When Democrats had the unfortunate task of filling a Senate vacancy created by the death of Sally Fox, an impressively strong list of candidates put themselves forward. And one of my idle thoughts was, Gee, I wish we could have all of these people in the Senate. And get rid of some of the deadwood in the process.

Purely a passing fancy, since doing so would mean ignoring residency requirements, not to mention that pesky “right to elect your representatives” thing. But the thought came back again as I watched, in car-crash-esque fascination, part of last Friday’s session of the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee. If Senators had to prove their fitness to serve through job performance, I think we would have had ourselves a couple of quick vacancies afterward.

The occasion was a perfunctory appearance by VPIRG’s Paul Burns, to testify in opposition to a pair of bills designed to put new obstacles in the way of renewable energy projects. “Perfunctory” because Burns knew his testimony would fall on deaf ears, since SNRE is stacked with senators publicly opposed to ridgeline wind energy: four antis plus Mark MacDonald. So, he didn’t try to hide his awareness of that fact and — very unusual for a Statehouse advocate — barely concealed his contempt for certain members of the committee. To wit, His Eminence Peter “The Slummin’ Solon” Galbraith, Legend In His Own Mind, and the Kingdom’s Own John Rodgers, whose very presence makes me yearn for the halcyon days of Vince Illuzzi.

And the two un-esteemed Senators lived down to Burns’ expectations and returned the scorn in spades. The whole performance is worth watching, and fortunately it’s been posted on YouTube. Takes about 15 minutes.

Burns disposed of his obligation to put VPIRG on the record, and the floor was open for questions. Galbraith immediately pounced, with a question that seems pointless until you know the backstory: He’s got his knickers in a twist over something VPIRG staffer Ben Walsh wrote in a message to the group’s email list. A message sent IN THE YEAR 2012.

His Eminence knows how to hold a grudge. How the hell did this guy ever make it as a diplomat???

After Galbraith batted this around and Burns calmly held his ground (“I stand by that email in its entirety”), the cudgel was passed to Rodgers, who is apparently pursuing his sworn duty to uphold the Northeast Kingdom Way of Life (grinding poverty and underdevelopment) by opposing any and all wind projects in his bailiwick. Because every ridgeline is sacred, and we cannot disturb a single stone even if the benefit is a steady stream of new tax revenue and renewable energy.

Rodgers figuratively leapt at the chance to play Mr. Inquisitor, treating Burns as a hostile witness just begging to be broken. His first line of inquiry was about his desire for a full accounting of the carbon cost of a wind farm — the greenhouse gases emitted in construction versus the emissions saved by turbine operation. The ensuing colloquy:  

Burns: If you can assess the life cycle of an energy source, I don’t know if you can. But clearly, wind would come out near the top of the list.

Rodgers: I want a simple yes or no. When you have an industrial wind development, should we know what carbon they’ve emitted in construction versus the carbon savings from production of emergy.

Burns: If you can do that for all energy sources —

Rodgers: Yes or no!

Burns: For one source? No.

Rodgers: Okay. So we don’t care. And the other point — so we don’t want to know.

Brilliant, Mr. Rodgers. You’ve set a trap of your own devising and pretended to catch your quarry. What you “don’t care” about is the truth, because you’re an absolute opponent of ridgeline wind, and nothing will change your mind.

The Honorable Dogmatist then turned his attention to an inconvenient truth for wind opponents: the Castleton Polling Institute survey that showed a huge majority of Vermonters in favor of ridgeline wind.

Rodgers: Now, the Castleton poll, is that the one you’re quoting? The numbers overwhelmingly in favor?

Burns: That’s the most recent poll.

Rodgers: The pollster has pointed out that, when it’s broken down further, every area where an industrial wind site was proposed, they were against it. It’s easy for those not impacted to vote in favor of something that will impact their neighbor. I don’t need a response from him, I just wanted to make that point. The Castleton poll should not be taken on a whole. It can be broken down and give you a different result.

I pause for a moment to note that of course Rodgers doesn’t need a response, because he must know he’s about to get hammered.

Burns: Senator, with respect that is false.

Rodgers: No, it’s not.

