All posts by Sue Prent

About Sue Prent

Artist/Writer/Activist living in St. Albans, Vermont with my husband since 1983. I was born in Chicago; moved to Montreal in 1969; lived there and in Berlin, W. Germany until we finally settled in St. Albans.

Norm McAllister faces another accuser in January

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The New Year is quickly closing in on us. While we are all preoccupied with what national horrors January 20 will usher in, Franklin County women may want to take note that the second trial of accused sexual predator and former state senator Norm McAllister is scheduled for the week of January 9, 2017. The pretrial conference and jury selection are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday of that week, and the actual trial begins on Wednesday, January 11 at 8:30 AM at the Franklin County Courthouse on Lake St. in St. Albans.

I plan to be there in symbolic support of the three alleged victims, even though only one of those victims’ complaints will be heard that week. I hope many more local women will join me there.

The first trial, which took place last fall, turned out to be no more than an exercise in humiliation for the young woman complainant. In the courtroom, men significantly outnumbered women, and the front rows of the gallery were lined with male members of the press and the defendant’s allies. It’s funny how that happens.

So the victim was confronted foremost with a throng of curious but indifferent male faces as she attempted to summon memories of the most intimate and embarrassing details of the attacks.  The accused, on the other hand, sat facing front and was never required to answer a single question.

I described the experience in great detail on GMD in the hope that more women would feel compelled to fill those front seats at the next trial to give the victim a little moral support.

The third victim has since passed away in circumstances that have not been shared. She was the mother-in-law of the victim who will be testifying in January.

Like so many victims of unspeakable assaults and sex trafficking, these are women who were already challenged by poverty and a total lack of alternatives. Victims such as these do not tend to have confident and articulate friends who are likely to show up in a courtroom to demonstrate their support.  An unpleasant courtroom experience is therefore made even more lonely and punishing for them.

It is no wonder that the young woman who testified at the last trial crumbled under pressure from a relentless attorney skilled at targeting her weaknesses. We owe these women our gratitude for their courage and sacrifice in bringing these crimes to trial. It may seems a thankless job, but for every woman who does step forward to charge her attacker, there are dozens who simply bottle up the nightmare inside them, so that their tormenter remains free to attack again.

Was justice served in the first McAllister trial? I don’t think so, and many others agree; but that is faint comfort for the young woman who was returned to the blunt world from which she had emerged, far worse for the wear and without the benefit of closure.

So, if you, like me, feel that sexual assault against one woman is a crime against all women; and sexual assault committed by a man of stature and responsibility against a weak and vulnerable woman is particularly repugnant; perhaps you will think about showing up and wearing a teal-colored ribbon to show your support for victims of sexual violence.

Trump’s Business Pick’s History With Steroids

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Donald Trump revealed several more administration picks today; and while there will undoubtedly be plenty of discussion of the others, one might just slip through the cracks without any discussions of the skeleton in her closet.

The president-elect named WWE bigwig, Linda McMahon to head the Small Business Administration, citing her experience together with husband Vince McMahon in turning the WWE into a billion-dollar business.

What no one has so far mentioned about Mrs. McMahon is that in 2010, following the lurid murder/ suicide scandal of Canadian WWE star Claude Benoit, she was called to testify before Congress on the topic of rampant steroid abuse within that enterprise. Benoit had taken his life after murdering his wife and children.

Steroid distribution was not even illegal until 1988. In 1991 steroids were officially classified as “controlled substances.” Nevertheless, use of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs continued to be rampant in the WWE, and all roads seemed to lead to Vince McMahon who was caught in the snare set by the feds for one Dr. Zahorian who supplied McMahon’s stable of ‘athletes’ with their drugs.

Due to “sloppy procedural errors,” the case against McMahon was dismissed.

Then, in 2010, following an unsuccessful Senate run by Linda McMahon, a 1991 memo from Linda to the other execs at Titan Sports (parent of WWE) turned up, which suggested a tip-off may have occurred when her husband was under investigation:

“Although you and I discussed before about continuing to have Zahorian at our events as the doctor on call, I think that is now not a good idea…Vince agreed, and would like for you to call Zahorian and to tell him not to come to any more of our events and to also clue him in on any action that the Justice Department is thinking of taking.” 

