An acquaintance of mine lives Berkely St, about 1/2 west of BTV.  He wrote the following in an email and I requested his permission to post his writing here.  Even though he said it was OK to use his name, I’ll withhold his name at this time.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It seems that there really are very strong parallels between the Valpariso and Burlington airports’ controversies. Those living farthest away from the airport are the strongest supporters.

I will be getting deeply involved in this and I want to let you know why. When the F16s take off I have to step away from the picture window our of fear of it smashing, all conversation is brought to a halt until all four jets have taken off, and the pictures on the wall tilt from the vibrations. I am 1/2 mile away at a right angle from the takeoff strip with lots of houses between us and the airport. So the opposition is not without merit. Under consideration are a dozen other sites without the potential for such controversy. I also do not like H-bombs being based here; they make us a target. Better they be base in more remote from populated areas.

Supporters of the F-35 basing: Many of the 10,000 names on the petition mentioned below were fraudulent – from an examination of them for validity. the petiton didn’t pass the smell test.

I just joined the opposition after having donated a considerable sum to the cause a few weeks ago.

I will be working on a documentary and new article covering interviews by those currently affected by the F16 noise. I disliked the cavalier attitude of the business community at a debate a few weeks ago at St Mikes. I also disliked Senator Leahy sneaking out the back door when 100 of us demonstrated outside his office in Burlington last week in an appeal to meet with him to present our case. For two years none of our federal delegation, who support the basing here, has agreed to meet and listen to our concerns.

UPDATE: As of Sunday morning, December 30, a pharmacist at the local CVS has taken it on to provide a sensible solution. I’d rather not discuss details until it’s fait accompli, but it’s fair to us, I don’t have to short my shots, and I’m happy with it. ~ NanuqFC

Not only is IBM sticking it to their current employees, with the latest pronouncement on annual payments into the 401k accounts that have replaced defined benefit pensions (as opposed to the previous practice of paying in each pay-period). The company is contracting with a health care/prescription provider that is sticking it to their retirees. My spouse worked for IBM for 32 years.

I use insulin of a particular kind that is not available as a generic. A couple of days ago, I ordered my usual refill, a three-month supply through the nearest CVS pharmacy (almost an hour’s drive from our house), which handles the IBM accounts. Yesterday my spouse went to pick it up. Instead of the usual $70 for that amount of insulin, the cost to us was $353.57. I was out of cell phone range. My spouse did not want me to be without a necessary drug, and she put the cost on plastic, having been assured by the pharmacy tech that the drugs could be returned, if not used, and the cost refunded.

That turned out to be a lie – or at best, total misinformation.

I called IBM member services to complain about the outrageous price hike. That phonedrone called CVS. Together they told me that we had “met” our annual maximum of $2500, and therefore had to pay full price for the insulin. I asked what options there were, and unless there’s some higher math going on here that I don’t know about, the CVS rep then lied about the cost of a single vial (there are usually 5 in an order), telling me it would be $139 (but now, not on the phone and with calculator in hand, I can see that $353.57 divided by 5 = $70.71).

“Okay?” the CVS woman said. “No,” said I. “It’s never ‘okay’ to deprive people of necessary drugs for money. But, yes, we’re done.”

Then I called the store, and “Dan” got on the phone at the pharmacy. I explained the situation, and that I had kept the prescription in the bag, hadn’t opened the bag, still stapled with the receipt, whole thing in the fridge, did I need to go there today (at just after 5 pm) or could the prescription be returned tomorrow?

That elicited an “Umm, let me ask the pharmacist about that.” He came back with, “Sorry, it’s not returnable. It’s both state law and pharmacy policy that we cannot accept any returned prescription once it has left the store.” He was polite and even somewhat empathetic (I’m sure they’re not paying him enough for dealing with polite but irate customers like me). “I don’t know who told you that it would be returnable, but it’s not.”

One more try: “So CVS makes a ton of money ripping off IBM customers, and I’m left with a huge hole in my budget that I can’t afford.” Dan: “I know, I understand that’s what it looks like, and I’m sorry, but there’s not really anything we can do.”

