Congress and President Obama can manage to gather themselves together on certain things. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a controversial post-9/11 Bush-era law, will encounter no artificial congressional cliff on the way to reauthorization. It is uncomfortable to observe that while so much else in Congress is stalemated, this law – allowing warrantless review of email and eavesdropping on communications – passes with ease. None of several proposed amendments was considered in the Senate, under the pressure of “no time for reconsideration” in the House.  

The original FISA law had been expanded under President Bush in 2008.

[…] the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 did much more than shield lawbreaking telecoms from all forms of legal accountability. Jointly written by Dick Cheney and then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller, it also legalized vast new, sweeping and almost certainly  unconstitutional forms of warrantless government eavesdropping. (ACLU study)

By a solid vote of 73-23 (the losing side: 21 Democrats, fewer than half the caucus, and 2 Republicans, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul), FISA was reauthorized by the Senate. FISA was already approved by the House, and it will be signed by President Obama.

Odd, the things the House, Senate and White House can find common cause on.

Governor Shumlin, recently returned from his Italian sojourn, has finally weighed in on the post-Newtown gun control debate in an interview with the Freeploid. In this diary I won’t address his overall stance, which can be briefly described as “The Buck Stops Somewhere Else.” Rather, I’ll just point out one little problematic statement:

I have a lot of confidence in the president’s and vice president’s approach to this, which is: Be inclusive, with the goal of not coming up with a solution that looks good, but really diving into the issues that are driving violence, and that are putting weapons in the hands of crazy, deranged people who shouldn’t have them.

“Crazy, deranged people.” That nugget of insensitivity, I remind you, comes from the man who’s tasked himself with reinventing Vermont’s mental health care system. And it placed our Governor uncomfortably close to Wayne LaPierre territory.

How many more copycats are waiting in the wings… A dozen more killers, a hundred more? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation’s refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?

There are a couple of big problems with this call for segregating “crazy people” from assault weapons. Well, a couple of problems aside from utter impracticality (Adam Lanza got his firepower, not from a gun show or the Internet, but from his MOMMY) and complete hypocrisy (registering guns is an invasion of personal freedom, but registering “crazy people” is not).

First, the vast majority of “crazy people” have never been diagnosed. Adam Lanza wouldn’t have shown up on Wayno’s database. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris wouldn’t have been there either. Nor would Jared Lee Loughner. If you want a national database of the “deranged,” you’ll need a much more robust mental health system — one that thoroughly screens every single one of us, and somehow manages to identify future killers through the early, scant traces of aberrant behavior.

Second, “crazy people” as a group are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. Relatively few are the slavering, uncontrollable monsters of LaPierre’s imagination. Many are passive or withdrawn*, unable to defend themselves or resist criminal assault. And all would be branded, as if by a scarlet letter “C”, as potential killers in a National Registry of the Crazy.

*as Adam Lanza seemed to be, until the day he took his mom’s assault weapons to school.

Opponents of gun regulation bleat about the impracticality of any attempt to control the flow of high-powered weaponry, and yet they are somehow unfazed by the even greater impracticality and ineffectiveness of a hypothetical Database of the Deranged.

One more thing. Since the national discussion of gun control is likely to go on for quite a while — and will be renewed every time a “crazy person” shoots up a school, church, mall, or other public place — I hereby present our Governor with an extremely partial but nonetheless handy list of other insensitive terms for the mentally ill, just in case he gets tired of “crazy” and “deranged.”

5150, basket case, bananas, batty, berserk, bughouse, crackers, cuckoo, daffy, demented, ding-a-ling, freaky, f*ck knuckle, insane (or even better, “insane in the membrane”), kooky, Low Marble Count, lunatic, mad, mondo bizarro, Napoleon XIV, nutjob, nutty, out to lunch, postal (especially apropos), potty, psycho, screw loose, spaz, wackadoodle, wacky, wigged out.

Also, don’t forget the creative possibilities of the phrase “short of,” as in one brick short of a load, one sandwich short of a picnic, and a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

There now. I hope I’ve helped to add some richness and color to our Governor’s political discourse.  

Art Woolf is at it again, making a mountain out of a molehill through the magic of exaggerated chart curves.