The story is lengthy and baroque, but well worth a read. The long and the short of it is that the feds have never been able to hold either McMahon accountable, thanks in part to the long reach of their gold-plated associations.

My interest in the McMahons dates to a single year in my own amateur body-building competitive “career” back in 1991(?)   Vince McMahon was the chairman of the amateur division of the IFBB. Having won the regional title in Burlington, I came under the wing of the regional chair (who will remain nameless) and had the opportunity to compete in nationals down in Orlando. As I was truly a natural I knew I didn’t have the chance of a snowball in hell of even placing, but went just for the experience…which did not disappoint, let me tell you.

It was very WWF, complete with “trophy girls” in spike heels, big hair and spangled bikinis. The audience looked like it had descended from a region of outer space somewhere near Vegas. It was as much of a spectacle as anything that took place on stage. No one smiled or spoke backstage and there was none of the camaraderie one encountered at regional events.

I remember going to breakfast in the dining room of the motel where we were all staying and seeing Vince McMahon and what looked like a bodyguard of bouncer/mobsters wolfing down waffles and eggs with a steely, unwelcoming look on their faces.

Of course, by then my regional chair had regaled me extensively on the steroid story, even subtly hinting that I might want to try it myself. It was well known back then that ‘everyone’ in the IFBB, was using and that it was actually encouraged in order to exploit the entertainment value of freakishly overdeveloped bodies.

Even the amateur women were doing it, as I discovered when I walked into the waiting room at sign-in. These gals bore no resemblance to the amateurs I had competed against at home.

“Scary,” I thought, soon after abandoning any thought of continuing with bodybuilding.

Steroid use in the IFBB was simply a given, and McMahon and his goons were the very picture of an underworld vibe. As little as I ever cared for wrestling, I was certainly intrigued when the WWF took off and the McMahons became a freak show for the whole world to observe.

I guess the point of this stroll down memory lane is just to say that Linds McMahon’s chops as a “small business” entrepreneur were built on exploitation of illegal drug use and a generally very shady past.

I wonder how long it will take the media to unwrap this pungent package of poo?

Tayt Brooks finds a job

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Guess who’s getting his hands on the cookie jar?

Governor Elect Phil Scott announced a number of appointments today, but the one that really piqued my interest was that of St. Albans’ own Tayt Brooks who will serve as “director of affordability and and economic initiatives.”

As you may recall, Brooks occupied space in the Douglas administration as “economic development commissioner.” It sounds pretty much like his old job has simply been rebranded to protect the innocent.

It’s an interesting position for Brooks who formed his own superPAC, Vermonters First, and famously coaxed Leonore Broughton into parting with north of $100,000. in 2012, laboring and bringing forth a goose egg for Republicans in statewide elections…other than that of incumbent Lt. Gov., Phil Scott.

As director of that superPAC, Brooks got himself into hot water over having dinner with gubernatorial candidate Randy Brock during the 2012 campaign.  That’s strictly a no-no, as it has the optics of coordination between the campaign and the supposedly “independent” superPAC. Of course we believed that the topic of the election campaign was never even mentioned!

In that same election cycle, Vermonters First sent Franklin County voters an absentee ballot request to complete that resembled an actual ballot and apparently confused many voters.

As I recall, the activities of the superPAC belied the notion of anything that could remotely be considered“coordinated”…or even competent!

One ham handed-flyer distributed by VF-PAC was so garish and badly designed that we at GMD speculated that Brooks had amateurishly designed it himself on his own computer, so that less of Ms. Broughton’s dough went out the door. Would that was all! The flyer also featured the Seal of the State of Vermont. On campaign literature, that is also a big “no-no,” and even caught national attention.

Leonore was at it again in the 2016 cycle, even though Vermonters First appears to have evaporated. The entire superPAC depended upon one donor, and I suspect she figured she could do just as well (or poorly) without Brooks ministrations.  At least she bagged herself a governor this go-round.

