( – promoted by Sue Prent)

Danish Ambassador Peter Taksoe-Jensen spent a weekend in Vermont this month traveling with me to town meetings in Burlington, Brattleboro and Montpelier. Large crowds came out to learn about a social system very different from our own which provides extraordinary security and opportunity for the people of Denmark.

Today in the United States there is a massive amount of economic anxiety. Unemployment is much too high, wages and income are too low, millions of Americans are struggling to find affordable health care and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider.

While young working families search desperately for affordable child care, older Americans worry about how they can retire with dignity. Many of our people are physically exhausted as they work the longest hours of any industrialized country and have far less paid vacation time than other major countries

Denmark is a small, homogenous nation of about 5.5 million people. The United States is a melting pot of more than 315 million people. No question about it, Denmark and the United States are very different countries. Nonetheless, are there lessons that we can learn from Denmark?

In Denmark, social policy in areas like health care, child care, education and protecting the unemployed are part of a “solidarity system” that makes sure that almost no one falls into economic despair. Danes pay very high taxes, but in return enjoy a quality of life that many Americans would find hard to believe. As the ambassador mentioned, while it is difficult to become very rich in Denmark no one is allowed to be poor. The minimum wage in Denmark is about twice that of the United States and people who are totally out of the labor market or unable to care for themselves have a basic income guarantee of about $100 per day.

Health care in Denmark is universal, free of charge and high quality. Everybody is covered as a right of citizenship. The Danish health care system is popular, with patient satisfaction much higher than in our country. In Denmark, every citizen can choose a doctor in their area.

Prescription drugs are inexpensive and free for those under 18 years of age. Interestingly, despite their universal coverage, the Danish health care system is far more cost-effective than ours. They spend about 11 percent of their GDP on health care. We spend almost 18 percent.

When it comes to raising families, Danes understand that the first few years of a person’s life are the most important in terms of intellectual and emotional development. In order to give strong support to expecting parents, mothers get four weeks of paid leave before giving birth. They get another 14 weeks afterward. Expecting fathers get two paid weeks off, and both parents have the right to 32 more weeks of leave during the first nine years of a child’s life. The state covers three-quarters of the cost of child care, more for lower-income workers.

At a time when college education in the United States is increasingly unaffordable and the average college graduate leaves school more than $25,000 in debt, virtually all higher education in Denmark is free. That includes not just college but graduate schools as well, including medical school.

In a volatile global economy, the Danish government recognizes that it must invest heavily in training programs so workers can learn new skills to meet changing workforce demands. It also understands that when people lose their jobs they must have adequate income while they search for new jobs. If a worker loses his or her job in Denmark, unemployment insurance covers up to 90 percent of earnings for as long as two years. Here benefits can be cut off after as few as 26 weeks.

In Denmark, adequate leisure and family time are considered an important part of having a good life. Every worker in Denmark is entitled to five weeks of paid vacation plus 11 paid holidays. The United States is the only major country that does not guarantee its workers paid vacation time. The result is that fewer than half of lower-paid hourly wage workers in our country receive any paid vacation days.

Recently the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that the Danish people rank among the happiest in the world among some 40 countries that were studied. America did not crack the top 10.

As Ambassador Taksoe-Jensen explained, the Danish social model did not develop overnight. It has evolved over many decades and, in general, has the political support of all parties across the political spectrum. One of the reasons for that may be that the Danes are, politically and economically, a very engaged and informed people. In their last election, which lasted all of three weeks and had no TV ads, 89 percent of Danes voted.

In Denmark, more than 75 percent of the people are members of trade unions. In America today, as a result of the political and economic power of corporate America and the billionaire class, we are seeing a sustained and brutal attack against the economic well-being of the American worker. As the middle class disappears, benefits and guarantees that workers have secured over the last century are now on the chopping block.

Republicans, and too many Democrats, are supporting cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition, education, and other basic needs — at the same time as the very rich become much richer. Workers’ rights, the ability to organize unions, and the very existence of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) are now under massive assault.

