All posts by BP

Navy Seal convoy “punished” for flying under Trump banner

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Since President Trump looked a little too happy strutting around the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford sporting an olive military jacket and cap the other day. Here’s a quick follow up on the Navy Seal convoy that affixed a Trump campaign banner to their Humvee antenna with zip ties  and drove it in a convoy for over one hundred miles. It was February, when the vehicle  traveling through Kentucky under the blue Trump flag was seen and when first reported, officials said they believed the vehicles were military surplus; they later admitted that was not the case, and that the vehicles belonged to the elite Seal Naval Special Warfare Group 2.

TrumpflagsealThe Navy has since investigated, and the report (which was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act or FOIA request) is now available. The commander of the 12 person convoy did not place the flag on the Humvee but was aware it was there and: “[The convoy commander] was also aware of the rules precluding Department of Defense (DoD) endorsement of political candidates during an election,” the documents stated. “However, he believed that flying the flag was not inappropriate since the election was over and since the candidate was now the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces.”

However, shortly into their mission the Navy Seal commander began, they say, to regret his choice: About 30 minutes into the drive on I-65, the convoy commander noticed that the flag was getting a good deal of attention from civilian drivers, “some of which was negative attention.” [maybe negative by 48.5% or more]

“At this point, he felt like the correct course of action would have been to take the flag down,” the documents stated. “However, he was concerned that it would be unsafe for the convoy and its members to pull over while on the highway.”

The names of the 12 member Navy Seal group were not made public and although they were reportedly punished, what form that took was not disclosed. The Navy Department did say the personnel were subsequently required to participate in team-wide remedial training on safe convoy operations and partisan political activity.

So, with a Humvee flagged with a Trump election banner for over one hundred miles through Kentucky to Indiana, the commander of Naval Special Warfare Group 2 couldn’t find a place to pull his convoy off the highway!  Maybe the remedial training on safe convoy operations the  Seal Group was “sentenced” to take covers how to pull off the road and remove a prohibited banner. Or better yet, they could learn not to fly a partisan banner from Trump’s campaign on a Humvee to start with.

Gov. Sununu carries water for EPA’s Scott Pruitt

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Vermont better keep an eye on this if only because we “share” the Connecticut River and for that matter a planet, with New Hampshire. It appears that state’s new Republican Governor Chris Sununu wants a little jump start on polluting his state waterways and may want to take a time out from his ongoing voter suppression campaign.waterdownhill

To those ends Sununu sent a letter inviting to New England Scott “big oil BFF” Pruitt, the new head of the US Environmental Protection Agency,  to explore loosening “burdensome” regulations governing storm water rules. His letter references a program that requires towns that collect and dispose of storm water to get a special permit. Such disposal can pass pollutants into water systems.  Do you suppose Sununu cc’d his invite on this one to his fellow New England Republican Governors, his  buddies Phil Scott and Charlie Baker?

Pruitt, the new head of the US EPA might enjoy a diversion after he came under fire last week for comments openly questioning accepted facts about climate change science. By the end of week the EPA’s telephone voice messaging system was overwhelmed with a massive number of calls.

Governor Sununu will always enjoy discussing tearing up a few clean water regulations and Pruitt will get a nice friendly regional platform to spew Trump’s anti-regulation initiatives.

But no worries: Sununu claims that, as if by magic “if these federal mandates disappeared tomorrow, New Hampshire would not cease to keep our waters clean.”  He may starkly figure ‘so what’ about a polluted NH or planet: after all, we ‘live free and die.’  Besides, it all runs downhill (out of New Hampshire) doesn’t it, Governor?

Darcie Johnston & Trump’s little shop of hires

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ProPublica has compiled an online directory of 400 political hires Donald Trump has quietly made across the federal government. And as we know, Vermonter Darcie Johnston made the cut. The anti-Obama healthcare advocate and former Trump for President Campaign leader got herself a real job in the Federal Government. She’ll be working at Health and Human Services as a Special Assistant. The job is rated GS-14 which pays from $88,136.00 – $114,578.00 yearly.

