Thanks to Sue Prent for her coverage of the acquisition of riot gear (riots? In St. Albans?) by the St. Albans police department.

The militarization of policing in the United States has gotten some long-overdue attention, and now there is a site where you can see what various police agencies across the country have received. If you go to the site you can see that a lot of it is pretty inoccuous, stuff like computers, cold-weather boots for Alaska and hot-weather boots for Texas, fax machines, boats, medical supplies; maybe my favorite was “karaoke set, complete” for $1,200. Read long enough, though, and you'll also find things like “assault pack”, “armor kit”, hand grenade pouches, different types of guns, ammo, bandoliers, armored cars and trucks.

What I was curious about was what came to Vermont, and I found two separate listings: one is a listing of all the law enforcement agencies that got anything, and the other was the list of equpment sent to Vermont under the 1033 program. Not too many smoking guns (heh!) here, I'm afraid, but maybe someone with more time will come up with more information:

 VERMONT BENNINGTON COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT WINOOSKI POLICE DEPT

VERMONT HARDWICK POLICE DEPT

VERMONT VT CRIMINAL JUSTICE TRN COUN

VERMONT SHELBURNE POLICE DEPT

VERMONT VERGENNES POLICE DEPT

VERMONT NORTHFIELD POLICE DEPT

VERMONT ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT WINHALL POLICE DEPT

VERMONT LAMOILLE COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT RUTLAND POLICE DEPT

VERMONT BRATTLEBORO POLICE DEPT

VERMONT MIDDLEBURY POLICE DEPT

VERMONT RICHMOND POLICE DEPT

VERMONT VT STATE POLICE

VERMONT STOWE POLICE DEPT

VERMONT BRATTLEBORO POLICE DEPT

VERMONT COLCHESTER POLICE DEPT

VERMONT CHITTENDEN COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT SWANTON VILLAGE POLICE DEPT

VERMONT BENNINGTON POLICE DEPARTMENT

VERMONT BRANDON POLICE DEPT

VERMONT WINDHAM COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT RUTLAND COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT ORLEANS COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT BARRE CITY POLICE DEPT

VERMONT BURLINGTON POLICE DEPT

VERMONT SPRINGFIELD POLICE DEPT

VERMONT DOVER POLICE DEPT

VERMONT WATERBURY POLICE DEPT

VERMONT VT DEPT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE

VERMONT VERNON POLICE DEPT

VERMONT ESSEX POLICE DEPT

VERMONT SAINT JOHNSBURY POLICE DEPT

Today and tomorrow, August 8 and 9, mark the glorious fortieth anniversary of the end of the Nixon regime, so it's appropriate to look back, post some memories, and maybe think about the significance of the time.

Having watched it in real time I know that my memories and thoughts have changed over the last forty years. I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday my reaction the day I woke up and the news of the break-in broke. “Now they'll never vote to re-elect him” was literally my first thought. Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

Even looking back it's striking how completely this one story dominated the national attention throughout the summer of 1973, when I would get home from my summer job as a letter carrier to watch the hearings, and into the run-up to impeachment in the summer of 1974. I'll share a few of my observations and maybe you, our readers, will have some thoughts of your own to share.

==> One thing that the revelations of subsequent years have shown us is that Nixon may not have been worse than we thought at the time, but he was definitely worse than we knew. I'm talking, of course, about the fact that had been suspected but has since been confirmed that Nixon betrayed his country by trying to prevent an “October surprise” that would throw the election to Humphrey in 1968. To avoid this Nixon carried on secret communications with the government of South Vietnam urging them not to make any deals, but to hold out until he got into office when he would get them a better deal than they would get from the outgoing Johnson administration.  Think of the tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese whose deaths are directly attributable to this one action on Nixon's part.