Burns: That is false information. I’ve spoken with the head of the Castleton Polling Institute, who explained in detail that that information simply is false.. He did not break it down by town; it cannot be broken down by town. What he did provide me, however, was the regional breakdown. And in every region of the state, there was overwhelming support for wind development on ridgelines. You are incorrect, and I would love to have an explanation for how you keep saying this when it is explicitly and absolutely false.

Oh snap! Ball’s in your court, Johnny boy.

Rodgers: It was written in publications. Someone interviewed the pollster.

Sharp. “I read it someplace.” But do continue.

Rodgers: So I don’t know where you got your information —

Burns: I spoke with the pollster.

At this point, Rodgers discards the poll issue, having been thoroughly posterized.

Rodgers: But I also know that in my area, we have had official votes — not polls, official votes of registered voters, and you can’t deny the results of those votes.

Burns: I don’t deny that. I simply take issue with your spreading false information as fact.

At this point, SNRE chair Robert Hartwell broke it up, perhaps to spare his depantsed ally Rodgers any further embarrassment. But Galbraith was lying in wait. And even as Hartwell tried to wrap up Burns’ testimony, His Eminence seized the chance to revisit another old, but lovingly held, offense.

Galbraith: I just have a comment because I think there’s a style of making a case here, which is if your views are shared by somebody who has an extreme view, therefore your views are discredited. And I was reflecting, where have I haard that kind of tactic before? And I think back to Joe McCarthy. That really is the tactic.

At this point, a chorus of voices erupts and Hartwell brings the testimony to a close.

Galbraith’s picking at an old scab here. And using one of the harshest terms in our political language: McCarthyism. So how exactly did Paul Burns commit the dastardly act of guilt by association and banishment of his opponents to the unending limbo of political exile?

Well, remember in early February 2013 when Bernie Sanders held a pro-renewables rally at the State House? Burns was one of the speakers, and his address included the following passage (text provided by VPIRG):

You might say this is our Kansas moment.  Back in 2005, the Kansas Board of Education famously rejected the teaching of evolution in public schools there in favor of creationism (or intelligent design).  This rejection of science brought much scorn upon the state and later the decision was reversed.  But the damage to the state’s reputation was done.

So, what will Vermont do at this critical time?

Galbraith misinterpreted Burns as conflating opposition to wind energy with creationism. But the plain meaning of Burns’ remarks is this: opponents of evolution ignore science, and opponents of wind energy ignore established science about the benefits of wind power. It’s a matter of process, not of absolute equivalency.

At the time, Galbraith got all huffy and interrupted a Senate debate a few days later to issue a Point of Personal Privilege in which he lambasted Burns for characterizing wind opponents as “deniers of the science of climate change, and the equivalent of creationists who deny evolution,” expressed his hope that the debate “will proceed in a civil fashion,”  and decried the use of “extreme language and name-callling.”

Well, nearly a year has passed, and Galbraith is still enraged about his misinterpretation of something Paul Burns said last February.

I ask again, how in hell did this guy ever make it as a diplomat?

As for his hope for civil debate, I suggest His Eminence take a good look at his fellow Windies. As I wrote in January 2013:

VPIRG, VNRC, the Sierra Club, and the other pro-wind environmental groups — who spend long hours for low pay trying to defend our environment — have been accused of selling out their principles to some sort of vaguely defined Blittersdorf/Iberdrola big wind cartel.

Those accusations extend to, of all people, Bernie Sanders. In a comment thread below the VTDigger article on Bernie’s opposition to the moratorium, he is accused of being “energy-illiterate, on the take from Big Wind, or both” (Mary Barton), “violat[ing] truth and public trust” and “attempts to manipulate through outright misrepresentation of facts”  and cronyism (Peggy Sapphire), doing favors for the wind industry and not knowing “how wind energy actually works” (Will Amidon), “a raging hypocrite” (Ellin Anderson) and of selling out for a campaign contribution from David Blittersdorf (our ol’ buddy Patrick Cashman).

“Respectful,” indeed. The vast majority of the vituperation in this debate has come from the anti-wind crowd.