Anyway, I don’t know about you, but I plan to put the office of “affordability and economic iniitatives” on speed-dial at my house.

There are a whole lot of affordability challenges that Mr. Brooks ought to be tackling, like telephone, cable and internet service; prescription drugs, textbooks…and fresh fruits and vegetables! The list goes on and on.

Somehow I suspect Mr. Brooks attention will not be devoted to making ordinary Vermonters’ lives more affordable; the ones who are just struggling to get by.  It’s pretty easy to guess that this office will have its laser focus on making business (and I don’t mean Mom & Pop operations) more “affordable.” That’s where the “incentives” come in. We’re not talking free in-state tuition for students who commit to living and working here after college graduation. We’re talking tax cuts, custom infrastructure and other goodies for the likes of IBM.

I suppose Brooks was bound to get office space from Scott.  Hopefully, the governor won’t  allow him to play with scissors.

 

Ending Presidential Carte Blanche

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The practice of gerrymandering, which played a crucial role in bringing Donald Trump to the White House, seems about to be tested in the Supreme Court. It certainly would not be the first time the Supreme Court has been tasked with adjudicating the fairness of redistricting, but the Wisconsin case has resulted in the development of practical metrics for determining fairness that were not available in the past.

With that glimmer of hope on the distant horizon, I thought we could use this time before the other presidential shoe drops to reflect on the deficiencies in legal restrictions on the conduct of a President that have been exposed by Donald Trump’s first weeks as President Elect.

Around this time last year, I was bitterly coming to grips with the reality that, for all of its progressive values, Vermont did not have a code of ethics, under which violations of the public trust (like those of which Norm McAllister stands accused)would have immediate and meaningful consequences. How many times did we hear the lame excuse that “we never needed one before”?

Here we are, a year later, discovering that the office of the presidency of the United States suffers from a similar lack of mandated ethical rules. That back door has been left wide-open, apparently with no thought given to the possibility that someone as arrogant and shameless as Donald Trump might one day use it to walk off with the nation’s silverware.

While we breathlessly await the President Elect’s next breech of traditional presidential ethics, it might be wise to note a wishlist of rules that now need to be imposed on any elected president by law rather than merely by custom. Candidate Trump has demonstrated repeatedly that he cares little for truth, respect and conventional decency. We are therefore obliged to codify even the most rudimentary obligations of the presidency.

Here are a few suggestions, should Democrats regain the ability to initiate in 2018:

1)  All presidents should be required by law to place any and all holdings in a true blind trust. We thought that was the case, but apparently the devil is in the details.

2) The definition of a “blind trust” must be clearly and rigidly defined by law, and arranging for that transfer to a blind trust should be the first obligation of the President Elect before he/she even begins to consider appointments. That blind trust shall not be administered by anyone having a familial relationship to the President, and the President must not have any access to particular information about his holdings while in office.

3) Husbands, wives, children and siblings of the President should be barred by law from any official position in his/her administration. No matter how brilliant one’s relatives may seem to be, the idea of presidential advisors is to serve the people’s best interests by permitting the “decider in chief” to entertain ideas beyond his own echo chamber.

4) As those family members should be barred by law from occupying official positions, they should as well not receive security clearance beyond the necessary scope of their own personal security vis-a-vis the president. They should not be privy to security briefings ofany kind beyond the security of their own person; and, by extension, should not be allowed in the room when sensitive foreign or domestic business is discussed.

5) The fact that family members are ethically barred from profiting from the presidency appears an insufficient deterrent even in these earliest days of the Trump administration. It is  therefore necessary to establish specific and far-reaching definitions for the concept of “profit” because we can no longer trust that the President’s own judgment will not be ethically compromised.

6) A President who deliberately misleads the public should be subject to stiff penalties. With a President who famously lied 73% of the time during his campaign for office, it is unfortunately necessary to establish consequences for lying when one is the ‘leader of the free world.’ A President who doubles down on lies when challenged, and never admits that he is wrong,is extremely dangerous and requires additional legal constraints to keep him truthful.

