With shooting deaths of young black males at the hands of cops and vigilantes dominating the news, and all the shooters claiming “reasonable” fear for their lives, I thought we might divine something valuable about our violent culture from gun statistics.  

What I learned blows the stereotypes of what make these encounters so deadly for black males right out of the water!

The following stats were released in 2013 by the Pew Research Group:

41% of Non-hispanic whites own guns.   Less than half that number, 19% of blacks own guns.  Even Hispanics own more guns than blacks, by a margin of 1%.

Why then do blacks represent 55% of all gun homicide victims even though they are a dwindling 13% of the population?  

The answer to that could be the insecure environment that is poverty.  At 28%, black Americans have the highest poverty rate of any racial sector, and that rate grows even higher for black children.

By age, young people of all ethnicities and both genders (ages 18-26)  are the least likely to own guns, at 26%.   People aged 50 and above are the most likely to own guns, at 40%.

Rural residents are twice as likely as urban residents to own guns.  The ratio is 50% to 25%, with suburban dwellers clocking in at 36%.

Most of the deaths of young black males that have recently made the news occurred in urban areas, with sophisticated police forces in the mix.

Not at all surprising is the fact that gun owners are more than twice as likely to be Republicans as Democrats, but that’s a conversation for another day.

The intuitive takeaway seems to be that somebody has very successfully sold the truly gun-dangerous sectors of the population a false meme that young black males are gonna shoot you dead if you don’t get ’em first.

That was even more dramatically emphasized by the latest horrifying death of a young black male stopped for a minor offense, subdued by six officers, and finally choked to death as he literally begged for breath.

Fifty years after Martin Luther King, you’d have thought we’d be over this crap.

Then again, there are several other crazy ideas we should have outgrown, like the conviction held by so many that capitalism is noble and that anyone who isn’t prospering in America is guilty of pure laziness.

Add that to a newly sanctified second amendment and you’ve got the makings for a perfect storm of social unrest.

It isn’t young black males that should make law enforcement and the radical right tremble.  It’s almost everyone else in America, because they are the ones who are armed and growing more and more impatient with the utter impossibility of treading water in this new age of Robber Barons.

If young black males finally do arm-up for the class war, there will be legions of poor white folks way ahead of them.

Then, Gun Enthusiasts, know why we said: “be careful what you wish for!”

This Monday Republican candidate for Governor Scott Milne will reportedly make an announcement regarding his plans. Milne says he is “leaning forward with the campaign” but he will not be leaning far enough forward to lobby legislators for their votes.

So Scott Milne is in it to win, err … he’s in it to …eh what exactly is his quest?

“Clearly, if I knew I wanted out I would have got out on Nov. 5th,” he said. “There’s still a possibility I might not go forward, although I think it’s unlikely.”

On Election Day Milne lost by 2,434 votes but has refused to concede. And due to the closeness of the vote the legislature will cast secret ballots next month to decide who won. Traditionally the legislature has voted for the top vote getter. Former governor Jim Douglas sternly warned him off lobbying legislators’ votes and Lt. Gov. Phil Scott has said he will follow legislative tradition and vote for the top vote getter — Shumlin.

Despite these significant setbacks Milne notes encouragingly that “very few people have suggested that I don’t go forward,” and believes he is a better candidate than Shumlin. However his attempts, at least so far, to explain what strategy he might use to get the heavily Democratic/Progressive legislature to vote him in as governor are notably vague. He has ruled out lobbying legislators and asking them to vote the way their district did.

So on Monday those few still watching will find out what strategy the ongoing Milne campaign for Vermont governor will take and how aggressively he will lean forward.

I am more than a little curious myself as to why Marc Leas was unable to obtain the information he requested last year from the DOD.  For the complete story, you can read Mr. Leas’ diary in the sidebar.

I rather suspect that the reason such a brouhaha was stirred up over whether or not Mr. Leas was a “freelancer” for Digger was a DOD feint to avoid the requested disclosures.

While DIgger may be justified in taking umbrage with Mr. Leas invocation of their name; whether or not Mr. Leas was officially working for Digger is really beside the point.

In a world of non-traditional news related writing venues, the lines of distinction cannot be clearly drawn, but if the DOD can share information with the conventional press for the purpose of dissemination to the public, there is absolutely no reason why that information should not also be made available to representatives of less conventional venues.

What is the DOD argument here; that it is a matter of national security?  How is it any more secure to provide information to the conventional press than it is to provide that information to anyone else who might share it?

