The open-doors policy at Vermont’s statehouse suggests a level of citizen access that should be the envy of every other state; yet, all is not nearly so rosy as one might expect.  

Open community government is more difficult to achieve.  It’s all about who your people are and where you come from.  Sometimes it gets downright nasty.

I was drowning in a local issue when the news broke last month that Vermont stacks up abysmally to other states in the department of transparent government.   We apparently are particularly susceptible to violations of the Open Meeting Laws.

Now that I can at last see a little daylight,  I’ve got an itch to revisit that story, since conflicts of interest have most certainly played a role in nearly every local issue in which I have become engaged over the past dozen or so years.

The Better Government Association (BGA) ranks Vermont 43rd out of the fifty states on its integrity index. Wow!  Who’d have thought?

The BGA reasons that states having experienced the most government scandals have responded with transparency improvements; so Illinois, home state of the infamous Rod Blagojevich, now ranks third in the nation for transparency.

LIttle old Vermont has a relatively quiet past in terms of statewide public scandal; so, bolstering government transparency here has assumed a low priority.

This, coupled with the comfortable intimacy of a small population, has given rise to some very bad habits, which are simply not recognized as such by the people who wield the power on a local level.  A few large and well-connected families effectively hold the collective reigns of local decision making in many communities; so that we routinely see cousins issuing permit approvals to cousins.

It never occurs to most people to question this arrangement, but they should.

Compounding the problem are the extremely limited parameters that define conflicts of interest in Vermont, and the almost total lack of consequences.  If the individual executing a decision on behalf of the public good, or that individual’s spouse or immediate offspring, cannot be demonstrated to directly gain financially from that decision, Vermont law looks no further.  

It doesn’t matter whether issuance of a permit, for instance, will directly impact the value of the decision maker’s property; or if a first cousin is the applicant whose project is under consideration.  Under such circumstances, nothing in Vermont law requires the decision maker to recuse (withdraw) him or herself from the process; and these relationship conflicts routinely occur and remain unchallenged.

It is left entirely to the individual to determine whether or not he or she has a conflict of interest requiring recusal from the decision-making process.

One of my favorite stories illustrating the pitfalls of government that is just too small comes from early in the annals of Vermont’s own blue collar “crime wave,” which catapulted the state to another dubious distinction as the state having the tenth highest risk of embezzlement.  

Back in 2007, Isle-La-Motte’s Town Clerk Treasurer Suzanne LaBombard confessed to having embezzled $100,000. The Selectboard consisted of her father, who tried to mitigate the loss by purchasing her house so that she could return what she stole to the town coffers; her boyfriend who was the Chair; and one more individual who, as far as we know, had no direct relationship to Ms. LaBombard.  

That was it. That was the entire brain trust and firewall protecting the 375-strong community’s public assets. LaBombard had been Town Clerk/Treasurer for twenty-one years when she finally had to confess!  Who even knows how much went on before she completely lost control and had to fess up to the $100,000. dip?

This was a pretty spectacularly criminal example of Vermont-style conflicts of interest; but speaking just about Franklin County, the “family feasting” that goes on around public permits and patronage jobs  is notorious.  

Until the legislature gets serious about adopting restrictive language and real consequences for public officials exercising conflicts of interest, we can expect to continue our history of bad behaviors on the local level.

Those behaviors disenfranchise citizens and rob communities of the value they can get from open minds, constructive dissent, and creative vision.

Every so often, we need a little natural leavening here on GMD. The late Julie Waters used to provide just the right recipe through her wonderful bird studies.  We miss Julie’s unique contributions, and with her in mind, I  share the following.

Each summer and fall for thirty years, ever since I moved to Vermont from Montreal, I have indulged in the city slicker’s primordial fantasy of collecting “fruits” and nuts from my yard.

The “fruit” portion of my collection program is pretty meager, consisting mostly of  seedy blackberries that invade the underbrush behind the yew border, back near the outside water tap; and the occasional morel that springs up unbidden from a fresh batch of bark mulch.

Three years ago, though, I made the startling discovery that those hard green golfballs raining down from the trees with enough force to dent our car roofs are actually very choice!  What we’ve got are black walnuts, sometimes known  locally as “butternuts;” but I’ve seen pictures of butternuts and these they definitely ain’t!

