The buzzard on Bruce Lisman’s shoulder, Tom Pelham, has disgorged another dire warning of imminent financial shipwreck:

Vermont’s state budget is about to hit the rocky shores of fiscal reality.

Oh no! Sound the alarms! Man the lifeboats! Abandon ship!!!1!!1!

This lovely little morning pick-me-up appears in the Opinion section of VTDigger, and presumably coming soon to a newspaper op-ed page near you. In it, Pelham provides a laundry list of the alleged financial crimes and misdemeanors being perpetrated by our state government, and prescribes his usual cure: A return to the policies of Jim Douglas.

Including — and I guess he’s actually serious about this — a re-adoption of Douglas’ long-discredited “Challenges for Change” hornswoggle.

Yes, them’s was good times for Pelham, who served as Douglas’ tax commissioner. And, before then, as Howard Dean’s finance commissioner, which is supposed to “prove” his bipartisan bona fides. (Thanks to his time in the Dean Administration, back when Dean was a devoutly centrist fiscal hawk, Pelham provides a thin patina of bipartisanship to Lisman’s pro-business vanity project public policy NPO, Campaign for Vermont.)  

It all started, as Pelham never tires of reminding us, with the Legislature’s 2009 override of Douglas’ budget veto. That single action “turned [Vermont] away from a safe course” and “set Vermont on a course of unsustainable spending, chronic underfunding, hidden cost shifts, higher taxes and a ‘kick the can down the road’ approach to problem solving.”

Well, actually, anyone in the Shumlin Administration would tell you that they spent much of his first term unraveling all of Douglas’ cost-shifting and can-kicking, not to mention undoing the damage done by “Challenges for Change.”

But unlike Pelham, I’m not here to reair old grievances, but to point out the unacknowledged elephants in his rhetorical room. You may have heard of them: the financial meltdown of 2008, America’s growing income inequality, and Tropical Storm Irene.  

Let’s start with 2008’s fiscal calamity. You know, the one that happened while Bruce Lisman was an officer on the bridge of Bear Stearns when it precipitously sank (but was, somehow, not at all involved or responsible). Well, Pelham pulls one of the basic film-flams of fiscal conservatism: using 2008 as a base year.

Whenever you see 2008 as the base year, immediately realize you’re being bullshitted. Because the Wall Street meltdown caused massive disruptions to our economy, massive drops in tax revenue, and massive increases in public-sector spending (stimulus, bailouts, human services). So when Pelham asserts that Vermont’s budget has grown dramatically since 2008, he’s got his thumb pressed firmly on the scale. He doubles down on the deception by pointing out that the state budget has grown far faster than the state’s economy.

Since 2008.

When the economy went into the toilet, and is only just starting to recover.

Which triggered huge increases in government spending, to mitigate the economic (and human) cost of Wall Street’s misadventures.

And which also caused huge losses in public-sector pension funds, which were, of course, invested in a wide variety of Wall Street products. (Indeed, due to a quirk in federal law, public-sector pension funds are not subject to the same “prudent man” conventions as private-sector funds. Which means public-sector funds can be invested more dangerously, and often are*.) So when Tom Pelham rehashes his rant about Vermont’s underfunding of pensions, remember that a lot of the blame lies at Wall Street’s door, and that the current Administration has been trying very hard to increase pension funds at a time when finances are extremely tight.

*See Matt Taibbi’s excellent article in Rolling Stone, entitled “Looting the Pension Funds.” The “prudent man” reference is from page 2 of the online article.

Pelham also moans about Vermont’s bond rating, despite the fact that it remains at AA+ and was actually upgraded by S&P last year. He gives the Shumlin Administration and the Treasurer’s Office absolutely no credit for this; rather, he says that Treasurer Beth Pearce “inherited” that rating “from the responsible fiscal management” of past Administrations. You know, the “responsible fiscal management” of wise men like, ahem, Tom Pelham.

You gotta admit, the man has gall.

Pelham also fails to make any mention of Tropical Storm Irene’s huge impact on the Vermont economy and government spending and borrowing. Nope, nope, all this mess has one single cause: the infamous Budget Veto Override of 2009.