And Galbraith has more than done his part in that respect. In addition to his depiction of Burns as a latter-day Roy Cohn, he has also (according to Burns’ account of a conversation between the two men) compared Burns to Mussolini. Hey, congrats for avoiding the Hitler reference, Petey!

Credit to Paul Burns for standing his ground under this unwarranted and inaccurate cross-examination. And while he managed to refrain from exactly the sort of name-calling he’s all too often been subjected to, I feel no such restraint. So…

Senator Galbraith, you are a narcissistic, self-important gasbag. You are far too quick to take offense, and you cling tenaciously to offenses, real and imagined, for far too long. You like to think of yourself as a champion of civility and parliamentary process, when in fact you are a jackass of the first order.

Senator Rodgers, like your allies in the anti-wind movement, you grasp tenaciously to anything that might possibly support your cause no matter how dubious, while willfully ignoring the preponderance of evidence proving that ridgeline wind is a popular, efficient, and environmentally friendly source of green, renewable energy. One of the best, as Burns put it. And while you believe you are serving the short-term views of your constituency — or the subset of your constituency you choose to listen to — you are failing to advance their longer-term interests by blocking a relatively clean form of energy and development.

There, I said it. The videotape proves it.  

Today’s Mitchell Family Organ brings the sad news of Karen Kerin’s passing. Kerin was the notorious perpetual candidate for Attorney General — as a Republican and, later, as a Libertarian. She was last seen racking up 2.7% of the vote on the Lib ticket in 2010.

I never met her, and I doubt I’d agree with any of her ideas. But she led one hell of an interesting, and decidedly bumpy, life:

Born Charles P. Kerin Jr., Feb. 3, 1944, in Barre, Vt., the oldest child of Charles P. Kerin Sr. and Ellen (Douglass) Kerin.

Charles grew up as an Army brat and lived in Munich, Germany, as well as Virginia and Massachusetts, graduating high school at 16 years old from Hingham High School. Married to Regina Stone in June 1963, they had six children and divorced in 1989. Charles changed his name to Karen Ann Kerin and married Mary Aschenberg in November 1996.

More from the bio posted on her (still extant) 2010 campaign website:

Karen is a survivor of many medical calamities starting at age two with an appendix removal. Karen, as the result of a very uncommon cancer, endured the removal of her left lung and virtually all of her urinary and reproductive organs, sparing only her kidneys. Medically that is pretty much what transsexuals seek, but for Karen, it was simply a matter of survival.

The media can not understand that a transsexual Karen is not a wild eyed radical seeking to gain from government as is true of so many minority groups.

So, for ten years there has been a drumbeat by media to portray Karen as something other than who she is – specifically, a fiscally conservative, pro-liberty supporter of the law as created by the nation and state founders.

Again, not much common ground between her and the GMD community. But she was one of a kind, for sure. My best to her wife Mary and surviving kin.  

Ah, wonderful news from the mad scientists at UVM:

Researchers at the University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center have discovered that sugar maple saplings produce the same sweet liquid that mature trees yield.

Sugar maple saplings can out-produce mature trees by an order of magnitude. A plantation-style crop of 6,000 saplings can produce 400 gallons of syrup per acre, while a mature sugarbush of 80 mature maple trees produces 40 gallons per acre, researchers say.

Saplings are ready to harvest in seven years, while mature trees take four decades to tap.

Er, yeah, a little free PR advice? Try to avoid using the word “plantation” when referring to a new method of agriculture. How about “orchard” instead? You’re welcome.

Anyhoo, this new breakthrough, they say, could provide “a relatively cheap and easy way to grow a maple operation.”

Yep, I’m picturing that scene from The Matrix where Neo wakes up in the goo-pod and discovers that the entire human race is being harvested for the benefit of the Machine Overlords. (Whoops, Spoiler Alert!) Except instead of people, we’ve got saplings having their precious bodily fluids sucked dry throughout their newly miserable life cycles.

I’m also picturing vast maple planta — sorry, orchards — covering mile after mile of formerly abandoned Vermont farms and newly-clearcut Vermont forests. Kinda like the sheep boom of the early 19th Century all over again.