==>Nixon and so many of the men–yes, they were all men– around him were lawyers. Not knowing any lawyers at the time I didn't really understand why it seemed so shocking that it was lawyers saying the things we hear on the tapes and making these decisions, but having spent thirty-five of those intervening years practicing law I now see just how shocking it was. Even if you don't attribute any particular virtue to lawyers, how could they not have considered the legal consequences and criminal liability as they sat in the Oval Office planning payoffs of a million dollars to convince potential witnesses to clam up or lie in order to protect the presidency? If nothing else, this level of criminality, in which the President, the Attorney General, and all of his top aides were in it up to their elbows proves that Nixon was uniquely corrupt in the ranks of American presidents.

==>Finally, the “where were you?” moment. We knew the resignation was coming, but I didn't get to see either of his last two speeches on television. The announcement of his resignation was on the evening of August 8, and while he was making his resignation speech I was at Pine Knob outside of Detroit at a Joni Mitchell concert. We knew the time was coming, and someone a few rows in front of us had a portable television, but we didn't see anything. Still, the crowd roared with one voice when Joni came onstage after a warmup set of dental music from her backup band, Tom Scott and the L.A. Express, and announced “The president has resigned!” 

What about you? Where were you and what do you remember? 

This isn't the kind of headline you usually see here, but there's a reason today. First, the headline:

Afghani mullah rapes ten-year-old girl; family wants to kill her

The story is every bit as horrific as the headlline leads you to believe, but that's not my point here. After all, the atrocities committed in the name of religion are limitless.

It is the kind of thing I'll share on my Facebook page, though, and here's the response I got from Ben Eastwood, the Progressive Party's candidate for Secretary of State:

 Ben Eastwood Whats up with all the anti muslim posts infecting facebook lately? There are thousands of girls right here in America that are raped, abused and murdered by supposedly christian attackers, so why are there posts condemning islam, when our own rape culture is not exactly a shining example. Jeesum. Yes it is a tragedy, but it is hardly news worthy,

 Yes, you got that right. “Nothing to see here, folks, just a little girl raped by a religious leader.”

Oh yes, and someone who points out the crimes of religious leaders is, in Mr. Eastwood's eyes, “anti-Muslim”!

 If you've been paying attention you've heard about the child rape scandal in the Catholic Church all across the world. Not only were the crimes rampant, the magisterium of the church, right up to the very top, did everything they could do to cover them up.

 I have to wonder if Mr. Eastwood considers those of us who have criticized the Catholic Church for its crimes to be anti-Catholic.

If anyone's anti-Muslim here it's not us, but the man who apparently believes that child rape is the very essence of Islam.

And if Mr. Eastwood wants to tell us which child rapes are newsworthy in his view and which ones are not, well, we're all ears. 

Seven Days has a good story on the Montpelier Boy Scouts controversy today.

Again, Thierry Guerlain distinguishes himself in his stand for principle. As quoted in Seven Days, Guerlain says:

 “They went from teaching the boys discrimination to also teaching them spite,” said Guerlain, who called the decision not to volunteer at the event a “spiteful move” on the part of local Boy Scout leaders. “I’m surprised that we’re even discussing the fact that it’s more important to get the trash picked up conveniently by the Boy Scouts than to respect the civil rights of lesbian and gay parents who are disinvited from the Boy Scouts.”

I keep thinking about this and I think about what this means to the participating Boy Scouts. I was a Cub Scout for a few years but I was never a Boy Scout, but I always thought that the organization had something to do with citizenship. In fact, I could almost swear that I read something about it, something like this:

 The Boy Scouts of America is one of the nation's largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations. The BSA provides a program for young people that builds character, trains them in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and develops personal fitness.

 The parade is part of Montpelier's Independence Day celebration, recognizing the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Here's part of what the Declaration has to say about citizenship:

 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

It's not just me, but I have to say that the “created equal” thing, as well as the “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” thing, are pretty relevant both to this issue and to recognizing full citizenship for our fellow Americans. Funny that the Boy Scouts don't see it the same way.