Is it a matter of the DOD not wanting to “waste its time” on unaffiliated writers and opposition activists?  That hardly passes muster as a reason to deny a FOIA request.

I still have not heard any compelling answer to the question of “why?”

Some GMD readers would very much like to have the straight story on this FOIA request, and I have a feeling that is still to be told.

It would be in the best interests both of the supporters of the F-35 siting and of its opponents to clear the air by bringing all the requested data into the open or providing a reasonable explanation of why that is not possible.  

I don’t want to hear any more about Mr. Leas or his credentials.  

In case you missed it, this astonishing precursor to the incoming Congress deserves special attention.

Just a week after the election, while the Senate was still nominally in Democratic control, the House was already pressing the imaginary Republican mandate as far as they could.

Passage of H.R. 1422 is one example.

H.R.1422 effectively strips independent scientific expertise from the E.P.A.’s information toolbox and replaces it with captive industrial lobbying.

H.R. 1422, which passed 229-191, would shake up the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board, placing restrictions on those pesky scientists and creating room for experts with overt financial ties to the industries affected by EPA regulations.

Only in the Neverland of Congress could this seem like a reasonable thing to do.

In what might be the most ridiculous aspect of the whole thing, the bill forbids scientific experts from participating in “advisory activities” that either directly or indirectly involve their own work. In case that wasn’t clear: experts would be forbidden from sharing their expertise in their own research.

I guess that, “If you don’t like the message, change the messenger.”  

The “messenger” that the House has just voted to empower is industrial pollution.

This is unsurprising when you consider that those who really control today’s Republican party plan to eliminate the EPA entirely at their first opportunity.  

Climate change? Stuff and nonsense.

Think Progress offers a handy little primer on the Climate Change deniers in the Republican caucus.  One of my favorites:

Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL-15): During his introductory remarks at a House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearing, Representative Shimkus read from the bible to prove that global warming will not destroy the earth because only God can decide when the earth will end: “The earth will end only when God declares it is time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood.” [House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment Hearing, 3/25/2009]

Odds are that H.R.1422 will never make it into law, but it should give those who sat out the midterms pause for serious reflection.

If we fail to take the car keys away from the two year olds in 2016, they will surely drive us right over the cliff.

Lost all last week in the chaos surrounding massive appliance mutiny at our house, I am finally able to take up the questions raised by State Auditor Doug Hoffer’s audit of the Department of Liquor Control’s purchasing, warehousing, distribution and sales functions.

To briefly summarize the conclusions of this review: the Auditor’s office found that while there would be no distinct economic advantage to privatizing or partially privatizing the P, W, D and S functions of Liquor Control’s monopoly, it might make for better governance.

We have a habit of allowing  creeping conflicts of interest to contaminate our governmental regulatory bodies. This may not be entirely avoidable, as intelligent regulation requires expertise, and that expertise is represented primarily in talent recruited from the industries being regulated.

In a number of service sectors, we live with the consequences of this intimacy, and the public often finds its interests of secondary concern to those of the industry being regulated.  

Vermont’s Liquor Control monopoly goes a good deal further.  Essentially, it IS the industry that it regulates.

Hoffer observes that this represents a conflict of interest that may undermine the regulatory function that is VDLC’s core purpose.

“The estimated fiscal impact of privatization does not argue for a change to the State’s current system, but there are other factors to consider,” Auditor Hoffer said. “It may be timely for legislators and other policymakers to reflect on whether liquor sales are a core function of State government and whether the sale of liquor could be licensed to the private sector, as it is for beer and wine. There is an inherent conflict of interest associated with one department being responsible for promoting and regulating the use of the same product.”

Perhaps narrowing VDLC’s responsibilities would also free resources so that more can be devoted to the training component of their mission.

It seems that every time I happen upon a Liquor Board hearing by the St. Albans City Council, local proprietors of stores selling alcohol complain about how difficult it is to get their staff adequately trained in upholding the rules.  Apparently, the training sessions are not held locally, so employees must travel in order to receive instruction and be certified.  I believe there are issues even with an online alternative.

If VDLC must concern itself with inventory control, marketing and warehouse management, how much focus is lost from actual regulation?

While the DLC asserts that state control of liquor sales is essential to ensure responsible consumption and fewer negative social impacts, this is not supported by the evidence. Studies consistently show that enforcement measures more effectively reduce alcohol-related injuries and mitigate driving under the influence of alcohol, regardless of whether sales are controlled by the states.

