Hey, I’m also speaking for Sam now, or Scott, whatever…I WILL GLADLY DEBATE EMILY PEYTON.  Is she ‘Hot’?  We can arm wrestle too.

You see, our new party–the MAKE THE VERMONT REPUBLICAN PARTY LEGAL PARTY–doesn’t have many candidates this year besides me and Sam.  So, why the fuck should those few of us running go to debates and make things even worse?

But, when Sam and I went to Charlie Os to shoot pool and shake ladies’ hands, we got a warm welcome.  One of the blondes at the end of the bar even asked Sam about his positions…hah, hah…positions…get it?  And this Cutie-Pie lady bartender who we thought was a Dem gave Sam and me a campaign contribution when she gave us our change.

So, screw debates, Mister BP.  We don’t have to go to no steeenking debates.  We’re all gonna lose, it’s just a question of how bad it will be.  We need to get a 5 percenter, and I’m sure that will be me, because, so far, I haven’t heard of anyone who’s running as a write-in for Chief Director of Vermont Garbage and Sewers.  But I don’t trust that Michael Colby guy.  It would be just like him to pull one of his ‘spontaneous’ actions, and jump in election morning.  Then there’s Larry, Darryl & Darryl to worry about.  Yes, they became Republicans years ago, after Rich Tarrant promised them they’d be his staff in D.C.

Quit busting Sam’s chops.  And/or Scott’s too…whatever his name is.  It’s not easy being a Republican now in Vermont.  Sam and I went to cruise for babes in Burlington and we saw these demonstrators on Church Street with signs that read:  “NO MORE R-WORD.”  Jesus Christ!  What is this?  Are you trying to eliminate us Vermont Republicans altogether?  NO MORE R-WORD?  WTF does that mean?  Some kind of FINAL SOLUTION?  Now Sam and I know how the Jews felt in Nazi Germany back in ’33.  Are you going to make us wear a big red R on our sleeves?  Are Vermont Republicans going to have to move to Gaza?  DEBATE THAT!

But tell Em P I’d like to get together with her at Charlie Os.  We can have a debate right there at the bar.  The winner buys.  The lady bartenders there like it when I talk politics.  They told me I’m how they can tell when it’s time to call Last Call, even if it’s only 5 o’clock in the afternoon.

I hope my response here will now discourage you Little Dems from further heaping more abuse upon us Vermont Republicans.  We’re just trying to live.  If I do get elected, I will use all my influence to see to it that Vermont Fish and Game declares us a Protected Species.  Because, once the Vermont Republican Party is ‘exterminated’, who, I ask you, will be there on Halloween night to provide your kiddies with a real old-fashioned Halloween scare?  And who will cut all the ribbons?  And who will stand against the ‘trends’?  And who will work for the Rich?  And who will stop illegal immigrants from crossing the Canadian border and creating Immigrant SPRAWL?  And who will march in all the parades to make Vermonters laugh and feel better about themselves?  And who……

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

No debating Scott Milne tonight. He is ducking out of a debate this evening sponsored by the Essex Town Republican Committee. He chose not to accept the Essex Republicans' invitation, and he questions the motivations of other candidates seeking the GOP nomination:

“They are going to be working against the Republican Party and the nominee after the primary so it didn't make sense to go.” 

Only a short month or two ago, when he was first considering running to be Republican candidate for governor, Scott Milne said he welcomed more “voices” in the race. He claimed to relish a hearty primary and open policy debate.

“I hope we have a competitive primary,” he said. “I think it is a hard, hard road to hoe in Vermont for a Republican to get elected anyway. But that path to victory is much better with an issue-orientated positively fought out primary.”

He said this back when many Republicans hoped Randy Brock might have nothing better to do than run in gubernatorial primary. But Randy took a primary pass. And now poor Scott Milne has to duck a debate with Steve Berry and Emily Peyton.

One of the two hopefuls, Republican Steve Berry, serves as financial chair of the Lamoille County Republican Party committee and reportedly organized arm wrestling tournaments all over the state with Monster Arm Wrestling.

Also attending will be  Emily Peyton,who has run twice for governor as an independent. But she is new to the Republicans and wants to be in a Party. Party affiliation, she says, is key to reaching a broader audience.

“If you don't have a party, you're treated like a political nudist. They don't really want you there. 

Libertarian candidate Dan Feliciano, who has launched a write-in campaign for the Republican nomination, was also invited to attend. Feliciano has received contributions from Mark Snelling, treasurer of the Vermont Republican Party.

