Too Little, Too Late?

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Will 2018 be the session in which the Vermont senate finally takes meaningful action toward addressing sexual harassment?  We’ll see.

‘“There’s a different weight to it this year in light of all that’s been going on around us,” (Senator Tim) Ashe said of the new policies, referring to national stories of sexual harassment.’

It’s too little too late to help one young girl who, reluctantly and under oath, provided compelling testimony of her alleged sexual exploitation by then-senator Norm McAllister. The victim had the misfortune of stepping forward just a couple of years before our porcine president and the “Me too!” movement catapulted the dirty secret of sexual assault by powerful men to national attention.

We’re talking about a slip of a girl, just a teenager at the time she served as Mr. McAllister’s unofficial intern at the statehouse, who came from a low-income rural background, asking for a state senator to be held accountable for abusing her.

She relied on law enforcement and the states attorney who persuaded her to testify, to provide the credibility for her complaint that her own social inferiority denied her. Had she hailed from the hill section of St. Albans with gold-plated parentage, I rather doubt her case would have been dropped by the state’s attorney after she fibbed, out of shame and the growing realization that her behavior, not McAllister’s was on trial, about a kiss with a lad who was not her boyfriend.

She left that courtroom completely broken, and we haven’t heard from her since.

The next female who dared complain about the sexual mistreatment she received from McAllister once again sat alone in the courtroom as her own past relationships and financial hardships were used as a cudgel to reduce her credibility before the jury who accepted the argument that a decent family man and senator like McAllister simply wouldn’t do the things of which she accused him. If he had, it must have been consensual; as if any woman can actually “consent” to sexual exploitation by a man who wields the power to deprive her of heat and a place to live.

A third accuser conveniently died before the alleged assaults were brought to trial.

After it was all over but the weeping, McAllister faced conviction on only one count of procurement for the purpose of prostitution, and as far as I know has yet to be sentenced.

I have serious doubts that the procedures now in place for dealing with sexual harassment in the senate would have prevented that teenager’s secret exploitation in Montpelier; or any of the other brutalities Mr. McAllister actually discussed in recorded conversations with the other two complainants.

I suppose it’s pointless to wonder if the outcome of Mr. McAllister’s brush with justice might have been different had it taken place now; but I would urge the legislature to consider well that persons of low status usually suffer the greatest indignities, and a sexual harassment policy that is ineffective at protecting the very young and the timid
won’t be worth the paper its printed on.

Polling trends 2017: Healthcare up and Trump still down

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CNN has a list of seven polling trends showing what they consider significant and worth review as 2017 lurches to an end. Two caught my eye: the first because it’s always good to be reminded of Trump’s low poll numbers, and the second may be useful to keep in mind as the healthcare drama plays out here in Vermont.

Trump’s job approval hit record-breaking lows in 2017. Like a bad hair piece and the allegations of Russian involvement in his campaign, historically low approval ratings have stuck to Donald since he took office last January.down with trump

Trump’s quarterly approval numbers are some of the lowest since Gallup began tracking them for presidents — falling in the 11th percentile of out of 288 presidential quarters tracked by Gallup over the last half century. That ranking probably is not a surprise to anyone securely attached to reality, yet Trump continues to insist (i.e., to lie) that his approval numbers are similar to what Obama’s had been at year one in his presidency.

The other CNN trend that caught my attention regards the ACA’s, aka Obamacare’s, rise in popularity even as Trump and the GOP waged all out war against it. Obamacare hasn’t had a net negative favorability rating at all this year, according to polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation, a stark change from its stretch of negative ratings early in 2016 and most of the prior five years. ACA popularity

The most recent numbers show […] a 50% favorable and 46% unfavorable rating, though the positive gap has climbed as high as 13 points in August.

 Keep that popularity increase in mind as we grapple with the healthcare issue in Vermont. VPR reports that Senate president pro tem Tim Ashe (D/P), Green Mountain Care Board chairman Kevin Mullin and Governor Scott’s Secretary of the Agency of Human Services (AHS) Al Gobeille fear the elimination of the national mandate will cause premiums to spike,making them unaffordable. As GMCB chairman Kevin Mullin explained to VPR: That’s because he says anyone who drops their coverage will still receive medical treatment if they get sick, and the cost of this care can be shifted over to private insurance policies. As a result of this worry state leaders are looking at a possible state mandate to carry health insurance and possibly a penalty fee .