In the U.S. Senate today, my right-wing colleagues talk a lot about “freedom” and limiting the size of government. Here’s what they really mean.

They want ordinary Americans to have the freedom NOT to have health care in a country where 45,000 of our people who die each year because they don’t get to a doctor when they should. They want young people in our country to have the freedom NOT to go to college, and join the 400,000 young Americans unable to afford a higher education and the millions struggling with huge college debts. They want children and seniors in our country to have the freedom NOT to have enough food to eat, and join the many millions who are already hungry. And on and on it goes!

In Denmark, there is a very different understanding of what “freedom” means. In that country, they have gone a long way to ending the enormous anxieties that comes with economic insecurity. Instead of promoting a system which allows a few to have enormous wealth, they have developed a system which guarantees a strong minimal standard of living to all — including the children, the elderly and the disabled.

The United States, in size, culture, and the diversity of our population, is a very different country from Denmark. Can we, however, learn some important lessons from them? You bet we can.

We had a bad week at our house because our three year old Pomeranian rescue suddenly had a first-time seizure, which rapidly became cluster seizures; and, on Tuesday we had to rush her to the emergency vet in Williston.

They stabelized her, identified her condition as idiopathic epilepsy, and got her started on the regime that will allow her to live a relatively normal life hereafter.  

When it comes to our families and our pets, we’re pretty good at accepting that, following a health crisis, some permanent changes must be adopted immediately in order to avoid a repeat or escalation of the crisis. A single life-threatening incident, coming out of the blue, is usually sufficient to get us on the right track.

Why does this proactive instinct not extend to our response to environmental crisis?

In the aftermath of the record twister that leveled Moore, Oklahoma we are learning that few buildings in the community provide so much as an above-ground “safe room,” let alone a basement, for inhabitants to wait out the storm. This, despite the fact that this little town lies squarely in a region known as “Tornado Alley.”

That deficiency extends even to the schools, one of which collapsed in the storm, killing seven children.

Given the storm history of the area, wouldn’t you think the local permit body would proactively require, not “recommend,” a minimum amount of protection in each new build?   But no; we are told Oklahomans are so hostile to the role of government in their lives that they will not tolerate such regulation.  

It is only when you read between the lines that it becomes clear that cost is the real driver here:

“When you look at the flat land, and the amount it would cost to excavate and remove the dirt, the cost of the foundation to build a basement just adds a substantial amount to the cost of a new home,” Mr. McCarty (a local builder) said.

Before we get to feeling too superior to Oklahoma in the regulatory proaction department, we need only look back to Hurricane Irene and Governor Shumlin’s sanguine order to disregard Vermont’s own stream protection rules in the aftermath of the storm.  The very purpose of those rules was to minimize the risk of similar events unleashing even worse outcomes on both the environment and the population.  

And here we are, poised once again at the beginning of an active storm season, having made relatively little progress toward adopting stricter protocols for storm mitigation; and having lessened the likelihood that existing rules will be enforced, by underfunding the work of the Agency of Natural Resources.

The new reality is that, if we are to cope with growing climate disturbance and the costly environmental and human impacts that come in its wake, we must invest even more money in the process, and support regulatory initiative as the positive it is for a sustainable future. The alternative is a future little different from the present plight of Moore, OK.

Before we enroll too enthusiastically in the current meme, that regulation in Vermont should be “streamlined;” let’s devote a little more concern to effective enforcement.

There certainly should be an ongoing effort to avoid redundancy and inefficiency in the state’s regulatory systems.

However, the commitment should not be to making developers’ jobs easier, but rather to ensuring that Vermont’s natural environment will continue to support a healthy ecosystem (including our human population) into the distant future.  It should not be to favor short-term business interests over the science of long-range sustainability.

Too much government intervention?  Just ask those homeless Oklahomans whether they wouldn’t appreciate a little more about now.  

Today millions of Americans will pause from their barbecues and family gatherings to remember the American heroes who fought and died in the service of their country. This is altogether fitting, for even when the cause has not been just, they served, and risked all, on our behalf.