I could go on (and on and on) mapping the rich veins of hokum in Pelham’s screed, but I’ll just do one more.

Pelham devotes one section to human-services spending, i.e. WELFARE, which he summarizes as “Higher Spending, Few Results.” In it, he cherrypicks financial data to “show” that Vermont has allowed human-services spending to skyrocket while poverty continues to rise.

He blames this, primarily, on Shumlin’s abandonment of “Challenges for Change,” which would have (per Pelham) solved all our problems. When, in fact, CFC made a hot mess of human services, and the current administration has spent a lot of time and effort on remediating the damage.

What Pelham doesn’t mention — at all — is America’s (and Vermont’s) growing income inequality and poverty rate, and the continuing repercussions of the 2008 meltdown.

Remember last winter, when Governor Shumlin was defending his proposed slashing of the Earned Income Tax Credit program by pointing out its huge growth? A whopping 49% over the past eight years? Well, perhaps you also remember that that 49% was due, almost entirely, to two factors: inflation, and larger numbers of the working poor. And we have more working poor because of the 2008 meltdown and the continuing squeeze on the middle and working classes.  

Same thing goes for the overall rise in human services spending. Pelham whines that we’re getting no bang for our buck, because poverty rates have somehow increased. Well, two things he fails to address: Human services programs are not meant to eradicate poverty, but to mitigate its harsh effects; and those programs have been swimming against very powerful economic tides that are pushing poverty rates ever higher.

Pelham’s arguments look substantial at first glance. But upon further examination, they fall apart like wet Kleenex. Because of his past resume, Tom Pelham gets far more credit than he deserves for being (1) a public-policy expert, and (2) a nonpartisan. He is neither.  

Lots and lots of Vermont journalists have made the soul-stifling but wallet-stuffing move from reportage to flackery — forsaking their chosen craft for the greener fields of corporate, nonprofit, and governmental “communications.” It’s almost like a natural progression: put in your time at an underfunded media operation, build a reputation and make connections, and then cash in your chips.

At first glance, the new staffer in the State Auditor’s office seems like the latest in this lineup. But this time, it’s something very different. Per Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz:

Citing a desire to increase his office’s investigative capacity, State Auditor Doug Hoffer said Monday he’s hired VTDigger reporter Andrew Stein to serve as his executive assistant.

The important clause there is “increase his office’s investigative capacity.” Because Stein won’t be crafting press releases or having plausibly innocuous kaffeeklatschen with his former fellows in the Fifth Estate; he’ll be a working investigator.

According to Hoffer, Stein will be charged with conducting research and investigations with the “rigor” of a full-blown audit, but in a shorter time frame.

… He emphasized that, unlike many ex-reporters who enter government service, Stein would not be focused on public relations.

“This is absolutely not a political job,” Hoffer said. “We don’t have political jobs at the auditor’s office. I don’t. Absolutely not.”

It’s a great fit. Stein has proven his chops as a green-eyeshade explorer of dry government documents. Hell, he even likes to do that stuff. Plus, he knows how to turn complicated policy stories into readable, understandable, and even interesting prose.

His new hire also reflects positively on VTDigger, which may be the only news entity in Vermont that would value a reporter like Stein and give him a platform on which to shine. And Digger’s loss should prove to be the Auditor’s (and our) gain.  

Our favorite ex-Wall Street plutocrat has suffered a bit of bad publicity lately. His vanity project public advocacy group, Campaign for Vermont, recently released another TV ad that was so predictably empty of content that it raised the ire of the usually phlegmatic Terri Hallenbeck:

Titled “Voices for Change,” the ad features Campaign for Vermont Co-Founder Bruce Lisman and a string of unidentified other people calling for change.

“We can make Vermont more affordable,” one says.

“Create more jobs,” adds another.

“And help families be more secure,” chimes in another.

… No one calls for brighter colors or cuter puppies or offers to teach the world to sing in harmony, but you get the drift.

Ooooh, burn!

Well, after that, I imagine that Lisman and his “brain trust” (Jason Gibbs, Shawn Shouldice, et al) realized they had to put a little meat in that empty bun, STAT. So he’s taken a plausibly bold step on a substantive policy issue.

