Back in early January, Senator Bob Hartwell raised some eyebrows in the enviro community when he came out against expanding the Bottle Bill to include water bottles. Instead, he asserted that the Bottle Bill’s days are numbered, thanks to the coming new era of recycling:

“I think we need to face up to the fact that everything is going to go through the single-stream systems,” Hartwell said. “At some point, the bottle bill will be eliminated.”

Hartwell chairs the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, so his statement made the news. He may well have a point, but he’s at odds with environmental groups pushing to expand the bill, not kill it.  

At about the same time, Hartwell made some other comments that went largely unnoticed, but ought to cause an even bigger stir: He cast doubt on Vermont’s goal of 90% renewable energy by the year 2050, as formalized in the Comprehensive Energy Plan. His comments came on Vermont Senate Spotlight, a cable TV show hosted by the George Stephanopoulos of Vermont Community Access, Michael Abadi, best known in these parts as former host of VT Blogosphere TV.  

And in making a case against the 90% goal, Hartwell sounded a whole lot like a Republican — more concerned with cost than with climate change.

There’s a stunning amount of… oil and gas in North America. I think we have to figure out if were going to use a lot of it. Certainly there’s a lot of proposals for expansion of natural gas in Vermont, which would reduce the cost of doing business. And we have a very high cost of doing business in Vermont.

We definitely need to deal with it… The part about the Comprehensive Energy Plan that bothers me a little was the 90% renewables by 2050, because it’s a little hard to tell where it came from. And it’s not in state law. So I think we’re going to look at that part as to whether — because the temptation is to try to reach a goal that may be temporary, or may be somehow inaccurate or unachievable, and that could cost us a lot of money if we mishandle that.

So we’re going to look at that part and we’re going to make sure to look at the entire picture of what’s going to be available to us in the future.

Did you notice what was missing in that little disquisition? How about “climate change,” “greenhouse gases,” and even “environment.” Instead, we get “cost,” “cost,” and “cost.” And an implicit endorsement of fossil fuels, including fracked gas and tar sands oil.

After the jump: Aiming squarely at Vermont’s renewables goal.

And we get a direct assault on the 90% goal itself: “it’s a little hard to tell where it came from.” Well, Bob, it came from a lengthy multi-agency process that included a huge quantity of input from stakeholders, interest groups, and the general public. It came from people a whole lot more informed than Bob Hartwell. “Hard to tell where it came from,” indeed.

Here we have the chairman of the Senate’s committee on environment and energy — a Democrat, mind you — stating his desire to rip open the CEP and, apparently, eviscerate it.

I’ve been told that Senator Hartwell has a solid environmental record. He’s certainly not acting like it these days. Maybe he wasn’t all that solid in the first place. Maybe his head’s been turned by all the lobbyists who target the SNRE chair. Maybe he’s attacking the CEP as part of his crusade against ridgeline wind energy: remove the 90% target, and there’s no official impetus for expanding renewables.

I don’t know. But I think Hartwell’s anti-CEP talk is bigger news than his opposition to the Bottle Bill.  

Hmmm. Up in the little town of Westford (east of Milton, north of the Essexes, population 2086), a curious event has taken place. Right around the deadline for making the Town Meeting agenda, a petition was submitted that calls for the closing of the Westford Elementary School, and the creation of an independent school in its place.

The petition cleared muster, so it’ll be up for a vote at Westford’s Town Meeting on March 3.

As reported by VPR, the petition came as a surprise to the school board:

The board said the petition raises many questions, and school directors will do their best to research the answers. Some of the yet-to-be-answered questions identified by the board are:

— Should we vote to close our school without knowing any of the details about what might replace it?

… — How can we compare the present quality of the school to what might replace it?

— Should the town give up its public school and lose its voice in how the school is run and how much it costs?

… The motivation behind the petition appears to be a desire to divorce the school from the state education funding formula.

According to the town website, a petition must be signed by at least 5% of registered voters. Which, in Westford, means a grand total of 72 valid signatures. So it’s kind of a low bar to surmount, but it does require some coordinated effort.

Now, I have no idea what happened here. It could very well be that a group of dedicated residents is fed up with rising property taxes and wants to force the issue. But I smell something else.  

Could this be the start of an organized campaign by state conservatives to spread the gospel of privatization town by town — targeting small towns where a small number of local activists could carry the day at Town Meeting? Again, I have no evidence that such a thing is happening, but it’s certainly not a stretch. Privatization activists have been stymied by Shumlin Administration opposition at the state level; they have a model to imitate in North Bennington’s move to an independent school; and it wouldn’t be the first time that conservative groups targeted small communities and low-profile elections to advance their agenda.