By coincidence, today is also the ninetieth birthday of a man who least deserves another day, not to speak of another year, of life. Unlike our fallen heroes, the life of Henry Kissinger is marked not by sacrifice but by self-aggrandizement, not by devotion to our founding ideals, but by their utter rejection.

Whether we speak of his direction of unrestrained bombing of civilian populations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, his engineering of Pinochet's coup d'etat against the democratically elected president of Chile, of which he observed,  “I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves,” or his support for Indonesia's genocidal invasion of East Timor, we are speaking of a man who has become wealthy and gained the regard of political elites, all the while escaping any accounting for his crimes.

Today, remember our fallen heroes, but also spare a moment for the victims of America's oldest and most vicious war criminal, Henry Kissinger.

The Jeremy Dodge land purchase threatens to become a political tar baby for Governor Shumlin — something that causes lasting harm to a politician’s image. (Think John Kerry and windsurfing, or George H.W. Bush not knowing the price of milk.) The Governor apparently realized this on Friday, when he stopped issuing brief written statements and instead held a series of tete-a-tetes with selected State House reporters.

In those interviews, Shumlin gave some ground, opening the door for renegotiation of the deal — this time, with a lawyer representing Dodge. But he hasn’t gone far enough to unstick the tar baby. And the longer he waits, and the more iterations of his story come out, the harder it’ll be to put this deal behind him.

So, what’s he still doing wrong? Well, how about this classic bit of Shumlinia, combining narcissism, myopia, and a straw-man argument in a single brief statement:

“He needed action right there and then,” Shumlin said during his first interview since news of the controversial land deal broke Wednesday. “I could not in good conscience walk away. … I just wasn’t going to do it. Now, maybe some folks can do that. I don’t have the ability to do that – that’s just the truth.”

So, in Shumlin’s mind, “helping a neighbor” means “buying his assets at a rock-bottom price when he has nowhere else to turn.” No other options came to mind? Like, helping Dodge achieve the substantial tax relief he was entitled to? (See below.)

Apparently not, since he posited two, and only two, possible courses of action: buying Dodge’s land, or walking away. And, in the Governor’s mind, his critics would have preferred that he walk away. Well, that’s ridiculous, and Shumlin knows it.

After the jump: a classic refusal to take responsibility, the tax relief Jeremy Dodge should have gotten, and a nasty little surprise in the VTDigger interview.

Here’s another classic Shumlinism: He absolutely refuses to acknowledge any wrongdoing on his own part. Key exchange with VTDigger’s Andrew Stein:

Q: Do you think you did anything wrong in this matter whatsoever?

(Long Pause)

A: I understand why people can have divergent views of whether I should have gotten involved at all. In the end, I am an individual who lives in the state of Vermont, and I didn’t have the capacity to turn to a neighbor in a really desperate situation – someone for whom many in the community have no sympathy because of the horrendous things he’s done – and see a guy who is working to better himself and basically sentence him back to jail. I couldn’t do that.

“Long pause,” indeed. And instead of bearing any responsibility for allowing Dodge to go unrepresented in the deal, or failing to advise Dodge of other potential recourses, Shumlin shifts the blame to his critics. And, just for good measure, casually tosses a handful of mud on Dodge’s reputation. (The Governor is never shy about reminding us of Dodge’s unsavory past.)

The potential tax relief available to Dodge was outlined by Peter Hirschfeld on Thursday (article NOT paywalled) the Mitchell Family Organ. To recap, Dodge inherited the property and home in 2009. Since then, the tax bills have been piling up, but only because Dodge was ignorant of his options:

Between 2010 and 2012, according to state records, no one filed a homestead declaration on the Dodge property. Dodge, who says he never made more than $10,000 in each of those years, was charged full freight on property taxes as a result. His bill for tax year 2012 – the property was at that point appraised at $233,700 – came in at $4,597.11.

Income sensitivity would have cut the bill to a fraction of that amount – the law limits property-tax bills of low-income homeowners’ to about 5 percent of annual income.