And, shockingly enough, I agree with him on this one.

Lisman is promising a big push for ethics reform in state government. In the 20154 legislative session, CFV will begin its first State House lobbying effort with ethics reform as its #1 issue. Peter Hirschfeld in the paywall-protected Mitchell Family Organ:

Lisman… wants elected officials to have to disclose information about their personal finances, as well as any interests in which they have a financial stake.

Lisman is also calling for an independent, “quasi-judicial ethics commission” to regulate and monitor officials held in the public trust.

He’s right. Our ethics laws are laughable.

It’s not the most urgent problem facing Vermont, but it’s an issue worth addressing. Especially in this dawning age of one-party rule in Vermont. Usually, when one party dominates the political scene, it gets lazy and corrupt. See: Massachusetts during the Tom Finneran/Billy Bulger era, when rampant corruption and featherbedding opened the door to justified criticism of liberal politics and public-sector unions. And also opened the door to a string of unimpressive Republican governors. (Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and cough Romney.) Not to mention the abortive political career of Scott “Centerfold” Brown.

I don’t want to see that happen in Vermont, and ethics reform would help prevent it.

The bigger news, however, isn’t Lisman’s issue of choice; It’s that CFV will establish a significant lobbying presence under the Golden Dome*. To date, although Lisman has spent close to a million bucks on CFV, he’s had a “surprisingly low profile in Montpelier,” as Hirschfeld puts it. And if CFV has moved the political meter so much as a millimeter, I haven’t seen any sign of it.  

*Speaking of which, the Dome itself is badly overdue for a re-gildng. Maybe Bruce could dig around in his sofa cushions and pay for a new layer of gold plate? There’d be some nice symbolism and synergy at work, don’tcha think?

But if he puts his Bear Stearns fortune behind a State House lobbying effort, he could start to move the dial. He could certainly be far more influential than, say, Lenore Broughton. And I suspect that his big ethics push is just a media-friendly foot in the door. It’s a feel-good issue, and one where he can probably win either way. Serious ethics reforms are, frankly, a longshot; but the Legislature may well disgorge a watered-down version that will allow Lisman to declare victory and move on to other issues.

Like, oh, education reform (union-bashing and for-profit “schools of choice”), public-sector pension reform (let’s kill those defined-benefit plans!), and tax reform (create a more “business-friendly” climate by cutting corporate and capital-gains rates). Bruce Lisman isn’t spending a million bucks and counting to incrementally change Vermont’s ethics law; he’s doing it to make Vermont a more fiscally conservative place.  

The political media love to speculate about Lisman as a gubernatorial candidate. I don’t. I’ll say it again: Bruce Lisman will never be Governor of Vermont, and I seriously doubt he’ll ever run. Independent candidacies are the longest of long shots, he’s getting up there in years, and he lacks the dynamism or charisma needed to launch a one-man movement à la Arnold Schwarzenegger* or Jesse Ventura. (Or even Angus King.) I see him as a much smarter version of Lenore Broughton: A person with the resources to make a huge difference in Vermont, but with the intelligence to productively channel his efforts.  

*Technically, Ah-nuld was a Republican, but first and foremost he was Ah-nuld.

______________________________________________________

p.s. The Hirschfeld article contained a stunningly apropos blooper regarding Our Governor, who is not a fan of tighter ethics rules:

As for mandatory financial disclosures, [the governor’s general counsel Sarah] London said Shumlin “has felt that the voluntary system we have has worked for our small state.”

“But he’s always willing to discus other options when they’re put forward,” London said last week.

I’m they meant “discuss,” but I like “discus” better. Because Shumlin is “always willing to discus” other people’s ideas. He’s also willing to shot put them, javelin them, and catapult them as far away as possible. Just watch him tie Tim Ashe’s tax plan in the ejector seat and push the big red button.  

Update: Per the Freeploid, Paige will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Congratulations to Vermont’s #1 Birther, H. Brooke Paige, whose winless streak remains intact following the Vermont Supreme Court’s dismissal of his lawsuit against President Obama, the State of Vermont, and Secretary of State Jim Condos, arguing that Obama is ineligible to be President.