So, did we have any inkling that we had “met” our maximum benefit and that I should’ve waited two weeks before ordering a refill? Not really. We got a statement in July and there was at least $1000 left. Most of my scripts are generic, i.e., cheap. They don’t cost much. There was no reason to suspect that we’d be SOL before the end of the year – it had never happened before. Could I have waited two more weeks? It would have shaved things mighty close. Maybe if I deducted a couple of units from each shot, I could have made it over the finish line. And I could’ve confined my consumption to protein and water to try to keep my blood sugars in check. But I would’ve had to know before my spouse went to the pharmacy that we’d maxed out.

Ya think maybe CVS, which handles IBM prescription ‘benefits,’ might have had a (moral, if not legal) responsibility to inform the subscriber that their benefits had just run out for the year? Or that the people behind the counter should have been able to tell my spouse why the price was so unexpectedly high? Or at least not lied about being able to return it?

Spouse has been looking (at my outraged behest) for an avenue of complaint. I think IBM should at least pretend to care in public about the lousy job its contractors are doing administering its self-insurance benefits. Maybe it’s “Welcome to the ‘new’ nimble IBM: we don’t care who we fuck over.”

Moral of the story: This is what corporado-run health care looks like, even with relatively “good” benefits from a major corporation. One of those corporations running healthcare might end up being the State of Vermont, Inc., if Shummy’s prediction comes true about costs going up for the poorest Vermonters under the new “universal access plan” when it replaces Catamount Health and VHAP.

In my fantasy, I’m walking the sidewalk in front of CVS, carrying a sign: “I’ve been SCROOGED by CVS: IBMers Beware!”

If we truly cherish our kids, more than our money, more than our celebrities, more than our sports stadiums, we must give them the greatest level of protection possible. And that security is only available with properly trained, armed good guys.

Just read the transcript. No commentary needed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

LAPIERRE: The NRA is gonna bring all its knowledge, all its dedication and all its resources to develop a model national schools shield emergency response program for every single school in America that wants it. From armed security to building design and access control, to information technology, to student and teacher training, this multifaceted program will be developed by the very best experts in the field.

I call on Congress today, to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation. And, to do it now to make sure that blanket safety is in place when our kids return to school in January.

Wow.

by Professor PeteySweety CsD (Doctor of Conspiracies)

11:11:11 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time, whatever)

Yeah folks, that’s the exact time tomorrow when The World Will Come To An End.  Converted for you laypeople (I love that PC word), that’s 6:11 am Eastern Time, like 3:11 am California Time, man, and 12:11 pm Vatican Time.  So remember, if you have friends in California at Daily Kos, let’s say, you can post to or chat with them up until 6:10 am tomorrow.  Say your goodbyes and final thoughts.

How this relates to my scientific work is that this afternoon I’m going to Charlie Os and, hopefully, drink for free, because Os will close early tomorrow morning, just hours before THE END.  (Talk about Last Call, Junior)  As a Doctor of Conspiracy, I hope to observe the average Montpelieran’s interpretations of what I call THE FINAL INEVITABLE.

For those of you layfolks (heh) wishing to experience THE END OF THE WORLD, I advise you to set your alarms for about 5:45 am tomorrow morning, so you’ll have time to post to California, where it will only be 2:45 am (following this?), and, hopefully, your friends will just be getting home from LAST CALL out there, and will be in the mood to chat a while.  Or post DENIALS in the comments section.

I must warn you all, however, that I have uncovered a CONSPIRACY in progress to PREVENT THE WORLD FROM ENDING.  I have been studying email reports from my STAFF OF EXPERTS that reveal an insidious plan by Political and Religious Leaders and Heads of State to cancel-out or, at least postpone THE END OF THE WORLD.  It appears to me, from these expert reports, that Corporations and the Very Rich want to CASH IN on THE END OF THE WORLD this Christmas.  Watch out for higher prices at WalMart today and this evening.  From the data I have examined, it looks to me that The Rich not only want to make a killing this Christmas (oh, pardon my politically incorrect wording), but that they want some more time to complete and stockpile the Underground Playlands they have been building since Reagan became President.  I have pinpointed a date in early February that seems to have significance–Feb. 11–after GroundHog Day and before Valentine’s Day.  Also after the SUPER BOWL.