At the federal level it worked like this– If you could afford health insurance but choose not to buy it, you would pay a fee called the individual shared responsibility payment (the fee  sometimes called the “penalty,” “fine,” or “individual mandate”). You pay the fee when you file your federal tax return for the year you don’t have coverage.

What happens in 2018 when Governor Scott’s so called “affordability agenda” of low fees and taxes runs head-first into healthcare cost increases driven by his own party’s national and local anti-Obamacare fanatics? It’s anyone’s guess whether Phil will want to summon the political will to support maintaining affordable healthcare for Vermonters – including a state healthcare mandate – or will he sit back and watch the costs spike.

When the stethoscope meets the so-called affordability agenda, will Scott show heretofore missing leadership skills? Let’s not hold our breath while we wait.

Pig-Ignorant and Proud of It!

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I keep promising myself to waste no more ink on Donald Trump, but the will to carry on is lost when I eliminate the elephant in the room. That “elephant” is pulverizing the place I call home.

What threw the switch for me this morning was the news that, on order of President Trump, climate change has been removed from the list of national security threats, where President Obama placed it in 2015.

It comes as no surprise, of course. Since taking office, “job one” for Donald Trump has been to expunge any trace of the eight year administration of Barack Obama and anything that smacks of science or intellect. He reminds me of all the despots of history who couldn’t feel really at home until they had hacked off the heads of every statue in the land that honored their despised predecessors.

“Job two”seems to be to destabilize the country and, if possible, the entire world.

But even the gargantuan ego of Donald Trump can’t hold back the impacts of climate change by simply denying its existence. When storms and flooding, draught and fires gradually reduce much of the continental US to permanent national disaster sites, I hope there will be some way to prosecute Donald Trump and his minions for the irreversible harm to which they have willfully condemned us all.

And while we are on the topic of Donald Trump’s War on Science, how about the news this week that the CDC (Center for Disease Control) will no longer be allowed to use the following terms in its budget proposals: “fetus,” “transgender,” “diversity,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “science-based,” and “evidence based.”

I wonder if this is a violation of the First Amendment(?)

Does D.T. actually believe that the words have some magical power, and not mentioning them will avoid summoning that power? He clearly believes that truth is a fungible commodity to be swapped out as he sees fit for a more convenient lie.

Then there is the chill in the air at the Environmental Protection Agency. Donald Trump gave that plum agency to one of its chief opponents, Scott Pruitt. Now the EPA’s career staff, appointed under multiple past administrations, Republican and Democratic, is being monitored, Gestapo-style, for any hint of disagreement with current policy, which effectively takes the “P” out of EPA.

When the revisionist reign of Donald I is finally over, we are on track to be light-years behind the rest of the developed world on science in general and climate change innovation in particular. Welcome back to the Iron-Age, folks!

FCC chairman Pai video gets in our face

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According to all news reports the Republican FCC commissioners’ vote to end net neutrality will likely did go ahead today but chairman Ajit Pai may have jumped the shark.

Since becoming chairman Pai has been leading the charge to eliminate Obama era’s internet neutrality rules, becoming a real cut up in the past week. Net Neutrality is the basic principle that prohibits internet service providers like AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon from speeding up, slowing down or blocking any content, applications, or websites you want to use. One application is that they can scuttle content from any selected service, like NetFlix, unless, of course that service chooses to pay an access fee to the telecom.

Despite a massive number requests from lawmakers, tech industry leaders, and the public to delay the FCC vote to end the rule, Pai has dismissed concerns. The New York Times reports that he called complaints “hot air and hysteria.” He denies he is doing the bidding of Verizon, his former employer, and sarcastically joked that his nightmare scenario would be refereeing a dispute between Verizon and Sinclair Broadcasting, another company he has been accused of helping with his policies.