It’s too late for Dodge to get full relief under a homestead declaration, but he could have sought at least some retroactive relief from the town of East Montpelier. In other words, if not for Dodge’s ignorance of the law, he probably could have retained the property indefinitely.

And Shumlin, as a longtime lawmaker and real estate investor, must know the law as well as anyone. It beggars belief to think that Shumlin wasn’t fully aware of Dodge’s options. I have to conclude that he chose not to offer that information to his neighbor in need.

That rather uncharitable inference gets some support from this statement by Shumlin to VTDigger’s Andrew Stein:

I became aware because people told me his place was coming up for tax sale, and people said you really ought to buy it because he’s your neighbor.

I’ve never bought anything on a tax sale, but I felt like I owed him the courtesy of telling him I knew there was a tax sale. I didn’t want it to be a surprise if I showed up there.

And there’s a twist I haven’t seen anywhere else. Before Jeremy Dodge ever told Shumlin of his troubles, the Governor was fully aware that Dodge’s property was about to go to tax auction. And Shumlin planned to bid on the property.

In other words, before this selfless act of Samaritanship ever crossed his mind, Shumlin had already decided to buy the land.

Puts things in a different light, doesn’t it?

When you look at this picture, taken by Stefan Hard of the Times Argus, you understand Shumlin’s interest — and his current reluctance to void the transaction.

The shining house on the hill at right is the Governor’s bucolic getaway. The smaller structure on the left is Dodge’s place. And hey, if you’re a high-profile figure who’d like a little privacy (and we all know how jealously Shumlin guards his personal life), wouldn’t you want to snap up the next house over?

Shumlin, of course, puts a positive spin on his insistence that Jeremy Dodge vacate the property his family has owned for decades. To Shumlin, the Dodge manse is too far gone to be rehabbed, and Dodge would be better off somewhere else. (Which didn’t stop the Governor from charging Dodge $1000 a month in “rent” for a house he thinks is unfit to live in.) This ignores the obvious affection for the land felt by Dodge and his adult children. Did anyone ask Jeremy Dodge where he’d prefer to live?  

Memorial Day Mourning

“…My community service has been doing the duty that the courts shrink from – calling attention to war crimes and trying to stop war crimes…”— Elliott Adams.

It is Memorial Day again. Some will celebrate. Some will march in parades. Some will rally around the flag. Some will go shopping. Some will mourn. I am among the mourners.

I mourn the execution of Pvt Eddie Slovik – the gentle soldier who was too gentle to kill. He refused to fight. On January 31, 1945, the US executed him before a firing squad. He was the only soldier executed during WW2.

There are some other veterans who have earned our respect. Pfc Bradley Manning is a hero. He has not been convicted of any crime. His contribution to humanity will go down in history along with Thoreau and so many others. Through his imprisonment, Manning has exposed the dark side of the US Justice system. How long should any prisoner be held without trial? That is the question that Manning has exposed for all the world to see.

The results of the last election show that 98% of United States voters support the foreign policy of the Democratic/Republican Party. That includes support for war, torture, and imprisonment without due process. 98% of the people, as evidenced by their votes, are not with Manning – but many of us are. Being in a small minority is inconvenient. Supporting crimes against humanity is worse – not an option for people of conscience. More important – history will be on the side of Manning. Someday, Manning will be celebrated as the hero he is. It took many years for the film, The Execution of Private Slovik, to be produced. Someday there will be a film titled, The Imprisonment of Pfc Bradley Manning.

I mourn mostly for those we have killed – and I mourn for those we haven’t killed yet, but will in the days ahead. I mourn for all of the mothers and fathers who put their children to bed at night and wonder if this will be the night that they are killed by a drone attack.

As a nation, none can compare with the United States when it comes to the ability to slaughter innocent civilians. Now we can do it from the comfort of our own neighborhoods… at no risk to our own safety. Some believe that the use of drones is a cowardly approach to warfare. Others argue that the use of Drones is a war crime. No matter how one feels about drones, it is certain that drone-warfare has raised the killing of civilians to a new level. The slaughter of little girls walking to school is a crime against humanity.