There’s nothing new about the alarm du jour.  Mr. Woolf, like his Ethan Allen Institute buddies is married to the idea that Vermont is “bad for business.” He fondly jumps on any statistic that can be used to reinforce that meme.

The aging of the population is one of his favorite bugaboos, and he revisits it on a regular basis.  Perhaps owing to a dearth of other material, The Free Press routinely gives him space in their “How We’re Doing” to say the same thing, over-and-over-again.

How are we doing? Frankly, we’re a little bored.

Mr. Woolf’s charts routinely describe relatively modest statistical differences with sweeping graphic overstatements. In this instance a population change from 60,000 seniors in 2000 to roughly twice that figure in 2020 is rendered so as to look like a quadrupling of the number.

Mr. Woolf ought to know better than to indulge in such visual trickery, but all that is very much beside the point. As usual, Mr. Woolf has chosen to cluck over specific conditions in Vermont while ignoring the rest of the country.

Yes, Vermont’s population is aging; but so is the population of the entire country.

The states that are looking at the most long-term growth in their youthful population are those with a large hispanic demographic.  That is a cultural phenomenon which has nothing to do with whether or not a state is “good for business.”

That same cultural phenomenon will ultimately tip the balance in favor of a non-“white” majority in this country; something that will most certainly not benefit the political agenda of Republicans like Mr. Woolf and the company he keeps.

And even the economic arguments around the “aging population” meme are faulty.  They maintain that prosperity depends upon retention and growth of a youthful population.  

While it is true that young people consume more than do older adults, this does not necessarily translate to overall prosperity if what they are consuming is no longer produced here in the U.S.

It does ensure prosperity for corporate America, who source their products elsewhere, then employ people at home in low-paying service jobs.  

This is the Walmart model; and Mr. Woolf, who is known to be a great proponent of the Walmart model, is unsurprisingly oblivious to its downside.

How are we doing in Vermont?  Most indicators suggest the we are doing rather well when compared to other states.  Can we do better? Of course we can.  

But better for whom?  If the benefit of a “better” business environment is not felt throughout the population, elevating the most disadvantaged Vermonters and maintaining a strong middle class while preserving a sustainable future, can it truly be described as prosperity?

A smart economic move for a state…any state…faced with an aging population, would be to build a skilled service economy around that demographic.  

People are living longer, thank goodness; and that is where the increase in the overall age of the population really lives.  

Those older folks may not consume as much material goods as their younger counterparts; but they will potentially consume far more in the way of skilled services like healthcare, quality food items, public transportation and specialty living aids that might be sourced from close to home…if we recognize the opportunity and devote some resources to education, research-dand-development, and innovative planning around those needs.  Successfully building such an economic model in Vermont will, in itself, attract a new generation of skilled workers to raise their families in Vermont, rejuvenating the state in the natural cycle of things.

Mr. Woolf is clinging to unsustainable economic assumptions from the past.

It’s time for Vermont to demonstrate that it can be nimble; to embrace and adapt to its changing demographic

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

Well, we’ve come to the end of our VTblogosphereTV series, and it’s fitting our final guest is Blogger Emeritus John Odum. He got us started in June of 2008, and his support has been instrumental in the project’s sustenance.  

One sign that the show was fading was my inability to get the web version uploaded and posted in a timely fashion, so this show is actually from the week after the election. But John’s account of Montpelier election night in the City Clerk hot seat is timeless. The discussion of whether John Campbell would retain his Senate President Pro Tem gig– less so.

Thanks to all the fantastic guests that made the time to share their knowledge and passion. It’s been a blast, but it’s time to wrap it up. The only gnawing uncertainty is that this retirement is at episode 45 on a 4 and a half year run. Five more episodes by June would make it 50 episodes and 5 years. But do you know how much work it is to scare up guests in a non-election year? pfffft– forget it. That’s a wrap.  

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

…Happy Hanukkah & Seasons Greetings everyone!

It’s just not Xmas without Cheech & Chong…

Cheech & Chong ~ Santa Claus And His Old Lady

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

[SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM,spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM ,spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM,spam,  SPAM, spam, SPAM ,spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM ,spam, SPAM,spam,  SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, SPAM, spam, SPAM,spam,  SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM, spam, SPAM.]

Here's a light one for the day.

