By Jim Condos, Vermont’s Secretary of State
I’ve never been known to sugarcoat things, so I’m going to be frank. Recent events are causing increasing concerns that our democracy is in peril. Let me explain.
Voting is the foundation of our democracy. Since my first day as Secretary of State, and before that as a State Senator, I’ve worked to encourage voter participation by breaking down barriers to ensure eligible Vermont citizens are able to vote.
First, let me say I am proud to live in a state where our focus is on increasing access to the ballot box. To this end, we’ve made great progress in Vermont.
In January, we implemented same-day voter registration, making it easier for Vermonters to register and vote on Election Day.
Also in January, with the Department of Motor Vehicles, we implemented automatic voter registration – when an eligible voter receives/renews their license at the DMV they are either registered to vote, or their registration updates their current address, providing for more accurate voter lists and even greater election integrity.
Both same-day and automatic voter registration passed Vermont’s legislature with strong tri-partisan support, and I was proud to initiate and support these important objectives.
Here’s the point: because voting is the foundation of our democracy, government has a responsibility to make voting easy and accessible for every eligible voter. Unfortunately, across this country, we are seeing an increased erosion of voting rights in many states.
I am deeply troubled by the announcement that the President signed an executive order establishing a commission to review alleged voter fraud in our elections. Since the 2016 election, President Trump has made repeated unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. Credible studies have shown over and over again that widespread voter fraud simply does not exist, and election officials from across the country, Democrat and Republican, agree.
So why the brazen claims of widespread voter fraud?
I believe these unproven claims are an effort to set the stage to weaken and skew our democratic process through a systematic national effort of voter suppression and intimidation.
Let’s be honest: the real voter fraud that is occurring is the active campaign to roll back voting rights. The President’s unsubstantiated claims have emboldened these efforts. Photo ID laws, like those in Texas, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Alabama, force citizens to travel over 100 miles to their closest DMV, even though they might be poor, disabled, or unable to drive. Other states have also pursued enactment of some form of voter ID law, many of which have been found by the courts to be outright unconstitutional.
Restrictions on early voting periods, limiting access, due to distance or time, to registration and voting locations, and overly aggressive purging of eligible voters from voter rolls are all examples of ways in which some states are suppressing voter participation and discouraging certain eligible voters from having a voice in elections.
These attacks on voting rights have a sole aim: to disenfranchise lower-income, student, senior and minority voters. It’s that simple, and the courts have started to recognize this.
The fact that Vice President Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach have been announced as Chair and Vice Chair of this commission confirms my worst fears. Both are unabashed supporters of restrictive voter ID laws, as they exaggerate claims of voter fraud.
Secretary Kobach has championed some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country. The leadership of this commission is a clear prelude to what I expect to be a reinvigorated nationwide campaign promoting strict voter suppression laws and voter intimidation.
How do we fight back? We start at home and lead by example. Automatic voter registration is a system every state, regardless of the party in power, can and should support. Everyone should stand behind generous early voting periods and ample registration opportunities right up to, and even on the same day as an election.
Our Vermont elections will continue to put voters first.
In the coming months and years ahead, we need leaders to stand up and denounce these attacks on our democratic ideals. We must make decisions about how we conduct our elections based on facts, not fear. We cannot allow the President’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud scare us into unravelling the threads of our democratic process.
We must continue to move forward, not backwards – our democracy is at stake.
Category Archives: National
The GOP brought the Trump circus to town
About a month ago some online betting sites were offering even odds that Trump would resign or be impeached before his first term was over. 
I wonder what the odds are now, after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. And doing so under the flimsy pretense that Director Comey mismanaged the FBI’s investigation into…Hillary Clinton’s emails!?!
I know I have heard enough about her damn emails too but nowhere near enough about Trump’s troubling connections to Russia. (A day ago CNN published an impressive graph mapping in detail the tangled Trump/Russia web.) There are two investigations currently underway in the Congress regarding the Russian involvement with Trump. Democrats are calling for the formation of a special prosecutor’s office to investigate. It is time for an independent and thorough investigation into the Trump campaign and his administration’s involvement with Russia.
But Republicans have a solid majority in the U.S. House, a slim one in the Senate. Thus our country remains largely at the mercy of the GOP — the party we can thank for inviting Trump’s circus to town in the first place.
