This is not Peter Shumlin’s finest hour.

Having built much of his base by embracing single payer as the ultimate model for Vermont’s healthcare future, it appears  he has now painted himself into a corner.  

One might almost accuse him of magical thinking, having refused to even consider the possibility of raising revenue for any reason through tax increases levied on those most able to contribute.

Anyone could have predicted that there would be upfront costs to hurdle in making the transition to single payer, even though a well-run program would ultimately mean savings for everyone.

Way back to his first gubernatorial primary, he gained on Doug Racine primarily by promising to deliver single payer. Racine wouldn’t make any such promise, acknowledging that it wouldn’t be simply a matter of waving hands and making it happen.

That honesty probably cost him the primary, and we have seen the disappointments unfold as Shumlin’s campaign promises have faded, one by one, in the cold light of daily governing.

An all or nothing kind of guy?  It sounds like Shumlin has just given up on the idea altogether because it can’t be done without asking for sacrifices from the moneyed class.

It’s not a matter of avoiding injury to the economic sensitivities of the wealthy so that they will generously donate employment opportunities to the less privileged!

It is they who benefit most from a well-run economy that keeps labor healthy and fully employed so that the working class is able to buy the goods and services provided by those in the profit class.

This is not just a betrayal of the coalition of Democratic talent that originally set aside their differences to put Shumlin in the governor’s seat; it is a betrayal of the promise Vermont held out to lead the nation as a model for a functioning single payer system.

To take the position that this cannot succeed in the U.S. is to say that we are incapable of doing something that every other advanced nation has managed to do.

There is no lack of resources in the nation or even in the state to make this happen.  Over the past few years, corporations and the wealthiest class have seen unprecedented income growth.  There is so much money out there, that in some cases, they literally don’t know what to do with it; thus the rise of venture capitalism and exotic “investment” products.

It is shameful that the governor has been unable or unwilling to convince his own class to step-up and make a real contribution to the cost of establishing a well-run single payer health system.  At the very least, his promises obligated him to make that appeal.

Instead he has stuck with a version of the Reaganomic argument that says the rich can’t “bear” any additional taxation.

Peter Shumlin has squandered his opportunity to lead Vermont into a visionary future where it might have flourished in the economic afterglow, attracting progressive enterprises and talented new residents to reinvigorate our little state.

What a pity!

Dick Cheney came out slugging in response to the Senate report on torture.  Despite his advancing years, this is classic Cheney: the incarnation of inhumanity that earned him the nickname “Darth Vader” while still in the Bush White House.

As he nears his own Day of Reckoning, one might have expected a glimmer of self-doubt or remorse even from a Neo-con. Instead, unrepentant, he has doubled down on the brutal self-righteousness.  

No Macnamara moment of humble reflection for him!

If he is a “believer,” perhaps it is his plan to storm the gates of heaven and take it by force.

Cheney be damned (as he well might be), this public embrace of the most heinous interrogation practices serves as an excellent reminder of how poorly our national interests were served under Bush stewardship.

And Cheney, himself, hasn’t spared his boss, insisting emphatically that GW knew all about the torture.  

The former President would like us to believe him an innocent, the victim of false information.  Cheney will have none of it; if he’s going down, he’ll be arm in arm with George Walker Bush!

With a third Bush considering a run for the roses,  resurrection of the undead Dick Cheney can be nothing but good news for Democrats.

Republicans can rail against the evidence (and there are mountains of it) but the takeaway will continue to be that the Bush White House did a VERY bad thing.  

The more they protest, the longer the spotlight will shine on that ignoble fact; the longer that conversation dominates the news, the more surely Dick Cheney’s unsupportable position will brand the Republican Party as it tries to broaden its base for 2016.

According to the New York Times, Cheney is more concerned about defending his “legacy” than confronting the truth.  

He didn’t even bother to read the full report before launching an attack on its validity.

When asked repeatedly on Sunday’s Meet the Press  about the use of torture on prisoners who were later determined to be innocent, Cheney refused to address the issue until he finally said:

“I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective.”

Only we didn’t, as the former Vice President knows all too well; unless that objective was to recruit more susceptible young men to jihad.

Athough the U.S. is highly unlikely to hold him accountable for his crimes and taxpayers will continue to pay so that he may live out his days in luxurious lockdown, even a delusional Cheney must recognize that, with this Senate report, he cannot escape the infamous label of “war criminal” as he passes into history.  

No Reagan-esque mantle of revision will drape over his tomb.

Even Republicans won’t be sorry once he’s gone.

You’ve just gotta love the fact that Bernie Sanders has been named by Democrat Harry Reid to be the Ranking Member on the Senate Budget Committee.  