 Wonder if Scott Milne now regrets his primary wish. Suddenly he doesn’t like the other voices he’s hearing.

(Thanks to CR, who spared us having to listen to this ourselves! – promoted by Sue Prent)

Did anyone hear yesterday’s VPR debate between the three amigos running in the primary for a chance to lose to Rep. Welch?  Hilarious!

It’s like they were trying to out-crackpot – while simultaneously agreeing with – each other.

Highlights: None of them have any clue about the position they are running for, the southerner even was proud he’d never held any public office.

Flat tax! Poor pay more and the rich less. Each of them had a variation on the theme, but the overall goal is to make sure rich people pay as little as possible while the poor pay more.

End all tax deductions!  Oh, except homeowner’s mortgage insurance, of course.  Only homeowners should be allowed to have a deduction, poor people need to be screwed more because they clearly aren’t poor enough!

Obamacare = EVIL!  All of them agree that Obamacare is evil socialism, a government takeover of the entire health insurance industry. Except Medicaid, of course, that’s not going to be touched.

Gay Marriage, ugh! Of course all three are against gay people having equal rights under the law. Because some Americans are more equal than others.

It went on and on in that vein.  Basically they are completely opposed to every single thing that they themselves don’t need.

Typical arch-Conservatives: completely clueless and unaware of the consequences of their stated goals.

It’s easy to stand up for your principles when you’re in the company of likeminded folks; but the man or woman who does so in open opposition to his or her friends is a courageous rarity.

If that man also happens to be a U.S. Senator and his “friends” are the Republican party establishment who feel entitled to his loyalty, his courage becomes positively heroic.

Fiscally conservative as befit an old-time Republican but an authentic progressive when it counted to be one, Senator James Jeffords was that kind of hero; and for some of us, his example provided a seminal influence in shaping our own personal activism.

Nanuq shares her memory of the moment when tiny Vermont moved the entire U.S. Senate:

I have a clear memory of the week Jim Jeffords announced he was leaving the Republican Party, but not much else.

There was a lot of buzz; he was coming home to Vermont to make an announcement. My civilly united partner and I were in Madison, WI, staying with friends before attending a feminist science fiction convention over Memorial Day weekend. I kept checking the friends’ computer to see what was happening back in Vermont, and guessing that he was going to stay in the GOP. Then the announcement came. I tore up the stairs from the basement computer room yelling, “He did it! He did it! He’s left the Republican Party! The Senate goes to the Democrats!”

And at the convention, when I stood up and said, “I’m from Vermont …” the rest of the speculative fiction aficionados (the convention attendance closed at 1,000) applauded at length. Between Civil Unions the previous year, and Jim Jeffords’ actions, the politics of Vermont were warmly appreciated by the overwhelmingly liberal and open-minded science fiction authors, essayists, critics, and fans who came to Madison from all across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and beyond.

And Jim Jeffords’ willingness to stand up for his principles in the face of extreme pressure from members of his party got my respect.

That was also the year I became active in local party politics, having for many years disdained mainstream political parties as hopelessly corrupt and well beyond any attempt to fix. Between the stolen presidential election of 2000 and Jim Jeffords’ courageous stand, it just seemed like we needed to start somewhere to make things different.

Our Publisher Emeritus, John Odum was on hand for the press conference, and generously shared this video clip with us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?…

My son was in eighth grade when Jeffords made his historic move to independence, in so doing, briefly shifting the axis of power.  The timing was significant because Jesse was at an age of political awakening and we were headed to Washington DC for the school band’s big trip.

Among the highlights of the trip was a visit to the Capital building arranged for us by Senator Jefford’s office.  The public could still enjoy the full experience of accessing the building from the towering front stairway, but most had to wait in long lines for admission.  One of Senator Jeffords’ aides met us on the staircase and whisk us quickly into the building for a guided tour.  He was positively merry, apologizing with a twinkle in his eye for the Senator’s unavailability to meet us personally.  “As you can imagine,” he quipped, “we have been very busy lately!”

The Senator continued to be “very busy” doing the work of the people for the remainder of his Senate career; and when he retired due to failing health, his seat most appropriately passed to another great Vermont independent, Bernie Sanders.

Rest in peace, Senator Jeffords; you did Vermont proud.

Thanks to Sue Prent for her coverage of the acquisition of riot gear (riots? In St. Albans?) by the St. Albans police department.