Dismissed without consideration. Because, of course.

For those just joining us, Brooke Paige was the “other” Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in 2012. The guy who managed to lose to the hopeless John MacGovern by a 3-1 margin in the Republican primary. (MacGovern then went on to lose to Bernie Sanders by a similar margin in November.)

The guy once described as “somewhat eccentric” by Vermont’s foremost authority on eccentricity, True North Reports.

Paige’s take on Birtherism is different from most. He acknowledges that President Obama was, indeed, born in Hawaii. But he interprets the Constitutional standard for the Presidency as requiring two parents who were both U.S. citizens. And since Obama’s father was Kenyan, Obama himself is effectively Kenyan by the transitive property.  

Paige’s suit, filed in August 2012, sought a declaration that Obama’s filings for re-election were “null and void” and an injunction barring Condos from putting Obama’s name on the ballot. The case was dismissed in Superior Court in November; Paige sought an expedited hearing before the VSC and was rebuffed.

And in a decision filed today, Associate Supreme Court Justice Brian Burgess (in one of his last acts before retiring from the high court) laid the final smackdown on Paige’s futile crusade.

The redoubtable H. Brooke, I’m sure, will keep on not taking “no” for an answer. And technically, he has a point: Burgess’ ruling was not based on the merits of Paige’s case, but on the “mootness doctrine” — the idea that further legal proceedings will have no effect. Burgess also noted that Paige failed to identify “any negative result to him,” which means he lacks standing to bring the suit.

I can almost hear Paige crying “Aha! So you’re saying my suit might possibly have merit!”

(Quite possibly, based on past experience, right here in the comments section on GMD.)

Postscript: As noted above, Paige will try to take his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. And as I predicted, he has interpreted his defeat as a victory, sort of: he told the Freeploid that the VCC dismissal was “as positive a ruling as I could have anticipated.”

The technical term for that, aside from “delusional,” is “setting the bar really low.”  

In recent days, two of our most senior solons (combined age: 139) have come to the conclusion that they are irreplaceable.

Vermont’s Democratic attorney general, Bill Sorrell, said Thursday he plans to run for a ninth full term as the state’s top prosecutor next November.

Asked if he would seek re-election to a dysfunctional Congress in 2016, [Sen. Patrick] Leahy responded, “At the end of yesterday, I was thinking, I probably should, just to try to have some more grown-ups down there.”

Sorrell originally announced his intention on WDEV’s Mark Johnson Show earlier this week (key passage about 33 1/2 minutes into the show), and provided some additional self-actualization in a follow-up with Seven Days’ Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz. Leahy stated his intentions — and provided a fig-leaf caveat by saying he wouldn’t make a final decision until 2015 — in a news conference after his Escape From Washington on Wednesday.

I have very different views of these two men; Sorrell has been a decidedly mixed bag as AG, and is the very definition of a man born on third base who thinks he hit a triple. Leahy has been a strongly positive force, and I’ll vote for him without hesitation if he’s on the ballot in 2016.

But the two men’s determination to stay in office only exacerbates a couple of real problems: a gridlock in the top offices, and the fact that our political leadership (Beth Pearce aside) is a complete sausage party. While right next door, in supposedly antediluvian New Hampshire, women occupy the Governorship and all four Congressional seats.

Governor Shumlin himself has acknowledged that Vermont’s gender gap is an issue that needs to be addressed — but I don’t imagine he’ll ever step out of the way himself to make way for a female Governor. (He certainly didn’t lift a finger to replace John H.A. Campbell with Ann Cummings when he had the chance.) He’s indispensable, just like Sorrell and Leahy. At least they are in their own minds. Take Bill Sorrell, who consulted the state’s leading expert on Being Attorney General — himself:

Sorrell said he pondered a number of questions before deciding to seek another term: “Did I still have the energy for the work? Was I very engaged and was it interesting to me? Or should I pursue other opportunities? What was I bringing to the table? Was I being value-added or not and such? And how did my staff feel about me as leader of the organization?”

The answers, he said, convinced him to run.