7) The President should be required by law to allow a rotating pool of journalists from
a representative cross-section of established national news sources to accompany him throughout his schedule, being excluded only when it is a matter of national security. What exactly comprises a “matter of national security” must be clearly defined.

8) Press conferences allowing an opportunity for question and answer exchanges with the President should be established by law, to occur on a regular schedule…biweekly or monthly at the very least.

9)  The Presidentand his/her immediate family should be required to make the White House their primary residence.  Secret Service details should be limited to those members of the President’s immediate family who make the White House their primary residence. The costs and inconvenience accrued to the general public by any more whimsical arrangement in these security challenging times make it imperative that this simple rule be firmly enforced.

10) Anyone who has engaged in lobbying in the previous five years should be banned from appointments by the President. Anyone leaving elected or appointed service in the U.S. Government should be banned from lobbying activities for at least five years.

11) In order to ensure transparency and undetected avoid conflict of interest, the President Elect should be required by law to disclose his income tax returns for the past five years before election, and every year thereafter until he leaves office.

Why should the occupant of the highest office in the land be held to a lesser standard than any other elected official?  It is completely indefensible.

One must now accept that someone completely lacking in a moral/ethical compass will occasionally ascend to the White House.  The only way to protect our democracy under those circumstances is to established clearly defined laws, with meaningful consequences, specifically governing the president.

Of course, its time for a constitutional overhaul to replace the Electoral College with direct democracy; to overturn Citizen’s United; and to reintroduce the expired Voting Rights Act.

So, as P.E.D.J.Trump builds his historic legacy as the worst president ever, we have a to-do list that stretches far beyond his (hopefully) brief regime.

It begins with an urgent call for Democratic voters to turn out in record numbers to reverse the GOP majority in 2018.

No Thanks This Year

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We’re not celebrating Thanksgiving at our house this year.

It just doesn’t feel right to us when so many of our minority neighbors are feeling frightened and uncertain as Donald Trump mans his fortress of power.

I know that many people are working very hard at looking for ‘normal’ amid the new world order, but that just reminds me of the many books I’ve read about Germany in the earliest days of Hitler’s rise, when denial was still the favorite defense. I highly recommend “Inside the Third Reich” by Albert Speer for a primer on rationalization.

I won’t belabor the parallels here, beyond a reminder that Hitler didn’t steal into power but was carried in on a populist sweep that exploited weaknesses in what was ostensibly a democratic system; and although accompanied by a heavy handed dose of demonizing the ‘other,’ his early policies seemed benign enough, including national health, full employment and support for the family.

Perhaps I will return to an interest in delving into political intrigues and policy issues on the local and state level, but until we see whether any rule of law can be enforced to check the ambitions of Donald Trump and his Cabinet of Horrors, I can think of little else.

It was gratifying at least to read the joint statement by outgoing Democratic Governor Peter Shumlin and incoming Republican Governor Phil Scott, promising to hold the line against the most hateful prospects of a Trump presidency. I sincerely hope that the new Governor is as good as his word.

Nevertheless, all one has to do is look at the remarks of Trump accolade Darcie Johnson and comments in the blogosphere to see that there are plenty of Trump’s cohorts ready for their marching orders, even here in the benevolent state of Bernie Sanders.

It’s as if a poisonous vapor has been released to waft through the countryside, reviving prejudice and suspicion wherever it lay dormant, inviting the spiteful to feed on the weak and vulnerable.

True evil walks the land.

No, we’re not giving thanks this year.

sad-turkey

Wrapping your head around a Trump presidency

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If you’re like me, almost nothing you’ve done since waking-up Wednesday morning has not involved anxious conversation about Donald Trump in our future.

There’s a lot to digest in the press, but here are links to some articles from a wide range of sources over the past twenty-four hours, that I specifically wanted to share.

New York Times:  Clinton won the popular vote by a substantial margin.

Fortune: Sanders would have been a better candidate.

Al Jazeera: What a Trump Victory Means for Women.

Slate: Who Can Rein-in President Trump?