The militarization of policing in the United States has gotten some long-overdue attention, and now there is a site where you can see what various police agencies across the country have received. If you go to the site you can see that a lot of it is pretty inoccuous, stuff like computers, cold-weather boots for Alaska and hot-weather boots for Texas, fax machines, boats, medical supplies; maybe my favorite was “karaoke set, complete” for $1,200. Read long enough, though, and you'll also find things like “assault pack”, “armor kit”, hand grenade pouches, different types of guns, ammo, bandoliers, armored cars and trucks.

What I was curious about was what came to Vermont, and I found two separate listings: one is a listing of all the law enforcement agencies that got anything, and the other was the list of equpment sent to Vermont under the 1033 program. Not too many smoking guns (heh!) here, I'm afraid, but maybe someone with more time will come up with more information:

 VERMONT BENNINGTON COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT WINOOSKI POLICE DEPT

VERMONT HARDWICK POLICE DEPT

VERMONT VT CRIMINAL JUSTICE TRN COUN

VERMONT SHELBURNE POLICE DEPT

VERMONT VERGENNES POLICE DEPT

VERMONT NORTHFIELD POLICE DEPT

VERMONT ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT WINHALL POLICE DEPT

VERMONT LAMOILLE COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT RUTLAND POLICE DEPT

VERMONT BRATTLEBORO POLICE DEPT

VERMONT MIDDLEBURY POLICE DEPT

VERMONT RICHMOND POLICE DEPT

VERMONT VT STATE POLICE

VERMONT STOWE POLICE DEPT

VERMONT BRATTLEBORO POLICE DEPT

VERMONT COLCHESTER POLICE DEPT

VERMONT CHITTENDEN COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT SWANTON VILLAGE POLICE DEPT

VERMONT BENNINGTON POLICE DEPARTMENT

VERMONT BRANDON POLICE DEPT

VERMONT WINDHAM COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT RUTLAND COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT ORLEANS COUNTY SHERIFF DEPT

VERMONT BARRE CITY POLICE DEPT

VERMONT BURLINGTON POLICE DEPT

VERMONT SPRINGFIELD POLICE DEPT

VERMONT DOVER POLICE DEPT

VERMONT WATERBURY POLICE DEPT

VERMONT VT DEPT OF FISH AND WILDLIFE

VERMONT VERNON POLICE DEPT

VERMONT ESSEX POLICE DEPT

VERMONT SAINT JOHNSBURY POLICE DEPT

When I sat in on Monday night’s St. Albans City Council meeting, little did I know that a minor item buried in the agenda would prove to have significance well beyond the affairs of our little town.

That agenda item concerned approval of a $12,000. JAG (Justice Assistance) grant.  The JAG program, administered through the Department of Justice, is intended to provide direct funding to communities so that they can address any one of many issues that fall under the DOJ purview.

The JAG Program, administered by BJA and authorized under Public Law 109-162 (see page 136), is the leading source of federal justice funding to state and local jurisdictions. The JAG Program provides states, tribes, and local governments with critical funding necessary to support a range of program areas including law enforcement, prosecution, indigent defense, courts, crime prevention and education, corrections and community corrections, drug treatment and enforcement, planning, evaluation, technology improvement, and crime victim and witness initiatives.

The Council’s approval seemed to be just a formality, but a public reading was required and I came to abrupt attention at the words “tear gas and pepper spray!”

St. Albans intends to spend it’s $12,000., at least in part, on riot response gear!

One Council member actually inquired if the tear gas and pepper spray delivery weapons we already have are no longer usable!  I don’t know whether he was kidding, but I suspect not.

The unsurprising answer is that the City police do not have such weaponry.

No one even questioned why a town with barely 5,000 residents and no major institutions needed riot gear.  If we are to believe the laments, the population is rapidly aging and business is slow even at the Walmart.  Who is going to turn out to riot in the streets? A bunch of disgruntled senior citizens??

When the opportunity for public comment was presented I said that I thought there must be better ways to use the money; that this was just a boondoggle for defense contractors; and that  purchasing such equipment sends the wrong message about our City.   I wanted to add the obvious: “If our police acquire this equipment; sooner or later, they’ll use it,” but decided not to.

The Council members listened in bored silence, then voted to accept the expenditure.

The next morning, all hell broke loose in Ferguson Missouri, as angry protests segued into looting.  

The police, already implicated in the crime that unleashed what began as peaceful protests, reacted as if they were at war, breaking out their very own DOJ toys to escalate the situation to a whole new level of danger.

