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.

An Environmental Double-Header in Montpelier

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This ought to be good!

On Wednesday evening in Montpelier, Vermont Conservation Voters and the Vermont Natural Resources Council will present the first comprehensive debates for BOTH parties on environmental issues.

As much of the nation broils in record-breaking heat or grapples with water shortages, the environment is finally recognized by both parties (at least in Vermont) as a topic of public concern.

Congratulations to VCV and VNRC for pulling this thing together. it must have been like herding cats.

Enough said; here are the details:

Montpelier, VT – Vermont Conservation Voters (VCV) and the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC) will co-host a gubernatorial candidate debate on key environmental issues facing the state this Wednesday (6/22) evening in Montpelier. The candidates will be asked to share their environmental priorities and plans for addressing significant issues facing Vermont — including clean energy and climate change, cleaning up Lake Champlain and other waterways, toxic chemical contamination, healthy forests and wildlife, and sustainable communities. With environmental issues of interest to so many Vermonters, and with candidates who will likely provide very different visions for how to tackle these issues, this event should prove interesting and informative for Vermonters heading into the August 9th Primary Election.

What:          Gubernatorial Candidate Debate on Environmental Issues

 
Who:           Candidates Phil Scott, Bruce Lisman, Sue Minter, Matt Dunne, and Peter Galbraith; Hosted by VCV & VNRC; Moderated by VTDigger’s Anne Galloway.

 
When:         Wednesday, June 22, 5:30-8:30 p.m.;

 

Welcome Reception 5:30-6:30pm; Republican Candidates Debate 6:30-7:30pm; Democratic Candidates Debate 7:30-8:30pm

 
Where:        The Chapel in College Hall at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, 36 College Street, Montpelier

McAllister Day 1: The Victim on Trial

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Today I attended the first day of the long-awaited trial of Franklin County senatorial candidate, Norm McAllister (R) for alleged assaults committed against a then-teenage victim.  

The morning began inauspiciously with a replaced juror, and news that the victim might not appear if the proceedings would be videotaped. She was understandably reluctant to describe the graphic nature of the assaults before the camera’s eye.

For some reason, the attorney for the Free Press advocated most strongly for not sparing the victim from the cameras. In the end, cameras were excluded for the duration of her testimony and she was called to the stand.

The doors opened and a little girl who looked like she might be a high school freshman stepped into the courtroom, accompanied by a victims’ rights advocate. Her taffy colored hair was gathered into a traditional ponytail and she was dressed neatly in jeans and a shirt. She later said that at the time of the alleged assaults she weighed just 85-lbs., and stood four-foot-eleven inches.

Thanks to a deal negotiated by the defense, she cannot be referred to during the trial as “the victim,” since Norm McAllister is disputing whether any crime has been committed. (Try that argument if you are a young black male!) Fortunately, we at GMD are not so constrained, and she will remain “The Victim” in these pages because she did not want the press to identify her, and seemed anguished to learn that her name had already, earlier, been leaked to the media.

After today’s proceedings, I think I better understand why it is so difficult to get sexual assault victims to challenge their tormenters in a court of law. It would be a hideous and demeaning experience even for the most confident and articulate adult.

For an economically disadvantaged and unsophisticated girl, with barely a high school education, her encounter with the “justice” system following sexual trauma is likely to be about enough to finish her off.

At this point, The Victim has been deposed several times over the course of many months, with varying degrees of readinesss, and by people with conflicting agendas. Unsurprisingly for me, her memory is faulty and full of contradictions from one account to the next.

A well educated and mature adult, untroubled by the trauma of sexual assault may find it difficult to understand how her story could be so inconsistent; but consider what that twenty-one year old girl has to contend with. Complicating the recall process was her instinct to hide her ‘shame’ from everyone, but most especially from her boyfriend.

Apart from the direct trauma of the assault, there are societal taboos in play that trigger unjustified feelings of shame and guilt from which the mind may weave a tissue of altered narratives that only serve to complicate recovery of the real memories.

The longer the incidents of trauma persist and the later the attempt at recall, the more likely it is that those memories will be riddled with flaws and fluctuations. All kinds of odd dysfunction occur in individuals suffering abuse. Think of Stockholm Syndrome and the tendency of pedophiles to have been abused themselves as children.