As far as I know, it’s only one town this year. (Question for VPR: is this happening in other towns?) But if it succeeds in Westford, could we see a wave of similar petitions next year? Perhaps targeting small communities that lean conservative anyway? There’s a lot of those.

It’s just a ping on the radar for now. But it might turn out to be something much bigger on the horizon.  

When Democrats had the unfortunate task of filling a Senate vacancy created by the death of Sally Fox, an impressively strong list of candidates put themselves forward. And one of my idle thoughts was, Gee, I wish we could have all of these people in the Senate. And get rid of some of the deadwood in the process.

Purely a passing fancy, since doing so would mean ignoring residency requirements, not to mention that pesky “right to elect your representatives” thing. But the thought came back again as I watched, in car-crash-esque fascination, part of last Friday’s session of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee. If Senators had to prove their fitness to serve through job performance, I think we would have had ourselves a couple of quick vacancies afterward.

The occasion was a perfunctory appearance by VPIRG’s Paul Burns, to testify in opposition to a pair of bills designed to put new obstacles in the way of renewable energy projects. “Perfunctory” because Burns knew his testimony would fall on deaf ears, since SNRE is stacked with senators publicly opposed to ridgeline wind energy: four antis plus Mark MacDonald. So, he didn’t try to hide his awareness of that fact and — very unusual for a Statehouse advocate — barely concealed his contempt for certain members of the committee. To wit, His Eminence Peter “The Slummin’ Solon” Galbraith, Legend In His Own Mind, and the Kingdom’s Own John Rodgers, whose very presence makes me yearn for the halcyon days of Vince Illuzzi.

And the two un-esteemed Senators lived down to Burns’ expectations and returned the scorn in spades. The whole performance is worth watching, and fortunately it’s been posted on YouTube. Takes about 15 minutes.

Burns disposed of his obligation to put VPIRG on the record, and the floor was open for questions. Galbraith immediately pounced, with a question that seems pointless until you know the backstory: He’s got his knickers in a twist over something VPIRG staffer Ben Walsh wrote in a message to the group’s email list. A message sent IN THE YEAR 2012.

His Eminence knows how to hold a grudge. How the hell did this guy ever make it as a diplomat???

After Galbraith batted this around and Burns calmly held his ground (“I stand by that email in its entirety”), the cudgel was passed to Rodgers, who is apparently pursuing his sworn duty to uphold the Northeast Kingdom Way of Life (grinding poverty and underdevelopment) by opposing any and all wind projects in his bailiwick. Because every ridgeline is sacred, and we cannot disturb a single stone even if the benefit is a steady stream of new tax revenue and renewable energy.

Rodgers figuratively leapt at the chance to play Mr. Inquisitor, treating Burns as a hostile witness just begging to be broken. His first line of inquiry was about his desire for a full accounting of the carbon cost of a wind farm — the greenhouse gases emitted in construction versus the emissions saved by turbine operation. The ensuing colloquy:  

Burns: If you can assess the life cycle of an energy source, I don’t know if you can. But clearly, wind would come out near the top of the list.

Rodgers: I want a simple yes or no. When you have an industrial wind development, should we know what carbon they’ve emitted in construction versus the carbon savings from production of emergy.

Burns: If you can do that for all energy sources —

Rodgers: Yes or no!

Burns: For one source? No.

Rodgers: Okay. So we don’t care. And the other point — so we don’t want to know.

Brilliant, Mr. Rodgers. You’ve set a trap of your own devising and pretended to catch your quarry. What you “don’t care” about is the truth, because you’re an absolute opponent of ridgeline wind, and nothing will change your mind.

The Honorable Dogmatist then turned his attention to an inconvenient truth for wind opponents: the Castleton Polling Institute survey that showed a huge majority of Vermonters in favor of ridgeline wind.

Rodgers: Now, the Castleton poll, is that the one you’re quoting? The numbers overwhelmingly in favor?

Burns: That’s the most recent poll.

Rodgers: The pollster has pointed out that, when it’s broken down further, every area where an industrial wind site was proposed, they were against it. It’s easy for those not impacted to vote in favor of something that will impact their neighbor. I don’t need a response from him, I just wanted to make that point. The Castleton poll should not be taken on a whole. It can be broken down and give you a different result.

I pause for a moment to note that of course Rodgers doesn’t need a response, because he must know he’s about to get hammered.

Burns: Senator, with respect that is false.

Rodgers: No, it’s not.