Now everyone is wondering what the hell has happened to local American police forces?  Overreaction seems to be the order of the day, and it is difficult not to go back to that same old suspicion:  “If they have it, they will use it.”

We saw that play out vividly in the adoption of Tasers.  

Most of us were quite shocked when the first local police departments opted to acquire those cruel and unusual playthings; but it was just a matter of time before we’d grown accustomed to reading the news of another mentally disabled person or minor child stunned into submission.

Toys for the boys.  “If they have it, they will use it.”  And they have it:  tear gas, pepper spray, riot gear, rubber bullets, armored cars, heavy artillery.

Defense industry lobbyists have gotten themselves a sweet little boondoggle in the JAG program.  

Business is slow? No problem, fear of terrorism can always be parlayed into a full scale war with all the trimmin’s!

War winding down? No problem!  Just make the Barney Fife’s an offer they can’t refuse.

Before long, we end up with a policing culture that resembles that of a third world dictatorship, and the panic and confusion only serves to bolster personal arms sales.

As someone observed quite a while back, when the U.S. begins to resemble a police state, the “terrorists,” whomever they may currently be, will have already won.

Looks like we’re almost there.

Following the hard-fought Democratic primary, newly elected Governor Peter Shumlin shrewdly defused (and diffused?) his key Democratic rivals by offering them cabinet posts overseeing the most challenging departments of state government.  

To Deb Markowitz, he offered the Agency of Natural Resources; and to his most successful rival, who came within a hair of winning, he offered the Gorgon of them all, Health and Human Services.

How could Doug Racine have possibly resisted the temptation to take the reigns of the agency that, at least in theory, could bring all of his priorities to fruition?  

Of course his stewardship was doomed to failure from the start; and that was the genius of Shumlin’s appointment.

Not only did Racine step into this complex suite of agencies at the very moment when austerity measures closed the tap on its already limited resources; but as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Racine was in line to be the principle scapegoat for all the blame that would inevitably accompany the rollout of Shummy Care.

It was always in the cards, even before Hurricane Irene made matters worse.  Doug Racine was to be permanently neutralized as a rival for Shumlin’s future ambitions.

It was always in the cards. The only question was when it would all blow up and how far the shrapnel would travel.

I keep reading that Racine has barely been heard from since taking on Health and Human Services.  Could that have had something to do with the old adage, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all?”  

I suspect there are volumes of meaning in that silence; but Racine is a good Democrat and a generally nice guy, so we won’t hear it from him.

His “boss” wouldn’t hear of a tax increase on the wealthy to enable HHS to do a proper job of dealing with the growing pool of need in Vermont; but Racine had accepted the thankless job of helmsman on the Titanic, and it was his job to make the best of things until it was time to go down with the ship.

Do I detect a hint of sulphur in the air?  

Cue orchestra. (Curtain.)

Crossposted at The Vermont Political Observer.

I’m saddened to hear of the death of Marion Milne, pioneering lawmaker, businessperson, and mother of gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne. VTDigger reports that she “died unexpectedly Monday morning at her home in Washington.”

I saw her in person for the first time at Milne’s campaign launch last month, and now I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself and express my respect.

Marion Milne founded the family travel agency in 1975 shortly after graduating from Goddard College. That agency has grown and thrived under her leadership and Scott’s, during very challenging times for the travel agency field.

Of course, her most significant public moment came in 2000, when she was one of a handful of Republicans to vote in favor of Vermont’s groundbreaking civil unions law – the first step on the road to marriage equality. For her courage, she was voted out of office that fall after serving three terms in the State House. Today, only 14 years later, it’s hard to recall the deep passions the issue brought forth — and the consequences faced by Milne and her fellows. 

From a post-election account: 

Milne knew her vote could lead to the end of her career, as did others. State Rep. John Edwards, who represents two towns along the Canadian border, also got the boot in what became a single-issue race. Edwards, a former state trooper, said he started to get that sinking feeling while standing at a polling place Tuesday. He noticed the averted gazes, the voters who had never turned out before, the thumbs-up signs directed at the other two candidates.

… Edwards said he has lost longtime friends. Milne has endured slurs like “queer lover” aimed at her and her 13-year-old grandson and watched her travel agency lose business.

“There are a lot of people angry with me,” she said from her home, shaking her head.

She had endured a bitter campaign, often encountering hostility while going door-to-door and finding herself alienated from former supporters and friends. She was on the right side of history, but that must have been cold comfort at the time. And, as owner of a high-profile business that served the public, she almost certainly lost some clients as well as constituents.