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre we've seen a nationwide debate about gun control, guns, and their role in American society. One thing we've seen is that the anti-gun-control people see themselves as the true defenders of American liberty. If you listen to them they'll argue that widespread gun ownership is our indispensable bulwark against tyranny.

They also complain about civil libertarians who are strong defenders of the Bill of Rights, but somehow overlook the Second Amendment in our civil libertarian zeal.

So here's what we're hearing today from the anti-gun-control civil libertarians: They don't like what CNN talker Piers Morgan has been saying, so they want to kick him out of the country.

That's right: according to HuffPo, over 30,000 people have signed a petition calling for the deportation of Piers Morgan because he's in favor of gun control.

 It demands he be deported immediately for “exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.”

They're calling his support for gun control “a hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution”.

Apparently in their view freedom of speech isn't part of the Constitution. 

 The Washington Post’s editorial board wants the country to go over a cliff. No not the fiscal cliff but,  a “milk cliff”.  I guess a “milk cliff’ is to the “fiscal cliff” like Jimmy Olsen is to Superman, an important character but not the plot driver. Anyway the lesser cliff results from the stalled farm reauthorization bill deadline. The Post suggests the bill should ultimately fail so the resulting shocks will motivate Congress to change dairy support laws.  

Once over the “milk cliff” we don’t enter into an imagined free market heaven but instead would revert to following a 63 year old farm law.  

According to CNBC Higher prices would be based on what dairy farm production costs were in 1949, when milk production was almost all done by hand.

And it would force the government to buy milk at inflated prices. Dairy farmers would experience a windfall selling to Washington but as a result less milk would make it to the consumer level and higher prices would be charged for what remained available.  

The farm bill also covers food stamp benefits and anti-hunger programs. Additionally the drought and record breaking weather this summer was also expected to drive up the price of groceries, according to the government. So, to families already struggling and everyone else, there would be another blow plus the milk shock..

But this is fine with The Washington Post’s editorial board because, although going over the cliff would “harm many consumers”,  

[…] the pain might be worth it if it finally shocks the country into demanding an end to Congress’s fiddling with the milk market.[added emphasis]

I am not suggesting the farm bill isn’t a tangle but it is surprising The Post believes the resulting painful outcry might force Congress to act. Popularly supported demands for the wealthy to pay their fair share, Obama’s decisive victory, and other Democratic gains in the recent election, haven’t been enough (yet) to drive the Republican controlled House of Representative anywhere closer to sanity. However, The Editorial board believes an $8.00 a gallon milk price shock would. So with little evidenceThe Washington Post’s editorial board calculates that their prescription for “harm to many consumers” and market disruption for others is worth the risk.  

The normally tireless scribes at VTDigger are off on a well-earned ten-day hiatus. But during their absence, they arranged for some daily postings in the form of an 11-part series on poverty in the Northeast Kingdom.

A worthy endeavor, no? The Kingdom has a long history of poverty and neglect, and its problems have been too tough for any businessperson, politician, academic, or government to solve. So why not give it a long hard look? Especially from a reporter billed as an “AP award-winning writer” who lives in the Kingdom?

Well, the answer is in the fine print. First, the Editor’s Note informs us that this series is being recycled from the St. Johnsbury Caledonian-Record, the most reactionary newspaper in Vermont.  And second, we learn in a note at the end of Part One that the writer in question, Bethany Knight, has “co-authored five reports on Vermont issues produced by the Ethan Allen Institute.” Yes, that Ethan Allen Institute, dogged mouthpiece for the Ayn Randian fantasies of its founder, El Jefe General John McClaughry, sponsor of the execrable “Common Sense Radio,” which is hosted by none other than the newly-installed President of the Ethan Allen Institute, colorless ideologue Rob Roper.

The fine print also fails to provide any specifics about her “AP award-winning” work*, or name any of the newspapers where she plied her trade.

*Dirty little secret of journalism: Prizes abound. If you have a pulse and a reporting job, and you submit entries for journalism awards, you will win some. I should know; I have dozens on my resume.

So considering the sources, I have a feeling I’m about to be treated to a right-wing fabrication of history. And doggone it, Bethany Knight does not disappoint. Part One, “From Kingdom to King Dump,” spins a fable of a proud bucolic paradise that’s been devastated, and its people’s native nobility stripped away, by the predations of state government.

Whaaaa???

