I usually like to take a look at reports from State Auditor Doug Hoffer’s (D/P) office, because those give us the nuts and bolts feedback on how effectively economic policy is executed in state government.

I’m kind of behind on the most recent report, released January 20, on the performance of leases held by Vermont’s ski areas on public lands.

I am grateful to freshman Rep. Corey Parent (R) for the reminder his newsletter provided, although I can’t say I agree with his own conclusions.

The Auditor’s report suggests that the state may not be seeing the full value of the lands they lease to the ski industry, and in this time of budgetary challenges, any improved revenue opportunity should not be dismissed out of hand.

The primary reason why ski area leases appear to be underperforming for the state is because the terms under which the leases were created are now extremely dated and inconsistent.  Not only do these inconsistencies make it difficult to reduce administrative costs through efficiency measures, but the leases  are tied to a dated compensation system that does not reflect the diverse income streams that area operators are now enjoying.

Adjusted for inflation, total sales in all sectors at the resorts have risen by 65% since 2000, but lease payments have fallen by 4%.  Since 2003, property values (not adjusted for inflation) rose by 140% while lease payments rose by a mere 11%

Over the last half-century, locally owned resorts with several lifts and a few facilities have been transformed into year-round enterprises – some of which are now owned by large out-of-state corporations. Today’s resorts feature new lodges, hotels, condominiums, golf courses, retail stores, waterparks, and other high-end amenities.

Between 2003 and 2013, development at the seven resorts spurred increases in sales of goods and services, property values, and revenues from excise taxes. But lease payments over this decade fell when adjusted for inflation. The leases were designed to capture a certain percentage of the primary revenue source, which 50 years ago was lift tickets. As the resorts have evolved, that revenue source has become one of many.

In short while Vermont’s been snoozing, the taxpayers have been losing…often to out-of-state interests whose investments are certainly appreciated but do not bring as much secondary value to the state as those of resident operators for whom the dated and inconsistent lease terms were originally intended.

One of the most problematic of the inconsistencies is the variation in assigning title to property on state land, which obstructs two towns’ power to tax and gives some resorts a tax advantage because property that belongs to the State is tax-exempt. Vermonters therefore pay for land and facilities used by the ski areas through the State’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes programs, which reimburses municipalities for taxes lost from state-owned property. These payments for property used and developed by the resorts reduce the value of the lease revenues to the State.

The Auditor’s Office concludes quite reasonably that the State made a huge error in not building periodic review and updates of lease terms into the system, and that antiquated language in liability insurance provisions associated with the leases may now leave the state vulnerable.

“Our review points to old lease terms that may not be suitable for today and questions whether taxpayers are receiving fair value for these spectacular public assets,” Auditor Hoffer said. “It is my hope that this report will stimulate a discussion about all of these issues.”

Sounds about right to me, but be prepared for an argument from some Republican legislators if any increase in lease rates is proposed.  From Mr. Parent’s newsletter:

“While I agree that standardization of lease contracts makes a lot of sense, I’m not sure Vermont ought to seek higher lease payments because the broader economic growth has compensated the people of Vermont well…we ought to have a discussion about how we can grow business at our ski resorts in Vermont to help further economic growth and increase state revenues organically.”

I guess Mr. Parent is unimpressed with the state’s EB-5 efforts.

It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.  Someone’s got to beef up revenues when the Governor won’t ask the wealthy to contribute more.  

That someone is usually the poor who can be depended upon to buy their guilty pleasures retail and fork over the “sin tax’ that the rich are so good at avoiding.

Am I talking about the Shumlin administration’s forays into sin-tax “social services,” like the proposed soda levy?  

No, in this case, the Governor in question is Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas who made a hash of the state’s finances with massive tax cuts, and now seeks to remedy the problem; not with the obvious strategy of reversing the tax breaks that bought him support from his wealthiest constituents.

Instead, he proposes to exorbitantly tax the very things that poorer folks often depend upon for comfort, thanks to the combined efforts of the tobacco industry to foster addiction, and life on the margins, which has been known to drive the desperate to drink.

Apparently “tax” is only a dirty word when it threatens the growing nest egg of the privileged class.

