No, not that closet — the partisan closet. Peter “Mr. Microphone” Hirschfeld:

Newly updated filings at the Federal Elections Commission show that Lisman… contributed $10,000 to the Vermont GOP on Jan. 6. That’s in addition to the $16,000 Lisman gave to the Vermont Republican Party between Aug. 13 of 2010 and Dec. 8 of 2011.

… There are no records of contributions from Lisman to the Vermont Democratic Party.

Ah yes, it turns out that Bruce Lisman, retired Wall Street panjandrum and member of a fincnail-sector fraternity that gets together once a year to dress in drag and share misogynist jokes and yuck it up about how great it is to be filthy rich, has been one of the VTGOP’s biggest individual donors — even as he heads up the “nonpartisan” Campaign for Vermont.

If you need a reminder of how rich ol’ Brucey is:

As for the donations in 2010 and 2011 – they arrived in three installments of $5,000 and one of $1,000 – Lisman said, “I don’t remember them.”

A few grand? Ha, that’s chump change for the likes of Lisman. But he insists that his personal contributions have no relationship whatsoever to the “nonpartisan” organization he personally bankrolls to the tune of over a million bucks.

“I hadn’t considered it that way,” he said.

(Cough.) And if you buy that, I’ve got some subprime derivatives to sell you.

In case you still need more proof of CFV’s partisan bent, here are some figures compiled by people I know with more time on their hands and more database experience than I, showing that the CFV “grassroots” lean heavily to the Republican side of the aisle.

CFV claims more than a thousand “partners.” That list includes 66 who were members of local Republican town committees between 2011 and 2013.  

That may not seem terribly overwhelming, but look: only 2 were members of Democratic, Progressive, or Liberty Union town committees.

TWO.

Do some quick math here: a CFV “partner” is 33 times more likely to be a Republican Party official than a Democratic Party official.  

One other tidbit: 330 CFV “partners” took a Republican ballot in the 2012 Presidential primary. Compared to the entire electorate, CFV partners were three times more likely to have voted in that Republican primary.

Put it all together, you have an organization that is putatively nonpartisan but has a strong conservative lean. It’s headed (and entirely funded) by one of the leading individual donors to the Vermont Republican Party. And a man so wealthy that he “can’t remember” giving away $16,000 of his fortune.

I’d still like to see some intrepid reporter drill Mr. Lisman on his 2010 speech in South Burlington, dissected here and here.  

To sum it up: In a talk entitled “Finding Skin” (which concerned the importance of “having skin in the game” — rather ironic from a guy who doesn’t expect people to give a goddamn penny to join CFV), Lisman echoed many of the tenets of the Wall Street/one percenter crowd, including the desirability of lower taxes for rich people and capital gains and the idea that economic growth should be the “first magnitude” priority for government. And he described the 2008 financial meltdown as it if were an act of God that could not have been prevented or foreseen by his fellow Masters of the Universe.

Lisman also parroted the “47%” shibboleth: he asserted that “more than 50% of potential taxpayers” don’t pay any taxes. Which is just flat-out bullshit: nearly 50% don’t pay federal income taxes, but they are not exempt from all the other taxes. But even if you accept his argument, what he’s saying is that the poor should pay more.

This speech is almost four years old, but it’s the only time I know of that Lisman has revealed his own political views in a public forum. I’d love it if someone asked him about that speech, which is still viewable online thanks to Burlington’s community access folks.

I think those questions are fair game for someone who’s spent a million bucks (and counting) in an effort to influence public policy in Vermont.  

Comments Of Senator Patrick Leahy

(D-Vt., President Pro Tempore,

Chairman Of The State Department And Foreign Operations

Appropriations Subcommittee)

On Uganda President Museveni’s Signing

Of The Anti-Homosexuality Bill

Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014

“I am deeply concerned by the decision of President Museveni of Uganda to sign into law the anti-homosexuality bill.  I support Secretary of State Kerry and others in calling for its immediate repeal.  Much of U.S. assistance to Uganda is for the people of Uganda, including those in the Ugandan LGBT community whose human rights are being so tragically violated.  But we need to closely review all U.S. assistance to Uganda, including through the World Bank and other multilateral organizations.  I cannot support providing further funding to the Government of Uganda until the United States has undergone a review of our relationship.”

# # # # #

Yesterday, I asked if the Rifle on the Wall Story was true.  My suspicions were based on slightly different accounts being told by differently named individuals.  I said that I’d take my lumps as being a cynical jerk and issue an apology for questioning the veracity of the story if necessary.  Here is that apology to you, and to you alone.