There is likely some underlying pathology to The Victims jumbled memories, as well as the contribution made by her youth at the beginning of the alleged abusive relationship (sixteen or seventeen), and the role of ignorant societal judgements on the violated.

But to dismiss the overarching complaint as a mere fabrication, as I suspect they may be fixing to do in the McAllister case, would be the worst kind of injustice.

Her obvious revulsion at having to discuss the crimes in public could not be concealed. She might have kept the secret of her violation indefinitely if police, investigating other allegations of McAllister’s sexual exploitation, hadn’t come knocking at her door.

Now I am sure she regrets having let them in.

Donald Trump says he’s a friend of “LB and LBGT…bigly”

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As much as Donald Trump may insist that he is “smart,” the English language sometimes seems to elude him entirely.

Characteristically capitalizing on tragedy in a New Hampshire press appearance, following the horrific  mass shooting at an Orlando gay club, Trump doubled down on the self-congratulation that had been his instinctual first reaction; then ruptured his syntax trying to claim that he is a “friend” to the LGBT community. So unfamiliar are the best interests of that minority to Mr.Trump that he couldn’t even master the identifying acronym and melted down to complete incoherence at the end of the ‘money’ sentence:’

I could hardly believe my ears so I located the video replay online to capture the moment. There’s a long wait until Trump begins his speech, but at 41:10 into the recording my patience was rewarded. After attempting to posit the question of who is the better friend of the LGBT community, he or Hillary Clinton, but failing twice to nail the acronym, this is what he actually said:

“…I will tell you who the better friend is, and someday that will be proven out, BIGLY: Donald Trump.”

I kid you not. He actually invented the word, “bigly.” I don’t even know how to spell it!

Not that very much of the speech was better articulated than were those words, since Trump has the vocabulary of a slow middle schooler, and roughly the same sense of self; but the complete abandonment of the English language at that moment was astonishing. He didn’t hesitate for a minute but just went right on with his schtick, like a carnival barker on speed.

No wonder that yesterday, when it occured, I couldn’t find any reference to the blunder in the blogosphere, which usually seizes upon such word-salad from a public figure like a dog on a dropped hamburger. There’s just too much to keep up with when Trump is on the podium telling outlandish whoppers and calling people names. They’ve just given up on him, and he knows that. In fact, that is what he counts on.

If he talks really fast and doesn’t allow anyone to get a word in edgewise, he can simply ignore inconvenient questions and challenges to his veracity and steamroll on. He creates a wall of whines and snarls that simply exhausts the will to probe it. As a bonus, the angry ignorant go absolutely wild for such caveman antics.

That’s how he managed to crawl over sixteen bodies to grab the brass ring. If you look at any establishment Republican trying to field a question about Donald Trump, they look and act kind of like they are in a daze. They don’t really understand how they find themselves in this situation, even thought it’s their own damned fault.

His complete misunderstanding and mischaracterization of the takeaway from Orlando is mind-boggling. Not only did he run with the idea that the shooter was a recent immigrant from “Afghan,” (not even close); he all but accused the sitting President of being complicit in the crime and in league with terrorists.

Ignoring the obvious takeaway that this was a hate crime, no doubt  inspired by endless inflammatory rhetoric not entirely dissimilar to his own, he has even suggested that what happened in the nightclub could have been prevented if every one there was also packing heat.

Let’s see how that might go down. A darkened nightclub, multiple shots ring out and everybody in the place pulls out a gun and begins firing at whomever they think might have started it. Is there one nefarious shooter or two, or twelve? Nobody knows for sure and everyone is operating in panic mode.  What could possibly go further wrong ?

But suddenly he sees himself as the best friend of “the  gays.”  Hillary Clinton, he insists, wants to take away your Second Amendment rights; again, a total lie, but he’s said it so many times, and so many Republicans want to believe it, that it has become an urban myth.

Nobody gets particularly exercised about his lies anymore. They are an integral part of who he is and if you accept all the other baggage he carries, you have already entered an alternative universe.

His pattern of lying and conning are so familiar now that it is almost discounted from consideration, and everyone goes on with the discussion as if he hasn’t already completely disqualified himself from any elected office, let alone the highest office in the land.

Move over Sara Palin, there’s a new champion of incoherent double-talk in town.