Trumplsohires2

 

The list assembled by ProPublica is a complete accounting of names that would normally just have dribbled out to the press. It shows the appointees to Trump’s so-called beachhead team. These are Donald loyalists named to federal jobs that need no senate confirmation: Trump’s true believers or just berserkers ready on day one, they said, to to begin laying the groundwork for the president-elect’s agenda.

Several of Donald’s more noteworthy best and brightest are spotlighted. Here are three likely worth keeping an eye on: A Trump campaign aide who argues that Democrats committed “ethnic cleansing” in a plot to “liquidate” the white working class found a home as Special Assistant to the Secretary, Department of Labor.

At the Department of the Treasury a former reality show contestant whose study of societal collapse inspired him to invent a bow-and-arrow-cum-survivalist multi-tool will test his mettle as a special assistant.  And finally, hailing from New Hampshire a Trump supporter who has only recently graduated from high school.

Maybe Darcie  and this kid will carpool back home to New England on holidays.

Nuke security report: “opportunities exist for program improvement”

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Vermont Yankee is in the decommissioning process; its owner Entergy has plans to sell the out-of-operation plant to an industrial demolition company, NorthStar Group Services Inc. However, VY may not be ready to cool down as an issue yet: Vermont’s attorney general is asking to intervene in the state Public Service Board’s review of the sale of the closed Vermont Yankee power plant, saying significant environmental and financial issues are at stake.

It seems Vermont AG Donovan wants to keep a sharp eye on good old Vermont Yankee. Considering Entergy’s past, spotty record on safety (or lack of it) – underground leaks, fire and a spectacular cooling tower collapse – and security (or lack of it, as in sub-contracted Wackenhut Security guards sleeping on the job) this is probably a good idea.

weakvylink

Almost a year ago Entergy significantly scaled back its emergency notification and management protocols. And security concerns may also be an issue to watch as spent  nuclear fuel will remain onsite for some time to come. This February the NRC signed off on Entergy’s security changes for the now out-of-operation plant. Specifics regarding the changes are not public,as a precaution, but it is likely they involve lowering certain requirements.

One thing the NRC and certainly Entergy didn’t mention in public was that it was  auditing security rules for nuclear plants going through decommissioning. The NRC Office of Inspector General’s report, now available, recommends: [the NRC] clarify which fitness-for-duty elements licensees must implement to meet the requirements of the insider mitigation program; and to establish requirements for a fatigue management program. [PDF here]

Threats from “insiders” are defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as individuals with authorized access to nuclear facilities or nuclear material who could attempt unauthorized removal or sabotage, or who could aid an external adversary to do so. 

In language laughably similar to the NRC’s well worn classic: “there was no apparent danger to the public” line, the OIG report notes that although security is now adequate, “opportunities exist for program improvement.”

It appears Vermont AG T.J. Donovan is correct in operating on the assumption that Entergy is still Entergy and the NRC is still the NRC: ineffectual and always willing to protect the bottom line over the health and safety of host communities. Kind of ironic that while the US Border Patrol has been unleashed on innocent Canadian shoppers hoping to visit Vermont, someone should be doing a better, sharper, more aggressive job guarding spent nuclear fuel just a few hundred miles south.

Your Friday Trumping

National, ,

It has been another in a line of dizzyingly chaotic news weeks since Trump became president. It started off well enough for Trump. As President, Donald managed to read a teleprompter speech to the US Congress in a suitable tone — “Nationalism in an indoor voice.” And following through on campaign promises he made, his new EPA head started slashing away at the agency, proposing to cut their budget by 24%.

Rounding off the week, Commander-in-chief Donald started boosting his plans for a U.S.  arms build-up with a speech given to sailors aboard the soon-to-be commissioned aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford.

Not sure if any political pundits noted it, but I’m probably not the only one impressed by the remarkable restraint Trump showed  not pinning any shiny gold medals to the military styled jacket and cap he happily donned after they were given to him by sailors aboard the aircraft carrier.

trumpslonging

However by weeks’ end, the growing problem over questions of Russian attempts to influence his administration hit close to home. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was shamed into recusing himself from any investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election. Reports then surfaced of a previously undisclosed meeting Trump advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner had in December at Trump Towers in New York  with the Russian ambassador to “establish a line of communication.”

