Before I moved to Vermont I lived in Michigan for about twelve years, and it was there that I cast my only vote for a Republican.

The year was 1978 and the candidates for governor were William Milliken, a very moderate, Nelson Rockefeller-style incumbent, and William Fitzgerald, a conservative, Catholic, anti-choice Democrat. Because of the choice issue I voted for Milliken, who won easily, and I've never regretted that vote.

But look at Michigan today. They still have a Republican governor, but it's Rick Snyder, a vicious conservative, and today they pushed through a new anti-woman measure, narrowly defeating a provision to give the bill immediate effect.

The new bill provides that abortion can't be covered by health insurance. A woman who wants coverage for abortion will have to buy that coverage separately. And get this: pregnancy is a pre-existing condition, so you can only buy the coverage before you're pregnant (or before your father raped and impregnated you, say).

 Snyder has appointed an emergency manager for Detroit, and he has praised that manager's attack on retired city workers in his bankruptcy filing. These are terrible times for a once-great state.

By the way, Governor Milliken is still alive and 91 yars old. He supported John Kerry in 2004, endorsed McCain in 2008 but changed his mind after McCain's attacks on Obama, and has said   “Increasingly, the party is moving toward rigidity, and I don't like that. I think Gerald Ford would hold generally the same view I'm holding on the direction of the Republican Party.” He supported Snyder in 2010 but I doubt he would approve of what he's done lately.

I grew up in New Jersey, and because I went to school in New York I spent many hours sitting on a bus on the Jersey side of one of the Hudson River crossings, often the George Washington Bridge. It's painful sitting there, not moving, watching the time advance to the inevitable late arrival at school and the punishment, "jug" (traditionally from the Latin word "jugum", which means "yoke") that was sure to follow.  

Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure I never got delayed for hours because the governor ordered several lanes of traffic shut down because he wanted to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for not supporting his reelection bid. No, that particular instance of malfeasance had to wait for Chris Christie, who is obviously gearing up for a presidential candidacy.  

At this point we don't have the facts one way or the other, but we do know two things:  

First, the excuse being put forth by Christie's people, that it was done to carry out a "traffic study", seems transparently bogus, at least until they can present affirmative evidence of the planning for the study, the study design, testimony from traffic engineers, study results, and the like. Maybe evidence will be forthcoming, but I kind of doubt it.  

Second, can anyone doubt Christie's capacity to carry out such a vindictive act?  

The local newspaper, the (Bergen Evening) Record, is demanding answers:  While partisan politics are certainly afoot here, Democrats are right to press the issue. We still need to know why average commuters were inconvenienced when two of the three approach lanes to the bridge from Fort Lee local streets were suddenly closed for five weekday mornings.  

What the public still deserves to know is why the lanes were closed, why no one was told about the closures in advance and what closing the lanes accomplished. Answers to these questions should not be state secrets. 

Even if you don't follow North Jersey news (and I know I am far from the only person around here who grew up in the Garden State), this is worth paying attention to. Maybe if you shelled out to the Vermont Republican Part to hear Christie tomorrow night you’ll get the chance to ask him yourself.

It's started to spread across the country, especially in beer aficionado circles, but here's a news story that first started attracting chuckles here in Vermont. From the Burlington Free Press:

The Vermont Department of Liquor Control cited a Burlington woman who they say sold the popular Vermont beer Heady Topper online.

Stephanie Hoffman, 28, of Burlington, was cited to appear at Franklin County Superior Court on Dec. 30, accused of Violation of Title, for selling malt or vinous beverages or spirits without a title allowing her to do so.

 It's pretty irresistable, right? Hipsters willing to overpay for overhopped beer, headlines for Vermont's current fave local product, juxtaposed with a little private enterprise and a government agency too concerned with prosecuting minor, if not imaginary, victimless crimes. If you're looking for a little harmless diversion on your way to some serious news, this one has it all.

Only the thing is, get used to it.

Nowadays the tide on marijuana prohibition has turned, and just about every sensible person agrees that legalization is inevitable, with the only question being “How soon?”. The problem is that as a recent article in the New Yorker makes clear, legalization of marijuana is way more complicated than clearing the path for you to keep buying from your old college roommate (let's call him Dave), only without worrying about getting caught.

 No. Remember how part of the argument for legalized marijuana has always been that it's such a lucrative agricultural product that we might as well be collecting taxes on it? Maybe enough to wipe out the deficit?

Well, to be sure the taxes are being collected we have to do way more than tell the cops to stop arresting dealers, we also have to establish a whole regulated, taxed market, which is pretty complicated. They're trying to do it right now in Washington, but new questions pop up at every turn. For example, if you want people to buy their pot in the regulated market, and not keep buying it from Dave you have to give them reasons to make the switch.

