It isn’t clear what, if anything is “in this” for the state to allow  Merrell and Backpacker Magazine’s lemonade stand to “pop-up” on a rural trail. Rob Peterson, regional manager of the state’s northwest parks, said : “[…] the lemonade stand proposal is an appropriate use of state trails because the wooden stand is “low impact” — it’s carried up on a backpack — and will only stay in place for a short period of time.

But what does it look like? Well, here’s a 23-second Merrell promotional video of their company lemonade stand popping up at Corona Arch in Utah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IuJ9c9GD2U (picture the Pepsi Generation or Coke’s Teach the World to Sing commercials )

Now called “branding” not too long ago something like this was simply called advertising stunts. But, for Vermont  it is just a little “low impact” commercialization of part of our state parks this summer. What product branding stunts could be next?

Makes me wonder if Governor Scott can or wants to keep a lid on this kind of thing — is this a  state promotional he wants to make? I mean some people carry branding to an extreme and cover every available inch with signage for a business sponsor.govscottsponsoredby

Opening up Vermont parks and trails for commercial promotion  could be a tough one to limit or stop once businesses start their  “pop-up trail magic” branding (aka advertising) stunts and cooked beef tartare is served on our trails.

Maybe Merrell should take the hint and make this ad-fest like steak tartare: exceedingly rare.

ICE, huh, good god y’all…what is it good for?

International, National, ,

 

“Abolish ICE” has been in the news big-time for a  week or more. Democrats started using the line and it became shorthand for putting the brakes on Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies. The administration’s policy has horrifically separated thousands of immigrant parents from their children at our order from their families in the months since it began

Trump counter-punched “Abolish ICE” as a slogan in a manner he must have hoped might cause jittery Democrats more jitters: said Donald the baby-snatcher-in-chief: “I love that issue if they’re gonna actually do that.” He also said that to support abolishing ICE is supporting “open borders”

peoplencages

But: it is a different U.S. agency enforcing his own “zero tolerance” border policy—Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol—is responsible for policing the country’s borders. And it is agents patrolling the US-Mexico border who have been enforcing the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, by arresting adults who illegally enter the US, and separating them from their children.

This isn’t to say what ICE does isn’t just as cruelly problematic. And both unions that represent ICE and CBP workers/officers endorsed Trump for president early in his GOP primary race. Each agency has expressed a desire to have the “shackles taken off” and be turned loose on immigration enforcement.

So, what does ICE do exactly?

Well, Govexec.com has provided a handy little explainer worth taking a look at:  ICE ( sister” agency to CBP) is 20,000 people strong and operates in all 50 states. It was created in 2003 by Congress and granted unique civil and criminal powers to defend the U.S. borders. The agency largely focuses on immigration enforcement and works predominately within the US. This means apprehending and deporting immigrants who don’t have the right to live there.

In recent months, ICE carried out a number of high-profile raids. In June, it arrested nearly 150 meat plant workers in Ohio. In April, the agency raided another plant in eastern Tennessee, arresting nearly 100 people. As a result of that raid, more than 500 kids missed school the next day. Critics warn these raids could lead to long-term trauma within these communities.

In Vermont ICE has conducted a large scale raid in January and has been accused of targeting farm worker clients of the aid support group Migrant Justice for arrest.

The Homeland Security Act that created ICE was passed as part of the Homeland Security Act in 2002 with record bi-partisan support in both the Senate and House. In that vote  Vermont Senators Leahy voted Yes and then former GOP Sen. Jeffords, newly Independent after bolting his party was a No and in the US House Independent Bernie Sanders was No.

Under Trump both ICE and CBP are treating immigrants and their families cruelly on a daily basis and should be brought under control. It wouldn’t make a bumper sticker but the Washington Post’s Plum-line blogger Greg Sargent wisely pointed out that a good response for Democrats and progressives to the Trump-induced chaos at the border would be something along these lines: Trump’s cruel and incompetent policies just ripped more than 2,000 children away from their parents, and there are no indications when he’ll be able to reunite them, even though a judge has ordered him to do so. It’s time for him to show some leadership and clean up the immense humanitarian catastrophe he has created, rather than wasting all of our time with his petty little tweets and lies.

I particularly like that last bit: “[Trump]clean up the immense humanitarian catastrophe …rather than wasting all of our time with petty little tweets and lies”  That might not be comfortably squeezed onto a bumper sticker but it would look sharp on a billboard.

Re: Huh,what is it good for?

It is the Fourth of July so go ahead and vote!*

National, ,

uncletellsyou

Well, no getting away from it, today is the Fourth of July, actually Independence Day. John Adams said about the day, “It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent” in his well known July 3rd 1776 letter to his wife Abigail.

There’s nothing wrong with a little “pomp and parade” — if used in moderation. But this year, Donald Trump and the GOP are raining on our 4th of July parade by, it seems, shredding every norm in the country, separating immigrant families and making it harder for people to vote.

So it is worth running the tweet below from David Hogg, a Parkland School shooting gun control activist up the flag pole before the “shews and bonfires” begin.

hoggvotequote

*Early voting in the party primaries has begun in advance of the primary polling date of August 14.