The  Kansas Governor’s quick fix is meeting with resistance in the Legislature, even from the occasional Republican:

“He’s proposed some revenue enhancements that I think the Legislature will have a great difficulty passing,” said Senator Susan Wagle, the chamber’s Republican president. “That’s [a] tax increase.

Well…yeah!

But that’s not the only way Brownback proposes to punish the working class of Kansas for his own folly:

Rather than retreat from the massive tax cuts that are crippling his state’s finances, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) wants to cut classroom funding for Kansas schools by $127 million and push pension fund payments off into the future.

That’s pretty uncomfortable company for Governor Shumlin, when we can draw a parallel in his policies to a Republican governor who is even too regressive for his own caucus!

If you weren't listening closely you would have missed it.

What it was was just one more piece of evidence that, as conservatives keep claiming, the hatred for President Obama has nothing to do with race.

Today it's a story on NPR's Morning Edition about the latest attack on women's rights by Congressional Republicans, and you need to listen very closely to the chant at the very end of the story.

If you don't want to wait for it, move the cursor ahead to about 4:09 of the 4:11 story, to where you hear a bunch of anti-abortion demonstrators. I had to listen a few times to be sure, but what they're chanting is “Hey, Obama, yo'mama chose life”. 

Yes, you heard right. It's a bunch of young white women chanting “Yo mama” at our black president.

Nothing racial about that, right? 

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

Eleven of Franklin County’s thirteen legislators are now Republicans, and Democrats like me who lost their seats in the last election are watching our new Representatives and Senators in Montpelier with a lot of apprehension.

In the 1/21/15 edition of the Messenger, Rep. Parent wrote about how he would urge his new colleagues to stand against the Governor and work to make Vermont a more affordable place to live and work. That sounds a lot like what he promised during the campaign. I’m concerned that regardless of what legislators think about the Governor or his budget, there were no suggestions of what cuts should be made to offset the proposed tax increases.

I pose this challenge to my Republican friends, especially the one who called me and Rep. Keenan “intellectually lazy” at a forum last fall: If you believe you can govern our state better, tell us how. If you think we can’t afford to provide healthcare for every Vermonter, tell us who should go without. If you think the poorest Vermonters, those with disabilities, those looking for work, students at our state colleges, members of law enforcement, state employees, highways or health care providers should get funding cuts then tell us.  Please do not pretend that every dollar we spend investing in our kids, our communities, and our economic growth is wasted.

The campaign is over and it’s time for the new legislature to state priorities and lay out an alternative to Gov. Shumlin’s budget and tax proposals.  My fear is that Franklin County’s inexperienced new legislators will spend more time criticizing the Governor than serving the interests of our communities. Can these legislators suggest alternative policies and work together with the Democratic majority to get them passed the way me, Michel Consejo, Cindy Weed, and Sara Kittell have done in the past?  It remains to be seen.  

The campaign is over. It’s time to govern. Simply stating that one stands against the Governor is easy. Offering real alternatives and successfully implementing them may be beyond the experience, vision and leadership of Franklin County’s new legislators.

Mike McCarthy

Saint Albans

I thought we heard a great speech tonight, and here's what I heard from President Obama right out of the box:

 Today, we’re the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers. Forty-three million workers have no paid sick leave. Forty-three million. Think about that. And that forces too many parents to make the gut-wrenching choice between a paycheck and a sick kid at home. So I’ll be taking new action to help states adopt paid leave laws of their own. And since paid sick leave won where it was on the ballot last November, let’s put it to a vote right here in Washington. Send me a bill that gives every worker in America the opportunity to earn seven days of paid sick leave. It’s the right thing to do.

 We could have had paid sick leave last year. It was a bill in the Legislature but late in the session it didn't pass. 

The concept did come before the Democratic Party's platform convention last year, though, and we did adopt it as part of our platform: 

 Is committed to ensuring that workplace standards in Vermont promote public health and safety and are responsive to the needs of Vermont's workforce and families.  To this end, we support establishing a minimum standard of earned paid leave for all Vermont workers.

It's another year and another legislative session. Democrats still have strong majorities in both the House and the Senate. It's time to show what we work for when we elect those majorities. It's time for Vermont to follow President Obama's lead and pass earned sick leave. 

