What is it with the media’s love of meaningless polls?

In an article in today’s Rutland Herald, staff writer Susan Smallheer may have slipped and fallen prey to Vermont poll syndrome by letting another questionable poll punch above its weight. This stands out from Smallheer’s usual Vermont Yankee coverage.  

The paywalled article: Report: Entergy will keep operating Yankee, without state permit; Houston firm predicts a courtroom showdown between Vt., Entergy is about Jefferies Equity Research firm’s report that surmises Entergy’s coming strategy. Many doubt the study’s conclusions that Entergy will just continue to operate the plant and fight Vermont in the courts. The study includes an aggressive disclaimer:

Jefferies does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. Investors should be aware that Jefferies may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report

 

So how does a pound of feathers ever weigh more than a pound? Smallheer claims:

The Jefferies report also gave weight to the recent results of The Doyle Poll, the unscientific poll conducted during town meeting by Sen. William Doyle, a Washington County Republican, which showed that 45 percent of Vermonters now favored Vermont Yankee to continue to operate. The poll, which is voluntary and open to repeated participation, showed a flip from 2010, when Vermonters were 52 percent against the relicensing, in the wake of the radioactive tritium leaks at Yankee.

 

But this poll, Doyle’s latest in his long running series of voluntary, easily manipulated polls, was taken on town meeting day before the almost month old Fukushima power plant problems.

Can’t imagine how the Jefferies report – insightful or not – gives weight to a thoroughly unscientific local poll taken before the Japanese nuclear accident which may shift attitudes. It still weighs a pound.  

In a recent report  The politics’ of health care on WCAX  (aka Vermont’s most trusted news source) three people were quoted; a pro,a con and a “political analyst”.

The pro and con, no problem .One a member of the pro single payer Health Care is a Human Right group and the con , executive director and chief fund-raiser of Vermonter’s for Health Care Freedom. The pro, the con, no problem were clearly identified.

Ah, but the third person the “political analyst” Chris Graff who dispensed this wisdom:  

"It's in the specifics; the old devil is in the details. You will see lobbying become more intense,”

   Indeed the lobbying may be underway even as he speaks.

Isn’t it long past over due, after five years as National Life’s Vice President of Corporate Communications & Government Relations Chris Graff  comes out from behind the neutral moniker “political analyst” ?  Especially when quoted in a story about Vermont’s biggest proposed health care /insurance regulation changes ever.  

  Even as the Fukushima crisis drops off and on the front pages, several hell-for-leather lets harness the god given power of the atom pro-nuclear bloggers may be showing stress cracks.  

At the top of the list  is Rod Adams AKA atomicrod who at the very start of the fast moving crisis  confidently released a blog titled:  Performance of old nuclear plants in Japan demonstrates why much of current regulations are overkill    

I also think it is important to recognize the opportunity to explain to people why there will be no health consequences to the public from challenges at Japanese nuclear plants and why that prediction could confidently be made almost as soon as the earth stopped shaking, long before all of the details of the events began to unfold.  

Writing today atomicrod seems less inclined to predicting the future, saying in part “What this event has taught me is that I need to retreat a bit.”

While still making it clear he is 100% touched  with atoms he ads:

However, I am now certain that not all operating reactors are equally safe, equally well maintained, or equally well sited. I have always known that there are risks associate with nuclear energy – it is such a concentrated source of power that it is impossible to ignore just how quickly it can get out of control.  

…far short of a catastrophe

Another supporter goes wobbly “ It is clear that LWRs are not 100% safe.”  then speedily rallies to the idea that, for him at least Fukushima is only an accident and not a catastrophe.

To date the consequences of the Dai-ichi accident have fallen far short of a catastrophe. But whether the public is aware of the distinction between an accident and a catastrophy is open to question. For the enemies of nuclear power, accident and catastrophe are the same thing.

 

Hydrogen explosions are bad and should be avoided !  

By far my favorite release is Meredith Angwin’s yesvy blog lessons learned diary.  She primly notes two root causes:    

My two lessons are:

– upgrading emergency preparedness, especially back-up power

– preventing hydrogen explosions.

She discusses the spent fuel pools then ads

Still, if the Japanese reactors had had available back-up power and if they had been able to prevent hydrogen explosions, the fuel pools would have been fine.