According to a Weekend Messenger article by Michelle Monroe, local proprietors appreciate the ability the current arrangement gives them to carry a full range of product on a consignment basis.  They are spared the need to hone their inventory to the demands of clients, and to sacrifice profit when items fail to move without steep discounts.

But isn’t that what most retailers of other products are obliged to do?

Not all local stores like the current arrangement.  One proprietor spoke to Monroe anonymously, for “fear of retaliation.”  His view?

“Monopolies are not good for consumers.”

The state getting out of the liquor business could mean more individual retailers in competition, so the seventy-eight retailers current statewide might understandably be reluctant to see change.

Ross Arsenault, who owns the Beverage Mart in St. Albans City thinks consumers might have less choice at individual retailers if they must satisfy the prepay expectation of non-government suppliers.

However, as he told the Messenger he thinks the state should also be happy to leave things the way they are.

“They’ve got the best of both worlds right now.” he said.  “They’ve got control, they’ve got no liability.”

But control is more than just the ability to collect fines for violations when they are discovered.  If a state agency begins to sees itself as a merchant first,  can it really be trusted to lay down the law when doing so might undermine the revenue stream upon which it is structured to depend?

The best interests of a merchant are served when consumers consume more, not less of a product.  In the case of the VDLC, their product is alcohol.

How is that consistent in any way with the state’s healthcare initiatives?

[Update #3: Day 15, still no action from FairPoint beyond a couple of phone calls. I had contacted the Vermont Dept. of Public Service again on Friday to make sure our repair ticket and lack-of-service-complaint had not been closed out since we do have a dial tone. I was assured that it would not be closed until the line was fixed, although Christine Peterson at DPS said she could not really push FairPoint too hard because folks without dial tone service were a priority. Within a couple of hours, “Carrie” who identified herself as calling from FairPoint (Maine area code) left a message inviting me to call back to let her know “if they’ve fixed that line yet.” It was not a toll-free number. I called, left a message (“No, Carrie, of course ‘they’ haven’t fixed the line, as I’m sure you know. And I note this is not a toll-free call, so I want you to remove the charge for this call from my bill.”

At least the guy who plows my driveway will be able to get under the wire now that I’ve propped it up with my jury-rig. That could be important in the next couple of days.

[Update #2:  On Day 9 of the downed-wire-across-the driveway FairPoint non-response, my firewood supplier had called to say he was bringing 3 cords. With wood being in short supply, I didn’t turn him down. Instead, I jury-rigged my own pole out of stuff I had on hand: plastic conduit and a broomstick anchored to a metal fence post I hammered into the side of the driveway (not to worry, phone lines this old are all low-voltage and coated) to lift the wire. It was high enough for the truck to get through, and it survived the windy, snowy, sleety night, and may last long enough for the second load of firewood to be delivered tomorrow, which will be Day 11. Crossing my fingers … oh, that’s what FairPoint’s plan is, too, I guess. But they’re getting paid for less and less service.]

[Update #1: Response from Public Service Department; robocall from FairPoint; live person call from Fairpoint. See comments for details.]

It’s been a week since a big section of a neighbor’s pine tree blew down across my driveway, taking out the power and phone lines. I walked down to the also power-and-phone-less neighbor’s to borrow a car so I could drive up to Town Hall to phone in the report to Green Mountain Power.

Now, I’m not particularly thrilled with Gaz Metro’s near-monopoly ownership of Vermont’s electric (GMP, acquired in 2007; Central Vermont Public Service, 2012) and gas (Vermont Gas, 1986) companies in Vermont. Not to mention the company’s (ahem) absorption of a rate-payer-financed loan without repayment, a deal okayed by the Shumlin Administration and the Public Service Board.

But I admit to being impressed when a GMP truck, complete with bucket lift, rolled into the lower third of my driveway an hour after the call, and disgorged two guys with a chainsaw. The driveway was cleared and electric power restored in about another hour.

Contrast that with FairPoint’s total lack of response. The GMP/Gaz Metro guys had told us that they could not – were not allowed to – restring the phone line. They tied a couple pieces of orange surveyor’s tape onto the wire where it draped obliquely across the driveway, and that was that. I was not surprised.

So, my wife filed a wire-down repair request that day via FairPoint’s website. The next day, Tuesday the 25th, I filed another. On Friday (late Thursday night) I sent another. Having the wire draped low over the driveway means no deliveries from FedEx or UPS. Getting the tenth-of-a-mile-long driveway plowed is problematic. I have now also filed a complaint with the Public Service Department.