Recode: Trump Hates Net Neutrality

Washington Post: Trump and Moscow

The Verge: What will Trump do to the NIH

Forbes: Edward Snowden on Trump

A Message from Senator Bernie Sanders

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Green Mountain Daily is grateful for the opportunity  to bring you Bernie Sanders‘ own words on this troubling occasion.

BURLINGTON, Vt., Nov. 9 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement Wednesday after Donald Trump was elected president of the United States:

“Donald Trump tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media. People are tired of working longer hours for lower wages, of seeing decent paying jobs go to China and other low-wage countries, of billionaires not paying any federal income taxes and of not being able to afford a college education for their kids – all while the very rich become much richer.

“To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him. To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”

Republicans: Be Careful What You Wish For

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In the incredulous aftermath of Donald Trump’s election victory, we have many things on which to reflect.

The so-called “leader of the free world” is now a vain, thin-skinned demagogue with the temperament of a child and a complete disinterest in the details of our constitution or the workings of government in general.

He has just been given carte blanche by the electorate to follow his every selfish whim, which he will most certainly do since the venal and castrated Republican Congress is clearly prepared to do his bidding.

What this means for the millions of minority citizens whom Trump openly despises, and in the sphere of U.S. power and influence is almost beyond comprehension.

Since he was never prevailed upon by his followers and the toothless media to provide either his taxes as evidence of any possible entanglements, nor anything in the way of policy beyond general platitudes about making America “great again,” no one (not even his Republican Congress) has the slightest idea of what he might do in office other than strut his plumage and plot revenge on his many, many perceived enemies.

It is doubtful that even he has any plan beyond what immediately will satisfy his vanity and desire to swiftly punish anyone who crosses him.

Welcome to the United Banana Republic of America.

Republicans may enjoy their hegemony in the lead-up to inauguration, but they should be prepared for the worst when King Donald begins his reign for it will most certainly be marked by epic dysfunction of unprecedented scope and consequence.

Unfortunately, we will have to live through it, too.

Prepare for a long, brutal four years of uncertainty, chaos and, when Trump fails to deliver on his promises, riots and rebellion from a heavily armed populace who have been fed on hollow promises and hate.

Coal is not coming back, despite what Donald Trump might have promised. Too much infrastructure has already been replaced.

The election wasn’t “rigged,” unless you count  FBI Director Comey‘s inexplicable acts of bad judgement; or Russian email hacking and other efforts at influencing the election; or voter suppression against minorities supporting Hillary Clinton.  By God, Trump was right about that one thing: the election was rigged…in his favor!

Trump will not be able to replace Obamacare with “something much better.” Far brighter minds have already struggled to bring universal healthcare this far and Donald Trump hasn’t given the matter even a passing thought. An irresponsible tyke to the bitter end, I am sure he would simply end it on the first day of his administration, were that possible, and hang the consequences for the millions of people left abruptly without healthcare.

Mexico will not pay for a wall to be built on its border and only the most paranoid and localized of Trump’s supporters will still think it’s a good idea when the complete impracticality of the plan and it’s cost to the American people ultimately plays out in real time.

The women he has mistreated will not be silent; and, if the Bill Cosby experience is anything to judge by, more are likely to come forward. He will find that the women of America will not forget his abusive past, and God help him if he pulls any of that crap in the Oval Office.  Bill Clinton, he ain’t.

As much as he likes to call Hillary “crooked,” it is he who is currently under active investigation for Trump University indiscretions, has numerous complaints of sexual assault unfolding around him, and may be implicated in Russian attempts to influence the election…which we now understand to have been effective.

Isis becomes his problem now; as does Kim Jung Il and thousands of other more subtle international challenges to which he has devoted little or no thought. Who is his ‘brain trust’ on international relations going to be; Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani??

He’s promised tax breaks for everyone, but closer scrutiny of the plan reveals it’s mostly for his own economic class and he has finessed the question of how to pay for those tax breaks.

Prisons and roads will likely be further privatized because we will be paying for his wall and tax breaks for the well-heeled.

Oh, yes, and he has promised “law and order.” Yay; just what is needed to calm minority Americans already alarmed by his hateful rhetoric. That’s going to go well.