Burns: That is false information. I’ve spoken with the head of the Castleton Polling Institute, who explained in detail that that information simply is false.. He did not break it down by town; it cannot be broken down by town. What he did provide me, however, was the regional breakdown. And in every region of the state, there was overwhelming support for wind development on ridgelines. You are incorrect, and I would love to have an explanation for how you keep saying this when it is explicitly and absolutely false.

Oh snap! Ball’s in your court, Johnny boy.

Rodgers: It was written in publications. Someone interviewed the pollster.

Sharp. “I read it someplace.” But do continue.

Rodgers: So I don’t know where you got your information —

Burns: I spoke with the pollster.

At this point, Rodgers discards the poll issue, having been thoroughly posterized.

Rodgers: But I also know that in my area, we have had official votes — not polls, official votes of registered voters, and you can’t deny the results of those votes.

Burns: I don’t deny that. I simply take issue with your spreading false information as fact.

At this point, SNRE chair Robert Hartwell broke it up, perhaps to spare his depantsed ally Rodgers any further embarrassment. But Galbraith was lying in wait. And even as Hartwell tried to wrap up Burns’ testimony, His Eminence seized the chance to revisit another old, but lovingly held, offense.

Galbraith: I just have a comment because I think there’s a style of making a case here, which is if your views are shared by somebody who has an extreme view, therefore your views are discredited. And I was reflecting, where have I haard that kind of tactic before? And I think back to Joe McCarthy. That really is the tactic.

At this point, a chorus of voices erupts and Hartwell brings the testimony to a close.

Galbraith’s picking at an old scab here. And using one of the harshest terms in our political language: McCarthyism. So how exactly did Paul Burns commit the dastardly act of guilt by association and banishment of his opponents to the unending limbo of political exile?

Well, remember in early February 2013 when Bernie Sanders held a pro-renewables rally at the State House? Burns was one of the speakers, and his address included the following passage (text provided by VPIRG):

You might say this is our Kansas moment.  Back in 2005, the Kansas Board of Education famously rejected the teaching of evolution in public schools there in favor of creationism (or intelligent design).  This rejection of science brought much scorn upon the state and later the decision was reversed.  But the damage to the state’s reputation was done.

So, what will Vermont do at this critical time?

Galbraith misinterpreted Burns as conflating opposition to wind energy with creationism. But the plain meaning of Burns’ remarks is this: opponents of evolution ignore science, and opponents of wind energy ignore established science about the benefits of wind power. It’s a matter of process, not of absolute equivalency.

At the time, Galbraith got all huffy and interrupted a Senate debate a few days later to issue a Point of Personal Privilege in which he lambasted Burns for characterizing wind opponents as “deniers of the science of climate change, and the equivalent of creationists who deny evolution,” expressed his hope that the debate “will proceed in a civil fashion,”  and decried the use of “extreme language and name-callling.”

Well, nearly a year has passed, and Galbraith is still enraged about his misinterpretation of something Paul Burns said last February.

I ask again, how in hell did this guy ever make it as a diplomat?

As for his hope for civil debate, I suggest His Eminence take a good look at his fellow Windies. As I wrote in January 2013:

VPIRG, VNRC, the Sierra Club, and the other pro-wind environmental groups — who spend long hours for low pay trying to defend our environment — have been accused of selling out their principles to some sort of vaguely defined Blittersdorf/Iberdrola big wind cartel.

Those accusations extend to, of all people, Bernie Sanders. In a comment thread below the VTDigger article on Bernie’s opposition to the moratorium, he is accused of being “energy-illiterate, on the take from Big Wind, or both” (Mary Barton), “violat[ing] truth and public trust” and “attempts to manipulate through outright misrepresentation of facts”  and cronyism (Peggy Sapphire), doing favors for the wind industry and not knowing “how wind energy actually works” (Will Amidon), “a raging hypocrite” (Ellin Anderson) and of selling out for a campaign contribution from David Blittersdorf (our ol’ buddy Patrick Cashman).

“Respectful,” indeed. The vast majority of the vituperation in this debate has come from the anti-wind crowd.

And Galbraith has more than done his part in that respect. In addition to his depiction of Burns as a latter-day Roy Cohn, he has also (according to Burns’ account of a conversation between the two men) compared Burns to Mussolini. Hey, congrats for avoiding the Hitler reference, Petey!

Credit to Paul Burns for standing his ground under this unwarranted and inaccurate cross-examination. And while he managed to refrain from exactly the sort of name-calling he’s all too often been subjected to, I feel no such restraint. So…

Senator Galbraith, you are a narcissistic, self-important gasbag. You are far too quick to take offense, and you cling tenaciously to offenses, real and imagined, for far too long. You like to think of yourself as a champion of civility and parliamentary process, when in fact you are a jackass of the first order.