And we know that neither the current president, nor the House Speaker, nor the Senate Majority Leader have any sense of shame over lies told and maneuvers done to preserve power despite lives harmed or lost.
From history, and the righteous take-down of the last power-hungry demagogue out to destroy lives: You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?
Why does WCAX’s Celebrating Cinco de Mayo video start with U.S. Border Patrol?
I don’t have cable and rarely look at WCAX online. But I did check out Vermont’s news station after hearing that the Martin family, owners of WCAX TV, had agreed to be sold to Gray Television, a media conglomerate from Georgia, for $29 million. 
For no special reason I clicked on a days-old video story Celebrating Cinco de Mayo in Vermont. It was a bit of a shock that a still shot showing what seems to be a U.S. Border Patrol immigration traffic stop of some kind precedes the actual story about a May 5th party in Essex Junction .
Cinco de Mayo commemorates a battle between the Mexican army and French forces in 1862. The May 5th date is significant in the U.S. as a celebration of Mexican-American culture. I guess since the recent waves of immigrant arrests an algorithmic profile (or some staffer?) at WCAX NEWS thought, ‘Nothing says Cinco de Mayo 2017 in Vermont more than a Border Patrol immigration stop.’
Well for better or worse WCAX will likely be in for changes and adjustment soon under the new ownership. And it’s clear the lucrative New England political media market is what Hilton Hatchet Howell, Jr., CEO and vice chairman of Gray Television, is after.
And make no mistake Hilton Hatchet Howell is in it for the political ad money. He commented on Gray Television’s recent purchases of WCAX, a Maine station and one in Florida: “Of particular note to me. This acquisition leads Gray to, for the first time in its corporate history, have three New England stations and all three of those New England stations have some of the highest political revenue in their markets and we are quite excited about that. It moves us into New Hampshire for the very first time in the Northern part of that state, and we add to our operations in Maine, which is a politically-sensitive state during the presidential election year.”
Upwards of $100 million was spent on political ads in broadcast and cable television in New England markets. It looks like Hilton Hatchet Howell, Jr., went shopping for and bought himself a cash cow — access to the New Hampshire presidential primary ad revenue.
And speaking of politically sensitive, 3-H better adjust WCAX’s algorithmic profiling and/or staff cultural awareness training before Cinco de Mayo rolls around again.
[Updated] Exemption in the GOP stampede of Obama-care repeal madness
[UPDATE: The House by unanimous vote removed the provision that exempted members of Congress and staff from certain repeal provisions before the up-or-down vote on bill. From Talkingpointsmemo.com
“We firmly believe members of Congress should live by the same rules as everyone else. Period,” Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) said Thursday on the House floor. “It’s only right. It’s only proper.”
But Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) {has a different and more realistic view, in my opinion BP} responded, “They planned to exempt themselves from Trumpcare until they got caught.”]
There’s a mad rush of crazed GOP Representatives in the US Congress about to vote on a health care bill, the details of which most of them will know very little.
House GOP leaders worked Wednesday night to fast-track consideration of their Obama-Care replacement bill without posting the bill text and without a Congressional Budget Office analysis detailing the effects of the latest changes to the legislation.
In one way this vote probably isn’t big GOP news as they have already voted 54 times in the past to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act (aka: Obama-care). But as of Wednesday one thing has managed to stay stuck fast from the beginning of this renewed effort to gut Obama-care in the otherwise ever-changing versions of the house bill. That would be a provision that exempts members of Congress and their staff from losing certain provisions of ACA they apparently enjoy having. Calling this special feature a “loophole” Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.) claims he will work hard to close after the bill is passed. MacArthur is the Congressman whose name is on this version of the “Repeal and Replace” bill, framed as an amendment.
Funny how so many other provisions can get rapidly plugged and unplugged from the repeal bill as it races forward, but one that favors Congress and staff just can’t seem to be stamped out of any drafts. Gosh, that’s just sooo puzzling!
The House elephants never, ever forget themselves when it comes to programs they want to take away from the rest of us.
Congress votes on budget bill, but marches on its stomach
An omnibus spending bill is expected to be passed by Congress, reportedly will be signed by the President, and will fund the U.S. Government until the end of September 2017.
President Trump failed to get much of what he had demanded from the Congressional bill. The Mexican border wall won’t get a bit of the funding he spelled out in his own budget “outline.” So the army of hundreds of private contractors waiting to bid and cash-in on it will have to wait to build Donald’s dream wall.