Marion Milne was a hard worker till the end, as reflected in this word from the Milne family: “On the day she died, Marion had an appointment to have her hair done, planned to work at her desk in the travel agency, and attend a board meeting for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.”

I’ve written plenty about Scott Milne’s campaign, but now is not the time for partisanship. It’s a time for respect, love, and family. My best wishes to the entire Milne family and the agency, and to Scott, now faced with carrying on a long-odds campaign shadowed by the loss of his mother and business partner.

Godspeed, Marion Milne.

A job opening for an executive chef with a TS/SCI (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information) rating is causing some rumbles with those following the burgeoning industrial security clearance complex. Sodexho, the private food service, is advertising a government job opening for a chef with a top secret security clearance. The rapid growth in the number of security cleared government food service workers is inflating costs and causing job shortages. The wait-staff wait time for clearances has gone from less than a week to up to six weeks, according to one manager. 

In post-Edward Snowden Washington, hiring for official kitchens and dining halls is grinding to a crawl. Every busboy, dishwasher and cashier requires elaborate background checks, which include lengthy waits for fingerprinting, a credit check and sometimes even a polygraph.

And they are feeling the effects on the frontlines. The Washington Post reports that at the FDA’s latest farm-to-table, craft-cocktail, artisanal restaurant (… huh! The FDA has an artisanal restaurant? Sequester? Austerity?) the turkey carving station is shorthanded. According to The Secrecy blog, part of the Federation of American Scientists project on Government secrecy,

“[The] growth in the number of clearance-holders increases costs and exposes classified national security information, often at very sensitive levels, to an increasingly large population,” said the OMB review. 

And the inflated use of security clearances represents:

[…] a significant policy problem, namely the use of the security clearance process as an employee screening tool […] As of October 2013, the number of persons eligible for access to classified information had grown to 5.1 million persons, including over 1.5 million with Top Secret clearances. According to an ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence] report, only 60% of those persons had access to classified information, suggesting that vastly more clearances are being requested and granted than are actually required. [added emphasis] 

Some security experts and company owners with profits on the line are seeing business boom. And one private placement firm CEO, a former US army Warrant officer, philosophically places his work in an historical, but somewhat undemocratic context:

“There’s a reason kings hired courtiers to taste their food,” said Bill Golden, the chief executive of intelligenceCareers.com and of USADefenseIndustryJobs.com. 

And it would poison business to be the private security company to clear-for-hire the next Snowden. At stake is $400 million a year the government spends on investigations into 2 million employees. So for now it's clearances for everybody: tinker, tailor, busboy, chef.

If you were among the many Vermonters who lobbied their legislators in the name of a patient’s right to choose, sometimes referred to as “death with dignity,” you probably think that the campaign is over and the battle won.

With the passage of Act 39, “An act relating to patient choice and control at the end of life,” that right of choice became law; but because no mechanism was in place through which to make exercise of that right available to all patients in need, for many of the terminally ill, it is still largely a symbolic victory.

The State of Vermont provides some online guidance regarding the implications of the new law, including all of the documents necessary to satisfy its requirements; but for finding a physician who is willing to assist the terminally ill in exercising their choice under the law, patients are on their own.

There is  a lot of work left to be done to make this choice truly a functional reality for all Vermonters.

Patient Choices Vermont is working with Compassion & Choices and reaching out to those of us who

joined in the effort to change the law.   Our help is needed once again to individually speak with our primary care providers  in order to identify physicians who are willing to help patients who are seeking relief under the law.  

The most urgent need is to locate physicians who are willing to provide assistance to those who are not their own patients.  As physicians cannot be compelled to provide an end of life prescription to one of their patients, there is a genuine need to find relief for them elsewhere.

According to Linda Waite Simpson,  State Director of Compassion and Choices,

The law is working well. Many terminally ill Vermonters gain security and peace of mind through knowing they have more end-of-life choice and control. Some will pursue a prescription for the medication authorized by this law and a small number will fully utilize it.

In the end, very few terminal patients choose to take the life-ending dose even when they have it in hand; but the knowledge that they may exercise that choice, should the suffering become truly unbearable, provides a reassuring sense of control and peace of truly palliative value.

Simpson and her colleagues are meeting with supporters throughout the state and asking for their help to spread the word about what the law means to patients, what help is available, and what help is still needed so that every Vermonter can be secure in their right to choice at the end of life.