Someone must have told him mocking his critics was a winning tactic because he made a video that, according to the avclub.com, he recently uploaded at the conservative site The Daily Caller, [more about Daily Caller here]  in which he pantomimes “all the things” we’ll still be able to do after he guts these regulations for sport. Things like “’gram food” or watch Game Of Thrones . Whew, he’s very cool, not some outta touch corporate tool, nah that man knows the price of bread ‘n’ milk. And,not that it cost that much but who paid for this video foolishness to be posted on The Daily Caller??

And the reviews are in and it’s not pretty. One describes Pai’s video this way: as a bit of textbook “smug asshole gloating,” it’s straight out of the playbook of his boss, Donald Trump, as we’re forced to watch this goofy jackass twist a fidget spinner and do the fucking Harlem Shake, even as he plots to strip protections from the most important technological advance of the modern era.

paiinface

However, most people probably saw this coming: the FCC chairman racing ahead to change the internet into something favorable to corporations, more akin to cable pay tee vee. But nobody wants Pai in our face with a video; that’s not even funny.

Gov. Sununu goes off-the-cuff on voting restrictions

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I can see New Hampshire from my kitchen window. So I kind of keep an eye on how Vermont’s upside down doppelganger is doing living free and voting over there. The Valley News reports: Voting rights advocates are highlighting a new video which appears to show Republican Gov. Chris Sununu voicing his opposition to a bill opponents say will discourage some New Hampshire college students from voting.

nhbinocular03

Opponents of the bill, HB 372, say it’s an unfair attempt to target students, imposing the stricter requirements of residency in order to vote. If it’s passed, they say, students who attend college in New Hampshire but are from out of state would be required to obtain a driver’s license and register their vehicles here.

Referencing the bill in the video, made at a voting rights activists’ forum, Governor Sununu says: “No. I hate it. I know what you’re talking about. I’m not a fan. I’m hoping that the Legislature kills it.”

This is quite an about-face shift for the GOP Governor that has voiced opposition to motor-voter laws, and shortly after he was elected began advocating for tightening voter registration requirements. Sununu was perhaps the original source of a long running zombie lie about voting fraud in his state, one still used by Donald Trump in his tireless campaign to stamp out imaginary voter fraud. In 2016 then-candidate for governor Sununu told a right-wing radio host: “We have same day voter registration, and to be honest, when Massachusetts elections are not very close, they’re busing them [them!] in all over the place,”

New Hampshire voting rights activists are pleased with what Sununu said on that video but may want to hold their praise: Republican legislative leaders are confident of his support and dismissing his remarks. You see, explained a member of the state Senate: “He [Sununu] has a knack for speaking off the cuff,” [NH Senate Minority Leader Jeff ] Woodburn said, adding the governor sometimes tailors his message to specific audiences [added emphasis]. The take-home lesson could be that B.S. isn’t just delivered by fast talkers but in our neck of the woods can easily arrive off-the-cuff from a GOP governor.

And if you don’t believe as I do that New Hampshire is Vermont’s upside-down doppelganger Democratic Secretary of State Bill Gardener enthusiastically supports his state’s new vote-restricting legislation. Oh and Democrat Gardener — despite the fact according to the Concord Monitor, Gardener who previously debunked these bogus accusations of voter fraud is a member in good standing of Trump’s bogus Election Integrity Commission. It is a funny state, New Hampshire. By the way do you know they own the Connecticut River to the Vermont shoreline high watermark — I’ll keep a lookout so you don’t have to.

Governor Scott’s blue sky thinking on climate change

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Vtdigger.com reports Scott sees potential ‘economic boon’ in climate change .

At his Thursday news conference Governor Scott was asked about the climate change issue. “I’m not sure that there’s a financial threat” to Vermont as a result of climate change, Scott said. And he suggested that with California experiencing rampaging wildfires it makes Vermont look pretty good.

Governor Scott has quite a sunny view of what climate change will do for Vermont — it’s an opportunity, you see! This is kind of surprising as barely a couple days ago it was revealed that his administration was so loath to use the term “climate change” in a draft policy paper — a plan for the future development — that they edited the reference out.