In response to the Call for Submissions from The United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict, I prepared a 26 page submission on behalf of the  Palestine Subcommittee of the National Lawyers Guild. The full text, entitled, “Attack First, Kill First and Claim Self-Defense,” was posted on Truthout.org. A brief summary of the submission is below. This UN Commission was established by vote of the UN Human Rights Council on July 23, 2014. The Commission is scheduled to give its report to the Council in March 2015.

Supposed self-defense against rockets diverted attention from war crimes allegations, but neither facts nor law support Israeli self-defense claims.

Self-defense against the rockets was invoked by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, US President Obama and the United States Senate to deflect criticisms that Israeli forces were committing war crimes by targeting civilians and civilian property in Gaza.

Though the war-crimes allegations came from respected sources, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the National Lawyers Guild and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the central message that Israeli forces were protecting Israeli citizens from Hamas rockets was so ubiquitous in the Western media as to eclipse the war crimes charges. Pervasive self-defense claims against rocket fire have been crucial to Israeli political and military leaders maintaining impunity and avoiding accountability for their periodic assaults on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

For example, on July 1, 2014, the United States Senate unanimously adopted a resolution, “Expressing the sense of the Senate regarding United States support for the State of Israel as it defends itself against unprovoked rocket attacks from the Hamas terrorist organization.”

Both facts and law refute the Israeli and US self-defense claims.

This submission to the Commission presents facts showing that Israeli air and ground attacks preceded Hamas rocket fire. Because Israeli armed forces launched large-scale attacks on the West Bank and Gaza during a period when a cease-fire with Hamas was in place, while Hamas continued to observe the cease-fire, before any Hamas rockets were launched from Gaza and while no non-Hamas rockets were being fired at Israel, Israeli forces could not have been defending Israeli citizens from rocket fire.

This submission also presents facts showing that the Israeli bombardment and ground invasion of Gaza not only did not defend Israel from rocket fire, they sparked a vast increase in rocket fire as compared to the level during the month preceding the Israeli onslaught.

This submission also shows that the Israeli prime minister admitted to military goals for the Israeli attacks that had nothing to do with stopping rocket fire.

This submission also presents the law regarding self-defense and shows that even if the facts were otherwise, self-defense is inapplicable to an occupying power, such as Israel in Gaza (despite its claims to the contrary).

Thus, in no way should Israeli government officials and military leaders continue to enjoy impunity or be given any credit based on claimed self-defense from rocket fire. When Israeli forces initiated and escalated attacks in the West Bank and Gaza to accomplish military and political objectives in violation of an existing cease-fire agreement, they were the ones putting aside the goal of protecting Israeli citizens from rocket fire. Because Israeli forces initiated and escalated attacks in view of the history of such attacks provoking a dialing up of rocket fire they should be precluded from using the foreseeable rocket fire from diverting attention from the war crimes they committed.

Well, turns out Rev. Robert Potter, the man at the podium who was heckled by single payer demonstrators [gasp!] at the statehouse during the inauguration ceremony, sees the much-talked-about episode as more awkward than insulting or upsetting. Protesters interrupted the event with chants during the ceremony, and some refused to leave at the close.

It was something to be dealt with in a way other than simply anger or threats,” Potter said.

It’s nice to have the kerfuffle taken down a notch or two or three, back into a rational perspective.

The Reverend’s perspective is welcome after amazingly Senator McCormack, a single payer advocate himself, called the protestors “fascists.” And McCormack was later joined on the fainting couch by political analyst Jon Margolis.

 Writing in VtDigger.com, Margolis on the one hand rejected the direct fascist reference, but on the other embraced it saying that in terms of method McCormack was not entirely wrong. And the demonstrators weren’t thugs but,

[…] there was an element of at least potential thuggery in their actions, especially later in the day when some of them occupied the otherwise empty House chamber, threatening to stay unless Speaker Shap Smith promised to hold hearings on a single payer bill. [added emphasis] 

Rev. Potter says he doesn’t fundamentally disagree with demonstrators' goals but doesn’t think it helped the case. “Humor was the great gift of the moment,” said Potter, who reassured those in attendance at the inauguration, “Don’t worry about them (the protestors), I have the mic!”