Do the veterans who sit at a computer thousands of miles away from any danger deserve our respect? Their safety is not at risk. Should they be ‘thanked for their service’? Is killing-by-computer really an example of heroism? Does wearing a uniform make anyone a hero? Does wearing a uniform give the moral or legal right to kill unarmed civilians? Really, how can ‘heroism’ be defined. Heroism is the willingness to stand alone in opposition to evil and injustice.

When I think about heroes, I always think about my friend, Elliott Adams. During the 60s, Adams volunteered for the Army. He fought in Vietnam. He was a paratrooper. He was wounded. After hospitalization, he was redeployed to Korea, and then Alaska. All of those things might make Adams seem like a hero to most people, but that is not why I think of him as a hero. Adams is a former president of Veterans for Peace, but that also is not why he is a hero to me. More than anyone I have known, Adams has dedicated his life, since being discharged from the military, to working for global peace. He has gone to Gaza with Physicians for Social Responsibility. More recently Adams has been at the forefront of the protests against the use of drones at Hancock Air Base near Syracuse, NY. Adams has been arrested while participating in peaceful protest.

Below is Adams’ Sentencing Speech as he delivered it to the Court. This is one of the most articulate anti-war statements on record.

“I appreciate the bench’s effort to understand the arguments made – arguments involving local law, international law and, even the principles of civil disobedience.

I am proud to accept the consequences of my acts and any jail time. I do not want any suspended sentence. If you give me one, also please let me know how I can violate it before I leave the courtroom. I do not have money to pay a court; I spend what little money this old man has trying to bring about justice. My community service has been doing the duty that the courts shrink from – calling attention to war crimes and trying to stop war crimes. Standing in this court a community service, it is the little I can do for society.” Elliott Adams

Rosemarie Jackowski is a peace activist. She was arrested on March 20, 2003 in a peaceful protest against the war.                                              She is author of Banned in Vermont.

I posted this yesterday on Facebook, and now I’m posting it here, word for politically incorrect word.  After reading Peter Hirschfeld’s ‘masterpiece’ in this morning‘s TIMES-ARGUS, wherein he notes that Jeremy Dodge is a “ne’er-do-well” with a criminal record, including domestic abuse, and possessing “anti-social tendencies,” I am outraged that there now seems to be an attempt to apologize and ‘explain-away’ the despicable behavior of a sitting Vermont Governor.  Shumlin should resign and move to New Jersey.  What’s left of THE MOB would love him.

The Vermont Democratic Party needs to CLEAN HOUSE.  Shumlin should go.  Sorrell should go.  And perhaps Deb Markowitz’s role as Secretary of State should be looked at in regards to the Vt. Dem 2010 Primary recount.  (or was she simply just WATERING HER PLANTS?–I noticed Deb’s Plants Story during IRENE got no play here on GMD…hmmm…)

There.

Now for the fun stuff.

Friday, May 24th FACEBOOK post:

BREAKING NEWS…Governor Shumlin Explains About Jeremy Dodge…just an added aside…10 seconds ago…

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.  

UPDATE: The Brattleboro Reformer now has the story.

http://www.reformer.com/ci_233…

 There are more problems for the Brattleboro Retreat and for the Department of Mental Health's increasing reliance on the Retreat as a location for involuntary mental health treatment.

Late Friday afternoon the weekly update circulated by the Department included the following statement:

 This week, the Brattleboro Retreat received its report from the Centers  for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS).  CMS provides deemed status to entities which meet Medicare health and safety conditions.  Surveys of deemed status are conducted when the Secretary of Health and Human Services determines that there is a need based on substantial allegations of deficiencies which would adversely affect the health and safety of patients.  Once surveyed, if a psychiatric hospital is found to have deficiencies with respect to compliance with one or more Conditions of Participation, deemed status must be removed. 