That it took so long for the lightbulb to go on in my head, is at least partially due to the fact that, shortly after we moved to the house, a visiting friend, with considerably more gardening knowledge than I, pointed to one of the black walnut trees and sniffed authoritatively, “that’s just a weed and it will have to go!”

Fortunately, the offending “weed” lived just over the property line and therefore belonged to our neighbors; so it was a moot point.

The years passed and along with several volunteer saplings, my suspicions grew that there was something very appealing about the strange green fruit.  Why else would the squirrels swarm our yard every fall, leaving it a mass of green and black rubble?

Once I learned the true identity of our bounty, I was unstoppable.  I discovered not one but two bearing trees right there on our own property.  

The first year, I collected about 200 of the leathery nuts in trash bags and, following directions from the internet, happily drove my car back and forth over the bags to mash away the green hulls. After that, came the laborious job of separating the nuts (still in their shells) from the mush and fiber.

This is a messy job because they get their name from the black dye that they carry in their shells.  It’s one of the most potent natural dyes. Processing the nuts has to be done wearing rubber gloves and with multiple changes of the wash water. You use a scrub brush or rub the nuts together under water to remove the last bits of clinging hull fiber.  Then you spread them on newspapers to absorb any clinging water.

After that, they have to be dried for four to six weeks.  I have a wooden shoe rack from an old New England shoe factory on our third floor and I have lined all five shelves with chicken-wire onto which I spread the nuts to dry.

That first year, I hadn’t yet acquired the handy dandy black walnut cracker that is roughly the size and weight of a tire jack, so I spent hours in my husband’s studio cracking them individually in the vise.   Even though I wore rubber gloves, by the time I finished, my hands were stained a deep chocolate brown which lasted for days on my skin and weeks under my nails.

Year two saw me fully equipped and wise beyond my years.  I ordered my cracker online, directly from the inventor who was simply amazed to learn of black walnut trees growing in Vermont.  He sent me a few from his own tree just to make sure I knew what I was talking about.

That year, halfway through the harvest, I abandoned the car business altogether for treading energetically over and over across the bags of nuts in heavy work boots.  I collected and processed well over 300 nuts in just under two weeks; and, once I had them snuggly tucked-up on their chicken wire nests, I routinely visited my horde just in order to gloat.  

That’s when, purely out of a sense of guilt, I started buying peanuts and feeding the squirrels.

Year three was to be my Waterloo.

As in the past, I collected about 300 nuts and laboriously hulled, washed and dried them.   I still had plenty left from the previous harvest even though I’d baked copiously and even given some away at Christmas.

Drawing on all my experience of the previous two years, I finished the job of collecting and processing in a few less days than before. I felt a genuine warmth in my heart as I trundled them up to the third floor racks and then paid a visit to my bin of last year’s bounty, making a mental note to pick-up another bushel basket.

It’s always very satisfying to look at those three-hundred nuts spread out all nice-as-you-please every time I have need to visit the third floor; but things got very busy around here last year, and I failed to go up there  until almost Thanksgiving when I decided to collect my nuts into a basket and bring them downstairs.  

When I reached the “drying room”, all of the racks were empty and I couldn’t figure out what had happened.  I looked everywhere for those nuts, figuring that I had just forgotten that I had already collected them into a single bin and moved them somewhere sensible.  It was still a crazy busy fall and I had no time to search for them, so I finally just shrugged my shoulders and forgot about it.  

A month or so later, a visiting friend slept on the third floor for a few nights.

She came downstairs each morning complaining that we must have mice up there, and that they had kept her awake making noise overhead and inside the walls.  It sounded as if they were rolling something; and it went on and on throughout the night, every night.  

It took me a couple of days before it dawned on me what had happened to my nuts.  

As it turned out, we didn’t have mice.   We had squirrels; and, like something out of a Chip & Dale cartoon, they had managed to invade through a hole under the roof and made a very comfortable home for themselves inside the walls.

They had a fully stocked larder in my carefully stored black walnut collection.  They found a way into the third floor through the insulation and lath, came out through a cracked closet door, and then simple moved every last one of those three-hundred nuts inside the walls!   It must have looked like the building of the pyramids, with a brigade of squirrel “slaves” steadily moving nuts in a single direction.