As Mark Kleiman, a public policy expert, says in the New Yorker article:

   “One of the ideas that has actuated the cannabis-legalization movement is that law enforcement really has bigger fish to fry,” he said. “We’d rather have cops chasing burglars than pot sellers. And that’s a reasonable viewpoint.” He paused. “But the implication of . . . a legal commercial market is not that you need less enforcement.” The city councillors looked anxious. “That’ll be true in the long run,” Kleiman allowed. “In the long run, there shouldn’t be much of an illegal business. . . . In the short run, though, the answer is just the opposite.”

 We want people to pay the taxes, which means they're going to have to stop going to their old friend Dave and start going downtown, maybe right next door to where they buy their Heady Topper. Otherwise, no taxes, no controls on safety and purity of product, chaos.

That doesn't sound terribly bad to me, and maybe not to you. After all, if marijuana is going to be a legal product, why should I care any more if the people selling it have licenses than I care about any other legal product, like flashlights or umbrellas in New York City within thirty seconds of when it starts raining?

Well, we want to collect the tax, right? And why would someone buy in a licensed retailer, where you know you're going to pay the tax on top of the price, when they can call Dave, get a bag, and pay less?

Which is where our Heady Topper entrepreneur comes in. Beer is a legal product, and just about every adult is allowed to buy it, but that doesn't mean everyone who is lucky enough to get their hands on a case of the old Topper is allowed to sell it legally.

You should read the New Yorker article. You'll see that, at a minimum, it raises questions you probably never thought about. 

Look at this picture. It's easy for us to get misty-eyed, and remember the man of peace, but look at him. This is a tough guy. Twenty-seven years in prison, and when twice offered his release he refused because it was based on the condition of renouncing violence as a political weapon.  

Like George Washington, he could have been president for life, but unlike every other African leader who overthrew a colonial power he established stability and stepped down after one term.  

We knew this day was coming. He was ninety-five and in poor health. Each new report made me feel that people were trying to hold onto him, make him struggle beyond any human endurance, simply because nobody wanted to bear the loss.

 My first political activity in Vermont, back about thirty years ago, was working on divestment of state funds from companies doing business in South Africa. While Mandela did more than any of us could do, American activists were proud to play a small part in maintaining pressure on the apartheid regime, even when Ronald Reagan was supporting it.

The mourning will be universal, and rightly so.

There's really big news from Wisconsin this week. The Freedom From Religion Foundation won a decision in the United States District Court in their case challenging a little-known law established specifically to provide government subsidies to churches.

 The law, known as the parsonage exemption, comes from 1954, the depths of the Red Scare, like the addition of “under god” to the Pledge of Allegiance, and the purpose was the same: to bolster religion, and Christianity in particular, against the onslaught of godless Communism. The 1954 bill’s sponsor, Rep. Peter Mack, argued ministers should be rewarded for “carrying on such a courageous fight against this [godless and anti-religious world movement].” – See more at: http://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/19361-ffrf-gaylor-barker-overturn-%E2%80%98parsonage-exemption%E2%80%99-clergy-privilege#sthash.WixHGZry.dpuf

 The parsonage exemption allows churches to pay “ministers of the gospel” partly in salary, partly in a housing allowance, and exempts the housing allowance from income tax. FFRF observes that the parsonage exemption allows payment not only for rent or mortgage payments, but for home improvements and even swimming pools. In 2002 the value of this exemption was estimated at $2.3 billion in lost tax revenues over five years. On top of that, ministers are able to “double dip”, paying their mortgage with their tax-free housing allowance and then deducting their mortgage interest and property taxes from the income tax payable on their taxable income.

The court, in a very strongly written opinion, explains why this violates the First Amendment.  “However, the significance of the benefit simply underscores the problem with the law, which is that it violates the well-established principle under the First Amendment that “[a]bsent the most unusual circumstances, one's religion ought not affect one's legal rights or duties or benefits.” Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School Disrict v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687, 715 (1994) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgment).”

The judge reminds the reader that the Establishment Clause “protects the believer and the unbeliever alike”, and explains that if the First Amendment would prohibit a tax that is assessed exclusively on churches or ministers, which it does, it also prohibits a tax benefit conferred exclusively on churches.

 Assuming that the parsonage exemption applies to ministers of all religions, and not just Christian “ministers of the gospel”, what's so bad about it? After all, the government isn't choosing which religion to favor, right?