County Courier called out for bias

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Here in Franklin County, many people rely on the County Courier to provide weekly perspective on regional, and some national, news.

Lately, many readers have been disappointed to find more and more articles gleaned from national right wing sources creeping into the pages of the Courier, generally without vetting or balance, and  occasionally without complete disclosure of the source.

The latest salvo in this partisan information attack came in the form of a new policy by the Courier concerning “Letters to the Editor” in advance of the 2016 elections. Only letters from incumbent legislators  will be allowed unlimited inclusion in the paper.  Anyone else writing about the election, including opposition candidates, will be limited to a single letter of 100 words or less.  That leaves incumbents with plenty of opportunity to attack their opponents and the opponents almost none for setting the record straight.

Of course, since 10 out of the twelve incumbent legislators are Republican, it’s pretty clear which party this policy is designed to favor.

I hope our own readers will consider adding their voices to the protests against this biased policy.  Here at GMD, we are an unashamedly biased source of opinion, as befits a blog; but the Courier claims to be a newspaper and should limit its bias  to clearly identified editorial content.

Here is the Courier’s email contact:   countycourier@gmail.com

And here follows my own letter to the editor:

Years back, I would routinely pick-up a copy of the Courier because I appreciated the depth of its coverage of local news. Those days are long gone, and the Courier has evolved into an organ of right-wing propaganda, reproducing nationally generated material of questionable accuracy and decided bias without appropriate disclaimers.

That transition is now complete with the announcement of the Courier’s new policy on letters concerning the 2016 election campaign. While challenging candidates and their supporters are limited to one letter of 100 words for the duration of the campaign, incumbent candidates  are allowed virtually unlimited access to the forum.

Given that the Franklin County delegation is almost entirely Republican, as of now, the opposition voice is effectively repressed by your policy. This is a disservice to your readers and to County interests in general.

Consider, in contrast, the habits of the St. Albans Messenger, which prints virtually all letters that are minimally civil, no matter what the point of view. The Messenger is fulfilling its vital traditional role as a community forum, choosing only to limit letters in the last week of an election campaign, when the volume threatens to overwhelm other content. At that point, they simply give a cut-off date for new submissions related to the election. No preference is given to incumbents and their supporters.

Please recommit to your obligation toward the public good and restore the integrity of our County Courier.

 

Gubernatorial forum on a bleak and bloody Sunday

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It was a polite crowd of about sixty Franklin County voters who braved the terrible morning news, cold and rain to shuffle into folding chairs and listen to four gubernatorial candidates discuss the issues.

The candidate forum at St. Paul’s in St. Albans was hardly a partisan pitchfork convention, as Phil Scott, noteworthy for his absence, might have expected. An empty chair at the table was the only reference to the missing Lieutenant Governor.

Once the rules of engagement were laid out by representatives of “Rights & Democracy” (organizers of the event), the candidates were invited to give a three minute introduction of themselves.

To his credit, Matt Dunne, who was first to speak, used his three minutes to remember the 50 individuals who were gunned down overnight in Orlando.

After the other candidates had been given their opportunity for a stump speech, the candidates were each in turn asked to answer the same set of questions about jobs and economic opportunity, healthcare, affordable housing, education, energy and the environment. Each response was limited to two minutes and most of the candidates respected the time limits.

Those questions were followed by audience questions, submitted earlier on pieces of paper, with only one-minute allowed to each candidate for a response. There still wasn’t enough time left for all of the audience questions.

In light of the news of the day, I had submitted a question on assault weapons and I know that one other person had asked about efforts to address the dangerous climate of hate and bullying that has recently been in the news. Neither question made the cut.

Of the four candidates, Sue Minter and Matt Dunne made by far the best impression, giving clear and well considered responses that demonstrated their personal strengths as candidates.
Sue Minter is the candidate of greatest public service experience and Matt Dunne projects the dynamism of a quick and entrepreneurial mind. Both came across as capable, comfortable and socially adept.

Peter Galbraith projected passion and determination, and most of his ideas appeared to differ minimally from those of the other Democratic candidates.

The thing that fired him up the most and drew considerable applause from the audience, though,  was the issue of industrial scale wind, to which he is vehemently opposed.  In fact, his energy policy has a great deal more to do with curbing consumption than replacing it with renewables. I have to say, I see a lot to like in that perspective, since there is almost no national effort toward reducing consumption, and emphasis in that area is badly needed.

