All posts by BP

Sec. of State Condos: good riddance to vote fraud commission

National, , ,

[Updated: Short version: “The White House intends to destroy voter data collected by the election fraud commission [Donald Trump] recently shut down, the Justice Department said in a court filing Tuesday night. White House Director of Information Technology Charles Herndon said in a declaration submitted to a federal court in Washington that officials plan to erase the information, rather than transfer it to the Department of Homeland Security or the National Archives and Records Administration.” Or so they say.]

Good riddance to the Advisory Commission on Election Fraud, but in the age of Trump and his GOP thugs, VT Sec. of State Condos says:“We must be vigilant and focused on preserving our democracy.”

The presidential advisory group launched last May by the Trump administration to root out imaginary voter fraud has been disbanded. The White House announced a week ago that the Department of Homeland Security would take over commission’s unfinished “work.”voteno5

From day one the so-called “Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” chaired by Vice President Mike Pence and managed by vice chair Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was widely seen as a vehicle to purge voter rolls and suppress voters’ right to vote. In his position as Kansas Sec. of State Kobach advocated proof-of-citizenship requirements. He wholeheartedly endorsed Trump’s false assertion that if thousands had not voted illegally for president in New Hampshire he would have won the election’s popular vote. And let’s not forget to give proper credit to  New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (R) for animating that lie for the GOP early in the campaign, which, like a zombie, still shuffles around Trumpland.

So good riddance to the troubled commission! Commission member Maine Sec. of State Mike Matt Dunlap(D) had sued it to obtain documents which Kobach kept secret from its own members. Now predictions are that the shift to DHS will basically spell the end of the Trump’s efforts – no sane official would take on the troubled commission’s job.  Or as one observer aptly put it: Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola University School of Law and a former Department of Justice civil rights official quoted by propubilca.org says “You don’t normally want to be the second person to jump on a live grenade.”

A tireless advocate for voting rights Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos, also the current president of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), has been out front opposing the commission. Early on Condos refused Kobach’s request to hand over Vermont voter data. Now he remains skeptical that democracy’s victory will mean no further assaults by the GOP and Trump administration’s organized meddling. Condos said about the move to DHS: “I believe this is an attempt to give the federal government even more freedom to meddle in our elections, a state-run function. I am concerned about gross federal overreach, and this move only fuels fears of a federal takeover of state elections, damaging the trust we’ve been trying to build with DHS in collaborating on election security.”

The ACLU has already taken legal action to block any transfer of data from the dissolved commission to the DHS. But if we have learned anything from the Trump (and the GOP) in the last year it is that this likely not the end of it. His GOP enablers have long history of voter suppression and Trump seems determined and has promised to find and root out the “fraud” that he imagines cost him the popular vote. In this case we should take him at his word; rule number one for surviving under an autocratic regime is: Believe the autocrat.

Workers lose on overtime pay; Donald schedules himself more TV time

Business, local/regional, National,

The Economic Policy Institute has tracked a recent overtime pay cut engineered by the Trump administration and calculated what the rule change is going to cost U.S. workers. Earlier this year the Department of Labor abandoned 2016 regulations that expanded 40-year-old overtime rules. The rules from the Obama DOL could have increased overtime pay for workers by billions. However, since the new regs were challenged in court in 2016 by a coalition of 21 states and business groups, President Trump recently dropped any federal effort to defend them. Failure to enact them, the EPI calculated, will cause the loss of $1.2 billion per year in lost overtime for workers.

In New England it looks like New Hampshire is a bigger loser of overtime than Vermont. EPI’s estimates show New Hampshire misses out on $6,078,793 per year without the updated overtime regulations compared to Vermont’s estimated loss of $3,032,958.

Here’s the state by state chart showing the numbers potentially lost for Vermonters.

lost OT

We haven’t even mentioned yet the lost tax revenue for states on those wages.

And meanwhile overtime is definitely not a problem at the White House. It turns out President Trump’s daily schedule has been adjusted to allow “Executive Time” so he can spend three hours in the morning watching TV and head to the oval office later. Between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. Axios.com reports The Donald is having “Executive Time” in the Oval Office, but in reality: … [he] spends that time in his residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting. […] Trump’s days in the Oval Office are relatively short – from around 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., then he’s back to the residence. During that time he usually has a meeting or two, but spends a good deal of time making phone calls and watching cable news in the dining room adjoining the Oval. Then he’s back to the residence for more phone calls and more TV.

TrumpTVThe White House is calling it “Executive Time” but “Fox and Fury Time” might be more accurate given that his often rage-filled morning tweets tend to coincide with Fox News broadcasts. Often, Politico.com reports presidential tweets begin popping up minutes after a Fox report airs.

So welcome to America 2018 where President Trump – a self-described “very stable genius” – can happily spend three or more hours (in his pajamas?) every morning in front of his wide screens stroking his ego. But his Department of Labor won’t support or defend restructured overtime rules for workers. Just like that “tax cut” bill he signed: all the pie for the billionaires, none but crumbs for the workers.

Polling trends 2017: Healthcare up and Trump still down

local/regional, National, Uncategorized, , ,

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.

FCC chairman Pai video gets in our face

Business, International, National,

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

National, ,

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”

National, ,

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

local/regional, National, , , ,

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?

Nine Senate Democrats support GOP bill to weaken Dodd-Frank

National,

I’ve got to admit not paying much attention lately to the daily barrage of political petitions that land in my email — but this one caught my eye. Nine Democrats and one independent on the Senate Banking Committee have signed onto a GOP bill that, according to the Economic Policy Institute (a sponsor of the petition drive, link to sign on at end of diary) will weaken the already weak Dodd-Frank Act.

The Senate Banking Committee will also take two major steps toward reshaping federal financial regulatory and economic policy on Tuesday. The panel is expected to approve the nomination of Jerome Powell to be Federal Reserve chairman, then mark up a bipartisan bill to exempt small and mid-size banks from portions of the Dodd-Frank Act.

Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, champion of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said about this deal: “This bill shows once again how Washington values short-term profits for big banks ahead of the interests of consumers or the safety of the financial system.”

The bill exempts certain size banks, “smaller firms” from the risk-mitigation regulations included in the federal stress and oversight provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act.

The Democrats on board with this maneuver include former vice presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine (VA). The other eight are : Senators Joe Donnelly (IN), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Manchin (WV), Claire McCaskill (MO), Gary Peters (MI), Jon Tester (MT), Mark Warner (VA), Michael Bennet (CO); along with Independent Angus King (ME), who caucuses with the Democrats. According to Open Secrets from 2013 to 2018 the securities and investment industry was one of the two  top contributors to all the Democratic senators who support gutting Dodd-Frank except Senators McCaskill and Independent Angus King. zong!

It is particularly discouraging in normal times to see Democrats cheerfully offering the Republicans a helping hand gutting Dodd-Frank regulations. But it is doubly so now, in the time of Trump and with the GOP’s tax bill so recently inflicted on us. Makes me want to holler and… Zong!

Link to sign petition: HERE “Unbelievably, a contingent of 10 corporate Democrats in the Senate is lining up behind this plan, hopeful their constituents won’t notice – but knowing their Wall Street donors will.”