The fatuities contained in this essay are too many to thoroughly explore. But let’s start by noting that Knight’s essay contains no factual basis for the assertion that the Kingdom is poorer now than ever before. It quotes no experts; its only quoted sources are “a Newport activist for the poor,” “a native who moved to Boston in the 1990s,” and precisely one named source: a man named Jack Ruggles, whose family used to operate a major building in downtown Barton. Impressive.  How about an example of their deep thinking?

“Vermont is not the Vermont of my childhood,” says a native who moved to Boston in the 1990s for a decent-paying job. “We never had to lock our doors. No one ever had their home broken into.”

Note that this “native” doesn’t specify the Northeast Kingdom; he talks about the entire state. And note that Knight quotes no statistics on crime to support her assertion that the Kingdom has suddenly become a place of danger and suspicion.

As for those expensive government antipoverty programs, the esteemed Mr. Ruggles yearns for the Good Ole Days when we all got by with barn-raisin’s and quiltin’ bees:

“Every town had overseers of the poor,” Ruggles say (sic). “If you needed assistance with groceries, he would go with you and the town would pay for it and help you find a place to stay. He would make sure, if you weren’t working and if you could, to help you get employed.”

And when you got sick, you took a chicken to the doctor.

The rose-colored eyes of memory becloud the painful realities of the old Kingdom. It has always been a place of grinding poverty, and the Overseers of the Poor (and the churches and the generosity of neighbor helping neighbor) were never, ever enough to blunt the harshness of Kingdom life.

Again, Knight quotes no statistics to support her depiction of a Kingdom in decline from a former Golden Age of Self-Reliance. She notes that today the NEK has the highest rates of unemployment and poverty in Vermont, but she fails to add that it has always been so. Even in the Good Ole Days.

And the spike through the heart of her mythical Kingdom?

Vermont started to churn out environmental laws that discourage, if not prohibit, manufacturing and other big employers to do business here.

Which kinda ignores some inconvenient truths. First, the Kingdom has never had much of a manufacturing base. And while it has lost some major employers, it is hardly alone in this. At one point in the essay, she claims that “manufacturing jobs are in New Hampshire.” Oh really? Any statistics to support that? Of course not.

If you think New Hampshire is a low-tax paradise of full employment, just take a drive east on US-2 to Berlin, a formerly thriving mill town that’s at least as run-down as any Northeast Kingdom community. New Hampshire’s North Country suffers from the same economic illnesses as the Kingdom: remoteness, lack of infrastructure, undereducated workforce. The vaunted “New Hampshire Advantage” in taxes and business-friendly regulation doesn’t make a damn bit of difference.

Knight includes a short list of lost NEK employers, but she fails to draw any connection to Vermont’s environmental rules. Did Ethan Allen Furniture dramatically downsize its Vermont presence because of regulation, or because it could make more money elsewhere? I think you know the answer to that one. The Kingdom, like many other benighted areas, is at the mercy of economic forces beyond its (and Vermont’s) control, including globalization, downsizing, and outsourcing.  

Knight’s work may improve in future segments; it can hardly get worse. But unless she takes a sudden turn for the better, with more rigorous backing material, better sources, and fewer unsupported assertions, then this series will be a waste of the readers’ time. Based on Part One, I have to wonder why VTDigger bothered to publish it.

 

The NRA has spoken; and their answer to the horrors of Newtown Connecticut is to tell Congress to set aside a massive amount of money to station an armed guard at every school.

This is a great solution for weapons manufacturers because it creates a huge new market for their products.

I have a better suggestion.  

If stationing an armed guard at every school is the only way to avoid another Newtown massacre, weapons manufacturers, not taxpayers, should bear the burden as a cost of doing business.

Half of all taxpayers don’t even own a gun, but we are all vulnerable to weapons stockpiled by the rest, and we all pay the collateral costs of gun violence.

I don’t want to hear any more about how “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”  People with guns kill people in extremely large numbers in this country, and that smug little truism does nothing to alter reality.

It is shocking and shameful that we have allowed our Constitution to be hijacked by an industry and its auxiliaries to justify a class of products that are about nothing more noble than wholesale slaughter.

It’s time to demand from Big Weapons the same kind of payback as we demanded from Big Tobacco, who successfully avoided government regulation of their deadly product for decades with the argument that it would violate our Constitutional rights.