Bruce Lisman, as well, is opposed to industrial scale wind. He may in fact be opposed to even small scale wind projects, but I am not at all sure. Many of his responses were a little vague, as I remembered from the last time I heard him speak a couple of years ago. He tended to go off question a bit in order to address topics that were of more interest to him, but that left some listeners, like myself, struggling to follow his train of thought.
I believe that, unlike the other three, he does not support increasing the minimum wage even to $12.; but again, he didn’t really say so.
On the subject of marijuana legalization, Mr. Lisman is opposed while the other three support it with some variation in roll-out and management.

All of the candidates were eager to answer the last question the afternoon, “What would you have done differently from the current governor?’  Sue Minter replied that she would not have promised something she couldn’t deliver, and Matt Dunne also said that he would have handled the health care rollout very differently; drawing on his own experience to avoid the software disaster that plagued the Governor’s efforts.  Mr. Galbraith would have given a better account of what the Governor’s healthcare plan would  cost and how he would have paid for it.

Mr. Lisman said there were many things he would have done differently from Governor Shumlin, but pressed with just a minute of response time, he settled for saying that he would have been “truthful.”

I thought it was too bad, given the implications of the day’s headline tragedy, that no opportunity was taken to discuss Vermont’s singularly lax gun regulations, or the growth of hate crimes and bigotry throughout the nation.

I keep hearing that we don’t have a gun problem in Vermont; and many would argue that we don’t have a hate crime problem here, either; but bullying is very real even in Vermont, and we are not an island. Sooner or later, gun ‘problems’ will be visited on Vermont as surely as on our neighbor states.

…But I guess we’ll have to save those issues for another election cycle.

Matt Dunne picks up key endorsements

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As Bernie’s campaign considers the way forward, our Vermont contests are just getting interesting.

Democratic candidate for governor, Matt Dunne has announced two huge endorsements from organized labor that should significantly bolster his campaign.  Both the Vermont Labor Council of the AFL-CIO and the Vermont Service Employee’s Association VSEA have come out for Dunne.

Dunne was a strong contender in the 2010 election cycle that ultimately delivered the governorship to Peter Shumin. I remember his enthusiastic young canvassers from that race, and was delighted to see them out in force this time, as well.  I had a very pleasant visit from two of his youthful squad a couple of days ago, the first canvassers to come to my door this year.

Sunday’s forum in St. Albans at St. Paul’s Methodist Church will be my first opportunity to hear from all of the Democratic candidates…and Bruce Lisman…on one stage and I am really looking forward to the experience.

It’s unusual to have a forum including members of both parties during the primary, but I am most eager to hear Lisman’s response to the inevitable question as to whether or not he will be a Donald Trump supporter.

I suppose, since Lisman played coy about his political affiliation for a number of years after launching “Campaign for Vermont,” he thinks maybe he still has a chance to pick up some votes from the Blue Dogs in Franklin County.

With Matt Dunne, Sue Minter and Peter Galbraith to contend with, all strong policy veterans with progressive chops, Lisman will have his work cut out for him just to look relevant. He may have cut a figure on Wall Street, but in Vermont, he’s just a carpetbagger without the good sense to try putting in some lesser public service before reaching for the governor’s mansion.

In any case, it should be an interesting evening.

Gubernatorial Candidates’ Forum Sunday

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Thank you to Paula Schramm who provided the following information for anyone who would like to attend a Gubernatorial Candidates Panel in Franklin County:

St. Albans Gubernatorial Candidates Panel – Sunday June 12th

When: Sunday June 12th 2:00-4:00pm
Where: St. Paul’s United Methodist Church (11 Church St. St Albans, VT)
Featuring: Matt Dunne, Sue Minter, Peter Galbraith, Bruce Lisman

RSVP here or at www.radvt.org/june12
or on Facebook at – https://www.facebook.com/events/1082285081828401/
Pose questions for the candidates at radvt.org/june12questions

The next Governor of Vermont will have to make critical decisions that will shape the lives of our communities for decades. Our next governor could be the leader who will help grow a vibrant, stable, open Vermont for all families. Who are the people who want to take on this role? Where do they stand on the issues that will most affect our lives and families in Franklin County? We have invited all current candidates and have confirmations already from Matt Dunne, Sue Minter, Peter Galbraith and Bruce Lisman. Join us and spread the word!