And finally The Onion reports the Russians are far ahead of their timeline to carefully undermine the legitimacy of the American political system

MOSCOW—working frantically to readjust the schedule they had outlined back in June 2015, Russian officials admitted to reporters Thursday that they have been left scrambling after seeing their plan to delegitimize Western democracy move much faster than they had intended.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said: “[…] we never thought so much public trust in the White House would erode in a matter of a few weeks. We’re pleased, of course, but keeping up is going to be a real challenge.” Lavrov went on to say he was deeply concerned that Trump’s impeachment would occur well before the president could cause the amount of damage to America that the Kremlin had originally intended. [Ed. note: not real news, for humorous use only, not to be taken internally]

All this leaves one to wonder as President Trump charges off to Florida today if Donald will grow tired of “winning” all the time? Perhaps he will stop-over at Mar-A- Lago, his shining gold-plated palace in Florida, get in a couple rounds of golf and all the world will be right again — at least in his own mind.

“Papers, please”: Trump, Sessions, and the CBP unleashed

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What happens when you unleash the guard dogs? Well my first guess is more and more of this kind of thing:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed Thursday that their agents requested to see the identification of domestic flight passengers landing at a New York airport Wednesday night as they searched for an immigrant who had received a deportation order to leave the United States.

urpapers

According to the agency, two CBP agents asked passengers who had been on Delta Flight 1583 from San Francisco to show their identification while deplaning after landing at John F. Kennedy Airport at about 8 p.m. Wednesday. The search was conducted at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, CBP said in a statement, but the person they were seeking was not on the flight.

A CBP spokesperson said that the individual, who they did not publicly identify, had legal immigration documents but received a deportation order after multiple criminal convictions for domestic assault, driving while impaired, and violating a protective order.[added emphasis]

So what’s the big deal?  Well, remember this was a domestic flight not under the purview or jurisdiction of Customs and Border Protection. And this: It is unclear what would have happened had officials found undocumented immigrants getting off the airplane and whether they would have faced deportation if identified. It is also unclear what would have happened to any passenger who refused to produce his or her identification for the agents.

“Is this a mere request to see identification?” said Jordan Wells, a staff attorney with the New York Civil Liberties Union “Would they have been detained but for them showing ID? Because then it’s no longer a consensual encounter and the Constitution enters the equation.”

The Department of Homeland Security and the Border Patrol each denied this event was part of any new policy or crackdown, but with Trump’s Exec Orders on immigration, supported by Attorney General Sessions coming fast and furious, it is tempting to take these denials as obligatory coverups: please pass the grains of salt (or do we toss the salt over our shoulders so as not to have to swallow the bland coating atop constitutional poison?).

On Friday a  CBP spokesperson insisted to Rolling Stone Magazine that the check was “consensual assistance from passengers aboard the flight” and that “CBP did not compel anyone to show ID.” However a passenger on the Delta flight tweeted: “We were told we couldn’t disembark without showing our ‘documents.'”

With these recent changes to immigration policy – aka “crack-down” – underway, it is worth remembering that the CBP union, called The National Border Patrol Council, was an early and enthusiastic supporter of candidate Donald Trump, the strongman.

In their first ever presidential endorsement the 16,500 member union said: “We need a person in the White House who doesn’t fear the media, who doesn’t embrace political correctness, who doesn’t need the money, who is familiar with success, who won’t bow to foreign dictators, who is pro-military and values law enforcement, and who is angry for America and NOT subservient to the interests of other nations. Donald Trump is such a man,”[added emphasis]. This is likely the mindset that led unleashed guards in the Border Patrol at the Vermont border  to turn back a Canadian citizen planning to shop in the US because she’s Muslim and had Muslim prayers on her cell phone (see also here and here).

But we got to this point slowly in baby steps. Go read this 2014 GMD diary by NanuqFC about our de facto National ID cards. Most Vermonters already have them. Once known as a Vermont State driving license, they are “Real ID” DHS compliant and come with a gold star. But you know everyone isn’t compliant, and we are free, after all, to get a non-compliant license – and it has a scary red banner reading: NOT FOR FEDERAL IDENTIFICATION.