Another kick in the White House budget priorities is that funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts survived. Not only did it survive, but in fact the NEA will get an increase! And for Big Bird and other PBS fans, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS funding mechanism) appropriation was not zeroed out as Trump dreamed, but will be level-funded for this period.
So Trump didn’t get much of what he wanted but Rollcall.com reports that issues both the House of Representatives and Senate have with their dinning service vendors made it into the omnibus spending bill.
The House found the room in the massive spending bill to make known their complaints about the variety of food served in their cafeterias. “There is concern with continued food service issues surrounding lack of food variety, consistent quality of service, and management challenges with the food services provider,” appropriators drafting the omnibus spending agreement said in an accompanying report.
The current House food service vendor is the catering giant Sodexo, operating large dining halls, along with offering Dunkin’ Donuts and Subway. The spending bill’s report signals a potential interest in more chains.
And Senators, at least for purposes of the spending bill, are less concerned with the quality of food itself but with food service workers’ pay. Last year, the Department of Labor found that nearly 700 workers with the Senate’s food services had been underpaid. Restaurant Associates was found to have improperly classified workers in positions where they would make lower wages. The back pay due exceeded $1 million. The accompanying Senate report recommends more training for contract staff on labor laws as well as making worker rights information available in multi-language formats.
The old saying attesting to the need to be well provisioned attributed to both Frederick the Great and Napoleon goes: An army marches on its stomach. It seems members of Congress feel they can’t “march” properly unless they have more food options — different food chains providing their food. “And what’ll it be today Congressman, a nice GOP-friendly Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s Happy Donald Meal or perhaps one of former GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain’s Godfather’s Pizzas?
And what about the Senate restaurant workers’ back pay issue? Well, some workers were already paid. However, thanks to modifications the Trump administration made to Obama-era labor-enforcement rules, other Senate restaurant workers may have more waiting to do before they see change.
ICE cold to VOICE pranks
By executive order President Trump recently directed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to set-up an information clearing hotline to gather and compile and publish information about crimes committed by “criminal aliens.” Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) Office […] aims to “assist victims of crimes committed by criminal aliens,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.
“Alien” is a term used by the federal government to describe individuals who are not American citizens but who reside on U.S. soil.
There have been efforts in the courts and Congress to curtail the use of the terms “alien and “criminal alien,” but that was well before Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions came to power and started their immigration-ban round-ups. 
Those in charge of operating VOICE may wish they had used a different term. The hotline has been flooded with calls prompted by twitter users to report everything from “ETs, UFOs” to “muggle-borns” (wizards and witches born to parents without magical powers) from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books. As you can imagine this pranksterism leaves immigration enforcers cold: “Their [the pranksters’] actions seek to obstruct and do harm to crime victims; that’s objectively despicable regardless of one’s views on immigration policy,” an ICE official said.
According to the fact-checking and urban myth-debunking website Snopes:
The hotline’s website states that it is not intended to report crime, but rather to “ensure victims and their families have access to releasable information about a perpetrator and to offer assistance explaining the immigration removal process.” It did not elaborate on how this would help the victims of crimes.
However ICE isn’t just about hotlines and lists. The agency has contracted GEO Group to start building a detention facility in Texas for $110 million. GEO, the country’s largest for-profit prison corporation has had a long-standing private-public partnership with ICE since the 1980’s. And they have soaring expectation for profit: The 1,000-bed Facility is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2018 and is expected to generate approximately $44 million in annualized revenues and returns on investment consistent with GEO’s company-owned facilities.
ICE may not have a sense of humor but they are helping GEO Group prison corporation and their shareholders laugh all the way to the bank.
Sweet!?! Obama accepts a pay day from Wall Street
UPDATE: Former President Barack Obama announced Wednesday[5/3/17] that he and his wife, Michelle, are donating $2 million to summer jobs programs in Chicago. A sweet gift to their hometown Chicago.
After returning from well-deserved vacation, former President Obama may really have struck a sour note. Only months after leaving office, he has joined the Wall Street big-speaking-fee club. For a $400,000 fee from Wall Street investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald, Obama agreed to deliver a keynote speech at an annual health care conference the investment firm runs.
In response to this news the longtime critic of the outsized influence big money plays in politics, Senator Elizabeth Warren, didn’t mince words. She said: “I was troubled by that. The influence of dollars on this place is what scares me. I think it ultimately threatens democracy.”