The Candidates Panel is hosted by Rights & Democracy, a new statewide grassroots organization geared to bring people together to take action to build healthy communities and make the values of our communities guide the policies of our government. We work in partnership with community groups, progressive unions, faith communities, organizations fighting for human and civil rights, and environmental and climate action groups. Co-sponsors include Main Street Alliance, Voices for Vermont’s Children, and the Vermont Center for Independent Living.

Interesting, isn’t it that notably absent from he lineup is Phil Scott, who apparently prefers to keep his head down and hope no one notices.

Skipping such events suggests a certain entitlement on the part of Scott, which national voters in this election cycle do not seem to find at all attractive.

If Franklin County voters get the impression that Scott thinks the Republican nomination is in-the-bag for him, they just might not show up at the ballot boxes.

‘Just sayin’…

 

Oh God…Not Rolling Thunder!

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I have an issue with “Rolling Thunder;” not with the official annual event in DC, but with the Vermont version that rolls by close to our home every Memorial Day weekend, frightening dogs and small children with deafening decibels, and fouling the air with exhaust fumes.

I would probably have no issue with it if it weren’t for the aggressive noise level to which it isn’t politically correct even to voice an objection.

The low rumble of thousands of bikes rolling through town, the ‘thunder,’ I can accept; but not the painful punctuation provided by squealed wheels, excessive revving and mechanical caterwauling I cannot begin to identify!(??)

I hate that; and truth be told, I would guess most non-motorcyclists do as well. It seems like the whole point is to be as audibly aggressive as possible under the unassailable banner of ‘patriotism.’

And now for the curmudgeon phase of this discourse:

I remember Memorial Day in the 1950’s. Back then, we were still vividly remembering the fallen of WWII.  WWI, “The War to End All Wars,” hadn’t lived up to that promise; and Vietnam was still in the future.

Virtually the entire nation was unified in conviction that WWII, at least, was a just war; even a noble war.

With our recent veteran parents, the whole family would pile into a hulking old Plymouth for a slow drive to the cemetery where we were joined by our cousins, and everyone knelt in silent prayer by the family plot. Then we’d all drive back to Aunt Nellie’s for ham, potato salad and cold refreshments.

It was a quiet contemplative day in which we kids were mostly an audience of antsy listeners as our parents revisited the past. For all the private troubles each family might have, they shared the absolute certainty that our ‘America’ was, indeed, ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave.’

There was no call for honking horns and menacing motor antics when we remembered the fallen from WWII, so I wonder why  it’s such a ‘thing’ now?

WWII is probably the last war in which nearly all ‘Americans’ were united in their support.

After that, the conflicts and their competing interests got murkier and murkier. Korea, as we all learned from ‘Mash,’ was a ‘Police Action.’ Vietnam was a strategic quagmire.

The endless string of wars and terrorist insurgencies in the Middle East all began with the first Iraq War of George the Elder, a wrong-headed intervention in defense of someone’s oil interests (not mine) that allowed Islamist extremists to harness hostility to the West (and the U.S. in particular) into a vehicle for political recruitment.

You’ve got to wonder. Is the need for noise on Memorial Day a passive-aggressive outlet for American supremacists whose fighting force cannot claim a real victory in living memory?
I keep hearing claims that veterans are disrespected in America, but apart from Donald Trump’s unbelievable remark about John McCain, I don’t recall anyone saying a bad word about veterans since the sixties…and today, even Donald Trump is painting himself red-white-and-blue in support of ‘our troops.’

Il Dukey couldn’t resist the opportunity to use DC’s ‘Rolling Thunder’ event as the backdrop for his own empty saber-rattling photo op; he who equates his military prep-school experience to military service, and his personal struggle with venereal disease to the hell of war. But this is what happens when a singular gesture of protest becomes an annual ‘tradition.’ The political hacks move in and the result is pure travesty.

We have a strictly voluntary military today, as opposed to in the Viet Nam era. It self-selects from the overall population, primarily based on two factors, income and beliefs. Enlisted troops tend to overrepresent poorer populations who have less alternative options. Those who rise in the ranks tend to represent more conservative political and religious persuasions.