Senator Rodgers, like your allies in the anti-wind movement, you grasp tenaciously to anything that might possibly support your cause no matter how dubious, while willfully ignoring the preponderance of evidence proving that ridgeline wind is a popular, efficient, and environmentally friendly source of green, renewable energy. One of the best, as Burns put it. And while you believe you are serving the short-term views of your constituency — or the subset of your constituency you choose to listen to — you are failing to advance their longer-term interests by blocking a relatively clean form of energy and development.

There, I said it. The videotape proves it.  

Today’s Mitchell Family Organ brings the sad news of Karen Kerin’s passing. Kerin was the notorious perpetual candidate for Attorney General — as a Republican and, later, as a Libertarian. She was last seen racking up 2.7% of the vote on the Lib ticket in 2010.

I never met her, and I doubt I’d agree with any of her ideas. But she led one hell of an interesting, and decidedly bumpy, life:

Born Charles P. Kerin Jr., Feb. 3, 1944, in Barre, Vt., the oldest child of Charles P. Kerin Sr. and Ellen (Douglass) Kerin.

Charles grew up as an Army brat and lived in Munich, Germany, as well as Virginia and Massachusetts, graduating high school at 16 years old from Hingham High School. Married to Regina Stone in June 1963, they had six children and divorced in 1989. Charles changed his name to Karen Ann Kerin and married Mary Aschenberg in November 1996.

More from the bio posted on her (still extant) 2010 campaign website:

Karen is a survivor of many medical calamities starting at age two with an appendix removal. Karen, as the result of a very uncommon cancer, endured the removal of her left lung and virtually all of her urinary and reproductive organs, sparing only her kidneys. Medically that is pretty much what transsexuals seek, but for Karen, it was simply a matter of survival.

The media can not understand that a transsexual Karen is not a wild eyed radical seeking to gain from government as is true of so many minority groups.

So, for ten years there has been a drumbeat by media to portray Karen as something other than who she is – specifically, a fiscally conservative, pro-liberty supporter of the law as created by the nation and state founders.

Again, not much common ground between her and the GMD community. But she was one of a kind, for sure. My best to her wife Mary and surviving kin.  

Ah, wonderful news from the mad scientists at UVM:

Researchers at the University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center have discovered that sugar maple saplings produce the same sweet liquid that mature trees yield.

Sugar maple saplings can out-produce mature trees by an order of magnitude. A plantation-style crop of 6,000 saplings can produce 400 gallons of syrup per acre, while a mature sugarbush of 80 mature maple trees produces 40 gallons per acre, researchers say.

Saplings are ready to harvest in seven years, while mature trees take four decades to tap.

Er, yeah, a little free PR advice? Try to avoid using the word “plantation” when referring to a new method of agriculture. How about “orchard” instead? You’re welcome.

Anyhoo, this new breakthrough, they say, could provide “a relatively cheap and easy way to grow a maple operation.”

Yep, I’m picturing that scene from The Matrix where Neo wakes up in the goo-pod and discovers that the entire human race is being harvested for the benefit of the Machine Overlords. (Whoops, Spoiler Alert!) Except instead of people, we’ve got saplings having their precious bodily fluids sucked dry throughout their newly miserable life cycles.

I’m also picturing vast maple planta — sorry, orchards — covering mile after mile of formerly abandoned Vermont farms and newly-clearcut Vermont forests. Kinda like the sheep boom of the early 19th Century all over again.

That’d be a hoot — a core aspect of the Vermont Way Of Life transformed into a landscape-depleting mega-industry. Probably far-fetched, but I wonder how our arch-traditionalists (of all political stripes) would react to the prospect.  Somebody notify Annette Smith, stat!

Sometime last week, when no one was looking, Governor Shumlin signed the Peter Shumlin Bailout Act of 2014 — er, that is, the campaign finance reform bill. You know, the one stitched together by a team of mad scientists during the Legislative offseason? The one that’s far worse than the watered-down version that got stuck in the mud last spring?

The one that puts the lie to the notion that Democrats are in favor of limiting the influence of money in politics? Yeah, that’s the one. As first reported last week by Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz:

Asked Thursday afternoon when it would be signed into law, Gov. Peter Shumlin’s spokeswoman Sue Allen said the deed’s already been done.

… If you were waiting for a public signing with a crowd of supporters and plenty of pens to give away, you apparently didn’t miss anything.

Following Heintz’ inquiry, Allen released a public statement. Here it is, in its glorious entirety:

Jeebus H. Christ. If that announcement were any briefer, it’d disappear into a black hole of its own formation. It’s safe to say the Governor’s office is fully aware of how embarrassing this bill is.    