 On February 21, 2013, a substantial allegation survey was conducted and the Retreat followed up by submitting a plan of correction, which was accepted. 

 On April 18, 2013, CMS conducted a full Medicare survey of the psychiatric hospital and determined that Conditions of Participation were not met in two areas:

·         Compliance with Federal, State, and Local Laws

·         Patient’s Rights

This survey has resulted in the determination by CMS to terminate the Medicare provider agreement between Brattleboro Retreat and the Secretary effective August 15, 2013.  However, the Retreat now has the opportunity to avert this termination through submission of another Plan of Correction within 10 calendar days.  A revisit survey will then be scheduled by the Division of Licensing and Protection to determine whether compliance has been achieved.

 

Asked for comment, the Retreat provided the following statement:

CMS Press Statement May 2013   “ Following an on-site survey in April by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Brattleboro Retreat received a letter on Monday, May 20, citing deficiencies. In the coming days, the Retreat will submit to CMS a Plan of Correction, and CMS will return for a follow-up survey to determine the effectiveness of our Plan,” said Peter Albert, senior vice president of Government Affairs. “Our recent growth as a hospital, and in particular our contract with the State to care for patients on a newly renovated 14 bed unit who would in the past have gone to the now closed Vermont State Hospital has been accompanied by a process of continuous learning, problem solving, and innovation. In reviewing the data from the survey we recognize that the majority of the issues identified are related to this new state hospital unit, we have been and will continue to work on making the necessary improvements. As a result we are confident that all cited deficiencies will be corrected, and the improvements we make as part of this process will help us continue our focus on excellence in our clinical practice at all levels of the organization, and assure our patients, and their families, that we are providing exceptional and compassionate care.”

 

As I say, this is a big problem for the state for a couple of reasons.

First, when Waterbury closed the state moved a lot of patients to the Retreat, and it has continued to be one of the main locations for involuntary commitments and the only hospital accepting criminal defendants for forensic evaluations.  

Second, this is not even the first time this year that the Retreat has been found deficient in meeting federal standards, and at least the third time since 2012.

Last, and possibly most important, the Retreat has been justifiably criticized by state officials and legislators for being, shall we say, extremely slow in letting the information about their disciplinary problems make its way to the public. The latest decision from CMS, the federal agency responsible for the Medicare program, was received by the Retreat on Monday, May 20. We don't know when the state got notice, but it was not released to the public, or at least to the limited e-mail list for the Department's weekly e-mail advisories, until Friday, May 25, at 5:31 p.m.  

Last year and earlier this year the Retreat came under heavy fire from legislators for slow-walking bad news like this. I don't know if the Retreat sat on this, but it is reasonable to think that if either the Retreat or the Department had released this information earlier to the members of the Mental Health Oversight Committee the news would have become public much earlier than after deadline on the Friday of a holiday weekend.  

Granted, the Retreat has time to submit a plan of correction, so it's possible that the won't actually lose Medicare funding.  On the other hand, when they are repeatedly cited for violations, including patients' rights violations, is this the kind of place we should be locking up our most vulnerable people?

We have not received the CMS statement yet, but we’ll keep the readers posted when we do.

The uproar over Governor Shumlin’s land deal with Jeremy Dodge isn’t going away anytime soon, nor should it. A lot of questions* remain to be answered**, but I’m going to focus on a public policy issue that should get fresh consideration: Financial disclosure for candidates and elected officials.  

*Example: if legal ethics mean anything, then there ought to be an inquiry into attorney Gloria Rice’s role in the deal. She represented BOTH sides in a transaction that was obviously weighted in Shumlin’s favor. Dodge was unaware of his rights in a tax-sale situation, and of the potential tax relief available to people like him. If she didn’t know all that, she’s a lousy real estate lawyer. If she did know all that and didn’t say anything, then she’s guilty of an ethical breach.