Remember: “Your papers, please.”  That isn’t normal here at all. No.

Wonder why GEO Group canceled VT’s prison contract?

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In December (after the election, of course) GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corporation) unexpectedly opted not to renew a multi-year contract to house State of Vermont prisoners. Their North Lake Correctional Facility in Michigan was housing less than 300 Vermont inmates (the only occupants in the facility) but has a potential capacity of 1,748.

Private for-profit prison companies just got a belated Valentine’s Day  love letter from new Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions. The Valentine came in the form of a memo that reverses acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ directives aimed to slow and ultimately end the Bureau of Prisons’ use of privately run for-profit prisons. The Obama Justice Department had acted on data (see here and here )suggesting that private prisons are less well run than those managed by the Bureau of Prisons, and since overall prison population wasn’t growing, they were no longer be needed.

However, Attorney General Sessions shifted — well actually reversed — the policy in his memo Thursday by declaring that curtailing private prison use “impaired the Bureau’s [Bureau of Prisons’] ability to meet the future needs of the federal correctional system.”  cell door Think about what that says about the future Session envisions.

The new Attorney General may not have been the only one anticipating that Trump’s aggressive immigration sweeps will be supplying new detainees to occupy private prison beds. And  since they opted out of the next one-year extension of Vermont’s contract in Dec. 2016, GEO Group will have emptied one of its facilities by June. So, maybe look for the future announcement that GEO’s North Lake will re-open to house the overflow of ICE detainees from Trump’s sweeps awaiting deportation hearings.

GEO Group is the largest (CoreCivic formerly Corrections Corporation of America is second) contract provider of detention services for ICE, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the U.S. Marshals Service. With recent acquisitions Geo Corrections & Detention and Geo Care will own or manage about 98,000 beds worldwide including about 7,000 community reentry beds.prisonprofitper

And GEO’s political action committee spends lavishly on politicians. In 2016 alone they gave $300,000 to Trump’s presidential campaign and almost that much in Senate and Congressional races — overwhelmingly to Republican candidates — all that in addition to heavy lobby spending on state legislators and governors.  [the following was added 2/26 :  Phil Scott got his bit:a $2,000.00 donation from GEO in March 2016].  GEO Group (and earlier Wackenhut) has helped fund and is listed as a member of ALEC (the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council).

So, it’s probably no accident GEO Group knew which way the wind was going to blow regarding immigrant detention when Trump said he’d deport ‘em all. There are estimated to be up to 8 million people in the country illegally that could be considered priorities for deportation. Sessions’ memo  just monetized them. And GEO stock is at an all time peak.     

Hey, is it time to revisit Vermont’s ski resort leases yet?

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The big news Tuesday in Vermont (thankfully nothing to do with Trump) was that AIG International will be selling their ski operations at Stowe Mountain to Vail Resorts Inc. for $50 million. It isn’t a complete break from Vermont for AIG which acquired Stowe in the 1940’s. Bloomberg news reports: “[AIG] will retain majority ownership of the base area, which includes a 312-room lodge, along with a country club and future development rights” yeoldeVTskilease

After hearing the AIG/ Vail Resorts announcement several times today I recalled a January 2015 VT Auditor’s report. Auditor Doug Hoffer’s office released a report for the Agency of Natural Resources on state land leases to ski resorts that deserves a second glance from the powers that be.

The study, titled State Land Leases Boost Ski Industry, but Are Dated and Inconsistent, reported on long-term leases of valuable state land to Vermont ski resorts. The leases, some dating back as far as 1942, were designed to help the then-new and developing ski industry. Lease revenue to the state is based on a percentage of lift ticket sales; however, now a larger part of resort revenue is from other sources, such as hotels, water parks, golf, etc. State Auditor Hoffer: “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.”