But it seems former press secretary Josh Earnest (a paid MSNBC contributor since this March) is quick to defend his former boss and was quite dismissive of any objections. Earnest recalled that Obama’s closeness to Wall Street had been brought up before, and it “didn’t in any way limit his ability to put in place the toughest reforms of Wall Street that we had seen in multiple generations.” I seem to remember many people thought President Obama and congressional reforms weren’t all that tough on Wall Street.
He will not be running again but the optics of the most well-known Democrat accepting sizable speaking fees from a giant investment firm can’t be helpful in luring back blue-collar voters — even in the face of the ethically challenged Trump gang. And it’s an unfortunate footnote to the recent unity tour DNC Chairman Perez and failed presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders just completed.
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations against big banks, greed, and financial excess are now ancient history. The huge speaking fees from Wall Street banks Hillary Clinton received over the years had a negative impact on her campaign — Sanders turned it into a major issue in the primary. But that too appears to be swirling down the memory hole. So, other than Senator Warren, which Democrats will speak-up now? But good for Senator Warren — the smart money says she persists.
FCC boosts Trump favorite Sinclair Broadcasting’s merger
The FCC, headed by Ajit Pai, a Republican appointed under President Obama and recently named by Trump as chairman, has eased restrictions in order to make it easier for media companies to own more stations in more markets:
The Federal Communications Commission, on a 2-1 Republican-led vote on Thursday, restored the practice of counting just part of some stations’ audience.[…] The change adds room to grow for companies including Sinclair, Nexstar Media Group Inc. […] Sinclair, with 173 TV stations, is working to finalize a deal to buy Tribune, which owns stations in major markets including New York, Chicago, and Miami.
Sinclair Broadcast Group is a family-owned business based in Maryland. They own and operate 173 stations in 81 markets covering 24% of American households mostly in the South and Midwest. Their local affiliates include Fox, ABC, CBS, and others.
SBG has a history of using its stations to promote a conservative message and also attempted to influence the 2004 election in favor of the Republican Party, says Media Matters. Days before the 2004 presidential election the network pre-empted regular programming to run an anti-John Kerry film.
More recently the Washington Post published: How the nation’s largest owner of TV stations helped Donald Trump’s campaign. In it they document Sinclair Broadcasting’s intentional tilt toward Trump. This included directing their stations toward favorable to neutral coverage of his campaign and an emphasis on negative reporting regarding the Clinton campaign.
Trump’s right hand man, son-in-law Jared Kushner, reportedly acknowledged that the campaign struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcasting, providing them access in exchange for wide coverage. The agreement gave Trump’s campaign a local edge over national networks in swing states such as Florida and Ohio where SBG dominates. With a greater local audience assured Kushner said simply “it’s math.”
After their planned merger, when finalized Sinclair will have added 26% to their existing nationwide coverage. Factoring in overlapping market share between Sinclair and the company it plans to acquire new coverage will reach 42%. Think how effective the newer bigger stronger Sinclair propaganda could be for Trump and other GOP favorites the next time around.
And don’t expect PBS news reporting to pick up the slack. Trump’s “skinny” GOP budget doesn’t just target the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (the major funding arm for PBS) with sizable cuts but with total elimination. OMB Director Mick Mulvaney broadcast his administration’s plans to “unwind our involvement in CPB” loud and clear: […] [the budget] will see a zero next to it; the policy is we’re ending federal involvement with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Trump may continue his 100-day stumble-and-flail at day-to-day governing — his new role. But it’s just not his world. His most successful role was as reality TV star, playing a caricature of himself as a world’s best deal maker/businessman.
But he does know brand marketing is all about grabbing control of the largest friendly market-share coverage. For Donald it is not about fair or balanced — fact or fiction. As his right hand man, son-in-law Kushner admitted “It’s math.”
Of course, the next generation might have trouble with understanding that concept once Sesame Street’s “The Count” isn’t around to teach them their numbers.
Donald, Mike: stick to suits and ties please
As we stare down North Korea and drop MOABs, President Trump and his VP Mike Pence — neither of whom ever served in the armed forces — might reconsider the military look they both seem to be cultivating. 
Trump looks like he’s signed up as a discount version for Bob Hope’s old USO tours.
Vice President Pence toured the South Korean DMZ, wore a leather flight jacket and gave a command performance managing to maintain a serious demeanor — gravitas worthy of a made for TeeVee action movie, or maybe his feet hurt.