**Example II: Shumlin and Dodge signed the purchase agreement on September 25, three days before the property was scheduled for tax auction. But the deal wasn’t formally closed until November 7 — the day after Election Day. Hmmmmmmm. Maybe there were good reasons for the six-week delay, but the timing is remarkable. It could be interpreted as an awareness on Shumlin’s part that the sale might cause a stink if the details came out before the election. (And remember, Shumlin reportedly told Dodge not to talk to reporters.)

If this deal shows one thing clearly, it’s that financial transparency is a necessity. We need to know where and how our elected officials (and those who seek to become public officials) make their money, and how much they pay in taxes. Personal finances reflect an individual’s values, character, and priorities, as well as potential conflicts of interest. VTDigger, last October:

The governor said he’d never seen corruption in the Statehouse from either party over the course of his political career. … “The system works in Vermont,” he said. “In gubernatorial races, we voluntarily release them … What problem are we trying to solve?”

I take cold comfort in the nothing-to-see-here assurances of a man who thinks that fleecing an uneducated, mentally troubled individual is fair game. How, exactly, does he define “corruption”?  

Shumlin offered another rationale for shielding state lawmakers from disclosure rules:

Shumlin said requiring legislators to disclose information like personal income and real estate would be asking too much. “These are folks that give up part of their lives five months of year to come to Montpelier,” Shumlin told VTDigger.

He’s got that completely ass-backwards. From the vantage point of a humble voter, these are folks who seek positions of influence, and who wish to serve the public and protect the public trust. If disclosing one’s finances is too much to ask, then perhaps Our Elected Servants should seek another line of work.

The politicians like to get all folksy on this subject — hey, this is little old Vermont, everybody knows everybody, we’re all good people, there aren’t any secrets, and a person’s business is his/her own affair — but they are evading the real issue. Vermont is one of only three states that don’t require statewide candidates to disclose their finances, and one of only TWO  that don’t require legislative candidates to do so. Isn’t that just a little bit disgraceful?

Apparently it stimulates no shame under the Golden Dome, since (as VTDigger reports) it’s been 19 years since a personal finance disclosure bill made it as far as the House or Senate floor. I don’t hold out much hope that the same lawmakers who balked at some simple, reasonable campaign finance rules would voluntarily subject themselves to personal disclosure requirements because, if the campaign finance debate showed anything, it showed that the public interest is the last thing on many lawmakers’ minds when it comes to how they do their business.

But the Jeremy Dodge land deal is an obvious sign that it’s time to try again. Hold their feet to the fire, even if they jump up and run away as soon as they can.  

I just heard from someone in the media that Governor Shumlin made time in his busy schedule today for a series of one-on-one meetings with members of the State House press corps. The subject: the Jeremy Dodge land deal, natch. Nice timing. Friday afternoon, Memorial Day weekend, stories buried in the Saturday paper.

(My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. Darn.)

I guess individual interviews were preferable to a formal news conference because he wanted to avoid an explosion of the pack mentality, and so he could subject each reporter to the power of his personal charm.

Also, I’m sure he wanted to avoid a repeat of last year’s debacle when reporters questioned the terms of the original East Montpelier land deal:

..Shumlin initially dodged questions from reporters about the land deal, which involved a campaign donor. At a heated press conference, in which reporters peppered him with questions about the deal, he became visibly angry and left abruptly. The reaction afterward was swift. Shumlin’s staff called reporters and chastised them for delving into his personal life.

Yeah, we hope he (and his angry staff) took a lesson from that incident. Walking out of a presser and personally attacking reporters might provide temporary relief of scandal-related symptoms, but it’s likely to make things worse in the long run.  

Great news, everybody!

 As of today, there is officially no real crime in Montpelier.

That's right, and that's according to the Montpelier police. According to the Burlington Free Press:

Police in Vermont's capital city say a 23-year-old woman is facing a prostitution charge after she allegedly propositioned an undercover officer.

Montpelier police say [the woman] was arrested early Tuesday after she and the officer agreed on a price for the sex act.

I live in Montpelier, and all I can say is THANK GOD that the streets are now safe for me to walk. What's even better, though, is that there is apparently nothing more serious or dangerous happening in the Capital City