Yes, lesson learned : if only they hadn’t had those problems they wouldn’t have had those other problems. Safe clean logic.  

 How about a snapshot-sized look at the state’s obscure captive insurance industry?

Briefly, a captive insurance business is an insurance risk business controlled by a parent company.  Worldwide Vermont places first with $135.4 billion assets under management and has the third largest number of licensed captive insurance entities. The traditional corporate tax havens of Bermuda and the Cayman Island are first and second. In Vermont it’s big, operates largely below the day to day radar, and changes are afoot.

Frequent regulatory tweaking of often little-noticed rules is standard procedure in this business segment. Revisions are so common that the director of the financial services in the Vermont Department of Economic Development recently said  “I think our enhancements to our captive law are an annual tradition,”  

Contrasting starkly with what might be expected from regulators, especially after recent insurance and banking horrors, are accommodating remarks explaining how easily these changes happen. Speaking of recent changes undertaken David Provost, Vermont's deputy commissioner of captive insurance said

“Basically this was something that the industry requested. They[the industry] wanted to see the option to have incorporated protected cells.”

And they must want tax credits too! New laws will make permanent a first year premium tax credit of $7,500.00 per entity which had been temporarily in place for 18 months

Captive insurers as portals to cheap bank credit?

Captive insurance corporations are financial risk management insurance companies which insure investments of parent companies. Captive cells and individual cells are separate enterprises but through various forms of entanglement remain connected with their captive or sponsor partners. Changes to the regulations governing captive insurance cells are in the works; tucked into bill H.468. Current restrictions on cell businesses will be eliminated and replaced by enhanced discretionary power to be wielded by the commissioner .

This change will eliminate the current restrictions on cell business. Business written by a sponsored captive will no longer be required to have it be fronted, reinsured or secured by a trust. This requirement will now be at the discretion of the commissioner.  

While Vermont modifies certain regulations, captive insurers may soon take advantage of an interesting quirk in the Federal Home Loan Bank Act of 1932.

Federal Home Loan Bank Act allows companies to use their captive insurers as portals to cheap bank credit. A budding concept is for captive owners, nonbank companies included, to use their captive insurers as portals to cheap bank credit under a federal banking law enacted decades before the first captive appeared.

While captive experts do not foresee the arrangement transforming captives into profit centers, some say it could enhance a facility's liquidity and claims-paying ability or assist its parent company in accessing tough-to-find credit or lowering borrowing costs  

Vermont’s deputy commissioner Provost is reported to be cool on this concept and suggests the federal housing agency was misinformed about the nature of captives. Provost and a regulator from Delaware’s captive insurance commission think federal home loan bank would quickly reject a captive or any applicant that fails the asset test.

— Provost mentions the need for “a lot more information” before he would support it but appears to leave the door accommodatingly ajar for Vermont’s 900 captives.

He said parent companies could find better ways to line up credit but that he would consider allowing it if he was shown that the parent faced problems obtaining credit.

Sodexo the institutional food service giant has filed  suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against the Service Employees International Union(SEIU). The  SEIU is accused by Sodexo, in US district court Virginia of a “strong-arm” scheme in it’s effort to unionize 80,000 non-union employees. The SEIU says the suit is a bogus attempt to draw attention away from Sodexo’s anti-union activity.

“…It is not about which union represents Sodexo workers, but about whether Sodexo workers can bargain collectively at all,”

Sodexo’s RICO complaint claims

“This case is not about traditional union organizing. It is about a group of powerful labor organizations that have abandoned the traditional legal framework for organizing employees into unions, in favor of old-fashioned, strong-arm tactics to get what they want,”

   

Speaking of strong-arm rackets, the old established law firm handling the suit for Sodexo is Hunton & Williams (since 1901!) has been up to some other interesting projects lately.

They have found themselves under intense scrutiny since their questionable plans for corporate clients were outed by “Anonymous” the online entity. The plan made public was an attempt to profit from channeling funds for corporate clients (Bank of America, US Chamber of Commerce were named) to investigative security companies. The ultimate aim was discrediting anti corporate critics and thus to disarm potential problem makers.   