The bill, for those just joining us, substantially raises the limits on individual and corporate giving in a way that immediately benefits precisely one person: Peter Shumlin. He’s the only state officeholder or candidate who’s maxed out a significant portion of his donor base. He’s already got a campaign kitty rich enough to discourage any sensible Republican, and now he’ll be able to go back to his core supporters and ask for even more.

In the slightly longer run, the bill will solidify the two major parties by allowing them to collect lots more money and funnel unlimited amounts to their candidates. This will help offset the influence of big-money independent groups like Vermonters First and Campaign for Vermont, but it will also make it a whole lot harder for independent and third-party candidates to compete. Hence my other name for the bill, the Screw The Progs Act of 2014.

A few good provisions survived the behind-the-scenes hacksaw surgery that produced this bill: a slight increase in campaign finance reporting, a requirement that large single donors to superPACs be identified in the groups’ advertisements (read: Lenore Broughton), and the long-overdue institution of online filings. Currently, campaign finance reports are filed on paper and the information is not searchable; the new system is a genuine step forward in transparency.

But otherwise, this bill is a gigantic disappointment. Lawmakers who’d sought tighter limits on money in politics gamely defended the bill as, basically, better than nothing, and a starting point for future legislation. Yeah, well, when the party supposedly interested in limiting money in politics has total control of the process and THIS is the best they can come up with? I’m afraid it’ll be a cold day in Tegucigalpa before this issue sees the light of day again.  

On Friday afternoon, a judge ordered the release of Christina Schumacher from Fletcher Allen Health Care. And I’m sure that First Amendment blunderbuss Mike Donoghue feels vindicated for repeatedly plastering her case all over the Burlington Free Press.

His editors apparently did; they went full-on tabloid with the story — the front-page headline screaming “COURT: RELEASE HER IMMEDIATELY” in bright red print and a font size normally reserved for national emergencies.

But I still believe he was wrong. There are good and valid reasons for medical privacy protections. Donoghue was alone in violating those protections. Everyone else kept silent: her caregivers, FAHC, her Legal Aid attorney, her family. Even the judge, who publicly released his bare-bones ruling but did not release the findings of fact and conclusions of law underlying the decision.

And even other news media: While Donoghue and the Free Press were tabloiding it up, nobody else reported on the case. I guess they’re all in on the plot, too.

So Donoghue gets to run a victory lap and move on to the next crusade, and Schumacher will return to her shattered life. I hope she makes it, I really do. And I hope the Free Press’ invasion of her privacy never rebounds against her — say, if she ever applies for a job and her prospective employer does a Google search.

We will never know why she was hospitalized, because the health care system protected her privacy. And in the process, allowed itself to be defamed without response. We will never know why the judge disagreed with her doctors, because he protected her privacy as well.

We will never really know if Donoghue’s publicity made any difference; the judicial process would have continued even if he’d never written a word. Presumably the judge’s ruling was based on his interpretation of the facts and the law, not on a blast of sensationalized reporting. If so, then Christina Schumacher would have been released regardless of Donoghue’s attentions.

Congratulations, Mike. I’m sure you got a nice little First Amendment stiffy when you heard the news. I still think you were wrong.  

When last we saw Mike Donoghue, Dragoon of the First Amendment, he was hovering, vulture-like, outside a court hearing for Christina Schumacher, the woman who’s been in Fletcher Allen’s psychiatric unit since late December — shortly after her estranged husband murdered their teenage son and then killed himself.

Donoghue was outside the hearing because he’d been kicked out — on the insistence of Schumacher’s attorney, Duncan McNeil. And if anyone still believes that Donoghue is the good guy in this tale, please explain why her attorney wanted no part of Donoghue in that courtroom. McNeil, after all, is from Vermont Legal Aid, an institution known for its dogged defense of the rights of the mentally ill and disabled. If Schumacher’s hospitalization is unnecessary, why wouldn’t McNeil welcome Donoghue’s presence? Why does he refuse to speak to the reporter?

Maybe because he knows it’s not in his client’s best interest.

For that matter, why isn’t anyone associated with her — a caregiver, a friend, a relative — siding with Donoghue and publicly calling for Chrstina’s release from the hospital? She has a pretty large extended family. Are they all part of the conspiracy, too?

But there is a story to be told about the Schumacher case: one that wouldn’t violate her privacy and would actually serve a socially constructive purpose. Donoghue knows what the story is, because he’s reported it in the past. He has chosen to drop it in favor of his current crusade. The story?