As you are probably aware, Bernie voted “no” yesterday on the DOD budget, and has vowed to register a “hell no” on today’s budget vote, thus joining Vermont Democrat Peter Welch whose vote in the House repudiated a $1.1 trillion budget that would weaken banking regulations and further corrupt  the election process.

The next Congress should be a doozy of a match up, as Bernie faces off against likely Budget Chair, Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions…arguably one of the meanest men in the Senate.

Sessions was one of three Senators who opposed increased funding for the VA, something that must have infuriated Bernie who has long been a champion of veterans’ health and welfare.

An opponent of abortion rights, immigration reform, and same sex marriage, Sessions wants to open the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling and to make the Bush tax cuts permanent.

He once opined that the NAACP and the ACLU were “unAmerican” for forcing “civil rights down the throats of people.”

A class act all the way.

With Sessions hand upon the purse strings, they won’t be readily parted in aid of the disadvantaged.

Senator Reid knows that whoever takes the Democratic helm as Ranking Member on the Senate Budget Committee will have a thankless job ahead of them.

As a nominal “Independent,” Bernie was a shrewd pick who can be relied upon to take the budgetary battle right up to Session’s comfort zone in the most forceful way without concern for political blowback.

His constituents will love him all the better for championing the interests of vets, students,  the elderly, the poor and the disadvantaged.

With Bernie in opposition, Sessions, who has shown little interest in compromise will be matched toe-to-toe by the most articulate of verbal duelists.  It seems likely that Bernie’s artless candor will at least win the media battles; maybe even shutting down some potential defections from the DINO seats.

I would guess that there is a cynical side to the appointment, as well.  Good Democrats first and foremost, Reid and company may figure that budgetary battles could bloody Bernie’s nose and steal some of his potency for a 2016 presidential bid.

They could be right, but I doubt it.  As Bernie has demonstrated time and again, he is a force to be reckoned with.  If he determines it to be a worthwhile endeavor, nothing will quash his voice in 2016.

A morsel of outrage that has recently bubbled to the top of discussions among energy watchers deserves special mention on Green Mountain Daily:

In the spirit of a brisk holiday sale season, the value of life for American ratepayers appears to have been discounted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in order to ease the path forward for the industry over which, in the public interest, they preside.

“If you wrap your new car around a tree beside the interstate, the U.S. government values your life at $9 million. If you’re at risk from a nuclear accident, you’re priced at just $3 million.”

The $3-million figure was established twenty years ago by the NRC,  and they have  chosen to maintain that figure rather than increasing it to keep apace with other federal agencies that now peg the value of a human life at three times that figure: $9-million.

And why, pray tell, would the Nuclear REGULATORY Commission do such a thing?

“Using this low value has a significant effect on nuclear plant license renewals and new reactor approvals,” said Ed Lyman, a Washington-based physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Nuclear plants are not required to add safety systems that the NRC deems too expensive for the value of the lives they could save.”

That’s right folks:  the value of human life has just been officially reduced so that nuke operators don’t have to over-think our safety.  ‘Just another example of our government working for the guys who pay the freight to Washington.

You can almost imagine Uncle Sam paraphrasing Bob Dylan:

“When you ain’t worth nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose.”

Nuclear energy providers expect the American public to forget about their filthy and dangerous fuel sourcing practices; ignore their still more dangerous waste product with its potential for terrorist exploitation; pass over the burden that taxpayers have borne so that corporate operators could construct their facilities; accept the continued need to absorb risk to keep nuke operators’ insurance costs in check; and sympathize with their complaints that clean renewables are enjoying too much support in the energy marketplace.

Not content with its current privileges, now that holding a federal golden ticket isn’t enough to make nuclear profitable, nuclear energy giant Exelon is taking its Cry Baby act to the Illiniois legislature.

Exelon must think it holds a good hand for blackmail, since it operates six reactor facilities in the state, employing thousands of sensitive voters.   It’s threatening to close three of those facilities if it doesn’t get a mandated bump in  consumer pricing.

As the market price for their product has declined, coincidentally, uranium has begun to climb.  Now Exelon wants the Illinois legislature to bail them out…or else.

But that piteous tale of corporate need has another side.  Apparently,  the cavalry has already quietly ridden to the rescue.

PJM Interconnection, the Valley Forge, Pa.-based regional power-grid operator for all or parts of 13 states including northern Illinois, on Dec. 3 approved changes to the way electricity generators are compensated for their promise to deliver during peak-demand periods. The changes, which are subject to approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, will benefit Chicago-based Exelon more than any other power company in the 13-state region, analysts say.