Recognizing how emotional the whole thing was for me (remember, I had been feeding the squirrels in the yard all summer before they betrayed me!) my husband kindly allowed me to stay out of the squirrel eviction entirely.  I don’t know whether there were ANY nuts left, although I did hear tell that there were great piles of nut shells in the closets under the eaves!

This year, as I see the nuts ripening on the trees, I dread collecting them.  All I keep thinking is:

“What if there’s still one VERY hungry squirrel trapped somewhere in the house, just waiting for me to load up the rack again?”

I am told that the hole has been repaired and sealed and that I have nothing to fear; but once bitten, twice shy!

I am no longer feeding squirrels in the yard, but see them lurking, all beady eyed, around the bird-feeder, clearly planning  a new assault come winter.  Will the ramparts hold this time?  We can only hope so.

Year 4, here I come.

About black walnuts:  I learned a while back from a very interesting program on NPR, that black walnuts have powerful medicinal value and that the trees are so valuable that they are actually protected by law.  

Wonderfully pagan, I thought!  I’m just repeating what I heard on NPR, so I have no independent verification; but, wow!

Among their other nonsense, CNN has an annoying feature called the “Ridiculist;” and much as I hate to give them a mention, this certainly belongs at the top of that heap.

Meredith Angwyn’s perennially revisionist website, Yes Vermont Yankee,  is now linking itself to a new venue of nuclear pollyanaism, the doubly oxymoronic Progressives for Nuclear Progress.

The fun begins immediately, as the sole author of the website, Eric Schmitz admits from the outset that a) he is no expert; and that b) the blog’s title is somewhat misleading:

At this point, this website really should be called “A Progressive for Nuclear Progress,” because so far it is just me, Eric Schmitz. I am not a nuclear professional or expert. Rather, I think of myself as something of a “cheerleader” for the advancement and expansion of nuclear energy, hoping to appeal to the American political left and bring more of us on board in support of new and existing nuclear technology.

All going to illustrate how the democratic model of the internet can lend anyone delusions of grandeur.

Mr. Schmitz takes his cue from Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, whose “Breakthrough Institute” embraces not only nuclear energy with open arms, but also shale oil development (aka “fracking”) as the only real answers to the world’s energy problems.  

Thumbing their noses at those who encourage energy conservation, this dynamic duo sees no problem with unlimited growth in consumption.

In fact, they seem to worship at the false idol of eternal boom.  Odd really, for people who operate in a science-based world, that they don’t seem to “get” the simple concept of a finite system.

As David Bergman, the “Eco Optimist” puts it so well:

Shellenberger and other pro-nuclear environmentalists like Stewart Brand are committing the ecological sin of not thinking in systems. They’re looking at the energy issue as if it’s independent from our other environmental and social dilemmas…more consumption and more technology do not automatically lead to improved quality of life. In fact, once basic needs have been fulfilled, the opposite is true.

They take the position that all we have to do is be better stewards of nuclear energy and we can use as much as we like.  Yes; and if wishes were fishes, we’d have lots to fry.

It is the fondest hope of the nuclear industry and its propoents (like Angwyn and Schmitz) that Shellenberger and Nordhaus will blow some sunshine up the skirts of the nuclear marketplace, providing creative cover from the fact that nuclear is finally being unmasked before the public as neither safe, nor clean; and certainly not economic.

Who knew they’d try to wrap themselves in a progressive flag, of all things!

The appearance of Mr Schmitz’ lonely little cheerleader imagining some kind of progressive migration to nuclear is that much more pathetic.  

Suggesting that someone who does not know the meaning of the word “enough” can still be called a “progressive” simply demonstrates how out of touch these people are.

These are troubled times in the nuclear club.

While Entergy has confirmed that it will, indeed, cut thirty jobs at Vermont Yankee by year-end, a 4% reduction from current staffing levels;  Duke Energy has thrown in the towel altogether on two of its Florida nuclear facilities.

Duke announced its intention to close its Crystal River facility last February, following “botched” repairs to the containment vessel and escalating costs to undo the damage.  It hopes ultimately to stick it to the ratepayers rather than shoulder the full burden of its $1.65 billion investment in Crystal River.

The plant, which began operating in 1977 was close to its “sell-by” date, but like Entergy with VY, Duke thought they could squeeze another couple of decades of profit from Crystal River.  They were sadly mistaken and apparently ill-prepared to suck it up.