There you have it: Bill Sorrell loves him some Bill Sorrell. And so should you.

As for our Senior Senator, I know the “grown-up” comment was a reference to the Tea Party kiddie pool that tried to hijack the government, but there’s a less charitable interpretation: Does he really think the voters of Vermont are incapable of choosing a different “grown-up” to be our Senator?

I dunno, I think we might be able to find somebody else who could fill the job. Maybe even somebody without the old twig-and-berries between their legs.  

While perusing the Mitchell Family Organ this morning, an obituary caught my eye. An obit of an ordinary man, of the kind undervalued (and frequently discarded) by our 21st Century First World society.

Tom Companion was only 51 when he died unexpectedly on Sunday. His life in two paragraphs:

Tom was a 1980 graduate of Harwood Union High School and then began his working career as a carpenter, working for several construction companies in the Central Vermont area. Tom went on to become an assembler, working at the Bombardier Corporation in Barre before being employed by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters for over 16 years, first in the service department in Waterbury and more recently as a maintenance technician at their Essex plant.

Friendly, warm hearted and convivial, Tom was the well-known and well-liked Saturday morning greeter and money taker for Rodney’s Rubbish Removal, located at the Crossroads Beverage Center in Waterbury. In his leisure time, Tom was an avid hunter, loved 4-wheeling, camping in Sharkyville in Bolton and was a master tinkerer of all things automotive. A creative builder too, Tom enjoyed working on construction projects for family and friends. He is lovingly remembered for his devotion to his wife Susan, and his innate dedication to all those who he considered friends.

He held no high office, he won no awards, he probably never dazzled anyone with his rhetorical brilliance. In an age of literacy and technology, he was good with his hands. Throughout most of human history, a guy like him would have been highly valued — while a guy like me, good with words and lousy with tools, with horrible eyesight to boot, would have been marginalized. And probably would have been the one to die young.

I never met the man. Frankly, if I saw him on the street, I probably wouldn’t give him a second thought. I, like most people, am impressed by education and title and wit and connections. And except when I need something fixed around the house, I have very little contact with the world of folks like Tom Companion. But our society wouldn’t work without them.

And we need to remember that.  

We also, those of us in left-wing politics, need to bear their interests more strongly in mind. We tend to live on a more intellectual plane. I doubt that the Tom Companions of this world care much about the issues that tend to occupy a lot of our time: fighting gas pipelines or Air Force jets or keeping Vermont pristine. They need jobs and economic activity and growth. They need building projects and affordable energy.

Hell, they need Walmart. If only because their purchasing power keeps on dwindling.

Is that to say we should abandon our principles and roll over for development and growth and corporate interests? No. But we do need to find a balance between principle and pragmatism. And we need to not forget where the left-wing movement started in this country: in labor unions and populism. That needs to be part of our equation today.

Well, enough of me projecting my own stuff onto a dead man I never met.

A service celebrating the life of Tom Companion will be held from the Waterbury American Legion, 16 Stowe Street, on Saturday, October 19, 2013 at 1 p.m. with a reception to follow. The family requests that flowers be omitted; rather memorial gifts would be appreciated to Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, PO Box 459, South Hero VT 05486. Assisting the family is the Perkins-Parker Funeral Home and Cremation Service in Waterbury.

I should not allow the (at this writing, likely last-minute) budget deal in Washington to prevent me from taking note of a classic piece of Wieselschaft from the pen of Everyone’s Buddy, Phil Scott. The occupant of Vermont’s “bucket of warm piss” recently took time out from his rigorous schedule of… whatever it is a Lieutenant Governor does… to craft an opinion piece that’s an amazing mixture of The Bold and The Bland.

The piece, published in Sunday’s Mitchell Family Organ (and paywalled, sorry), is entitled It’s Time To Lead.”

And that’s about where the boldness ends.

The subject, of course, is the budget standoff in Washington. Phil’s take: our leaders need to stop bickering and take action. Wow, what a stunner.

But wait, there’s more.

You’ll never guess how Mr. Inoffensive, the man seemingly born to be Lieutenant Governor, apportioned blame for the federal mess.  