That’d be a hoot — a core aspect of the Vermont Way Of Life transformed into a landscape-depleting mega-industry. Probably far-fetched, but I wonder how our arch-traditionalists (of all political stripes) would react to the prospect.  Somebody notify Annette Smith, stat!

“My fellow Americans.  Hi.  Gimme five.  You don’t really want to know, do you?  And how ’bout this fucking weather?  I mean, shit, Alaska’s warmer than California.  What do you think?  Think we should just get it over with?  The Boys In The Boardroom, who selected me in ’08, wouldn’t mind a little Nuclear War.  Get your minds off what you’re bitchin’ about.  And warm up Chicago.

“The State of the Union?  You’ve got to be shittin’ me.  The State of the Union is now on sale at WalMart.  Made in China.  By little kiddies.  What all you assholes need to do is get together and become Activists.  And make WalMart label all this shit.  Like: This State Of The Union Product May Cause Cancer Or Bubonic Plague If Used In Certain Environments Otherwise Thought To Be Not Recommended For Human Life.  Heh-heh.  Thought you’d like that.  These are the jokes, folks.  But, all seriousness aside, we should label everything.  Americans love labels.  So, to start with, I’m having the Department of Homeland Security put out 2 million T-Shirts with the logo: SMART PEOPLE CREATE TERROR.  Because when you label things and people, Americans are much more comfortable.  And healthier and happier.  And we can get on with the important work of our nation.  And, what is that, you ask?  Shit.  The fuck if I know.  The Boys In The Boardroom keep changing what the important work of our nation is, almost every week.  Did they tell you?  No?  Well, good.  As your President, that makes me feel even closer to all of you, as a people, and as a bunch of flaming assholes.  Heh-heh.

“I’ll tell you a little story.  Back in ’09, I used to sit in the Oval Office and say to myself: ‘Bama, if you don’t do shit in five years, nobody will care.  Americans are dumber than a box of rocks.’  But now, my fellow Americans, I’ve grown more philosophical, having so much idle time to become so.  And I think to myself that if the American people really want change, they’ll get off their brain-dead asses and do it themselves.  I mean, it’s not like I’m going to help you.  In fact, I may even have to kill a lot of you, and put more of you in jail.  But, go ahead–be my guest.  Change things.  Yeah.  Why don’t you start by changing the fucking channel?  Heh-heh.  Cause I know you don’t like what you’re hearing.  The Boys In The Boardroom told me I could say any kind of shit I wanted to tonight.  Because you fuckers will take anything.  They told me that after they killed Kennedy, and you all bought that Warren Commission Report and that Magic Bullet shit–man, that was a good one–and then you threw the covers over your heads and went to sleep, that they knew there and then that you’d put up with any and all kinds of shit.  War and Injustice and Fairy Tales.  Look at this Arctic Vortex crap.  Ain’t that a cute fairy tale name for: THE WEATHER IS SAYING THE END IS NEAR?  Arctic Vortex.  Sounds like a new fashion line at WalMart.  Heh-heh.  Like my fucked-up Health Care.  The only thing I did in five years.  Hey, maybe the Boys In The Boardroom will decide that, with this Arctic Vortex motha, it would be cool to cut off Fuel Assistance entirely.  Yeah.  I mean, all those unemployed elderly people turning up the heat?  Yeah.  My new campaign to fight Global Warming.  Cut off Fuel Assistance.  The Boys In The Boardroom should thank me for thinking that up all by myself.  Maybe give me a really good job in 2017.  A Game Show Host.  Yeah.  I could be the Black Bob Barker.  You know: ‘Higher!…Lower!…Oh sorry…There goes the buzzer…You’re fucked!…Take him away, FEMA!’  Want to know what’s behind the curtain, my fellow Americans?  You wait.  You’ll love this one.  Maybe a little later this year.  Heh-heh.