I’ve now heard from a mutual friend that a gentleman, a double-amputee who lives with his wife on a dirt road just a couple of miles from the middle of town, can’t get FairPoint to fix his phone line either.*

[Update 12/8/14: Spoke to the man’s wife today. She said their line was repaired, took about a week. I said we were still waiting; her response: “well, you have two legs.” Yeah, there’s that.]

At best, FairPoint management’s pre-snowstorm confidence seems entirely misplaced:

Expressing confidence, a FairPoint spokesperson stressed the fill-in techs are experienced and well trained.

In a statement, FairPoint said despite the strike, network reliability hasn’t  been interrupted and emergency 911 service has been fully operational, though there have been a small number of customers who’ve been “inconvenienced” by the strike.

Especially given the post-storm Saturday disclosure of a nearly 6-hour outage* affecting 9-1-1 emergency reporting and dispatch services in “many communities” on Friday afternoon and evening. Guess who three weeks ago took over the contract for that?

[*corrected from 4]

So, between the company’s casual and negative response to its striking workers, the total lack of action or even communication regarding repairs, the inept handling of Vermont’s 9-1-1 service, and the increasing number of consumer complaints, it looks like calling FairPoint is a wrong number.  

A little satire might go well with leftovers.  It’s all about the turkey after all.  

Grandmother Attempts Citizen Arrest of Ted Cruz for Being an Arrogant Prick  

WASHINGTON — Tiny 83-year-old Ida Stanley was taken into police custody early today after she attempted to handcuff and haul away Senator Ted Cruz for “crimes against sanity.”   “Rafael Edward Cruz, I hereby arrest you for being an egotistical asshole,” Mrs. Stanley shouted in front of media cameras as she approached the Junior Senator from Texas outside one of his D.C. homes.

[…]  “You have the right to remain silent…and wouldn’t that would be a nice change,” Mrs. Stanley continued as Cruz’ security officers forced the grandmother of four to the ground and “disarmed” her of the toy, plastic Batman handcuffs she had in her hand.    “You have the right to not flap your gums…to cease and desist with cheesy grins,”

Mrs. Stanley kept shouting despite being restrained with her arms pinned behind her back. “To stop talking down to Americans when you’re really not that smart.”      

Immediately after Mrs. Stanley was “neutralized” by at times up to 6 plainclothes security agents, Capitol Police placed her in the back seat of a cruiser where she smiled and made the V peace sign through the wire-meshed window.

Well…This tells me something.  Biggest f’n’ story gets not a word on GMD?  

Michael Brown.

Shelly Frey.

Eric Garner.

Etc.

Hell, folks at Charlie Os and Wes Hamilton organized a State St. Protest about Eric Garner Wednesday evening (Dec. 3).

Al Sharpton and other Civil Rights leaders are organizing a march on D.C., Dec. 13 (next Saturday) about these Grand Jury atrocities.

HELLO?!!!

And Little Dem concerns?

Lefty lib-er-als abandoning Blacks, Native Americans, and others for Justice In Gaza and whose Dem ass to kiss?

Fuck Justice In Gaza and Dem Asses!

How about JUSTICE HERE AT HOME IN OUR OWN COMMUNITIES?!

Justice At Home will make for Justice In Gaza.  Horse before the cart.

It’s time for a little less Dem Ass-Kissing and more Take To The Streets For Justice.

Hey, BERNIE–How do you feel about the Ferguson verdict and the Eric Garner verdict?

And Jack–Please explain to folks how the prosecutor in Ferguson fucked-up the whole case against the cop.  And how there should have been a TRIAL (or an Arraignment) instead of a Grand Jury.  The TA editorial at least had THAT right.

Open Season on Blacks means Open Season on our Democracy.  Shumlin should make a statement.

Everybody should!

Or next, cops will be tasering and shooting little 9 year-old black girls.

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

Following up on the demise of the Burlington Free Press as an important local newspaper. Seven Days has announced that it has hired Nancy Remsen and Terri Hallenbeck to cover local government, politics, health care, and medicine.

As Seven Days reports online today:  

“Our readers want to know what's happening in Montpelier,” says publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. “They want to know how decisions are made, who's making them and why.”

Congratulations to our friends at Seven Days and to Terri and Nancy for this wise decision!