Christina Schumacher was a longtime victim of domestic abuse. She’d been beaten down (literally and figuratively) to the point where she was incapable of taking the initiative against him in the legal arena. The authorities knew about it, and they did nothing to help or protect her. And it’s quite possible that personal relationships and connections played a part in their failure.

Please understand, this formulation is not based on any inside information. It’s based on (1) the public record, (2) my (educated layperson’s) knowledge of the dynamics of domestic abuse, and (3) logical inference and deduction. Take it for what it’s worth.

There is abundant evidence that Sonny Schumacher was an abusive husband as well as a murderer:

WCAX News obtained multiple police reports filed by Christina Schumacher outlining a pattern of fear. In July, an Essex police officer served Sonny with a temporary relief from abuse order. That same month, Christina’s brother came to the police department, concerned Sonny had violated the order. In August, Christina called the police to report a suspicious van outside her home, telling police her husband had made threats to her safety if she ever “crossed him.” And in October, police were called to Christina’s home to stand guard as Sonny removed personal items from the home. Officers said Christina seemed “nervous.”

Essex police withheld two additional police reports Christina Schumacher made, saying they directly relate to the ongoing murder-suicide investigation.

And this, also from WCAX:

…court papers reveal allegations that Schumacher abused her and their kids, physically attacking Gunnar and flipping furniture on multiple occasions.

That’s quite a bit of evidence, unless you’re one of those people who thinks that women make up abuse allegations for the heck of it.

To the contrary, the vast majority of abuse incidents are not reported. And in the case of someone living in fear of her husband, it’s almost certain that this is the tip of the iceberg. My logical inference: Christina had been abused for a long time.

And yet, in spite of an extensive trail of official reports, Essex Police Chief Brad LaRose told WCAX:  

“There was no complaint of domestic violence ever made to the police department.”  

There might possibly be some technical truth in that, depending on how you parse the precise definition of “domestic violence,” but Chief LaRose had to know that all was not well in the Schumacher household.

And then, the day before the bodies of Sonny and Ludwig Schumacher were discovered, this happened:

Christina Schumacher, 48, called Essex police at 9:33 p.m. Dec. 17 to express concern about her son, Gunnar, 14, the records show.

She said she feared her estranged husband, Ludwig “Sonny” Schumacher, might try to take the teenager out of the country, Essex Detective Lt. George Murtie wrote in a court affidavit…

What did the police do about her report? Apparently nothing, except to write it up. There is no sign that officers were dispatched. The bodies were found the next day, after a “friend” of Sonny’s called police about “a possible homicide/suicide.” From the evidence released so far, the crimes were probably committed on the 17th. If police had followed up on Christina’s call, they might have prevented the tragedy.

It certainly looks like the authorities downplayed, or ignored, Christina’s complaints. This happens distressingly often in abuse cases, and is one big reason why women so seldom report incidents. But in Sonny Schumacher’s case, I suspect that personal and professional connections also played a part. His background, per WCAX:

Sonny Schumacher was a former lieutenant colonel with the Vermont Air National Guard, a career that started in 1989. He was an F-16 pilot who rose through the ranks to become the director of operations for military support. He left the guard in 2011.

A longtime member of the National Guard, a prominent officer. How many friends did he have in official places? There’s a whole lot of cross-traffic between the Guard and law enforcement. Schumacher lived in Essex and the Guard’s headquarters is just outside Essex in Colchester. How many members of the Essex police department serve (or have served) in the Guard? Did LaRose? Did he know Sonny Schumacher? Did Detective Murtie?

And if it wasn’t an actual case of cronyism, was it a case of professional courtesy? Were police less inclined to believe Christina or take any action because her husband was a longtime National Guard officer?

For that matter, what did the Guard know and when did they know it? If, as is reasonable to assume, the abuse had been going on for a long time, did Schumacher’s superiors hear about it? What did they do?

One more sign that Schumacher was a well-connected guy: he managed then-Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie’s re-election campaign in 2004.  

And to bring this back to journalism, did Mike Donoghue drop this angle and pursue the hospitalization story because the Burlington Free Press didn’t want to expose a big hairy mess that might bring dishonor to the Guard and to law enforcement?

That’s pure speculation on my part. What I do know is that Donoghue would be performing a real public service by going after the Guard and the police, rather than taking advantage of a vulnerable woman who’s already suffered through years of abuse and the loss of her son.

I don’t expect Donoghue to reverse course; he’s too stubborn and narcissistic and myopic to see the damage he is doing. (Aside from everything else, he’s putting one more brick in the wall that discourages women from reporting abuse.) But there’s plenty of room for another enterprising reporter to pursue this story. A lot of attention has been paid to cases like Wayne Brunette’s and Macadam Mason’s and Woody Woodward’s; it’s time to look closely at law enforcement’s handling of the Christina Schumacher case.