“You dumb sorry-assed sonsabitches.  Fucking pathetic.  Brush up on your Chinese, is my advice.  Hey, how’s this one: THE EARTH IS FLAT.  Didn’t you know that?  I just told you.  And I’m your Government, so it must be so.  Right?  Yeah.  So, you stupid shits, be careful when you’re traveling this Summer, if you can afford to.  Might fall off the edge of the Earth.  That’s where the Devil is.  Waiting for you.  Become Christians.  That’s more Presidential advice.  When the Republicans take over the White House in 2017, because you elect them because I didn’t do shit, you’re all going to have to become Christians anyway.  They’ll make laws.  Yeah, they’ll Do Something!  You see, I’m not so bad.  Me doing nothing is something you’re all going to miss in about five years or so.  

“But, hey.  Don’t worry.  Be happy.  And if you can’t be happy, eat some Jello Pudding.  Ummm-ummm.  Good shit, my fellow Americans.  So, have a nice day tomorrow, and remember what I said tonight.  You might feel a little off for a while.  Feel like losers.  But losers make the world go round.  Don’t let any Smart Person tell you any different.  If some Smart-Ass Person gives you any shit, you just tell that sucker that Bama says CHILL.  Smart people like to spoil all the fun.  And we’re having fun, right?  I know I am.  And, my fellow Americans, you ain’t seen shit yet.  Yeah.  It’s going to get even more fun.

“Thank you and Good Night…and, oh yeah…Go Fuck Yourselves…Heh-heh…I knew you wanted me to say that.”

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

!

I woke this morning to learn that Pete Seeger died yesterday.

It wasn't a surprise. He was ninety-four and had been hospitalized for almost a week, but it's still sad news.

Whether we knew it or not, most of us growing up in the 1960's owed a lot to Pete Seeger. Pete was responsible, more than any other single individual, for the explosion of the popularity of folk music, which was one of the fundamental pillars of the music of the 1960's and beyond. 

Without Pete would we have had Bob Dylan, The Band, The Byrds, and the countless musicians who followed in their footsteps? It's doubtful. Or at least, we might have had Bob Dylan but he might not have been Bob Dylan.

Pete was a seemingly inexhaustible font of folk music, the people's music, from America and around the world. Even more, though, he was an inexhaustible source of energy and inspiration for musicians and activists everywhere. At a time when musicians were mainly cast in the bland, conventional mold of Pat Boone or Patty Page, Pete's music, and everything he did, was informed by the radical political views he never hesitated to share with the public, even at the expense of record sales, bookings, or congressional investigation.

I got to meet Pete once, when he came to sing at the inner city high school in Paterson, N.J. where my mother taught, but he was a presence in my life from the first time I heard him on the first Clancy Brothers album we had in my family. 

Remember Pete's life and work, and enjoy his music. 

(An important topic that deserves our attention, so I moved it “upstairs.” – promoted by Sue Prent)

 Police discovered a Meth lab in the basement of two of the welders working on Vermont Gas’s new natural gas pipeline in Franklin County, VT. Investigations are unearthing evidence that Charles Davis and Dustin Hollis have been cooking and distributing the drugs to other workers as well as supervisors who were allegedly taking the methamphetamine while on the job.

 In a remark clearly indicative of the priorities of Vermont Gas, vice president of operations Marc Teixeira released a statement saying, “We’re obviously disappointed that this would happen. The project is too important.” The project is of utmost importance to Teixeira, that much is abundantly clear.

       The media coverage of this pipeline incited others to express their concerned about the importance of the safety of the people and habitats along the five miles of pipeline from St. Albans to Georgia where this potentially compromised pipe has already been built by C&G before the drug use was uncovered. Vermonters are justifiably angry at this corporation for putting profits before people and endangering communities and ecosystems when the next segment of pipeline is being granted political immunity in many regards under the guise of providing for the “public good.”

       One more group to add to the list of those who’s “public good” would be a whole lot better off without the meddlesome greedy interventions of VGS is the construction workers they employ. These crews are being forced to work 12 hour days, 6 days a week, because of pressure by VGS to make up time and push through as quickly as possible before anyone has time to muster a counter-attack to the obscenities that companies who engage in the extraction and transport of fracked gas commit (in the name of job creation and environmental efficiency, of all things).