And the other thing about citizenship is that it has a lot to do with petitioning your government, engaging in a dialogue with bodies like the Montpelier City Council in a political way to bring them over to your side of an issue. By failing to show up, the leaders of the Montpelier Boy Scouts deprived the Scouts of an opportunity to participate in citizenship in a very direct way; they also deprived the community of the chance to have that dialogue.

As our own John Odum said (again quoted in Seven Days):  “The local scouting organization simply walked away and slammed the door on their way out,” wrote Odum in an email to Seven Days. “Just think of the messages they are sending to the kids themselves by just walking away at the first hint of a difference of opinion: that its OK to angrily dismiss others' deeply held beliefs, OK to walk away from commitments, and that its fine to stand by while homophobic comments are being spread, supposedly on their behalf.”

This is not a pot-kettle thing, this was a total failure of the Boy Scouts hierarchy to live up to their stated principles. 

A little controversy popped up in Montpelier a couple of weeks ago, and even though it's no longer a debate in the City Council, it's still attracting attention and generating some angry words.

Okay, I'm not going to bury the lede: Mayor John Hollar and Councilor Thierry Guerlain did the right thing when they stood up for principle even when the other side was the ultimate American-as-apple-pie organization, the Boy Scouts of America. 

Let's start with what did not happen. The Montpelier City Council did not bar the Boy Scouts from the city's annual Independence Day celebration. It's true, they won't be there selling bottled water or collecting garbage, but it's also true that they chose not to make their case to the Council.

The Montpelier City Council publishes an agenda for every meeting, and part of that agenda is called the consent agenda, a list of items that are considered so uncontroversial that they can be expected to pass without debate. Any member who thinks an item on the consent agenda will require debate can ask to have that item removed from the consent agenda.

That's what happened a couple of weeks ago, when Council member Theirry Guerlain asked to have the request by the Boy Scouts for permission to sell bottled water removed from the consent agenda. Guerlain's reasoning was that the anti-gay position of the Boy Scouts of America is a big deal, and is worthy of full debate. All but one of the council members agreed, so the request was passed to the next scheduled meeting, last Wednesday.

What happened next was pretty simple: faced with the opportunity to explain their position on gays in scouting, or to make their case for why the Boy Scouts and the good deeds they do are worthy of support even despite their antigay positions, the Boy Scouts just didn't show up, depriving themselves and the people of Montpelier of a chance to debate the issues.

By the way, and to show their public spirit, the Boy Scouts also won't be volunteering to clean up the site, which they've been doing for years. 

The letters to the editor section has been filled with criticism of the Council, and particularly Hollar and Guerlain, with letter writers tossing around terms like “bullying” and questioning whether the next step is to interrogate the hot dog vendor on “whether he believes in Jesus as his savior or Allah and Mohammed as his choice for spiritual guidance“.

Even my friend John Walters, one of the more astute observers of the Vermont political scene, seems to be missing the key point on this. Here's what he says at his new blog, thevpo.org, explaining that discriminating against gays in 2014 is not exactly like buying Krugerrands during the height of apartheid:

 Since then, I’ve realized that while Guerlain and like-minded Councilors were being petty and small-minded, so were the local Scouts.

I disagree. I think Thierry Guerlain had it exactly right:

 “I hope that we don’t approve (the vendor requests), and I hope that it makes national press, and I hope that the message gets to Washington that we said no,” said Guerlain. “We’re not going to let a group that openly discriminates against gays sell water at our parade. … It’s difficult, it’s uncomfortable, but I think it’s our chance to do the right thing.”

 This is not a matter of raising highfalutin' principles over petty disputes. The speed with which marriage equality and social disapproval of discrimination against gays and lesbians have spread throughout our society has been inspirational. You can't just say that the Boy Scouts' discriminatory practices should be overlooked because of the other good they do, or because their brand of discrimination isn't as bad as other types of discrimination we have struggled, and continue to struggle, to overcome.