The Republicans allowed themselves to be married to so many whoppers during his campaign for class president that they are beyond count. Right now, I imagine hoards of GOP staffers scrambling to compile the list of promises and misrepresentation for which they will be held accountable by the gullible electorate, which, when disappointed will transform into a tide of angry rabble.

There are lessons to be drawn by everyone from last night’s rude awakening; and there is blame enough for many.

Lesson number one is that the impossible is never impossible and assumptions are begging to be disproved.

Why do we still refuse to believe that the American people will vote against their own best interests, over and over again?

The media played patti-cake with their own Frankenstein creation for far too long; until he turned on them when, too late, they began to hold him somewhat accountable for his lies and hate speech.

The Republican establishment couldn’t summon a collective backbone throughout the primaries and allowed themselves to be bullied into submission by a whiney crybaby. Then, once Trump secured the nomination, after a brief and weak resistance, they all, for the most part, fell in line behind this insult to democracy, preferring the dangerous chaos of a Trump administration to any loss of power to the Democrats.  Rather than strengthening the Republican hand in the long-run, unless Donald Trump really does begin mass deportations of immigrants, this election will only hasten the collapse of an already emasculated party.

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and the Democratic establishment? Well, what can I say?

There will be some Democrats who will be quick to blame Bernie for running against Hillary in the primary and starting the conversation about her faults; but he didn’t reveal any secrets. Those vulnerabilities were already in evidence and the ‘annointing’ of Hillary as the only Democratic candidate would not have done her any favors in the general election. I can’t imagine how Joe Biden is feeling this morning!

Two people who can’t be blamed, however, are Michelle and Barack Obama who gave the campaign every advantage from a stellar approval rating to a relatively strong economic report; and they campaigned like rock stars!

We’re all grieving right now, but after a decent interval, we have to pick ourselves up and go on fighting to win back our democracy. That will take a clear-eyed look at institutional political thought and a willingness to consider a whole new paradigm, perhaps outside the two-party system.

There’s no better time to start than now.

Will Hell Freeze-Over?

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I came to world awareness by the fluorescent glow of a “Sylvania Silver Screen,” at the tender age of twelve, as the Cuban Missile Crisis unfolded before my very eyes. Never before were children subject to the real-time spectacle of adults playing dangerous war games that tempted Armageddon while they sat powerless in their living rooms.

I was absolutely terrified and vividly remember the nightmare I had one night while convinced I wouldn’t live to see thirteen.

In the dream, I found myself cowering beneath the bay window in our living room, attempting to hide from the sight of Satan and his minions looming large in a battle orange sky of smoke and hellfire through which they sailed triumphant in a “brand new swept-wing Dodge.”

Credit Catholic school and Madison Avenue for that lurid flight of fancy, but it was one of those dreams that used to stay with me for days and made me afraid of going to sleep at night.

Fifty-five years later, on the eve of another historic moment, I feel drawn to that memory like never before.

It is perhaps an appropriate juxtaposition, because as we learned much later, the events we witnessed on TV brought us closer to nuclear oblivion than ever before or since. Only the restraint exercised by President Kennedy at the critical moment prevented an exchange of nuclear warheads that would have most certainly made my worst nightmare come true.  Imagine how Donald Trump might behave under similar circumstances.

This weekend was our last before the final chapter of an election that has seen bigotry, misogyny, boldface lies, saber rattling, threats of revenge and incitement to violence characterize the campaign of the Republican nominee; a man with absolutely no policy experience, no record of public service, no curiosity to learn the basics of our governance, and a personal history of cheating, meanness, childishness and incivility.

Thus described, Donald Trump sounds like he could have only reached this apex in a fevered adolescent dream such as I had so many years ago. Yet, here we are in the grips of a madness that appears to have ensnared upwards of half the nation.

If our democracy survives the next four years, it’s not sufficient to breathe a sigh of relief and go on as we were.
  The Trump response, which has brought us so dangerously close to the precipice this time, is the proverbial canary in a coal mine.