Now Duke says it will not replace the Crystal River facility, and it is scuttling plans for a new Florida nuke in Levy County; one for which Florida ratepayers have already made considerable investment.

Under a controversial Florida law, consumers have been paying for Levy in advance of construction. Legislators promised the “advance fee” would get nuclear projects built both faster and cheaper.

Except that, in the case of Levy County, it has done neither.

The bottom line: Duke customers may end up paying roughly $3 billion for Crystal River and Levy.

So, instead of the Nuclear Christmas they were promised by Duke and its unfortunately named predecessor, “Progress Energy;” Floridians are finding a shipload of coal in their stockings.

State representative Mike Fasano is crying foul:

“Shame on Duke Energy, Progress Energy for taking the public on this ride knowing that they were never going to build the nuclear plants,” Fasano said. “Shame on them.”

He wants the Legislature to conduct a full investigation into Duke’s nuclear follies; but the spectacular fail comes as no surprise to two Vermont experts who, early on, warned  that the Levy County project would come to no good end.

Mark Cooper, a senior research fellow for Economic Analysis at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at Vermont Law School and Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates were among those who cautioned against the wisdom of investment in new nukes.

Gundersen says that despite the public investment so far, Duke is doing the right thing in pulling the plug on Levy County’s new nuke; and it would certainly seem so, since new nuke projects seem to be folding all over the place, and the market is finally getting the message that the economics are just not there to support nuclear.

Better late than never, I suppose.  I wonder if Florida ratepayers would agree?

………………………….

This Fairewinds video particularly spoke to me because I have passed Pickering, Ontario many times, driving on the 401 to Toronto.  Just twenty short miles from a city of 4-million people, the Pickering  recently hosted Arnie Gundersen as he addressed Canadian nuclear regulators on the vulnerabilities of the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station.  It is stunning to hear Canadian  regulators acknowledge that the containment systems at Pickering are “nowhere near as strong as the ones at Fukushima.”

Vermont Yankee apologist John McClaughry is taking a new tack in his latest blogpost, that showed up as an editorial in the Messenger and willI no doubt make the rounds of local papers in the coming weeks.

Since overwhelming evidence is mounting against the wisdom of continuing operation of VY, Mr. McClaughry is stumping for an alternative nuclear model, the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, which he presumably sees slipping seamlessly into the void created when Entergy throws in the towel.  

(Which might be sooner than you think, given the failure rate of VY systems.  This incident occurred twice in the last month, suggesting that they have no idea what is causing the problem.)

Reaching back to the very inception of nuclear power, McClaughry blames Admiral Hyman Rickover for getting the whole thing wrong in the first place; and presumably, for every false step, from Three Mile Island to Fukushima, that’s happened since.

It seems that Admiral Rickover was in too damn much of a hurry to power his fleet, pushing through adoption of an inferior model for nuclear generation that evolved into what is now the industry standard…and which, up until now at least, Mr. McClaughry seemed to think could go on forever.

Why else would he so energetically lobby to have VY’s license extended another twenty years?

But no; his affections have shifted to the LFTR , which he now insists truly is the answer; and he does make an enticing case:

Without going too far into technical details, the LFTR would almost certainly produce electricity cheaper than coal, because of lower capital and fuel costs; use a fuel that is in almost inexhaustible supply, both in the U.S. and elsewhere; operate continuously, in baseload or peaking mode, for up to 30 years; be factory-built and deployed in compact 100-megawatt modules close to the end use of the power; contribute nothing to air or water pollution and need no water for operation; safely consume long-lived transuranic waste products from current nuclear fission reactors; produce high-temperature process heat that can make hydrogen fuel for vehicles; and be walkaway safe.

…except that this rosy estimation, which conveniently avoids “going into too much technical detail” is just so much shinola since no working prototype actually exists with which to test it!

And it’s never that simple.

First of all, in discussions of the cost efficiency of LFTR I see no mention of dropping Price-Anderson, which currently gives nuclear power generation the distinct edge over other alternatives by zeroing out the tremendous economic disadvantage nuclear would have in terms of liability if the industry was required to carry all-risk insurance against the potential cost of a worst case scenario.

I also see no mention of a lessening in the generous government subsidies for plant start-ups that nuclear has always enjoyed as the favored alternative to coal.

And that is just the skin of the poison apple.