We're Vermont. We were the first state to outlaw slavery, and we actually did divest from South Africa back in 1986. We have led the nation in gay rights, and we don't have to accept discrimination just to get volunteers to clean up after our parade.

John Hollar, Thierry Guerlain, and the council members who voted with them got it right.  

Last week the House of Representatives voted almost unanimously to add a plaque bearing a prayer to the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The bill, officially called “The World War II Memorial Prayer Act of 2013,” has been on the wish list for right-wingers for years. It is also, without a doubt, unconstitutional.

A bit of history: The World War II Memorial, located on the Mall in Washington, D.C., was authorized by legislation signed by President Clinton in 1993.  It is the first national memorial dedicated to all who served during World War II and acknowledging the commitment and achievement of the entire nation, and it has been open for ten years.

Since 2011 this bill has been pending in Congress, over the objection of the Obama administration, and the bill would change the memorial by adding a plaque setting forth the prayer delivered by President Franklin Roosevelt in a radio address on D-Day. The bill was pushed in the Senate by conservatives like Rob Portman, Joe Lieberman, and Mary Landrieu, and was passed in the Senate on a unanimous consent request earlier this month.  Monday it passed the House of Representatives, 370-12.

 As I said, the bill clearly violates the Constitution. You know, that whole “Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion” thing?

The Supreme Court has a long-standing test to evaluate Establishment Clause challenges, called the Lemon test from the case, Lemon v. Kurtzman, in which it was first enunciated. In order to survive a constitutional challenge, the government action must pass all three elements of the test:

The statute must not result in an “excessive government entanglement” with religious affairs. (also known as the Entanglement Prong)

The statute must not advance or inhibit religious practice (also known as the Effect Prong)

The statute must have a secular legislative purpose. (also known as the Purpose Prong).

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_v._Kurtzman

 In this case there is no problem with the entanglement prong: the plaque doesn't involve any interaction between a religious group and the government because it is simply the words actually used by FDR.

 The second prong is more problematic, as the plaque will not only advance but also embody a specific prayer in a national monument.

Finally, the third prong is clearly violated: regardless of the disingenuous claims we can expect to hear from the bill's proponents, it is impossible that the purpose of the bill is anything but to advance religion. As Americans United for the Separation of Church and State pointed out in their written statement:

 When Senator Rob Portman and Senator Joseph Lieberman spoke about the bill on the Senate floor upon its introduction, they both noted the religious significance of adding the prayer. Senator Portman explained that the new inscription will be a “permanent reminder of . . . the power of prayer through difficult times.”6 And Senator Lieberman stated his belief that the prayer will “remind us that faith in God has played a pivotal role in American history every day since the Declaration of Independence.”

 Talk about faith in god and the power of prayer is not secular, it is the precise opposite: an effort to use the government to advance the claims of religion in contravention of the Constitution.

I encourage our readers to contact the White House and urge President Obama to veto this legislation. 

Norwich University is a military school justly known for its peace studies program, now known as Studies in War and Peace. Today it was one of the biggest warmongers of recent years speaking to a crowd of nearly three thousand.

 Yes, as we posted the other day, Condoleezza Rice was the speaker this morning, and as the event unfolded it was clear that I wasn't the only one who could not imagine letting the event go by unchallenged.

The Burlington Free Press is reporting that several protesters were there, calling her a war criminal and repeatedly interrupting her speech.

 Among the protesters was longtime Vermont activist Ed Stanak, who made the following remarks:

 I respect your First Amendment rights to give a speech but I have an obligation as an American citizen to confront you as a war criminal.

– You lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction.

-You acquiesced in the use of torture as national policy.

– You are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and the destruction of Iraqi Infrastructure.

-And you are responsible for the deaths of more than 4,000 American service members.

One of the first Americans to die was a Vermonter who grew up just 40 miles from here in South Burlington . Marine corporal Mark Envin was only 21 years old when he died.