The practice of representative democracy that has worked for us reasonably well throughout the twentieth century is beginning to wear down the fabric of our functional federation in the twenty-first. Gerrymandering has further undermined the “representative” nature of that relationship and heightened the sense of disenfranchisement among significant populations.

Resolved long ago into a two-party system, there was an unspoken agreement that partisan politics must nevertheless adhere to certain rules of pragmatism in order to allow government to function. As the population grew and diversified and economic power became further consolidated in a ruling elite, that unspoken agreement was no longer acceptable to a growing sector of the population whose values and priorities could not be easily be resolved into two competing but cooperative interest groups.

What the Republican party has been experiencing in recent election cycles amounts to a hostile takeover by a coalition of extreme right wing factions and so-called Christian “conservatives.” That take over seems almost guaranteed to formally bifurcate the party following this election.

Hostile even to the rule of constitutional law (apart from the second amendment), the Republican base has come to reward bad governing behavior that does nothing more than prevent business from being conducted in a responsible manner. They have broken the contract with “we the people” to represent the interests of the majority who simply want their government to function smoothly.

It is no accident that the Libertarians have become more and more of a factor in every election cycle.

So far Democrats have managed to contain their friable factions, but many are far from satisfied with the nomination process and the role that corporate wealth has been allowed to play in party priorities.

Democrats, being fundamentally more inclusive and forward thinking than Republicans, seem to have pulled off one more unity drive successfully in 2016; but many in the party’s establishment are blaming Bernie and his supporters for their troubles rather than accepting that his strength is a sign that Democrats are in their own early stages of sclerotic deterioration, relying too heavily on political retreads like the Clintons and assuming that everyone will just fall in line “for the good of the party.”

Personally, I think we will see the two party system weaken more and more in future election cycles as the internet shapes new alternatives into viable “third party” options. I hope that the attraction of the Alt Right to working class white voters will be diminished as saner alternatives allow them to feel more civilly empowered.

Coalitions may be the wave of the future, giving more individuals reason to feel better represented, and quite possibly bridging the two-party gulf that has held twenty-first century American progress in handcuffs.

One can only hope so.

***Meanwhile, get out there and vote for Hillary, for crying out loud!  This is not a drill!!

A Banana Republic in Southern Vermont?

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In this year of noise over imaginary voter fraud, little ol’ Vermont is confronting it’s own situation of questionable efforts to influence a vote.

Wind-developer Iberdrola of Spain is offering a cash incentive to all adult Windham and Grafton residents if, in an upcoming referendum, the voters come down in favor of its proposal to construct 24 turbines in the two towns.

Now, I don’t have a dog in this fight. Wind is a useful alternative to fossil fuel so long as the siting is responsible and well-considered Those determinations should be made by disinterested professionals. Local representatives of the people have an obligation to consider both those professional opinions and the sentiments of their constituents in making a final decision. I also understand that the popular vote in Windham/Grafton is non-binding.

Nevertheless, it sets a poor precedent for the permit process, and potentially for other processes going forward, when what is tantamount to a bribe is allowed to influence the vote.

I understand the argument that says this is a way to ensure that compensation for hosting the towers will reach all residents by equal parts; but if that were the only goal, there are other ways to handle this after public opinion has been fairly sampled.

After the case for and against has been heard and a public opinion vote taken without undue influence, if the project is deemed unobjectionable, then is the time to discuss the particulars of compensation.

If it becomes the habit to offer this kind of cash incentive in order to grease the wheels of voter “opinion” there could be unexpected consequences.

Should a project succeed in the permitting process only because popular support has been bought by the developer, and despite valid opposition by those most affected, some important values will have been compromised. Should that project then prove a huge mistake for the community as a whole, the fundamental principle of public input could be permanently undermined.

I was grateful to read Secretary of State Jim Condos’ carefully chosen words about the more egregious proposal to make payments only to registered voters. Certainly the current proposal that extends to all permanent resident adults is more equitable, and even arguably less of a direct bribe to voters.

Nevertheless, menace to the process is still very real in this arrangement; and, since the bribes are being offered by a foreign corporation, there is an ironic echo of colonial exploitation in the whole affair.