What this means to you, the average person not in the loop, is that the LEADERS OF THE WORLD will come up with a lot of bullshit tomorrow if nothing happens.  They will probably tell you that the MAYANS just ran out of tablets, or whatever, to make a NEW Calendar.  Or that the MAYANS couldn’t pick up a NEW Mayan Calendar because there were no Banks, Printers, Insurance Companies, Construction Companies or Car Dealerships back then.  LIES!  Do not be deceived by normality today and tomorrow.  THE END IS COMING!  It’s just a question of how long THE VERY RICH can delay the processes I have fully researched and, in my own humble way, have helped to make an EXACT SCIENCE.

What I would suggest to you average people is that you come to Charlie Os this afternoon around 4 pm (don’t ask for a UTC on that), and buy my drinks before Junior raises the prices tomorrow if THE END OF THE WORLD is put on hold.  I may have more data to relate to you this afternoon, depending on whether my STAFF OF EXPERTS continue to probe the variables, or, in their state of agitation and stress, decide to get a head start on me in getting SHITFACED.  There is an EXACT SCIENCE to all this.  And I will explain it to you at 4 pm today at Charlie Os in simple terms your little pea-brains can comprehend.  

Now I must go, for a report has just come in from my EXPERT in Warsaw.  But I can give you this one last bit of information–The rumors that Duct Tape will PREVENT THE END OF THE WORLD have absolutely no validity according to the data I have thus far analysed.

See you at 4 pm.  Remember–THE CLOCK IS STILL TICKING!

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

Robert Bork is dead, and that is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing.

The first thing that most of us learned of Robert Bork was in 1973, when as Solicitor General he cooperated with Richard Nixon's efforts at obstruction of justice by firing Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, a date that will live in infamy as the Saturday Night Massacre. The Massacre was Nixon's attempt to prevent Cox, whom he had appointed special prosecutor to investigate the Watergate and other Nixon administration crimes, from gaining access to the tapes Nixon had secretly made of conversations in the White House. When Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus both refused to fire Cox on Nixon's orders, and resigned instead, Bork was only too willing to do the deed. 

Fortunately, the effort was unsuccessful, Nixon's tapes were eventually unearthed, the firing of Cox was ruled to have been illegal, and Nixon finally made it out of town just ahead of the impeachment. Bork's effort to help Nixon with the coverup had failed.

This episode alone would have been enough to mark Bork as one of the greatest political criminals of our time. 

Fast forward almost fifteen years. Ronald Reagan is president and one of his less-remembered programs was his campaign to reverse the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement. Not only did he launch his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, famous primarily for the murders of three civil rights workers, but his presidency was marked by support for the apartheid regime in South Africa, support for racist policies at Bob Jones “University”, and racist attacks on welfare recipients.

For such a president Bork was the ideal candidate. With his academic and judicial credentials and his policy preferences that the federal government had no business trying to prevent private businesses from discriminating against black people or trying to prevent the Southern state and local governments from thwarting black people's right to vote, and that the Equal Protection Clause should never have been read to apply to women, he was everything Reagan wanted.

The first time I met our senior Senator, and now the senior member of the U.S. Senate, was with a group of activists urging Senator Leahy to oppose Bork . He generously gave us his time, probably an hour or more, and I left feeling confident that Senator Leahy would do everything he could to block Bork's confirmation. He didn't fail us.

The hero of this episode, though, was Senator Ted Kennedy, and I will reproduce in full his speech on why Bork would be such a blight on the Supreme Court.  

Mr. President, I oppose the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and I urge the Senate to reject it.

In the Watergate scandal of 1973, two distinguished Republicans — Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus — put integrity and the Constitution ahead of loyalty to a corrupt President. They refused to do Richard Nixon's dirty work, and they refused to obey his order to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox. The deed devolved on Solicitor General Robert Bork, who executed the unconscionable assignment that has become one of the darkest chapters for the rule of law in American history.

That act — later ruled illegal by a Federal court — is sufficient, by itself, to disqualify Mr. Bork from this new position to which he has been nominated. The man who fired Archibald Cox does not deserve to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. Bork should also be rejected by the Senate because he stands for an extremist view of the Constitution and the role of the Supreme Court that would have placed him outside the mainstream of American constitutional jurisprudence in the 1960s, let alone the 1980s. He opposed the Public Accommodations Civil Rights Act of 1964. He opposed the one-man one-vote decision of the Supreme Court the same year. He has said that the First Amendment applies only to political speech, not literature or works of art or scientific expression.