            One of the many fundamental problems with Vermont Gas is that they bully everyone else into corners where they have no choice. In an economy where jobs are hard to find, people can’t afford to be choosy about how they earn a living, even if that necessitates finding extreme, dangerous, and illegal methods of getting through the workweek. These men were not dabbling in high-risk substance abuse for fun, they were not doing it because they don’t care about their job; they are not inherently incompetent employees. They were doing it because they needed a job and Vermont Gas set unreasonable demands that no one short of a superhuman could keep up with. Though fear due to potentially faulty welds is entirely justified, reasoning should not be that the crew was negligent. Safety hazards, leaks, and environmental sloppiness and destruction that will surely ensue from this project are byproducts of corporate policy deliberately leaving workers no choice but to rush at the expense of their health and their craftmanship.

      Vermont Gas must rush their processes so carelessly fast in order to keep just ahead of common sense because any amount of logic employed leads to the conclusion that fossil fuels and especially more dangerous and dirty forms such as fracked gas are never a good idea.

If they can’t allow enough time for their workers to keep up without resorting to desperate measures,

If they can’t allow enough time for reasonable negotiations with landowners battling for their rights to choose not to have a demonic river of toxicity leeching from out of their backyard into their family’s drinking water,

If they can’t allow enough time for the very serious and legitimate concerns of the public to be heard and adequately addressed,

 How can they even begin to claim that anything they do is in the name of the “public good?”

For the details of the arrest and bust, here’s the news story on wcax https://www.google.com/search?…

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Sometime last week, when no one was looking, Governor Shumlin signed the Peter Shumlin Bailout Act of 2014 — er, that is, the campaign finance reform bill. You know, the one stitched together by a team of mad scientists during the Legislative offseason? The one that’s far worse than the watered-down version that got stuck in the mud last spring?

The one that puts the lie to the notion that Democrats are in favor of limiting the influence of money in politics? Yeah, that’s the one. As first reported last week by Paul “The Huntsman” Heintz:

Asked Thursday afternoon when it would be signed into law, Gov. Peter Shumlin’s spokeswoman Sue Allen said the deed’s already been done.

… If you were waiting for a public signing with a crowd of supporters and plenty of pens to give away, you apparently didn’t miss anything.

Following Heintz’ inquiry, Allen released a public statement. Here it is, in its glorious entirety:

Jeebus H. Christ. If that announcement were any briefer, it’d disappear into a black hole of its own formation. It’s safe to say the Governor’s office is fully aware of how embarrassing this bill is.    

The bill, for those just joining us, substantially raises the limits on individual and corporate giving in a way that immediately benefits precisely one person: Peter Shumlin. He’s the only state officeholder or candidate who’s maxed out a significant portion of his donor base. He’s already got a campaign kitty rich enough to discourage any sensible Republican, and now he’ll be able to go back to his core supporters and ask for even more.

In the slightly longer run, the bill will solidify the two major parties by allowing them to collect lots more money and funnel unlimited amounts to their candidates. This will help offset the influence of big-money independent groups like Vermonters First and Campaign for Vermont, but it will also make it a whole lot harder for independent and third-party candidates to compete. Hence my other name for the bill, the Screw The Progs Act of 2014.

A few good provisions survived the behind-the-scenes hacksaw surgery that produced this bill: a slight increase in campaign finance reporting, a requirement that large single donors to superPACs be identified in the groups’ advertisements (read: Lenore Broughton), and the long-overdue institution of online filings. Currently, campaign finance reports are filed on paper and the information is not searchable; the new system is a genuine step forward in transparency.

But otherwise, this bill is a gigantic disappointment. Lawmakers who’d sought tighter limits on money in politics gamely defended the bill as, basically, better than nothing, and a starting point for future legislation. Yeah, well, when the party supposedly interested in limiting money in politics has total control of the process and THIS is the best they can come up with? I’m afraid it’ll be a cold day in Tegucigalpa before this issue sees the light of day again.  

(Big problem. There is also a bill in the Senate that would have the same effect. Enough of this crap already.   – promoted by kestrel9000)

Hunters and gun owners beware. Now is the time to get on the phone and end the silence. These anti gun “nuts” are relentless. They have just introduced yet another bill and this one will effectively remove your ability to hunt on thousands of acres of Vermont land and no I am not being overly critical in the slightest bit.  