I first heard the Rifle on the Wall story via radio advertisement.  Her story is compelling and provokes a common sense outrage.  But her account of the attack and her response jumped out at me as very suspicious.  Now I’ll gladly take my lumps for being a cynical jerk if I’m wrong  (probably), but here are the things that set my alarm bells off:

1) She kept a loaded gun on the wall.  Serious violation of gun safety rules (NRA Rule #3).  But since her reason for owning a gun is her personal safety, I’ll accept it that she wanted a loaded weapon to be easily accessible in case of attack.

2) Then when she was attacked, she didn’t shoot her attacker.  She had the presence of mind to grab the phone, call 911, and keep the attacker at bay.  

3) She was very fortunate the attacker didn’t grab the gun that was on the wall and in turn use it on her.

WCAX, in its reporting on the gun control debate (http://www.wcax.com/story/24550288/gun-control-debated-in-burlington), identified the woman as Amy Alexander.   But her story also sounds quite similar to the one told by Amy Lorraine in the comments section of a VT Digger story (http://vtdigger.org/2013/10/28/gun-sense-vermont-sponsors-educational-forum/):

I am not fearful Don, I am prepared. On the night of 11/17/11, a man broke in the back door of my house. I called 911 and put it on speaker phone. Despite knowing he was able to be heard by the 911 operator, he punched me in the face and grabbed/shoved me into the wall – the wall where my .44 was hanging. I grabbed the gun, chambered a round and pointed it at his chest. I walked him out the door. The cops arrived 52 minutes later and said I would have been justified in shooting him. I didn’t have to but he knew I could have and that is what made all the difference in the outcome. That rifle, and the fact that it was loaded, saved my life that night.

.

We have two versions of the event.  In Amy Alexander’s version, the man attacked her, then went into another room.  She then grabbed the loaded gun off the wall, walked him back into the kitchen, called 911, and then waited 52 minutes for the police to arrive.  In Amy Lorraine’s version, she called 911, then was attacked and shoved into the wall where her gun was.  She then chambered a round and held the man at bay until the police arrived 52 minutes later.

Interestingly, Amy Alexander also shows up to comment on the same VT Digger article in which Amy Lorraine shared her story.  So did the attack happen to Amy Alexander?  Or Amy Lorraine?  Or are they the same person?

This story could be authenticated very easily if Amy Alexander/Lorraine provided the location of the attack.  We already know it was November 17, 2011, so if we know the location, then we can ask for the police report or police log.  If authenticated, I’ll gladly apologize for questioning the veracity of Ms. Alexander/Lorraine’s account.

A sad headline to write. And unlikely, but true. Our own St. Patrick, chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, has stirred the ire of left-wing advocacy groups over his adherence to Senate tradition.

Credo Action, a liberal group with a mailing list of over three million, has sent an email blast targeting Leahy who, in spite of a 100% prochoice voting record (according to both NARAL and Planned Parenthood), is enabling obstructionist Republicans in their efforts to block President Obama’s judicial nominees.

As the email lays out, Leahy has thus far refused to abandon a relic of a largely dismantled patronage system known as the “blue slip,” which allows a single senator to effectively veto anyone nominated to a federal judgeship in their state.

The immediate consequence:

Georgia’s two Republican Senators, Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson, wielded the blue slip to pressure the White House into a lopsided deal that includes four judges chosen by the Republican lawmakers and only two selected by President Obama.

One of the Senators’ nominees is Michael Boggs, who has a record of opposing reproductive rights and marriage equality because he wants to “stand up for Christian values.” This week, 27 progressive groups sent a letter to Democrats on the Judiciary Committee urging them to vote against Boggs. Now, Credo is directly targeting Leahy for refusing to modify (or dump) the blue slip rule. Or, as Credo put it:

Tell Senator Patrick Leahy: We need judges who will protect a woman’s right to choose – stop allowing rightwing senators to blackball President Obama’s pro-choice nominees to the federal judiciary.

The “blue slip” tradition, according to ThinkProgress, has its origins in an earlier Senate era:

Although the Constitution gives the president power to name judges “with the advice and consent of the Senate,” for much of American history lower court judgeships were often treated as little more than patronage jobs to be doled out by senators.

… Two relics from the old patronage days remain, however. The first is that seats on the federal appeals courts are considered bound to a particular state. …The second is the “blue slip” process, which allows a single senator to prevent a judicial nominee from their home state from receiving a committee hearing, effectively vetoing the nomination.

This is one of the few shortcomings of having a Senator with a whole lot of seniority: he tends to be loyal to the arcane ways of the World’s Most August Boys’ Club.

