UPDATE: COVERUP, BUT NOT BY BERRY?

Today's Burlington Free Press carries updated details about the coverup. It appears that, as my friend Nanuq suggested in a comment, that F&W Commissioner Patrick Berry may have been a victim of the coverup, rather than a perpetrator. 

Nelson didn't return a call seeking comment Saturday. But his son, Richard Nelson, told WCAX-TV that the family misled the state.

“The blame goes to us,” he said. “We're the ones that didn't say Pete died.”

At this point, it seems clear that the true issue is, as it has been from the beginning, that the park operators should never have been allowed to domesticate this wild animal. As Berry says in the print edition of the Free Press:

“This is the prime example of why wildlife should be kept wild. . . .  When you try to domesticate wild animals you have to undertake these sorts of procedure, and you put their lives at risk.”

If you read the comments on places like Facebook you see all kinds of comments from people about state plans to “murder” the moose, In fact, the reason this moose required the hoof operation that led to its death was its domestication, and the domestic diet it was fed. Do you think it might be time to dispense with the romanticization of the occasional wild animal that, usually to its misfortune, comes to the public eye?

ORIGINAL STORY FOLLOWS;

Did you see this on WCAX tonight? The moose that people have been referring to as “Pete the Moose” is dead.

A stunning reversal Friday evening from state wildlife officials– after assuring us for more than a week that Pete the Moose was alive, officials now say the controversial and much-loved moose is dead.

I was never part of the Pete cult. In fact, from the beginning I thought it was ridiculous that the state agencies charged with managing the wild animal population in the state were supporting the irresponsible actions of the owner of the canned hunting facility where it was kept.

I'm not a wildlife biologist or anything, but it occurs to me that  what happened to this animal is exactly what we want to avoid when we prohibit people from owning wild animals. Trimming hooves and otherwise interfering with natural processes? Who would ever think that was a good idea? In this case, the moose was rendered unconscious by the man who was taking care of him, and then apparently died when the man left him still unconscious.

I really didn't understand why Peter Shumlin would have continued the Douglas policy of letting the “owner” continue to keep this animal in captivity. Probably just pandering to the soft-headed supporters who viewed themselves as animal lovers.

What really baffles me, though, is why the Administration would get involved in a cover-up  once it was discovered that the animal was dead, but that's exactly what happened: they released phony pictures of another moose, claimed they were “Pete”, and put out the story that “Pete” was alive and well. Did they really think the truth regarding the most publicized moose in the state wouldn't come out?

We're obviously going to get more information as the story develops, but it really seems to me that somebody has to be fired for this. I would think that Wildlife Commissioner Patrick Berry, who made the false statement that”Pete” was still alive, either knew it was false when he made it, or knew that he didn't know whether it was true or false.

And then what happened next? The classic Friday night bad news disclosure.

 How is this not a coverup?

I'm a little mystified by the angry criticism directed to the Vermont State Employees' Association for standing up for its members and demanding that they be paid what they're entitled to under their contract. Whether it's the editorial pages of Vermont's newspapers, or even here, you see complaintsthat the move by the union is greedy, bad, or just bad politics.

It seems to me the critics are ignoring, or acknowledging and then immediately ignoring, some very important points:

1. The workers have a right under the contract to the pay they're asking for.

2. The union asked the state to take the precise action–declare an emergency reassignment plan that would have avoided this precise problem–and the state wasn't interested in doing it.

3. The union has a legal obligation to represent the workers and enforce their contract. The union could actually be liable to the workers if it refused to do so.

4. The union also has an obligation to protect the contract, so that it will be there to protect the workers not only in this immediate crisis, but in any future conflice with management.

Vermont state government, and local governments across the state are incurring huge expenses for flood recovery and reconstruction. Just yesterday the State estimated that cleanup costs could exceed $500 million, and that they don't know where the money is coming from.

Yet I haven't seen any calls for the excavators, backhoe operators, asphalt vendors, or other suppliers to donate their services, have you?

We support workers. When Bennington teachers stand up to the school board people around here are very enthusiastic. 

It's not our fight, but that's the point. The workers have to stand up for themselves, and we should support them.

At a discussion board I go to, City-Data.com, a conservative posted the following query:

There are a lot of responses to it. Here’s mine:

I won’t go all the way back to the day of my birth, but just a few highlights of government benefits that have helped me include:

I went to Catholic grammar school and high school, but my grammar school was located on a road paid for and maintained by the government. When I went to high school I traveled into New York City every day over government-built roads, crossed the Hudson River by means of the George Washington Bridge or the Lincoln Tunnel, both of which were built by the government, and then took public transit to get to my school. I regularly spent time in the government-operated Central Park while at school, and during the indoor track season I would have practice and meets at the 103rd Engineers Battalion Armory, now known as the Armory Track Center. Sometimes during the outdoor track season I would run in meets at Randalls Island, a stadium built with public funds; to get there I would travel across the Triborough Bridge.