But now Republican (Phil, not Rick of Fla.) Scott says, “Climate change could be in some ways beneficial to Vermont, when we’re seeing some of the activity in California today, with the wildfires and so forth, and lack of water in some regions of the country, if we protect our resources we could use this as an economic boon, in some respects,” Scott said.

climatetrends

A reporter asked whether Scott meant that if refugees fleeing wildfires and drought “have to relocate somewhere, they’d come to Vermont.”

“They’d come to Vermont, right,” Scott said.

What do you suppose those now “seeing some of the activity in California today […] wildfires and so forth, and lack of water” (also called having their homes destroyed and lives regularly threatened by massive wildfires) might feel about Scott’s remarks?

A recent study published by The Impact Lab titled, Estimating economic damage from climate change in the United States, and reported in the Atlantic.com — one of the first to apply regional economic models to climate change — found: Climate change will aggravate economic inequality in the United States, essentially transferring wealth from poor counties in the Southeast and the Midwest to well-off communities in the Northeast and on the coasts.

Other sections of the U.S. will suffer alarmingly according to the report: The loss of human life dwarfs all the other economic costs of climate change. Almost every county between El Paso, Texas, and Charlotte, North Carolina, could see their mortality rate rise by more than 20 people out of every 100,000. By comparison, car accidents killed about 11 Americans out of every 100,000 in 2015.

From his remarks it sounds possible that our Governor Scott is familiar with this paper. And perhaps if the study’s predictions prove reliable and you want to think only regionally there might even be some advantage for Vermont, for now. The study does note: If climate change continues unabated into the 22nd century, the North will likely eventually “flip over” into much higher temperatures and more severe economic  damages.”

And critics of the study caution in the Atlantic.com about its predictions: But this emphasis on the observed [the impact study is modeled on previously observed data] means that the research omitted many serious risks of climate change — even those the researchers considered important — if the data describing them was too paltry. The estimates do not include “non-market goods” like the loss of biodiversity or natural splendor. In other words: Most people agree that dead polar bears have an economic cost, but there’s no consensus on how to approximate it.

The study also doesn’t account for the increased likelihood of “tail risks”—that is, unlikely events with catastrophic consequences. Many researchers believe that global warming will make social strife, mass migration, or global military calamity more likely, but those events are, by definition, hard to predict.

For now let’s everyone keep a sharp eye out to see how Phil Scott is directing his administration to plan for climate change [oops]. But it’s possible the Governor was just trying out a little blue-sky thinking at his Thursday press conference — you know, B.S. for short.

Trump Dept. of Labor to employers: “Keep the change”

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Last Labor Day The Nation.com took stock of what the Trump administration is doing for workers right… erm, make that doing to workers rights, and came to the conclusion that the rollback of labor rights and protections since Trump took office is staggering.

And now just in time for Christmas, Trump McScrooge and his anti-labor elves have rolled back an Obama labor regulation that let restaurant employees keep their tips instead of pooling them with non-tipped workers. They claim the Obama regulation had contributed to pay disparities between servers and other staff like cooks and dishwashers. Interestingly, though, Trump’s Dept of Labor supposed effort to change that will also allow employers to legally keep all the tips for themselves provided the tipped workers earn the minimum wage.notipping

Vox media’s Eater.com explains how it works: A big problem with the new regulations is that employers may now legally pocket tips. Under the traditional paradigm, an employer takes the tip credit, pays all of their “service-facing” employees $2.13 an hour plus tips, and pays cooks and dishwashers $7.25 an hour, no tips (the numbers would be different according to minimum wage laws state to state, but this is the general idea).

But if they decide to follow the DOL’s new rule and they don’t take the tip credit, and instead pay minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to all their employees, then tips are no longer considered the property of the employee; they become property of the employer. That employer could split those tips between back and front of the house. Then again, the employer could also keep them all.

The industry owners group the National Restaurant Association (yes, the other NRA) favors the Trump rule change. They have acknowledged the “loophole” that just happens to favor their members but haven’t asked for it to be corrected.