And this, in spite of the fact that the blue slip rule was ignored the last time the Republicans ran the Senate:

In 2003, for example, when Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) took over as Judiciary chair and George W. Bush was president, Hatch largely abandoned the blue slip rule. According to the Congressional Research Service, “[a] return of a negative blue slip by one or both home-state Senators d[id] not prevent the committee from moving forward with the nomination – provided that the Administration engaged in pre-nomination consultation with both of the home-state Senators,” during Hatch’s tenure.

So Leahy has a decision to make. Support one of the Senate’s most obscure and useless rules, or clear the way for more Obama nominees to be confirmed.

The clock is ticking. The Republicans stand a good chance of regaining a Senate majority in November. Should that happen, we’ll see a whole lot of judicial vacancies lingering on and on, as the Republicans try to stall until the 2016 election.  

Red-state Republican lawmakers, always looking for new ways to prove what complete assclowns they are, have come up with a new one:

South Carolina lawmakers voted Wednesday to withdraw about $70,000 in funding from two public colleges that included books with gay themes on their freshman reading lists.

The Columbia State reported that state House budget writers took away $17,000 from the University of South Carolina Upstate for teaching “Out Loud: The Best of Rainbow Radio,” a book about the state’s first gay and lesbian radio show. They also withdrew $52,000 from the College of Charleston for teaching “Fun Home,” which describes the author’s growing up with a closeted gay father and her own coming out as a lesbian. Those amounts were based on the amount of money spent on the required-reading books last year.

Yes, “Fun Home,” the graphic memoir by Vermont’s own Alison Bechdel. The book that was a surprise best-seller, was mentioned on numerous lists of the best books of 2006, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and multiple Eisner Awards, and, as its Wikipedia entry notes, “has been the subject of numerous academic publications in areas such as biography studies and cultural studies.” And inspired a successful Broadway musical.

That’s the book deemed unworthy of college students’ attention by the literati of the South Carolina legislature.

Assclown-In-Chief Garry Smith, the state representative who pushed for the defunding, said:

“I understand academic freedom, but this is not academic freedom. … This was about promoting one side with no academic debate involved.”

Well, actually, sir, you just proved that you DON’T understand academic freedom. But hey, the dynamics of red-state Repubicanism boil down to this: the bigger ass you make of yourself, the better for your career. If the good citizens of South Carolina ever come to their senses and remove Rep. Smith from office, he can probably get a nice gig commentating for Fox News or, failing that, maybe World Nut Daily or Breitbart’s Corpse.

I’m glad I live in a state that reads books instead of trying to ban them.  

This week’s opinion pages bring us the latest emanations from two of our most frequent — and most mockable — opinionators. Coming up, Art Woolf Looks At A Chart. But first…

Tom Pelham Is Full Of Himself.

I know, it’s a shocker.

Pelham, the consummate ex-insider who now finds himself an outsider because the In Crowd won’t have him, has produced another 800 words of fulsome praise for the financial wisdom of his former boss Jim Douglas and, er, himself.

(Side note: How smart is it for the #2 man in the putatively nonpartisan Campaign for Vermont to keep yammering about how the policies of Jim Douglas are the cure for all that ails us? Doesn’t that make CFV seem, oh, just a tad Republican?)

Pelham bemoans the state of Vermont’s economy and public finances, and offers up the same tired solution he offers every single damn time:

In 2009, as the Great Recession squeezed Vermont’s economy and state and family budgets, the Legislature smartly initiated Challenges for Change, a program to identify reforms in state government to both preserve vital services while saving money. The Douglas administration complemented this effort with Tiger Teams, comprised of capable state employees who volunteered to research and make recommendations to improve state government effectiveness.

… Unfortunately, along with Challenges for Change, the Legislature in 2011 shelved the Tiger Team reports… The easy but short-sighted path of one-time stimulus money flowing in from Washington trumped the political difficulties of enacting program reforms.

It’s funny. What I’ve heard about Challenges for Change is that Governor Shumlin’s functionaries have spent a goodly part of the last three years cleaning up the wreckage left by CfC. As for Tiger Teams, in my experience they’re mostly a punchline in Dilbert cartoons.  

But in Pelham’s eyes, if only Shumlin had heeded the wisdom of Jim Douglas (and, ahem, Tom Pelham), Vermont would be strong, prosperous, and efficient.

Here’s a thought. Even if you posit the effectiveness of CfC — which I do not — then why did Douglas wait until the dying days of his Administration to launch the program? Why didn’t he start it back in 2003 when he still had a goodly number of Republicans in the Legislature, and when he had a relatively strong economy and stronger state finances? Like in the Bible, save up in the fat years so you can live through the thin ones. It’s almost as if Challenges for Change wasn’t so much a real good-government initiative as it was a big “F*ck You” to state government as Douglas was heading for the exit.