Put simply, for the privilege of operating five of its six reactors in Illinois, Exelon will take $560. Million in extra revenue just in 2018, when the change takes effect.

Cry me a river, Exelon!

Disclosure:  I am proud to be a non-technical member of the Fairewinds Energy Education crew.  The opinions expressed by me on Green Mountain Daily solely represent my own views on a variety of topics, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Fairewinds.

If liberals have one blindspot, it lies in our instinctive belief that, deep down inside, everyone wants peace, a healthy planet and a just society.  Even though there are constant reminders that this just ain’t so, we keep trying to appeal to that better nature that must surely be there.

No more fitting reminder of the authentic cynicism that’s out there can be found than in the plan for a luxury Survival Condo built inside a missile silo in Kansas.

Like any new real estate project fishing for buyers, the Luxury Survival Condo website has an enticing tagline:

Peace of Mind Comes With Being Prepared for Anything

Condo units range in price from $1.5-4.5 mil. and promise “security and peace of mind.”  

When construction has been completed, the repurposed silo will have a dome roof that the developers promise will withstand winds of over 500 miles per hour.  Just perfect for riding out the nuclear winter in cozy comfort.

If you are one of the lucky occupants, you don’t have to worry about maintaining the Jacuzzi jets at full power because the Survival Condo will be connected to the grid and also boast a wind turbine, 2 diesel generators and a battery bank for backup.  

(‘Wonder how well a wind turbine will hold up in that 500 mph nuclear wind!)

The first silo is apparently already sold out and work is underway on a second silo conversion.  

If you have an appetite for irony, you can check out the video that was posted by the Weather Channel.  The breathless soundtrack invites us to

Survive the nuclear disaster by riding it out inside a missile silo built to withstand a direct hit!

Now the One-Percent can avoid being inconvenienced by the ultimate consequences of their own hubris.

I guess the idea is to always keep the Land Rover gassed-up and ready to head to Kansas at the first sign of trouble.

When the radiation finally declines and the lid comes off, the only problem will be who’s left to take out the garbage and clean that Jacuzzi.

With shooting deaths of young black males at the hands of cops and vigilantes dominating the news, and all the shooters claiming “reasonable” fear for their lives, I thought we might divine something valuable about our violent culture from gun statistics.  

What I learned blows the stereotypes of what make these encounters so deadly for black males right out of the water!

The following stats were released in 2013 by the Pew Research Group:

41% of Non-hispanic whites own guns.   Less than half that number, 19% of blacks own guns.  Even Hispanics own more guns than blacks, by a margin of 1%.

Why then do blacks represent 55% of all gun homicide victims even though they are a dwindling 13% of the population?  

The answer to that could be the insecure environment that is poverty.  At 28%, black Americans have the highest poverty rate of any racial sector, and that rate grows even higher for black children.

By age, young people of all ethnicities and both genders (ages 18-26)  are the least likely to own guns, at 26%.   People aged 50 and above are the most likely to own guns, at 40%.

Rural residents are twice as likely as urban residents to own guns.  The ratio is 50% to 25%, with suburban dwellers clocking in at 36%.

Most of the deaths of young black males that have recently made the news occurred in urban areas, with sophisticated police forces in the mix.

Not at all surprising is the fact that gun owners are more than twice as likely to be Republicans as Democrats, but that’s a conversation for another day.

The intuitive takeaway seems to be that somebody has very successfully sold the truly gun-dangerous sectors of the population a false meme that young black males are gonna shoot you dead if you don’t get ’em first.

That was even more dramatically emphasized by the latest horrifying death of a young black male stopped for a minor offense, subdued by six officers, and finally choked to death as he literally begged for breath.

Fifty years after Martin Luther King, you’d have thought we’d be over this crap.

Then again, there are several other crazy ideas we should have outgrown, like the conviction held by so many that capitalism is noble and that anyone who isn’t prospering in America is guilty of pure laziness.

Add that to a newly sanctified second amendment and you’ve got the makings for a perfect storm of social unrest.

It isn’t young black males that should make law enforcement and the radical right tremble.  It’s almost everyone else in America, because they are the ones who are armed and growing more and more impatient with the utter impossibility of treading water in this new age of Robber Barons.

If young black males finally do arm-up for the class war, there will be legions of poor white folks way ahead of them.

Then, Gun Enthusiasts, know why we said: “be careful what you wish for!”

I am more than a little curious myself as to why Marc Leas was unable to obtain the information he requested last year from the DOD.  For the complete story, you can read Mr. Leas’ diary in the sidebar.

I rather suspect that the reason such a brouhaha was stirred up over whether or not Mr. Leas was a “freelancer” for Digger was a DOD feint to avoid the requested disclosures.