Is the administration attempting to send some tough-guy image out to the world? Or are they both so insecure they feel the need to dress-up in bits of uniforms when around military personnel? A little of both perhaps. But not alone.
President George W. Bush , the Vietnam War-era Texas Air National Guard no-show strutted around for his White House-produced Iraq War photo op. After landing on an aircraft carrier in the co-pilot’s seat of a fighter (exterior freshly marked with “Navy 1” and “George W. Bush Commander in Chief” ) he posed wearing a flight suit under a very premature Mission Accomplished banner.
And Democrat Mike Dukakis (who was only running for president) did look a fool putting on a tank commander’s helmet and driving a tank during his 1998 campaign.
Maybe it is because I am old enough to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. At the height of the international military crisis, after ordering a total blockade of Cuba Kennedy didn’t bluster or need to dress up in parts of a uniform or wear his medals to show toughness.
In 1964, President Kennedy — a real decorated veteran of WWII (the Navy Marine Corps Medal and a Purple Heart) — went on TV to address the world confident in his role as civilian President and commander of the US military.
So Donny and Mikey: stop it! Just stop it! Go back to suits and ties! Don’t make it so easy for the writers at SNL by looking like clowns.
Budget-stressed, crowded PA corrections system to take VT’s inmates
The Scott administration has been scurrying around to find a place to relocate the approximately 260 inmates currently held in Michigan at GEO Group’s for-profit private prison. In late 2016 GEO Group unexpectedly canceled its extension option on a multi-year contract to house Vermont prisoners and set a June deadline for their removal. Governor Scott didn’t pursue in-state alternatives he claims would cost more. It’s all about bottom-line GOP budgeting priorities: “The reality is it’s a lot less costly to have some out of state,” Scott said as a candidate.
Details about a new deal Governor Scott is reportedly arranging with the Pennsylvania state prison system are scant to say the least. According to Vtdigger.com, Secretary of Human Services Al Gobeille will only say that the administration is “very close” to a deal with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. An official from the PA Dept of Corrections did confirm they may soon house the Vermont prisoners but nothing is finalized. Pennsylvania Corrections regularly charges $72.00 per day cost for out-of state prisoners. That’s about $10.00 more than soon to end $61.80 per day fee GEO Group now charges to Vermont .
Whatever details eventually emerge about the Pennsylvania prison inmate housing deal, a quick look at news reports about the state system of is hardly reassuring for anyone concerned. For a period of years that state’s department of corrections has been undergoing major budget and staff cuts. The state is still suffering severe budget problems; this year, reductions under consideration in the Pennsylvania house, if enacted, would put about 1,500 state employees out of work, with prisons in line for the deepest job cuts. The administration produced an internal budget office analysis that indicated nearly 650 layoffs would occur at the Department of Corrections.
Should those new layoffs and cuts come to pass, it will be on top of existing chronic problems — including prisons operating well over capacity, with overcrowding exacerbated by previous years of budget cuts and staff reductions. To save costs two PA state prisons are slated to be closed in 2017. Officially they will be “mothballed,” dislocating and consolidating almost 2,500 inmates into other Pennsylvania prisons. The closings mean the Pennsylvania system will be operating at what is called “emergency” capacity levels. Corrections Secretary John Wetzel said, “It’s not ideal,” and by way of defending the action, he explains Pennsylvania is far from the worst state when it comes to overcrowding. There is speculation — by PA officials desperate for any revenue — that the newly “mothballed” prison facilities might be profitably put to use as suitable housing for low-risk federal immigration detainees from Trump’s aggressive immigration actions.
With the PA system under major budget stresses engagement by prison social workers, medical, or counseling staff are apt to be minimal to the extent they are provided for out-of-state prisoners. However, for families of Vermont inmate families who want to visit the travel distance may be an improvement of a kind. From Burlington to GEO’s North Lake Correction Facility is over 800 miles and to Pittsburgh, in the western corner of Pennsylvania is under 600 miles.
The snapshot of Pennsylvania’s prisons that emerges from these recent news reports is one of a system struggling under severe budget constraints and perhaps understaffed. The June deadline to move Vermont’s 260 inmates from Michigan is approaching fast: it is time for some details about what kind of “bargain” deal budget-conscious Governor Scott may think he’s arranged with Pennsylvania.