Yep. It’s everybody’s fault.

Equally.

It seems as though, in the current environment, every side is trying to declare victory at any cost. With that as a goal no one wins. In fact, every one of us loses. The longer the House, the Senate and President Obama perpetuate this finger pointing and name calling, the harder it becomes to reach a resolution.

Sheesh.  

To be (briefly) fair to Vermont’s top Republican officeholder, it’d be awfully tough for him to call it straight, and assign the lion’s share of blame where it belongs: on the Republican dead-enders in Congress and the party leadership that enables them. But still, apportioning the blame like a parent slicing a cake for three jealous children is a bit much. At least it is, if Scott has any aspirations of someday holding a meaningful political office. Y’know, an office with duties and responsibilities and stuff. An office that requires… leadership.

Because blaming everyone in equal measure is either a blatant lie, a revelation of his true loyalties, or really really stupid.

Taking the options in reverse order: If he honestly believes that all parties are equally to blame, then he’s too dumb to be Governor. Might be too dumb to occupy the warm bucket.

And if he’s doing some ill-considered partisan spear-carrying, then by God, he’s a lot more of a Republican than he wants us to believe. Because what he’s doing, in his budget-standoff comments and his cautionary bleats about Vermont Health Connect, is giving the smiley-face version of Republican dogma: the Democrats are wrong, we’re right, and health care reform is a job-killing disaster.

But I suspect the truth is this: he knows the Congressional Republicans are screwing the pooch and playing chicken with the Full Faith And Credit, but he knows that if he says so, he can bid a fond farewell to any future role in the GOP.

Now, I believe that Phil Scott is the last best hope for the VTGOP, and I think Vermont is best served by having multiple relevant parties. So I can sympathize with his desire to maintain good intraparty relations while keeping up the fight for the soul of the VTGOP. But his essay is simultaneously a call for leadership, and a complete failure to exercise leadership himself. Not a good sign for a potential leader.

On the other hand, it’s just the ticket for the Lite-Guv’ship.  

Oh, we’ve got a good one for you tonight. As you may recall, the town of Berlin (strategically tucked between Montpelier and Barre) is home to the aptly-named Berlin Mall, whose anchor tenant is a Walmart store. A modestly-sized outlet by the discounter’s gargantuan standards. Well, it plans to expand the store by roughly 50%, which the owners of the Berlin Mall think is just fine and dandy.

This has been in the works for the past two years. But late last month, the mall applied for a tax break from the town of Berlin.

And Berlin said yes. The Town Select Board approved the deal on a 3-1 vote this week. (Warning: Article safely ensconced behind the Mitchell Family Paywall.)

Specifically, the town has granted Berlin Mall LLC a five-year “tax stabilization” deal. Instead of the tax bill going up by 100% as soon as the addition is completed, the bill will increase stepwise in annual increments of 20% — not reaching the full 100% until five years have passed.

Exsqueeze me, but I always thought the purpose of tax breaks was to attract new development — projects that wouldn’t otherwise happen. Well, we all know that’s usually a load of hooey anyway. But in this case, nobody’s even pretending that the tax break is necessary. It’s just a nice little gift from the taxpayers of Berlin to the owners of the mall.  Town Administrator Jeff Schulz, who supported the tax break, admitted:

“I think these folks clearly would have done this project if the (stabilization) program did not exist,” he said.

To which I can only respond: WTF?????

In 2011, the town’s voters gave the Select Board the power to grant tax breaks “in hopes of encouraging investment and luring jobs,” according to the Times Argus. The tax stabilization, in Schulz’ own words, “could provide incentive to get someone to do a project where they might not have.”

But but but… you said yourself that the Mall “clearly would have done this project” without the tax break.

And another town rolls over on its belly, giving a free gift to a developer who doesn’t need it.

My congratulations to Jeremy Hansen, the only Select Board member who voted “no” to this senseless giveaway.  

Oh dear. Darcie “Hack” Johnston is not happy. Indeed, if she got any madder, her eyes and skin would turn green and her muscles would burst through her clothes. HACK SMASH!