And perhaps it’s time, once again, to see if the law can do anything more to protect victims of domestic abuse.  

Glad tidings on VTDigger’s front page:

More than 200 Vermont inmates in a Kentucky prison have been on lockdown since Jan. 15 after a series of assaults and fights broke out, a Department of Corrections official told lawmakers Tuesday afternoon.

… “I’m concerned. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of this and find out who the culprits are and find out, if anything, how they’re operating,” Byrne said.

“Byrne” is Richard Byrne, out-of-state unit supervisor for the Vermont Department of Corrections. Which makes him the guy directly responsible for the inmates we’ve shipped to for-profit prisons in other states. And he doesn’t know what’s going on.

So he’s “concerned.”

And “hopes” he can get to the bottom of this.

It’s times like this that brought the phrase “WHAT THE F*CK” into our lexicon.

I mean, we the people of Vermont send people to prison. Shouldn’t we bear at least a little bit of responsibility for their wellbeing? Er, no: shouldn’t we have complete responsibility for their wellbeing? The lockdown happened on January 15 after a series of violent incidents; Byrne was still clueless as of January 20. Some oversight.

Byrne told lawmakers that Vermont’s contractor, Corrections Corporation of America, “is handling the situation.” Well, that’s reassuring.  

CCA is a key player in the lock-’em-up industry, which tries to cash in on America’s rampant tough-on-crime sentiment. And helps fuel that sentiment with hefty campaign contributions to tough-talking politicians, mainly Republicans. According to the National Institute on Money in State Politics, CCA ponied up $2.2 million in political donations between 2003 and 2012. Other prison operators have been equally generous. In recent years, the industry has tried to cash in on anti-immigrant fervor by promoting harsh policies toward the undocumented.

(CCA has spent a relatively measly $38,000 in Vermont; the biggest beneficiaries are Jim Douglas at $2900 (three election cycles), Peter Shumlin at $1,000 (one cycle), and Senate Judicary Committee chair Dick Sears at $1,700 (four cycles). That’s a good example of the political savvy behind CCA’s high-priced advocacy: they couldn’t pick a better target than a well-connected veteran Senator from the ruling party who chairs the Senate committee directly concerned with law and justice.)

A few more tidbits from the Digger piece (by talented newbie Laura Krantz):

Only Vermonters are housed in the 816-bed prison after Kentucky did not renew its contract with CCA in July.

So. Kentucky, the progressive hotbed that gave us Rand Paul has cut its ties with CCA. More on that from the Nashville City Paper:

Kentucky has run into issues with CCA facilities in the past. Gov. Steve Beshear ordered all female inmates transferred from Otter Creek in 2010 after a sex scandal involving guards and allegations of sexual abuse of inmates at the facility.

… Hawaii also removed 168 female inmates in 2009, sending them to a prison in Arizona. Multiple lawsuits were filed over the sex accusations. Most were dismissed.

Inmates at Lee Adjustment Center rioted in 2004 after allegations of inmate abuse and mistreatment increased and visits from friends and family were cut back.

And, CCA is being sued by a group of shift supervisors Marion Adjustment Center who allege the company forced them to work extra hours and denied them overtime.

This is the corporation that, five days after a lockdown, is trying to “locate the source of the recent violence.” What kind of prison are they running, anyway? VTDigger’s Krantz:

“This is a tough period of time down there because we are seeing some things that we have not seen in the past,” Byrne said.

… During his hour of testimony Tuesday afternoon, Byrne made it clear that prisoners in Kentucky are less supervised than inmates in Vermont prisons.

Yeah, so CCA can offer rock-bottom prices, satisfy its shareholders, and fund a self-serving political action effort.

And even on the pure basis of the bottom line, without regard to the human cost, CCA is a questionable enterprise. Kentucky’s decision to pull out was partly based on past CCA transgressions, but state officials also calculated that they could actually save money by relying on public facilities. So maybe this whole industry is built more on political connections and free-market bullshit than on actual performance.

Y’know, I’ve always had doubts about the wisdom of for-profit prisons, and even more doubts about the idea of shipping inmates hundreds of miles away. If we want them to reform, wouldn’t it maybe help a little bit if they were within visiting distance of EVERYBODY THEY KNOW?

A little light at the end of this cold, dark tunnel:

Rep. Suzi Wizowaty, D-Burlington, clerk of the House Judiciary Committee, sat in on Byrne’s testimony Tuesday. Wizowaty for several years has filed an unsuccessful bill to stop sending prisoners out of state.