While DIgger may be justified in taking umbrage with Mr. Leas invocation of their name; whether or not Mr. Leas was officially working for Digger is really beside the point.

In a world of non-traditional news related writing venues, the lines of distinction cannot be clearly drawn, but if the DOD can share information with the conventional press for the purpose of dissemination to the public, there is absolutely no reason why that information should not also be made available to representatives of less conventional venues.

What is the DOD argument here; that it is a matter of national security?  How is it any more secure to provide information to the conventional press than it is to provide that information to anyone else who might share it?

Is it a matter of the DOD not wanting to “waste its time” on unaffiliated writers and opposition activists?  That hardly passes muster as a reason to deny a FOIA request.

I still have not heard any compelling answer to the question of “why?”

Some GMD readers would very much like to have the straight story on this FOIA request, and I have a feeling that is still to be told.

It would be in the best interests both of the supporters of the F-35 siting and of its opponents to clear the air by bringing all the requested data into the open or providing a reasonable explanation of why that is not possible.  

I don’t want to hear any more about Mr. Leas or his credentials.  

In case you missed it, this astonishing precursor to the incoming Congress deserves special attention.

Just a week after the election, while the Senate was still nominally in Democratic control, the House was already pressing the imaginary Republican mandate as far as they could.

Passage of H.R. 1422 is one example.

H.R.1422 effectively strips independent scientific expertise from the E.P.A.’s information toolbox and replaces it with captive industrial lobbying.

H.R. 1422, which passed 229-191, would shake up the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board, placing restrictions on those pesky scientists and creating room for experts with overt financial ties to the industries affected by EPA regulations.

Only in the Neverland of Congress could this seem like a reasonable thing to do.

In what might be the most ridiculous aspect of the whole thing, the bill forbids scientific experts from participating in “advisory activities” that either directly or indirectly involve their own work. In case that wasn’t clear: experts would be forbidden from sharing their expertise in their own research.

I guess that, “If you don’t like the message, change the messenger.”  

The “messenger” that the House has just voted to empower is industrial pollution.

This is unsurprising when you consider that those who really control today’s Republican party plan to eliminate the EPA entirely at their first opportunity.  

Climate change? Stuff and nonsense.

Think Progress offers a handy little primer on the Climate Change deniers in the Republican caucus.  One of my favorites:

Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL-15): During his introductory remarks at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearing, Representative Shimkus read from the bible to prove that global warming will not destroy the earth because only God can decide when the earth will end: “The earth will end only when God declares it is time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood.” [House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment Hearing, 3/25/2009]

Odds are that H.R.1422 will never make it into law, but it should give those who sat out the midterms pause for serious reflection.

If we fail to take the car keys away from the two year olds in 2016, they will surely drive us right over the cliff.

Lost all last week in the chaos surrounding massive appliance mutiny at our house, I am finally able to take up the questions raised by State Auditor Doug Hoffer’s audit of the Department of Liquor Control’s purchasing, warehousing, distribution and sales functions.

To briefly summarize the conclusions of this review: the Auditor’s office found that while there would be no distinct economic advantage to privatizing or partially privatizing the P, W, D and S functions of Liquor Control’s monopoly, it might make for better governance.

We have a habit of allowing  creeping conflicts of interest to contaminate our governmental regulatory bodies. This may not be entirely avoidable, as intelligent regulation requires expertise, and that expertise is represented primarily in talent recruited from the industries being regulated.

In a number of service sectors, we live with the consequences of this intimacy, and the public often finds its interests of secondary concern to those of the industry being regulated.  

Vermont’s Liquor Control monopoly goes a good deal further.  Essentially, it IS the industry that it regulates.

Hoffer observes that this represents a conflict of interest that may undermine the regulatory function that is VDLC’s core purpose.

“The estimated fiscal impact of privatization does not argue for a change to the State’s current system, but there are other factors to consider,” Auditor Hoffer said. “It may be timely for legislators and other policymakers to reflect on whether liquor sales are a core function of State government and whether the sale of liquor could be licensed to the private sector, as it is for beer and wine. There is an inherent conflict of interest associated with one department being responsible for promoting and regulating the use of the same product.”

Perhaps narrowing VDLC’s responsibilities would also free resources so that more can be devoted to the training component of their mission.

It seems that every time I happen upon a Liquor Board hearing by the St. Albans City Council, local proprietors of stores selling alcohol complain about how difficult it is to get their staff adequately trained in upholding the rules.  Apparently, the training sessions are not held locally, so employees must travel in order to receive instruction and be certified.  I believe there are issues even with an online alternative.