LFTR technology still carries with it the twin issues of threats from terrorist activity, and what to do with the deadly byproducts.  While those byproducts might arguably be somewhat less in volume and shorter in half-life; they still hold deadly potential for a very, very long time; and we have never even begun to deal with the nuclear waste we already have on hand.

Because of the manner in which LFTR’s smaller modules would be deployed to many, many more local situations, the risk from terrorist strikes and interceptions would be exponentially greater than what we now have. One of the key issues associated with LFTR technology is its potential to significantly grow proliferation.

But all of this is a little beside the point of the real reason why Mr. McClaughry’s arguments fail.  They fail because, in Mr. McClaughry’s universe, private hands with corporate bottom lines still hold all the nuclear energy cards; and that inevitably means that they will be mismanaged to the advantage of shareholders and ultimately to the disadvantage and risk of the public good.  

If power generation must be held in private hands, we have no business authorizing ANY form of nuclear generation.

Blaming Admiral Rickover misses one important point.  Except for two disaserous losses in the 1960’s, there is no evidence that the US navy has ever had a nuclear accident on any of its extensive nuclear fleet.

Unlike civilian power generation, which is always trying to squeeze more profit out of any operation, the navy’s nuclear-powered craft function under the strictest discipline and the highest standards or care, with little thought to the “bottom line.”

Unfortunately for Mr. McClaughry and others who are determined to find a golden goose in nuclear, those are the only circumstances under which the tremendous destructive power of nuclear energy can be safely harnessed.

And very much to that point is Fairewinds Associates’ latest video release, which unveils a new timeline tool for documenting the “incident” life of reactors in order to more accurately predict the point at which catastrophic failure is likely to occur.  This tool is meant to be a defensive citizen resource, but could be used even by the utilitites, were they willing to concede that ultimate failure can and will inevitably occur if reactors are not withdrawn from service when certain characteristic incident patterns begin to play-out.

The example used in the video is San Onofre; which, had it not been for the tireless efforts of Friends of the Earth and Fairewinds to bring greater scrutiny to the failing plant, might still be in operation and headed for certain disaster:

Here’s one for the books:

Entergy announced on Tuesday that a former supervisor, who worked at the Indian Point nuclear power plant north of New York City for twenty-nine years, had been arrested for deliberately falsifying critical safety records and lying to federal regulators last year.

The feds are charging Daniel Wilson, and, if convicted, he faces up to seven years in jail.

The falsified records concern misrepresented levels of particulate matter in diesel samples taken from the Reserve Tank; a safety concern.  When repeated measurements of those levels exceeded NRC standards,

Wilson logged into the company database under another employee’s name and fabricated test data for resample tests which were never actually taken.

Wilson’s reason for falsifying the records?  He said didn’t want the NRC to shut the facility down.

Of course butter wouldn’t melt in Entergy’s mouth over this latest example of messed-up corporate culture, but their protestations ring hollow:

While Entergy has claimed that the findings were discovered by employees at the nuclear power plant, they were really found during the period while workers were preparing for a pending NRC inspection, when they knew that federal regulators would want to look at the diesel fuel due to the 2011 findings.

Entergy should be open to a fine of $140,000 per day for operating while in violation of safety regulations; but, so far, no fine has been levied.

Safe? Clean? Reliable?

As Bruce Lisman flits about the state on his lightweight imitation of Sec’y. Condos’ ongoing “transparency tour,” State Auditor Doug Hoffer continues a practical and methodical examination of state agencies, from soup to nuts.

This Monday, GMD’s favorite number cruncher released a new audit report on The Office of State Employee Workers’ Compensation and Injury Prevention.  The OSEWCIP (just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?) is responsible for oversight and management of workers’ comp for 6,000 state employees.

Like all state agencies in this era of purse-tightening, it is severely understaffed with just fifteen souls to hold down the fort; but, according to Auditor Hoffer, they are losing the battle and the cost both in practical value and in dollars-and-cents to Vermonters is considerable.

“State government’s most important asset is its workers, and they deserve a safe workplace,” Hoffer said. “In addition, taxpayers have a right to expect the state to make the investments necessary to reduce workforce injuries and related costs.”

Due to understaffing, Hoffer estimates that as many as 25% of the claims filed for Workers’ Comp never get properly reviewed.

One of the problems identified in the audit is poor communications management.  