The public typically only finds out about a lockdown if word gets out from an inmate, Wizowaty said. She said she receives letters at least once a week from prisoners. Some report having seen a fight in a yard with no guard in sight, she said.

“There is a very low level of supervision,” she said.

Yeah, probably a whole lot lower since Kentucky pulled out, leaving CCA with a couple hundred inmates in a facility designed for 800.

(Correction: There are a total of 460 Vermont inmates at the Kentucky facility. 205 are housed in the locked-down unit; the others are elsewhere, and are not in lockdown.)  

I say we face up to our responsibilities. If we want to send people to prison, we ought to have direct responsibility for them, not depend on the bona fides of a for-profit corporation with a spotty track record. Vermont prisoners should stay in Vermont. For their own sake, for the sake of our consciences, and so we can do our part to put this parasitic industry out of our misery.  

I seem to be writing an awful lot about the Burlington Free Press lately, but they’ve deserved it. They keep doin’ stupid shit, I’ma keep writin’ about ’em.

The Freeploid’s Mike Donoghue has a reputation as a transparency crusader, a hard-chargin’ newsman who refuses to take “No” for an answer when confronting official recalcitrance.

There’s some truth to that. But he’s also an absolutist, willing to publish anything regardless of whether it furthers the public interest or brings unnecessary harm to anyone. The most recent example, which he disgracefully revisits today, is his spotlight expose of a very troubled woman’s life. But first, let’s go back to November, when our alleged First Amendment bulldog wrote a nothingburger of a story on timesheet fraud by state workers. The article was larded with details from a single case: a state worker who was suspected of one instance of timesheet fraud. The worker’s identity was revealed in the story, even though he hadn’t been formally charged.

And, as it turned out, authorities decided not to bring any charges. Too late; Donoghue had already plastered his name and the (apparently unfounded) allegations against him all over the newspaper. Classy.

Having brought pointless harm to one life, Donoghue is now doing his best to sabotage Christina Schumacher’s.

His first story, published January 12, chronicled Schumacher’s accusation that she has been hospitalized against her will at Fletcher Allen Health Care. Hospital staff could not respond, because they are legally bound to protect her privacy. As they should be. The result is a completely unbalanced story which accepts Schumacher’s version at face value and employs it as a cudgel against FAHC and other institutions involved in her case.

The second story, published in today’s Freeploid, is worse than the first — starting with its placement on the front page, along with a huge picture of Ms. Schumacher. Just in case anyone in the greater Burlington area didn’t already know what the psychiatrically troubled woman who just lost her son to a grisly murder-suicide looks like. Y’know, so when you see her at the grocery store you can say hi. Or just point and stare, whatever works for you.  

Donoghue’s sadly thin pretext for returning to the story is stated in the inflammatory headline:

Slain teen’s mother held against her will, then billed for treatment

A couple of problems with that. First, it accepts Schumacher’s version of events. FAHC cannot even confirm that she is a patient, let alone whether or not she’s being billed.

Second, how big is the bill? Donoghue never says. The hospital cannot say. But according to the article, the vast majority of psychiatric inpatients’s care is covered by private insurance, the state Department of Mental Health, Medicaid, and/or Medicare. And according to an FAHC official, “For those without insurance, Fletcher Allen absorbs the cost.”

My conclusion? She’s probably being billed for some relatively small co-pays. No way she’ll pay full freight for several weeks of hospitalization. Which is what the headline would lead you to believe.

The article perpetuates the “against her will” allegation that is hers alone. Again, the hospital cannot give its side of the story. Now, as Donoghue might know if he, say, spent any time reading newspapers over the last two and a half years, Vermont has a critical shortage of inpatient psychiatric beds. Patients are spending days in emergency rooms waiting for beds. Many are not getting the treatment they need.

So at a time like this, why in the blue Hell would FAHC hospitalize someone who didn’t need it? Even if they were evil bastards intent on goosing their occupancy rate, they don’t need to do so in the psych ward. Indeed, psychiatric staff are under constant pressure to limit admissions and expedite discharges because there are always more people waiting for available beds.

I don’t know anything about Schumacher’s case. But all the evidence points to one conclusion: if she’s been in the hospital for five weeks, it’s because she has needed intensive care and no doctor will countenance releasing her into the community.

Mike Donoghue gets a lot of credit for practicing his First Amendment rights  But the First Amendment does not establish an obligation to publish whatever comes across a reporter’s desk; it simply protects the right to publish.

With rights come responsibilities. Mike Donoghue has lost sight of that fact.