The other American were dead are…[ before being able to read the names of American war dead, Stanak was escorted from the Shapiro Field House exclaiming “War criminal ! “ and “No justice, no peace ! “ ]

(Posted by Ed Stanak on his daughter's Facebook page.)

Naturally Rice made a show of being tolerant, while characterizing the protesters as “those who would defend Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda”. Yes, she's still peddling the lie that there was some connection between the two.

Oh, one other thing: if you want to see the video of the protest you're out of luck because Norwich killed the video feed.

Thank you to Ed Stanak and the other protesters who stood up to the lies of this war apologist. 

Busy Thursday morning? If not, you might want to make time to listen to one of our more notorious war criminals and possibly our most incompetent National Security Advisor.

Yes, Condoleezza Rice is coming to Norwich University Thursday morning and they still have free tickets left! All you need to do is follow the link and fill in your information for the event.

This seems to be a good week to be thinking about Rice, what with the predictable (and amply predicted) collapse and disintegration of Iraq, thanks to her efforts, happening before our very eyes.

Maybe there will be a Q&A session where she can be induced to reprise some of her lies. You remember these classics, right?

The aluminum tubes “are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs”.

 “[W]e don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

“I never saw intelligence casting doubt on Bush Administration WMD claims.” (Paraphrase)

Since the governing principle of Rice's foreign policy positions is that the United States must defeat the Soviet Union, she must feel the time for a comeback is at hand. I think the destruction of Iraq, and her role in creating the current civil war, is what she should be questioned about.

In the wake of the nominating filings and the endless analysis you'll hear about them, I want to reassure my colleagues that we will still have joke candidates to watch at the statewide level. JV is correct in pointing out that there aren't many joke candidates out there, but the cupboard (or nut barrel?) is not completely bare.

In addition to perennial joke candidate Em Peyton, I count one joke candidate on the Democratic ballot.

Yes, our friend Brooke Paige, who took his quixotic birther quest from Montpelier all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, has filed petitions as a Democratic candidate for governor.

 Can we expect a series of heated debates in which Peter Shumlin is called upon to prove that he really was born in Brattleboro, on the right side of the river? Will it be questions about his bona fides as a Vermonter because his mother was born in the Netherlands? 

Or will the candidacy of Mr. Paige meet the fate of most fringe candidates: little attention and fewer votes?

Stay tuned to find out, but I have a feeling that today's post might be the last thing you hear about Paige's candidacy. 

 No sooner did I post this than Christian Avard,an old friend of GMD, reminded me that we also have Cris Ericson running on the Marijuana Party ticket. We'll see if she uses this year's election to reprise her anti-semitic attacks on supporters of Israel she used when she was running for Senate in 2010.

As the petition deadline approaches rumors are starting to come true. Try to pay attention over the sound of champagne corks popping (on both sides of the aisle) over the announcement that Peter Galbraith won't be running for reelection.

First, Martha Heath has made it official. Throughout the legislative session the State House was filled with speculation that Heath, the long-time chair of House Appropriations, would not be returning. Yesterday she announced it was the end, quoted by VPR as saying,“You know there are a whole lot of reasons, but when you add them up they come down to the fact that my head and my heart are telling me that it’s time.”

More of a surprise was the announcement of Kathy Hoyt. Just appointed by Governor Shumlin to fill the seat vacated by the resignation of Margaret Cheney in September, Hoyt told the Valley News that her resignation is due to health problems.   “I turned 72 last week, and that just said that if this is happening, and no one in the medical community can tell me why I passed out and hit my head and woke up two hours later, it’s very unsettling. So I decided that the timing’s not right,” she said.

 Potential Democratic candidates to replace her include Tim Briglin, who is currently serving as the Treasurer of the Vermont Democratic Party, and Jill Michaels, who has served in various capacities in the State Democratic Committee.

 Of coures everyone's waiting for the biggie–what's Shap going to do?–but that will have to wait for another day.