Here's a bit of an explanation. Take two people working for nonprofit organizations. One is a social worker, the other is a minister, and each one gets a total compensation package of $50,000. They both spend a lot of their time meeting with and counseling people who have family or emotional problems, helping to refer them to needed services, or coordinate those services with their families. The social worker gets his compensation in cash and is taxed on the whole thing, whereas the minister gets $30,000 in  cash and $20,000 in a housing allowance. She is taxed only on the $30,000 salary, and the only justification for that tax benefit is that in addition to the counseling and other activities that don't look that different from what the social worker does, her job also involves preaching, leading the congregation in prayer, and maybe proselytizing.

Can you imagine any possible justification for this scenario other than to make it easier for churches to do business? I sure can't. The decision, far from demonstrating hostility to religion, is simply a way to protect everyone's religious liberty by outlawing this particular example of preferential treatment the government has provided religion for far too long.

Recently conservatives have tried to–what? claim some reflected glory? tarnish a liberal icon?–change the debate by arguing that President Kennedy was really a conservative, that he would be a Republican if he were alive today, and blah, blah, blah.

Is there any substance to this claim?

In a word, no.

The argument depends in part on a misrepresentation of liberal ideas and in part on a misapplication of conservative ideas.

One example of the misrepresentation of liberal ideas is that because some conservatives claim that liberals are opposed to a strong military, or what they might call being “soft on defense”, they argue that anyone who favors a strong military and a strong defense is, ipso facto, a conservative. In fact, liberalism is not characterized by hostility to national defense, although many liberals are skeptical about excessive military spending or expansionist military activities. We have arrived at these positions in large part because of the disastrous effects of America’s imperialist activities in Vietnam, Iran, and many other parts of the world.

Second, because some conservatives believe that tax cuts are the solution to every situation they conclude that Kennedy’s support for a cut in the top marginal tax rate means that he must have been a conservative because only conservatives support tax cuts. The case can be made that the tax cut was actually a Keynesian measure, not what would later become known as supply side economics.

Was he on the left wing of the Democratic Party? No. Although he introduced civil rights legislation, his support for such legislation, and his willingness to commit political capital to get it passed fell far short of what was needed. It is impossible to know what he would have done if he had survived to serve two full terms, but the contrast between what he was willing to do and what Johnson was willing to do to get civil rights legislation passed is striking.

The particulars will change over time, but at the heart of Kennedy’s policy views was the recognition that government can be a force to reduce inequality and support civil rights, improve the lot of ordinary Americans, address the causes and effects of poverty, provide essential services to people who would not otherwise be able to obtain them, strengthen the economy, and help to spread justice, democracy, and peace around the world.

These ideas are anathema to today’s Republican Party and conservative movement, just as they were fifty years ago.  

This guy is the opposite of what we've been working for here: more and better Democrats.

Yeah, believe it or not, Hawaii State Representative Tom Brower is a Democrat, and his new hobby (he says he's done for now) is smashing the meager possessions of homeless people.

Lest you think he's a Johnny come lately to the issue, his legislative web page lists homelessness as his only legislative priority. His only mentioned homelessness initiative before this: a proposal to establish “safe zones”, where the authorities could drive (or should I say herd?) the homeless to keep them away from more attractive locations where the pretty people might see them.

As he said to the Hawaii Reporter:

 How can government continue using the same failed strategies to address homelessness? How is this different from the definition of ‘insanity’ (keep doing the same thing with the expectation of different results)?

As a legislator I understand first-hand that chronic homelessness does not offer easy solutions. The best place to start is often the simplest. . . . Being homeless should mean fewer options on where you can stay, not more.

 http://www.hawaiireporter.com/solving-hawaiis-homelessness-crisis

 You might guess from his statement about “the same failed strategies” that he has a record of supporting effective means for addressing homelessness, like providing housing, employment assistance, or mental health services for homeless people, but you will look in vain for any such suggestion.

 If you feel like giving this guy a call, here's his phone number: 808-586-8520. If I can find his home phone number I'll post that, too.

Try this: (808)941-4681. 

The states of Oklahoma and Texas have revived one of the beloved traditions of the Civil Rights Movement in the sunny South: the segregation academy.

Back in the 1950's, 60's, and 70's many southern states responded to court integration orders by simply closing the offending institutions. If ordered to integrate their municipal swimming pools they closed the pools so that their beautiful white babies wouldn't have to play and swim with black children. Ordered to integrate their schools, they closed the public schools and established so-called private “academies”, colloquially known as seg academies, to skirt the legal effect of the court orders while continuing to deny educational opportunity to their black citizens. Now we hear, in the wake of the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, that some of the southern states are taking a lesson from their segregationist forbears.

Back then the enemy was racial desegregation, this year it's equal treatment for same sex couples.