Hoffer says that while Human Resources often receives “recommendations for improvements in the workforce,”  those recommendations never make it into the hands of “shop managers” who could apply those recommendations to the work environment.

“Nearly every incident represents an opportunity to implement a safer work environment and reduce claims,” the audit found. “The results of the statistical sample indicate that (the Office of State Employee Workers’ Compensation and Injury Prevention) is missing significant opportunities to identify and recommend safety fixes.”

Hoffer’s audit identified the heaviest filers of workers’ comp claims among government agencies:

the Agency of Transportation, Department of Corrections, Vermont Veterans’ Home, Department of Buildings and General Services, Department of Public Safety and the now-closed Vermont State Hospital – accounted for more than three-quarters of the 4,825 workers’ comp incidents reported between fiscal years 2008 and 2012.

That list may hint at where Auditor Hoffer might next turn his attentions.

I notice in today’s Freeps that there is some discussion of why the Air Force has not staged a demo of the F-35 in Burlington. Here is the Freeps take on the reasons:

Safety is the only possible reason why the people of Chittenden county could not have the opportunity to experience the plane, first hand, before being expected to accept its deployment here…and that certainly raises its own set of questions.

____________________________________________________________

You’ve got to hand it to F-35 opponents in the Burlington area.  They’re not giving up without a fight.

I don’t live in the area, and I don’t work in the field; so I haven’t a dog in that fight.  But I do see that opponents in the affected communities are being pressured to stand down for what amount to short-term economic reasons alone; and that is always concerning.

The F-35 program is near and dear to the hearts of our governor, our DC delegation, and many in municipal government; all of whom are understandably eager to lock-in Guard related jobs in any way they can.

But short-term economic assurances at the cost of long-term health and social impacts is a bargain Vermonters just can’t afford to make.

There are still too many unknowns associated with the F-35 program, even as local politicos fall all over themselves to secure the siting.

It is not crazy to be inquiring as to the impact on children’s health and hearing.  

It is not crazy to regard the loss of up to a thousand homes as potentially devastating for the sense of community.

As always, the voices of those who challenge any development, for ANY reasons are ill-tolerated by the power elite, and flicked away repeatedly, like so many summer flies.

However, the community still hasn’t received fully satisfactory answers as to why South Burlington was identified as the “preferred” location for the siting; although, ironically, cost now appears to be the primary driver.

(Take that, you naysayers who argue that Vermont isn’t economically competitive in attracting new businesses!)

It is becoming apparent that the affected communities must make their final decision to accept or reject the siting without the benefit of experiencing the F-35 auditory “experience,” first-hand.

That seems remarkably unfair.

Is it because, in order to even receive a visit from the aircraft, major modifications must first be made to Burlington Airport?

If so, what do those modifications entail, and how might they impact  the surrounding environment.

An engineer  friend of mine with some knowledge of the field, has hinted that we may be looking at the wrong primary impact in discussing noise issues associated with the aircraft.  

He speculates that there is much more reason for concern with the radar upgrades at the airport that will undoubtedly have to be made in order to host the state-of-the-art stealth warship.

Such upgrades might well impact airborne wildlife, my friend suggests.

I have no ability to assess his concerns, but would like to know if anyone has raised this peripheral issue and if it has been successfully laid to rest.

And are we so certain that the F-35 represents the best hedge on securing the future of Vermont’s Air National Guard?

Even a brief Google search reveals that there are a great many doubts about the F-35’s performance, not to mention its escalating price-tag and production delays.

What happens if someone pulls the plug on the program after all the homes have been condemned and investments have been made in conforming infrastructure?  

Is this really the basket into which we want to put all of our eggs?

Well, George Zimmerman is, officially anyway, NOT guilty of killing Trayvon Martin.  

There is really no point in re-litigating his guilt after the fact, because Zimmerman was a victim too, of sorts.  

He was a victim of personal weaknesses, maybe even prejudices; but most of all, both man and teenager were victims of  “Stand Your Ground,” which gives weak men a license to indulge their dangerous fantasies; and, at least this once, to stalk and kill an unarmed kid completely without consequence.

This isn’t even really about the gun, even though that will undoubtedly be the focus of debate going forward.

And it is because of the inflammatory nature of gun debate in this country that nothing will be done to reign in “Stand Your Ground,” even after this preventable tragedy; because the NRA won’t let this opportunity pass to make it be all about them.

Just watch it happen.