I went to a public college and a public law school. Both universities were funded in large part by tax dollars, and my law school student loan was subsidized by the federal government. On occasion, while I was away at school, I traveled by airplane back and forth to my parents’ house. Those airplanes would land at publicly built and financed airports, and they were enabled to land safely by the publicly operated air traffic control system. While in law school I lived in married student housing, which was also built and operated in part by the use of public funds. I also worked at Little Caesar’s Pizza both as an undergraduate and a law student; the stores depended on public roads to get supplies and ingredients and to make deliveries, and the owners were able to deduct my pay from their taxes.

I have worked in employment that is in part funded by public funds. I have raised two sons, both of whom went to public schools and public universities, although one son graduated from a private college. When I want to communicate with them I might send them an e-mail or visit them on Facebook, made possible by the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency, or I might telephone them over wires put in place by operation of eminent domain.

I have owned three houses, one of which I still own. I am able to afford it in part because I can deduct the mortgage interest and property taxes that I pay. I can get to and from my house and to work on roads funded by the government. I don’t worry about crime or fires because I am able to rely on my publicly funded police and fire departments. I also know that I can accumulate savings because the federally financed Securities and Exchange Commission is able to maintain a reliable, market for private and public securities.

When my parents were sick and dying I never had to worry about whether we could afford their care because they had medical coverage supported in part by the Veterans Administration and Medicare. They were able to receive treatment from professionals whose training was subsidized by the federal government, and who were licensed and regulated by their state government. That’s how other members of my family and I get medical care, too.

I could go on, but I think I’ll stop at saying that anyone who doubts that the receive benefits from the government is a fool.

I do know one other thing: if I were in the top 1% instead of in the bottom 99%, the list of benefits I get from government would be a lot longer, and the value and price of those benefits would be a lot higher.

Pat McDonald, the chair of the Vermont Republican Party, put the state's Republicans squarely in the Ebenezer Scrooge wing of the party exemplified by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

It's not surprising that Eric Cantor would publicly take the position, “Screw the flood victims! No aid without tax cuts,” but it's a bit surprising that the Republicans in Vermont would take that same line. Sure enough, though, that's what she's doing. As Bob Kinzel reported on VPR this afternoon:

She also wants [Shumlin] to pledge not to increase any taxes for recovery programs and to begin to implement Republican plans to reform education financing in the state. (McDonald) “We've got to make some really tough decisions going forward to get people back on their feet to get businesses open and people back to work.”

McDonald's so-called action plan, posted on the state Republican Party's web page, calls for freezes and cuts to all other state programs to prepare to return some taxpayer dollars to the state treasury. She also wants to use the crisis to push “education finance reforms” that state Republicans have been pushing for in recent years to attack local control and slash state support for schools, and to raid the Housing and Conservation Board.

 Republicans in Congress last week have been threatening to shut down the government because Democrats in the House and Senate want to provide hurricane and flood relief to states that were hit hard by Hurricane Irene, including Vermont, although late developments suggest that a deal may be in the works. As Cantor put it right after the storm went through:

he believed any additional funding to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster response budget should be taken from other government programs. The FEMA budget is reportedly under strain after relief responses to the Midwest tornadoes and Virginia earthquake.

But McDonald? There are people in Vermont still working hard every day to clean up after last month's flooding.

There are people in her own town of Berlin who have been made homeless by the flooding and are still looking for help. But what's her plan? Use the catastrophe that Vermonters are suffering for an opportunity to push her agenda of cutting taxes and undermining public education.

I just have one question for Pat McDonald: Have you no shame?

UPDATE: TPM is back up and running. they have the full story on their site, and still no direct evidence of the involvement of “Anonymous” at this point, but the story is still developing.

This evening Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo posted a note on TPM’s Facebook page describing a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) that caused the site to crash at about 5:00 this afternoon.

There has been no claim of responsibility, but the attack comes on the heels of TPM’s publication of fourteen mugshots of members of Anonymous, the “hacktivist” group that has been linked to related attacks on media and other outlets for taking action against Wikileaks.

This attack on freedom of the press is a serious threat, and demonstrates an ugly totalitarian streak in an organization that has allegedly taken a position in favor of public dissent.

Anyone who has been supportive or sympathetic of Anonymous to this point should reconsider supporting an organization that appears to be attempting to crush, rather than support, dissent.

Tea Party Congressman Calls For Tax Breaks To Put Out Raging Wildfire In District

WASHINGTON-With a massive wildfire currently raging out of control in his district, Tea Party Caucus member Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) pressed Congress to pass immediate tax breaks Tuesday to combat the rapidly spreading blaze.

Or this:

House Republican Bill Cuts Hurricane Monitoring Funds That Help Save Millions Of Dollars

In the wake of Hurricane Irene, which caused billions of dollars in damages up and down the U.S.’s eastern seaboard, House Republicans are callously claiming that any aid to victims of the disaster needs to be offset by budget cuts elsewhere. The savings favored by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) would come from cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and first responders.