Military service in the volunteer age represents a largely likeminded community with more influence over the political establishment than at any time in the past. Despite Donald Trump bleating that Obama has destroyed our military, it is, in fact, exponentially larger and better equipped than all competing militaries in the twenty-first century.

It is almost impossible for Congress to touch the Penatgon’s budget. It just goes up every year even as the social safely net and all kinds of human services are under constant attack from Republicans.

The original “Rolling Thunder” ride to the Vietnam War Memorial was intended to bring attention to those who were Missing in Action from that conflict.

I rather doubt that that is still the overarching purpose. When the Obama administration negotiated for the release of Bowe Bergdahl, the President reiterated our national commitment to not leave a soldier behind; and he got no end of grief for the effort.

Volunteer or not, soldier or civilian; every wartime death deserves remembrance. Every human being who labors in the service of their community or country has earned recognition for their service.

Can we please tender that tribute in a less confrontational manner?

The Unshameable Norm McAllister

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Accused child exploiter, accused rapist, accused sex trafficker, and suspended senator, Norm McAllister of Highgate today filed his petition for reelection.

Since Franklin County now has three Republicans competing to take on the Dems for the two available seats, members of that erstwhile ‘conservative’ party will be subjected to what will most likely be a pretty awkward  experience even as McAllister faces his dates in court on June 13 through 16th.

The other entries are sitting senator and St. Albans resident Dustin Degree, and Rep. Carolyn Branigan (Georgia).

I have every confidence that Branagan and Degree will prevail in that primary race because I have met precious few Republicans who have any use for McAllister at this point.

His was a violation of community standards that crossed all political boundaries.

Nevertheless, I am left in utter disbelief that there were enough Franklin County residents (one hundred) willing to sign his petition in order to get him on the ballot.

There is something to be said for assuming someone is innocent until proven guilty of a crime in a court of law, but that is an irrelevant technicality when it comes to assessing McAllister’s qualification to represent the people of Franklin County in the state senate. Plenty of guilty men have prevailed in a court of law.

The predatory acts to which he has confessed in conversation should be sufficient to convince any Franklin County voter that he cannot represent our best interests. and is therefor disqualified.

His successful petition to get on the ballot suggests that we, as a county, have a lot of work to do to shine a bright light on the underlying culture that has apparently enabled his prathological disrespect for women. That at least 100 Franklin County residents still think he is fit to be our senator makes his behavior not just a one-off anomaly, but part of a pattern of tolerance for abuse that must lie hidden in pockets of the community.

For that reason, I sincerely hope we will be afforded an opportunity to put questions directly to the candidates in a public forum.

I feel more than a little sympathy for Ms. Branagan who would presumably have to sit on a stage with McAllister for such a forum; and even for Dustin Degree, whom McAllister seems determined to compromise by association:

“We practically lived together through the campaign cycle,” McAllister said. “He knows more than what a lot of people do. He was with me.”

It’s an unholy local mess, on top of the unholy mess that Trump represents at the national level.
By November, a lot of Franklin County Republicans may have joined the millions across the nation demanding a different party option.

And from the department of hmm….?

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‘Meant to pass this along earlier, but it slipped my mind.

On or around May 5, some Vermonters like me received a robo-call ‘survey’ paid for by Phil Scott for Governor, or some similarly named group. Only I got the call four times in a row within less than an hour.  I wrote a few word about the anomaly on Green Mountain Daily and gave it no more thought.

I welcomed the opportunity to triple whammy the GOP guesstimator, but others may have been less amused by the calls.

A few days ago, I received a phone call from an attorney in Chicago, who asked if I had given my consent anywhere to being contacted by the Vermont GOP, and I told him that I had not.

Somehow, he had gotten wind of my blogpost and was investigating the possibility that the Scott campaign had violated campaign regulations.

I couldn’t provide him with much information beyond what I had already written, but I promised to direct anyone else who received the call(s) to contact his firm.  So I am passing the information along to our GMD readers/writers to use as they see fit.

It might just be a tempest in a teapot, based on my imperfect memory of how the survey was introduced or framed; or it might have something to do with the number of iterations…I have no idea.

BP checked and the law firm appears to engage in ambulance-chasing excursions, so we doubt the veracity of the attorney’s assertion as to who told him to contact me (unnamed in this post.)  I have therefore also removed his contact information from the post.