Okay, now let’s turn our attention to Art Woolf Looks At A Chart. In which Our Hero, Vermont’s Laziest Economist, spends roughly 750 words stating the obvious and about 50 making a tepid conclusion.

(Side note: I sure hope his monthly Vermont Economy Newsletter — subscriptions $150 per year! — offer a lot better material than his weekly Freeploid column.)

Woolf’s latest dribble is entitled “Vermont immigration trends differ dramatically from U.S. picture.” This should clue you in that you’re about to experience an avalanche of the obvious.

He begins by recounting a recent visit to New York City, whose diversity he found “overwhelming,” which led him to helpfully conclude that “The difference between Vermont and New York — and Vermont and the U.S. as a whole — is striking.”

But wait — there’s more!

He kicks it up a notch by quoting statistics showing that Vermont is overwhelmingly white, while the U.S. is much more heterogeneous. Hey everybody, the rest of the country has more blacks, Hispanics, and Asians than we do! Stop the presses!

Art’s not done, either. Best be sitting down for this one:

Vermont’s immigrant population is mostly European or Canadian.

…The country that sends the most people to Vermont is Canada. In second place is Germany, and third is the United Kingdom. For the U.S. the top three sending nations are Mexico, India and China. Take a trip to New York, or any major city, and that fact becomes obvious very quickly.

Oh, Art. That’s not the first fact to become obvious very quickly.

Finally, he gets to a question that might provoke thoughtful conclusions. Unfortunately he has no space to ponder them because he squandered virtually his entire column letting us know that Vermont is awfully darn white.

What does all this mean for Vermont? First, our state does not look at all like the rest of the U.S.

Okay, yeah, Art, we got that. Anything else?

That demographic difference makes many comparisons between Vermont and the U.S-in terms of income, health, education, and more-highly skewed.

Ah. Do you mean the kinds of comparisons Art Woolf makes on a regular basis? Like when he finds our taxes too high compared to other states, and our public spending too generous? Good to know that Woolf’s comparisoins are “highly skewed.”

Second, it means that one solution to Vermont’s stagnant population is to hope that more immigrants and more non-white people move to the state. Not only would that provide additional workers when the state’s labor force is declining, but it would make Vermont a much more interesting place to live.

Well now, there’s a teensy tiny skosh of daring at the bottom of this giant vat of oatmeal. Art’d like to see “more immigrants and more non-white people move to the state.” Wow.

And if those immigrants come from troubled parts of the world, so much the better. It’ll increase the competition for minimum-wage jobs and make Vermonters grateful for any crumbs that fall off the table.

Art Woolf. What would we do without him?  

The complaints sound entirely too familiar to me:  a project framed by big business that would forever affect the livability of a residential neighborhood; public concerns dismissed without full exploration by independent analysis; cronyism and developer-driven permit decisions; disrespect for those who dare disagree; political appointments used to “expedite” approval;  even open meeting violations.

In this case, we are talking about Roseanne Greco’s harsh criticism of the South Burlington City Council over its failure to uphold public opposition to the F-35 siting; but the way she characterizes the political culture over there in Chittenden County, certainly sounds a whole lot like what’s going on right now in St. Albans with regard to redevelopment  of the Smith Homestead and reconfiguration of Maiden Lane.

How can members of a legislative body choose to remain uninformed?” Greco asked. “Educating oneself before making a decision should be an obligation.”

Tell me about it, Roseanne!

Whether we’re talking about environmental, health or traffic impacts, it’s getting to the point where no one wants to hear the bad news if its going to disallow some project upon which the business establishment hangs its hopes for a bonanza.  

No argument is allowed to trump the economic one, even if that economic one is extremely weak, short-sighted and captive to private enterprise.

Those who persist in voicing concerns over unanswered questions eventually find themselves shut out entirely.

Unfortunately, it’s not an easy task to galvanize the aggrieved into an effective political force to challenge a fouled process.  The machinations have become so familiar that most people just shrug and say “What can you do?”

What you can do is vote in every single election and on every single ballot item.  

If you don’t like or trust anyone whose name is on the ballot, write-in the name of someone you do trust.  Not “Daffy Duck” or “Your Aunt Fanny,” but a real person from your neighborhood.  That way, your vote becomes a statement of protest, not merely a prank.

If we could just get all qualified voters to the polls to exercise this opportunity for protest, the poor choices we are given on the ballot would be shown for what they are in the final tally.  

No more allowing the unprincipled to claim a “landslide” victory when all they’ve managed to capture is support from less than 10% of the population, as actually happened last September in St. Albans with the parking garage bond vote.