Potter later reflected, “Laughter is the carbonation of holiness,” acknowledging that the incident was unique in his 55 years in the ministry. “If we hadn’t been able to lighten up the atmosphere, I think it would have left the inauguration in a very different tone,” Potter said. “It was an attempt to soften the moment.” [added emphasis] 

Maybe after some smelling salts, fresh air, and a good lie-down, Sen. Dick McCormack and political analyst Jon Margolis could consider the Rev.Potter’s cure.

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

“Under a scenario in which Vermont legalized marijuana, taxed aggressively, suppressed its black market, and consumption increased by 25 to 100 percent, tax revenues from sales to Vermont residents could be in the range of $20 million to $75 million annually.”

This is one of the key findings in a newly issued report by the Rand Corporation, who was hired by Vermont (pursuant to Senate bill 247).

In light of the Governor’s call for budget cuts and a payroll tax increase to cover health care cuts to Medicare doctors, it is imperative that the Legislature take up marijuana legalization this term.

Yes, once again we have a hip trendy catch-phrase every MORON in America will no doubt take up.  And T-Shirts and Bumper Stickers, sold by the very corporate ghouls who make terrorism and war.  There’s $$$ in I Am Charlie.

I Am Charlie really means:  “I Am Anti-Muslim, Anti-Black, Anti-Semite, Anti-Poor, Anti-Immigrant, Anti-Gay, Anti-Women, ANTI-WHOEVER!”

It also means:  “I Am Anti-Intelligence and ANTI-AMERICA!”

I Am Charlie–Yawn.  Pul-lease!  Stop The Nonsense!  When 9/11 happened there were many Americans who, instead of going batshit-patriotic, spoke up about addressing the causes of 9/11.  Well…what the Hell is happening to our little pea-brains?  Does critical thought cause STRESS now?  Not covered by Health Care?  Shit.  I Am YAHOO.  I Am MOB.  And yes–I Am SHEEP.

I’ll bet the radical Muslims in al-Qaeda are sitting around now making bombs and one of them is saying (ala Harry Dean Stanton in REPO MAN):  “You see that shit, man.  Those Dildo Dipshit Assholes!  Those people are hopeless.  They’ll never get it.  They want a fucking PAX CHRISTIANITY!  Shit.  Ordinary fucking Americans.  I hate ’em.  Hand me that piece of pipe.  Then we’ve got to get out of this bad area.”

Yes, I AM PISSED!  Just when I thought we couldn’t get any stupider…Maybe it’s that Global Warming shit.  

I Am Charlie is really going to help the cause.  And not of us or the Muslims.  The cause of $$$!  Shit.  Hey, you Muslims out there…HELLO???…I Am NOT LIKE THE OTHERS.

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

Since the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo last week there have been plenty of discussions of what is really terrorism, and whether there is such a thing as explicitly Muslim terrorism.

Let's take a look at the definition. Federal law defines terrorism as follows:

“International terrorism” means activities with the following three characteristics:

Involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;

Appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and

Occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S., or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum.*

“Domestic terrorism” means activities with the following three characteristics:

Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law;

Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination. or kidnapping; and

Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.

There are some differences, but the key concepts include violent or dangerous acts intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population. Let's keep those concepts in mind.

Last Friday, a blogger in Saudi Arabia received the first fifty lashes of the sentence he received of ten years in prison and one thousand lashes for “insulting Islam”. According to the Washington Post, In 2011 prosecutors alleged that his Web site “infringes on religious values.” He was arrested in 2012, when a well-known cleric issued a religious ruling that Mr. Badawi was an apostate who must be tried. 

In the Philippines, local cultural activist Carlos Celdran is appealing a sentence of imprisonment imposed for violating the law against “offending religious feelings.”

In both cases, the state seeks to carry out violent acts to prevent public criticism of the dominant religion.

There are differences. For instance, critics of Celdran might be quick to point out that the crime he was convicted of involved his going into a church service with a protest sign, but look more closely: he wasn't charged with unlawful trespass, or disrupting the church service. The gravamen of his crime was that he offended religious feelings.

The State Department publishes a list of state sponsors of terrorism, countries that have been “determined to have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”. The listing has always been political. Nevertheless, given the actions of these two United States “allies”, one of them, Saudi Arabia, being one of the most repressive regimes in the world, can we justify not targeting these states for terrorism against their own people?