Presently we Vermonters have been able to hunt on the various lands possessed by schools and according to this new bill, you may not possess a firearm on any land that is owned, leased, controlled, or subcontracted by a school. This is entirely disgusting. First of all, simply driving or walking through Howe Center and accidentally venturing too far over onto one of the parking spots or sidewalk will get you up to 1 year in prison, a $1000 fine or both for the first offense and up to 3 years in prison and a $5000 fine or both after the first offense as RHS leases a building down there. Now that is the least bothersome of it. Go to google maps and type in “Vermont schools” without the quotes and then tell me you don’t hunt in one of those locations with the pink balloons and that doesn’t even begin to show just how much land some of those schools actually own. On the list of sponsors for this bill are Representatives Keenan of St. Albans City, Branagan of Georgia, McCarthy of St. Albans City, Weed of Enosburgh, Connor of Fairfield, Consejo of Sheldon, Dickinson of St. Albans Town, Krowinski of Burlington, Michelsen of Hardwick, Toleno of Brattleboro and Rutland’s own Peter Fagan.

http://www.leg.state.vt.us/doc…

Republicans in Oklahoma are showing that, like the rest of the Republican Party, they are taking their cues from the racists who brought us the strategy of massive resistance during the civil rights movement.

 Of course, the new civil rights movement is for marriage equality and equal treatment and dignity in general, and the dead-enders don't like it one bit. They especially don't like that the federal courts are ordering them to stop discriminating, so in Oklahoma they're resurrecting a favored tactic from the Jim Crow days.

You know that a couple of weeks ago a federal court found Oklahoma's marriage equality ban to be unconstitutional, but you might not have heard that the legislature has been trying to decide what to do about it.

For their solution they are looking to the ideas of the old South, when cities under pressure to integrate their public schools closed the public schools entirely, creating what were colloquially known as seg academies, private schools with the ability to keep discriminating. Or, if the city was told it had to integrate its swimming pools it would just close down the public schools.

Bingo, problem solved, no race mixing allowed.

What's the marriage equivalent? Pure simplicity, really. Just abolish marriage.

No, really, I'm not kidding. Watch this:

I'm thinking they may not have thought this whole thing through, though. For instance, lots of people like being married. In addition, lots of people, even straight couples, like the tax and other benefits that being married brings.

I don't think this is going anywhere, but if you want to have a clue to their mindset this is a good place to start. 

On Friday afternoon, a judge ordered the release of Christina Schumacher from Fletcher Allen Health Care. And I’m sure that First Amendment blunderbuss Mike Donoghue feels vindicated for repeatedly plastering her case all over the Burlington Free Press.

His editors apparently did; they went full-on tabloid with the story — the front-page headline screaming “COURT: RELEASE HER IMMEDIATELY” in bright red print and a font size normally reserved for national emergencies.

But I still believe he was wrong. There are good and valid reasons for medical privacy protections. Donoghue was alone in violating those protections. Everyone else kept silent: her caregivers, FAHC, her Legal Aid attorney, her family. Even the judge, who publicly released his bare-bones ruling but did not release the findings of fact and conclusions of law underlying the decision.

And even other news media: While Donoghue and the Free Press were tabloiding it up, nobody else reported on the case. I guess they’re all in on the plot, too.

So Donoghue gets to run a victory lap and move on to the next crusade, and Schumacher will return to her shattered life. I hope she makes it, I really do. And I hope the Free Press’ invasion of her privacy never rebounds against her — say, if she ever applies for a job and her prospective employer does a Google search.

We will never know why she was hospitalized, because the health care system protected her privacy. And in the process, allowed itself to be defamed without response. We will never know why the judge disagreed with her doctors, because he protected her privacy as well.

We will never really know if Donoghue’s publicity made any difference; the judicial process would have continued even if he’d never written a word. Presumably the judge’s ruling was based on his interpretation of the facts and the law, not on a blast of sensationalized reporting. If so, then Christina Schumacher would have been released regardless of Donoghue’s attentions.

Congratulations, Mike. I’m sure you got a nice little First Amendment stiffy when you heard the news. I still think you were wrong.