Hunton & Williams stood to be the channel for $2 million in monthly subcontractor payments […]build a lucrative practice around investigating critics such as U.S. Chamber Watch and WikiLeaks, and it worked with three private security companies in a partnership they called “Team Themis,” the e-mails say.

Lawyers saw “potential for huge gains” as a result of liberal anger, one security employee wrote in an e-mail.

After being exposed Hunton & Williams claims to have ended it’s involvement in the project.

HBGary Federal, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies  the firms approached by Hunton & Williams as part of  “Team Themis” are now  under Congressional scrutiny   A dozen congressman including Vermont Congressman Peter Welch signed a letter suggesting investigation. The letter says in part  

HBGary Federal emails also revealed that the security contractors along with Hunton & Williams had also “planned a campaign to sabotage and discredit critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,”  as well as the trade union federation Change to Win, the Center for American Progress and other organizations

   If for no other reason than lack of creativity a better reason is needed than the one currently offered for continuing to take taxes off the table:

Our citizens are strapped as it is, and we must acknowledge the competitive reality that our taxes are already high compared to most other states. ~  Gov. Shumlin

Vermont’s Spring legislative season aka budget/service cutting is in full swing and Peter Shumlin says in an opinion piece making the rounds of the state papers that his budget includes “strong medicine”.

We must have “fortitude” he says.  

It’s also time for a better explanation.

Governor Shumlin noted recently that fewer than 200 Vermont residents filed income greater than $500,000 in more than one year.

“My job is to keep those 200 people in Vermont and grow the base,” Shumlin said.

Why are two hundred Vermonters fed and watered so considerately by our governor?  

The rest of us, those prescribed “strong medicine” and from whom “fortitude” is demanded deserve a better argument for brushing new revenue (taxes!) out of the equation. The  well chewed assertion still in re-runs from the Douglas years that the wealthy will spread their wings and fly away if they pay their fair share is overworked almost to the point of embarrassment.  

This argument is particularly stale given that national and local polls have shown broad support for taxing the wealthier citizens to mitigate budget cuts.

A Vermont based poll shows:   Of the 508 respondents surveyed in the telephone poll, 56.9 percent said they “strongly support” “raising income taxes for households earning $250,000 or more per year.” Another 21.5 percent said they “somewhat support” the proposal. Slightly more than 11 percent said they “strongly oppose” it; 7.1 percent “somewhat oppose” it; and 3 percent “don’t know.”  

  Wisconsin Gov. Walker, despite falling poll numbers and threatened recalls, sounds for all the world like a man who believes he won. He is even declaring his anti-collective bargaining legislation “progressive, innovative” and “reform that leads the country.” Ohio, Michigan and Indiana are all promoting variations on this anti-labor theme.

Is this a new template for other state Republican legislators? New RNC Chairman and Wisconsinite Reince Priebus, backer of the Walker way, said:

“I’m proud of what Scott Walker did in Wisconsin,” […] “I think that he is leading not only the state of Wisconsin, but he is leading this country.“

Priebus is scheduled to speak with Vermont Republicans touting Walker’s tactics.  The Vermont State Employees Association (VSEA) and the Vermont AFL-CIO have called on the Vermont Republican Party to rescind his invitation due to “his anti-worker, anti-middle-class message.”  

Smoothly paving the way for Priebus’ anti-worker proselytizing is top Vermont Republican Jim Douglas who weighed in favorably on Gov. Walker. Significantly, and as if to say to Vermonters, ‘resistance is futile’ he made a point of attacking Wisconsin Dems actions. Douglas said of the democratic legislators’ action against budget cuts and for labor rights

That's irresponsible […] I was pleased to hear leaders of the Vermont Senate from both parties declare that they would never resort to such a childish move.

An estimated 100,000 people turned out in Madison Wisc. this past Saturday to support the 14 democratic state senators. Its unlikely any of the 14 Wisconsin Democratic state senators rallying this weekend ever dreamed their legislative process would break down to the point where leaving the session in protest would be a desirable option. It did prove an option they needed and used to their advantage.

It  seems far fetched a similar situation could ever happen here. Few if any Vermont legislators would dream Vermont’s legislative process could suffer such a breakdown and it is an unlikely event.

But they may have already disarmed and Jim Douglas and Reince Priebus are sure glad.