If VDLC must concern itself with inventory control, marketing and warehouse management, how much focus is lost from actual regulation?

While the DLC asserts that state control of liquor sales is essential to ensure responsible consumption and fewer negative social impacts, this is not supported by the evidence. Studies consistently show that enforcement measures more effectively reduce alcohol-related injuries and mitigate driving under the influence of alcohol, regardless of whether sales are controlled by the states.

According to a Weekend Messenger article by Michelle Monroe, local proprietors appreciate the ability the current arrangement gives them to carry a full range of product on a consignment basis.  They are spared the need to hone their inventory to the demands of clients, and to sacrifice profit when items fail to move without steep discounts.

But isn’t that what most retailers of other products are obliged to do?

Not all local stores like the current arrangement.  One proprietor spoke to Monroe anonymously, for “fear of retaliation.”  His view?

“Monopolies are not good for consumers.”

The state getting out of the liquor business could mean more individual retailers in competition, so the seventy-eight retailers current statewide might understandably be reluctant to see change.

Ross Arsenault, who owns the Beverage Mart in St. Albans City thinks consumers might have less choice at individual retailers if they must satisfy the prepay expectation of non-government suppliers.

However, as he told the Messenger he thinks the state should also be happy to leave things the way they are.

“They’ve got the best of both worlds right now.” he said.  “They’ve got control, they’ve got no liability.”

But control is more than just the ability to collect fines for violations when they are discovered.  If a state agency begins to sees itself as a merchant first,  can it really be trusted to lay down the law when doing so might undermine the revenue stream upon which it is structured to depend?

The best interests of a merchant are served when consumers consume more, not less of a product.  In the case of the VDLC, their product is alcohol.

How is that consistent in any way with the state’s healthcare initiatives?

Republicans have made much of their victories in the 2016 election.

Vermont Republicans have had to extend that to near-victories in order to get a similar bang for their buck, because Vermont remains solidly in Democratic hands.

That doesn’t stop the Vermont GOP from making wild claims about an imaginary mandate for their cuts-not-revenue agenda.  As has been repeatedly discussed on GMD, this is a dangerously mis-drawn conclusion, no matter who is doing the drawing.

Organizationally, they caught the Dems napping, as they themselves have been doing over the past few election cycles. I rather doubt that this will happen again in 2016.

It remains instructive, nonetheless, to look at the mechanisms by which the VGOP gathered itself for a much improved election performance this year.

Exhibit A in this case would be American Majority.

Established in 2008, the somewhat presumptuously titled American Majority is a right wing recruitment and training organization that gave the Tea Party its wings and aims to put a conservative in every political office from side judge to POTUS.  

AM is closely tied to the Koch brothers and steeped in special interest funding:

According to a 2010 article in AlterNet, and Ned Ryun himself, over 75% of the funding for American Majority comes from the Sam Adams Alliance. In 2008, the year in which American Majority was founded, 88% of the alliance’s money came from a single donation of $3.7 million.

‘Guess whose $3.7 mil that was.

Immediately after the election this year, American Majority trumpeted the headline:

17 TRAINED NEW LEADERS WIN IN VERMONT

I haven’t taken a count but I’d guess they’re claiming credit for every new Republican office holder in the state…and that is truly interesting!

said Matt Robbins, President of American Majority.”Since opening our Vermont office this year, we have trained 252 new leaders and activists. American Majority Vermont is helping to ensure that candidates who believe in smaller government have the tools to be successful in their campaigns. We are thrilled to see these strong results in Vermont.”

I wonder how many of our newly elected Vermont Republicans appreciate being tagged by the infamous Koch brothers?

Among the tips provided to candidates on the AM website is

How to “go negative” without getting nasty.

The last of the 10 rules provided in this section is the advice to never make reference to your opponent’s voting record or issue stances if you aren’t 100% certain of what they are.

At least one successful Republican candidate in Vermont seems to have gotten the negativity training, but decided to skip rule #10.

Running successfully for the Franklin 7 House seat, Larry Fiske relied heavily on negative campaigning against Democratic/Progressive incumbent Cindy Weed.

He told the voters that Weed was anti-gun, anti-property-tax-rebates, opposed to welfare reform and planning to tax people’s wells.

NONE OF WHICH WAS TRUE.

Thanks to American Majority, it would not surprise me to learn that  this scene played out in districts all over the state where Republicans unseated incumbents.

Unfortunately, there are no consequences associated with lying to the voting public.  If a candidate has the gall to say something untrue about his opponent, and is given the means to say it often enough; if media can’t be bothered to fact-check the claim, people will simply assume that it’s true.

So who really knows what the voters thought they were endorsing when they voted for Republican candidates this November?