Maybe some legislator or group of them could again marshal the courage as Senator Tim Ashe did in 2015 to suggest revisiting some of the sixty-plus-year-old bargain-basement leases. The 2017 legislature is just getting warming up for another in what seem to be their endless rounds of service cuts and fee increases driven by revenue shortfalls. Updating existing leases seems more realistic than some of the desperate-crazy revenue ideas that pop up from time to time in legislature. Privatizing rest areas, state-run online daily fantasy-sports betting, legalizing resort gambling, and even floating casinos on Lake Champlain have all been kicked around at one time

Vail Resorts CEO Robert Katz told a business magazine in 2016 the key to making money in the ski industry isn’t necessarily finding more skiers–it’s getting more money from the ones you already have.

Perhaps for Vermont State the key to getting more revenue is revisiting the leases we already have with wealthy out-of-state corporations, not in pretending floating casinos make sense.

Still searching the Extinction Burst

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On November 9, just hours after Trump won the presidential election, hits on a six-year-old Green Mountain Daily diary spiked. And it still continues. extinctstats3 The GMD diary by the late Julie Waters was called The Extinction Burst. It offered her thoughts on using the behavioral concept called the extinction burst in a political application as a template to respond to what then was the new and increasingly strident anti-Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Tea Party movement.

In psychological terms extinction refers to the process of no longer providing the reinforcement that has been maintaining a certain behavior. About an extinction burst Julie wrote: “You’ve got a child who is throwing tantrums.  In the past, the tantrums have gotten the child attention, which is exactly what the child wants.” To end this behavior cycle the tantrum should be ignored. And although there may be an increase — i.e.,  a burst of intensity — at the point where the tactic is no longer achieving the usual result,  the tantrum more often than not will end. Once the attention the child desired has been consistently and persistently withheld, the behavior cycle is broken and corrected. Or so the theory goes.

The problem Julie noted then (and it is even clearer now when applied to President Trump’s tantrums) is that some behavioral reinforcements happen without our participation and we can’t really control them — especially in politics. The following from the psychological definition is less than reassuring: Despite the name [Extinction Burst], not every explosive reaction to adverse stimuli subsides to extinction. Indeed a small minority of individuals persist in their reaction indefinitely.

I often check the GMD stats and they indicate the old diary isn’t going extinct; it is still getting regular hits. What does a steady flow of people searching out Extinction Burst on a political blog since Trump’s election indicate? I suppose people are still searching out coping strategies, or it could simply be the coincidental coupling of two Google search words extinction and burst suddenly becoming relevant .

By the way, other heavily searched words since Donald’s victory in November are “fascism,” “bigot” and “racism,” “socialism,” “resurgence,” “xenophobia” and “misogyny” among the most searched-for words. That is according to Merriam-Webster. But hey, what does she know?

oopcurseOne thing I do know is that Trump’s retrograde presidency is and will continue to be impossible to ignore.

[Ed. Note: We’re all thoroughly evolved here at GMD and are well aware dinosaurs and humans never walked the earth together-except in the funny papers and a taxpayer-funded Bible theme park in Kentucky,USA.]

Trump White House: “…it’s like a finely tuned machine”

National, Uncategorized,

yearightDonald Trump answered questions from the press for over an hour Thursday after announcing who his newest nominee for Secretary of Labor will be. His first nominee, a former fast-food executive  had withdrawn his name from consideration, due to lack of support from all Democrats and many Republicans in the Senate.

Trump  fielded questions after more than a week’s worth of administrative madness and chaos at his White House. You can review the eight craziest moments in his press conference here. His performance lasted for over an hour, he dodged questions, attacked the press repeatedly, and several times insisted his White House was running like “a fine-tuned machine.” 

And Donald Trump set another record this week; a new low approval rating. A PEW Research poll reported Thursday had his approval at 39 percent, another historic low for presidents in their first weeks in office.

To cap this off Trump is skipping out of town this weekend, taking his reality show on the road. As if needing to reassure himself, he will be dashing off to do a campaign-style rally-performance for Donald-friendly crowds in Florida. He’s leaving his “finely tuned” machine in Washington to hum along on its own.

Donald may simply need time to refocus his vision and get ready for the next week’s challenges. TrumpsidedownHowever, given Trump’s fiascos to date, it would be no surprise if a visit to the upside-down house in Orlando, Florida was on tap.