Would Vermont legislators ever consider flight?  “No,” Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell, D-Windsor, said Monday. “I hate to see any legislator walk off the job like that,” he said. “The legislative process is about discourse and about coming up with solutions.”

Of course, Jim = No Jobs, that approach works only when you actually have someone willing to openly and sincerely engage in discourse; someone willing to accept three-quarters of a loaf; someone clearly unlike Scott Walker, or John Boehner or Reince Priebus.

There isn't much information available now but nothing about this can be good for the people living near the plant, the workers or this 30 year old BWR facility.

Increased radioactive levels had been detected outside the plant prior to the explosion.

The BBC has a disturbing image of the plant engulfed in smoke, steam from what they are calling “a powerful explosion”

A massive explosion has struck a Japanese nuclear power plant after Friday's devastating earthquake. A huge pall of smoke was seen coming from the plant at Fukushima and several workers were injured. Japanese officials fear a meltdown at one of the plant's reactors after radioactive material was detected outside it

 I heard him hard at work today carrying water for anti-union Wisconsin Governor Scott.

Bright and early on VPR Douglas was offering “useful lessons for Vermonters” regarding Wisconsin on the stations’ commentary feature.  

He said:

The governor of Wisconsin made it quite clear during his campaign where he stood on the state's fiscal challenges.

The implication being that Walker’s policies toward crushing public unions and collective bargaining should also have been clear to voters before election day.

Douglas then praises this implied clarity

Frankly, I like an elected official who does what he says during the campaign. Many don't!

Many don’t!

Certainly it wasn’t so clear to someone that was there. Wisconsin Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, who said in February“Walker never talked about doing away with collective bargaining rights during the campaign.”

John Tures Associate Professor of Political Science at LaGrange College checked Walkers campaign website

I went to Scott Walker’s 2010 campaign website. I searched his “issues” site, which did not contain a single detail about unions. I also tried looking in his press releases and news clips, without any luck. I read dozens of articles about his campaign appearances, but couldn’t find anything about unions. Unions aren’t mentioned on this site until after the bill is introduced last month.

Regardless of how you feel about unions, it’s clear that GOP Governor Walker wasn’t candid with the Wisconsin voters about his plans.

 

Take a look here scottwalker.org candidate Walker’s issue webpage    

According to the New York Times, White House staff members describe a happier workplace since consolidating responsibilities and smoothing lines of communication under new chief of staff, William Daley. This follows the departure of Rahm Emanuel, the “idea-a-minute dynamo”, whom they say engineered Obama’s brilliant last minute lame duck session rescue of the soon-to-expire Bush tax cuts. Thanks Rahm.

Focusing on long-term strategic goals and being less personality driven is the new order of the day for the Obama White House.

With Mr. Daley taking the lead, there is more outreach to Republicans and business groups.

Other changes include eliminating the White House health care office and moving the energy czar’s responsibilities to the Domestic Policy Council. The new strategy includes not weighing in as often on day to day news events but only “…at a moment of his choosing when the public is paying attention, it will be more influential.” as White House communication director said.

Here is what this looks like in practice

…the White House mostly has sought to stay out of the fray in Madison, Wis., and other state capitals where Republican governors are battling public employee unions and Democratic lawmakers over collective bargaining rights. When West Wing officials discovered that the Democratic National Committee had mobilized Mr. Obama’s national network to support the protests, they angrily reined in the staff at the party headquarters.

After last fall’s Election Day shellacking, an "enthusiasm gap" or "turn-out gap" was blamed for Democratic losses in the house. This gap existed most heavily in swing states that Obama needs for the 2012 election. States like Ohio, Wisconsin, and Indiana are now the frontlines in the Republican attack on organized labor. This gap may be in the process of correcting itself at the grass roots level as some polls show Republican Governor of Wisconsin Walker with a 57% disapproval rating due to his anti-labor machinations.  Ever careful Obama may not want to take risks on this issue that he sees as jeopardizing his relations with big business or stress his ongoing battle of budget cutting with the Congress. His involvement might also energize the Tea Baggers. He and his team may figure, why go out on a limb for labor if it's not "a moment of his choosing"?  

Sadly right now Obama is perceived as sitting out what might be a major pivot point in organized labor’s recent fortunes.  

No one could argue that as President he isn’t a long careful distance from this campaign pledge