Pretty hard to tell, isn’t it?

The recall elections in Wisconsin are done but the fight’s not over.

The first Monday of September is Labor Day, and every year in Wausau the unions sponsor a parade.

Guess who’s not invited this year.

Community parades often feature local politicians waving to the crowds, but this year’s annual Labor Day parade in Wausau may be short a few elected officials.

“Usually they’ve been in the parade, but it seems like they only want to stand with us one day a year, and the other 364 days they don’t really care,” said Randy Radtke, president of the council.

At least one Republican got his widdle feewings hurt:

“Having walked in this parade in past years,” the statement read, “Congressman Duffy was hoping that for a moment, we could set our differences aside and simply have some fun in a family-friendly event.”

Guess what, Duffy: show that you support labor and maybe you get to march in their parade. How does that sound?

Then what do you say about this?

Conservative radio host Glenn Beck told listeners Friday that Hurricane Irene, the Category 1 storm that’s working its deadly way up the Eastern Seaboard, is “a blessing from God.”

And we now have another Christian Republican, Michelle Bachman, and what she had to say about the hurricane.

“I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.”

They may not care, but even though the storm was weaker than predicted, it killed 37 people across the country, including at least three in Vermont.

The Republicans can feel free to cheer for natural disasters and the damage they cause, but those of us who live in the real world wind up having to deal with the consequences.

Here at GMD we've spent quite a bit of time on Tasers, and especially the Taser issue in Montpelier.

We're not going to stop because we think this is an important issue. Tonight I have just a quick update on what's been happening.

Last week I testified before Montpelier's Taser Advisory Committee and the testimony was covered by the Times Argus. You know the drill: the story's behind the paywall.

Here's the lede:

MONTPELIER — On Tuesday, the City Council’s Taser committee heard testimony from a Vermont Legal Aid attorney who said police in Vermont have used stun guns to torture people.

Jack McCullough, an attorney and director of the Mental Health Law Project at Vermont Legal Aid, pulled no punches in his assessment about whether Montpelier police should carry Tasers — they shouldn’t, he said.

Then today Mark Johnson covered Tasers on his program on WDEV. I know, this is sounding like the Jack McCullough show, but here's the link to me on the show.

I've lived in Montpelier since 1983 and I've been involved most of that time but I haven't had as many people wanting to talk to me about any political issue as this year with the Tasers. I don't think I've talked to a single person in Montpelier who supports Tasers for our police department.

It will be interesting to see what the Council does when it receives the committee's report in October.

UPDATE: I wasn’t sure it was going to go in this direction, but design expert John Huntington is now saying the Indiana State Fair has blood on their hands.

http://www.controlgeek.net/blo…

It’s tempting to call the stage collapse in Indiana this week a tragedy. It was certainly a tragic loss for the families of the dead and injured, that much is true. On the other hand, it appears that the organizers of the show should have known enough to evacuate the area, and especially to get the light operators down from the structure, before there was any loss of life. They had plenty of advance warning, and a nearby outdoor concert was evacuated in time based on the same information.

Whether the stage collapse was due to a fluke, unpredictable gust of wind known as a gustnado, and whether the force could have been anticipated, will undoubtedly be investigated in the coming weeks and months.

A different human tragedy, though, is entirely manmade, and could be easily remedied.

One of the concertgoers killed in the collapse was Christina Santiago, who had become known in the Chicago community as a dedicated advocate for gay women’s health care. Santiago, 29, was a program manager at the Howard Brown Health Center, which provides health and services for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.

It was reported on Facebook and Dailykos yesterday that the local coroner’s office was refusing to release the body to Santiago’s legally married spouse, Alisha Brennan, because of Indiana’s discriminatory marriage laws. This appears to be incorrect. In fact, the groups concerned with Santiago, Brennan, and their family are reportedly working with the coroner’s office to obtain release of the body.

Alfarena Ballew from the Marion County Coroner’s office called to offer this statement, “Her friend and her aunt are working together with the life partner to take care of the remains. We have nothing in writing from the partner asking to claim the body. Our records show that the next of kin is her aunt. Our understanding now is that they’re all working together to release the body and take care of the services.” Ms. Ballew described the incident as a “misunderstanding” and says the office is on track to release the body shortly.

Still, the bolded language above deserves special attention. Even in the face of a legal marriage, this government agency has determined that Santiago’s aunt is her next of kin. Would this be tolerated, or even suggested, if this were a married heterosexual couple?

To even ask the question is to answer it. It’s encouraging that this situation appears to be on its way to a resolution, and the coroner’s office appears to be handling it with sensitivity. Nevertheless, can someone explain to me how the public interest or family values are served by refusing to recognize this marriage?

Note: all the technical information about the storm and outdoor stage construction posted or referred to here comes from John Huntington, a colleague of my son at City Technical College in Brooklyn.