At the national level the NRA for years has helped keep the federal minimum wage for tipped employees steady at $2.13 per hour since 1991. And they actively fight states efforts to hike their minimum wage and to pass paid sick-leave legislation. In the 2016 election cycle the group contributed $960,980  to the GOP, which is 81 percent of their total contribution to political parties for that period.

Commenting on the new “loophole,”  The Economic Policy Institute points out:  Recent research suggests that the total wages stolen from workers due to minimum wage violations exceeds $15 billion each year, and workers in restaurants and bars are much more likely to suffer minimum wage violations than workers in other industries. With that much illegal wage theft currently taking place, it seems obvious that when employers can legally pocket the tips earned by their employees, many will do so.

It’s almost as if the restaurant owners’ generous service to the GOP just earned them a big tip from Trump’s Dept. of Labor. Keep the change, boss.

Down the memory hole: Phil Scott’s Act 250 overhaul team strikes “climate change” from policy paper

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Climate ChangeScottbalance

Vermont’s governor not only shares a name and party with Florida’s GOP governor but he apparently shares Governor Rick Scott’s documented problem using the term climate change. While using a maneuver right out of Florida’s playbook here in Vermont, Phil Scott’s administration has been caught eliminating the term climate change from proposed changes to Act 250 — the state’s environmental development law.

The scoop from the Burlington Free Press: At issue is a report by Scott administration officials that was submitted in October to legislators who are reviewing the nearly 50-year-old land-use law. As part of their review, legislators are looking specifically at whether development should be judged through the lens of climate change during the Act 250 permit process.

Tayt Brooks  — remember him? founder of right-wing conservative super pac Vermonters First, who now works as Director of Affordability and Economic Growth Initiatives for Phil Scott — took credit (or blame) for the editing climate change. Tayt Brooks, […] said the Scott administration remains receptive to possible provisions in Act 250 that would address climate change.

“We didn’t view it as a substantial change,” Brooks said of the edits.

He pointed out that the final draft of the administration’s report suggests that lawmakers’ review “should include consideration of climate change in Vermont.”

Yeah, right: consider it but for god’s sake don’t write it or say it out loud!

Governor Scott (ours) after a little trouble with the issue during his campaign — in 2016 he was evolving — has made some encouraging noises about climate change since taking office. He was even tagged recently by governing.com as a glowing example of : “[…] today’s moderate governors.” Phil may have trouble with that moderate label if he continues to try to have try to have it both ways on climate change — especially if he lets Tayt Brooks edit his policy proposals.

So, Tayt, when and where did you have your memory hole installed?

Catch-22 in the Hot Zone

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“…There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions.”                                         -Joseph Heller, “Catch-22.”

Catch-22 cover detail.

This week, Entergy Vermont Yankee’s Government Affairs Manager, Joe Lynch, evoked the logic of “Catch-22” when he suggested that it would be unwise to look for further contamination of the Vermont Yankee site because doing so might redistribute the pollutants to new locations:

“…Additional testing of polluted or potentially polluted areas at Vermont Yankee would ‘introduce the risk of spreading any potential contaminants.’ ”

When further questioned by ANR, Lynch offered the following clarification:

“For instance, he warned that ‘invasive characterization and sampling’ could ‘create new pathways for water infiltration’ – a problem that’ s already causing extra work and expense at Vermont Yankee.”

Lynch also noted that the plant has “active systems still in place” such as fire protection mechanisms that rely on underground pipes.

Oh, those pesky underground pipes! I’m old enough to remember (2010) Entergy insisting to the PSB that there could be no leaks in the undergone pipes because there were no underground pipes.

Eager to get shy of the exhausted milk cow, Vermont Yankee, Entergy is once again indulging in whimsy so as not to further complicate a potential deal with NorthStar. Entergy reinforces its argument against independent sampling with the threat that, should the sale fall through, VY will be mothballed and left standing for decades, laying the exposure risks associated with sampling, as well as the mess of decommissioning, on a future generation of V ermonters.

Here’s your legacy, Kids.  Enjoy and don’t forget to say your prayers!