I think the real cause of her anger is the fact that Vermont Health Connect is off to an acceptable start. She has to know, as do Randy Brock and all those nutbar Tea Party Congresscritters, that if health care reform is successful, their little game is over. So, a glitchy but non-disastrous Day One is a bad omen for the Hack and her friends.

That, I suspect, is the cause. But the trigger was a news release from the totalitarian hordes at VPIRG.

Well, “totalitarian” and “hordes” are her words, but who am I to doubt the discernment of Darcie Johnston?

Deets after the jump.  

It all started with Darcie squandering some money on anti-Shummycare robocalls, which warned that VERMONTERS MIGHT LOSE THEIR INSURANCE!!!!! and urged people to contact the Governor seeking a delay in VHC’s implementation.

VPIRG’s response? A news release pointing out that VHC will bring health coverage to thousands of Vermonters who can’t currently afford it, and urging people to contact Darcie’s advocacy group, Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, and complain about the misleading robocalls. (Do robocalls still work, anyway? Does Darcie think it’s still 1985?)

Well, by “contact,” I mean “send Darcie an e-mail.” Because it’s her e-mail that’s listed on the VHCF website.

And that’s where the totalitarian hordes come in, as unleashed by the suspiciously-Aryan-sounding VPIRG operative Falko Schilling. In Darcie’s overheated words:

What he did was mobilize his hordes to try to silence our message, not by calling the governor’s office and voicing their contrary opinions, but by flooding my email account.

VPIRG’s attack on my email account is completely consistent with its advocacy of a totalitarian health care system…

Now VPIRG has resorted to the methods favored by totalitarians everywhere – to suppress any dissent from their gospel of the all-powerful state.”

This, after Falko’s “hordes” “flooded” Darcie’s e-mail account with roughly 200 messages.

Two Hundred.

That’s a mighty small horde.

Which can be defeated in short order by your handy-dandy “DELETE” button.

200 unwanted e-mails is a minor annoyance, not a totalitarian suppression of dissent. But of course Darcie, like all the teabaggers, has a remarkably thin skin when it comes to political blowback.

Now, it might be argued that Falko went too far in using Darcie’s own e-mail address. But she left that door open by posting it on the VHCF website as the “Contact” option. So, no sympathy for the Hack from this precinct.

I hope she can find a harmless outlet for all this pent-up anger. I suggest the Bozo Bop Bag, available for a mere $19.95 from the good folks at the Vermont Country Store.  

Big day today. First day of the Vermont Health Connect website.

And yes, there were some glitches. Slow logons, failures to connect.

But quite a few people actually got on board. There was no cataclysmic crash, no utter failure to launch. Which, if there’s any justice in the world, ought to drive the final nail in the coffin of Randy Brock’s political career.

Because, in a much-publicized opinion piece on VTDigger last weekend he said, and I quote, “The system doesn’t work.”

Yeah, you wish.  

It’s too bad that Brock is reduced to hoping for the complete collapse of health care reform. (And Darcie “Hack” Johnston is reduced to running ads seeking a delay in VHC’s launch, since she has no hope of defeating it.) But it’s the only card in his deck. The only chance for him, or any other Republican, to run a competitive race against Governor Shumlin in 2014 is if VHC goes bust.

On Day One, that seems highly unlikely.

As for the glitches, they are to be expected. This is a huge, complicated transition. Made necessary, lest we forget, by the real failure of the current health care system to (a) provide coverage to all Americans, or even get close, and (b) bring costs under control. You wanna talk glitches, just take a close look at that hot mess.  

Imagine health care as a cracked-up, pothole-ridden highway littered with hubcaps and other automotive detritus. The period up to October 1 was the reconstruction of the highway. And while the new route reopened on time, the work isn’t quite done. A few bumps, lines not yet painted, rumble strips and guardrails still being installed. That’s where we’re at today.

And I’ll gladly accept a bumpy transition if the result is a smooth, broad Health Care Highway that can provide care for a lot more people at a reasonable cost.

And, as Governor Shumlin keeps promising, that will be a temporary measure on the way to single-payer health care. On Day One, glitches notwithstanding, I’d say we are well on our way.