At least on the local level, it remains true that we get the government that we deserve.

Ah, the bitter fruits of the Bush Administration continue to fall on our fair and pleasant land.

The Vermont State Police (VSP) is one of over 160 law enforcement agencies across the nation that recently acquired an armored tactical vehicle through the Defense Department’s national military surplus program. …This particular vehicle is a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle; that can provide lifesaving support to local, county, state and federal law enforcement agencies across the state during armed confrontations or other critical incidents.

Well, it’s hard to be against “lifesaving support,” but really: does Vermont need a vehicle designed to resist land mines and foil ambushes? Under what scenario does VSP expect to encounter land mines? Did I miss the declaration of World War V?

These are pretty fearsome battle-wagons. The Los Angeles Times describes them as “V-hulled 16-ton armored behemoths.” At the height of the Iran and Afghanistan quagmires, the Pentagon rush-ordered some 27,000 of the things. And they saved a lot of lives.

But as our foreign entanglements wind down, we’ve suddenly got a behemoth surplus. In fact, over in Afghanistan, the military is turning a couple thousand of ’em into scrap. It’s cheaper than shipping them home. And besides, we’ve got too many of the damn things here, so the Pentagon is offering them to local law enforcement for pennies on the dollar.

The cost to the VSP includes the initial transportation of the vehicle from Mississippi, which was under $8000; along with the cost of necessary customization such as, lights, painting; and vehicle maintenance. …The MRAP is not yet operational; pending the completion of customization and maintenance.

Such a deal.

We get a slightly used, million-dollar assault vehicle for a few thousand bucks. Plus the unspecified cost of rendering it “operational.” Plus the ongoing “maintenance” of a vehicle designed to thwart land mines and ambushes.

And Lord knows, we’ve got way too many land mines and ambushes in Vermont.

The State Police say the MRAP is “similar to the Bearcat tactical vehicle…which is housed at the Williston Barracks.” (The Bearcat was purchased with a Homeland Security grant. Those funds have been doled out generously to just about any police agency that gets a hard-on for up-armor.) The New Toy will be based in Windsor, from whence it will be rapidly deployable to your southern Vermont war zones.

My problem with all of this — aside from once again showcasing the utter waste of the Bush Wars — is that when you acquire a capability, you start looking for reasons to use it. Like, for instance, a 2012 incident that turned a tiny Vermont town into a demented Steven Seagal wet dream:

A summer scene befitting a Norman Rockwell portrait was spoiled Monday morning when more than a dozen police cruisers, an armored vehicle and the big box truck that houses Vermont’s equivalent of a S.W.A.T. team set up shop in Washington to take what proved to be one unarmed man into custody.

Police described the operation as a “success,” which, yeah, but did the good people of Washington (population 1,047) really need or want a full-on invasion by a fleet of cop cars plus an up-armored war machine?

Well, now we’re gonna have two war machines in the VSP’s arsenal. And, whether or not we’ve got any minefields or armed terrorist gangs roaming our countryside, the cops will be looking for reasons to use their new toys.

So whatever you do, don’t start any trouble.  

Once again, I am reminded of the good old days of Vatican II and liberal Catholic activism in America.  

What does my heart good is that the woman at the center of the story is probably a veteran of those hopeful moments in an otherwise bleak century of reactionary Catholicism.

Sister Meghan Rice, 84-years young, just got herself arrested and sentenced to 35 months in the clink for engaging in a peaceful but highly illegal protest at a defense storage facility in Tennessee!

Acting as Transform Now Plowshares, Sister Rice and her two companions, both seasoned activists, have brought down the sledgehammer of Tennesse justice for singing, offering food to a facility guard, and inflicting what supposedly amounts to $1,000. in property damage.

Fellow peace activists Michael Walli and Greg Boertje-Obed were sentenced to 62 months in prison. The three were convicted of cutting fences and entering the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in July 2012, embarrassing U.S. officials and prompting security changes.

Weapons grade uranium is stored at the facility, and we know how sensitive are breaches of nuclear security these days.  I’ll just bet those unnamed officials were “embarrassed!”

One has to wonder why the justice system persists in handing out such completely inappropriate sentences along the lines of “zero tolerance,”  assuming that the draconian measures act as a deterrent to hardened criminals and terrorists.  What a load of baloney!

Anyway, the story and the smiling photo that accompanied it completely made my day.  

This gal is twenty years my senior, has the hierarchy of a recently conservative church on her shoulders, yet still manages to kick some butt for peace.  

…And just look at all the graybeards surrounding the three detainees.

They do not go gentle into that goodnight.