OKLAHOMA CITY —- Oklahoma will stop processing all military spouse benefit applications at state-owned National Guard facilities rather than begin accepting the applications from same-sex spouses, Gov. Mary Fallin said Wednesday.

Fallin went on to recall the principles of “massive resistance” that was the rallying cry of southern racists in years gone by. “The decision reached today allows the National Guard to obey Oklahoma law without violating federal rules or policies. It protects the integrity of our state constitution and sends a message to the federal government that they cannot simply ignore our laws or the will of the people.“

 Other states in the proud Southern tradition who are refusing to provide same-sex benefits for their National Guard members include Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia.  

Since the 2001 terrorist attacks and our military response you can't go a day without seeing one more jingoistic appeal to “support our troops”, and this sentiment seems to be strongest in the hyper-militarized Deep South. One can't help thinking that it's ironic that these are the states that are in the forefront of denying benefits to the troops. 

I'm not a regular reader of the Washington Post, so I was totally unaware of Richard Cohen until just yesterday. Cohen writes a column on the Post's Op-Ed page and by coincidence I heard about two of his columns within the space of a few hours.

First, the one everybody heard about yesterday. It was about Republican prospects, and particularly Chris Christie's prospects, in the 2016 presidential election. How will someone like Christie, with his personality and allegedly moderate views, in his attempt to get the votes of the Tea Party base of the Republican Party?

You can read the whole column if you want, but here's the money quote:

 People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) 

Yes, that's exactly what he said. Cohen claims that this does not represent his own personal views, and that he doesn't have to repress his gag reflex when contemplating mixed-race marriages, but he describes the holders of that gag reflex as “people with conventional views”; in other words, the norm, the mainstream of American thought.

And that's not all. I also came across, via Matt Yglesias's Twitter feed, Cohen's column about his experience watching the new movie Twelve Years a Slave. I haven't seen it yet but it's on my list. It appears to have had a real impact on Cohen and his thinking on slavery, which I suppose is a good thing.

Here's what he says about how it affected his thinking on slavery:

“… slavery was not a benign institution in which mostly benevolent whites owned innocent and grateful blacks. Slavery was a lifetime’s condemnation to an often violent hell in which people were deprived of life, liberty and, too often, their own children. Happiness could not be pursued after that.

Steve McQueen’s stunning movie “12 Years a Slave” is one of those unlearning experiences. I had to wonder why I could not recall another time when I was so shockingly confronted by the sheer barbarity of American slavery. Instead, beginning with school, I got a gauzy version. I learned that slavery was wrong, yes, that it was evil, no doubt, but really, that many blacks were sort of content. Slave owners were mostly nice people — fellow Americans, after all — and the sadistic Simon Legree was the concoction of that demented propagandist, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Her “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was a lie and she never — and this I remember clearly being told — had ventured south to see slavery for herself. I felt some relief at that because it meant that Tom had not been flogged to death.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-12-years-a-slave-and-arts-commentary-on-the-past/2013/11/04/f0e57a92-4588-11e3-b6f8-3782ff6cb769_story.html

And he goes further. For instance, he draws an explicit contrast between Uncle Tom's Cabin and Gone with the Wind. To be fair, he does call Gone with the Wind “irrevocably silly and utterly tasteless”, but what does he call Uncle Tom's Cabin? he says “Uncle Tom's Cabin was a lie.”

The word most of us would choose is a novel–you know, a story that somebody made up–but in Cohen's view it is Harriet Beecher Stowe, not Margaret Mitchell, who is the liar. I would also challenge Cohen's evaluation of Gone with the Wind: it isn't silly, it is pro-slavery, pro-Confederate propaganda, and judging by the tenacity of the Lost Cause mythology, highly effective at that job.

 Cohen eventually comes around to a recognition that slavery was not as nice as it is portrayed in Gone with the Wind, but did he really need to get to age seventy-two to find that out?

And more importantly, does the Washington Post really need somebody with such profound moral blindness writing on its pages? 

Congratulations to Vermont and especially Mark Larson, the Commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access.

NPR ran a story this morning on how much money various state governments are paying to private contractors to run their health insurance call centers, focusing on a company from Connecticut called Maximus. While it's clear that these contracts are worth millions to Maximus, in most states it's impossible to find any information about how much Maximus is getting paid.

Not Vermont, though. Vermont is singled out for its transparency.

NPR reports: 

Vermont's exchange handled things differently. It has posted on the internet a complete, unredacted copy of its contract with Maximus. The document spells out everything from how long a call can be on hold to how quickly it must be answered.

 Around here we don't hesitate to point it out when our state government does something wrong, so this is an opportunity to point out that in this area Vermont has gotten transparency right.