Under the twin pressures of academic rejection and the prospect of Senate rejection, Mr. Bork subsequently retracted the most neanderthal of these views on civil rights and the first amendment. But his mind-set is no less ominous today.

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists would be censored at the whim of government, and the doors of the federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is often the only protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

America is a better and freer nation than Robert Bork thinks. Yet in the current delicate balance of the Supreme Court, his rigid ideology will tip the scales of justice against the kind of country America is and ought to be.

The damage that President Reagan will do through this nomination, if it is not rejected by the Senate, could live on far beyond the end of his presidential term. President Reagan is still our President. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate, and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and on the next generation of Americans. No justice would be better than this injustice.

 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Robert_Bork%27s_America

The United States was spared the injuries that would have inevitably flowed from the confirmation of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, but we were not spared years of his bitter, hectoring screeds against the country that rejected him.

Conservatives love to show the bloody shirt of the Bork nomination, and they even invented a word, “borking”, to describe their view of his treatment in the confirmation process. The fact is, though, that Bork was rejected not because his positions were distorted, but because they were revealed. As far as we have to go as a country, in 1987 it was clear that Bork's extremist conservative ideology was far too far out of the American mainstream to survive the public scrutiny he received.

When Bork's confirmation failed Reagan's next choice was a very conservative but less well-known Anthony Kennedy, who evolved into a principled swing vote on the Court. We can all be glad that in the last twenty-five years that seat has been occupied by Kennedy and not by Bork.

     Today I was so pleased to receive the below press release in my email account.  For the first time in over 200 years, yet less than after two years of official state recognition, the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe of the Northeast Kingdom, has a collectively held forest of their own.  This small corner of Mountain and Earth is a historic step forward in the epic task of setting our troubled past right.  

    Personally it was my absolute honor to work on this project over much of the past year as the Conservation Organizer with the Vermont Sierra Club (a position I have since left).  Special recognition is owned to the Vermont Sierra Club, the Vermont Land Trust, the multitude of organizations which supported the project such as the Vermont Workers Center and 350 Vermont , and most of all to the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe (Chief Don Stevens and Luke Willard in particular) for making this happen.

    Solidarity!  Here is to seeing a next Abenaki forest in the thousands of acres!

For immediate release: December 17, 2012

For more information, contact:

Tracy Zschau, Northeast Kingdom Director, Vermont Land Trust, (802) 748-6089, tracy@vlt.org

Elise Annes, V.P. for Community Relations, Vermont Land Trust, (802) 262-1206, elise@vlt.org

Luke Willard, trustee Nulhegan Abenaki, (802) 751-5043, lukewillard@live.com

###

Nulhegan Abenaki Attain First Tribal Forestland in More than 200 Years

Land Purchased by Tribe and Conserved with Vermont Land Trust

    Barton – Today, the Nulhegan Abenaki officially took ownership of the first Nulhegan tribal forestland in 200 years. The 65-acre parcel, located off May Farm Rd. in Barton, will be an economic, educational, and cultural resource for the tribe. The tribe worked with the Vermont Land Trust and the Sierra Club to secure the forestland. Title to the property will be held by the non-profit, Abenaki Helping Abenaki, Inc., which was created a number of years ago to preserve the culture of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe. The Vermont Land Trust holds a conservation easement on the property to ensure it remains undeveloped in perpetuity.

    The Nulhegan tribe has just over a thousand members and was officially recognized by the State of Vermont in 2011. The tribe lost the last of their land in the late 1700s; since then they have used town halls and private land owned by individual members for their meetings and celebrations.

    “There are Abenakis that own their own land,” said Luke Willard, a trustee of the Nulhegan Abenaki, who was pivotal in organizing this effort. “But we didn’t have a community place to meet like towns do. We were always borrowing places to meet; it’s difficult to maintain a government when you don’t have a central place.”

    The tribe will use the land to hold meetings, events, and celebrations. They will also use the forest to educate tribal and non-tribal children in traditional land stewardship such as sugaring and finding and using medicinal plants.

    “Part of our creation story is that the creator wanted us to be the stewards of the land,” said Don Stevens, Chief of the Nulhegan Abenaki. “After the land was taken from our ancestors, we were no longer able to be the stewards we were asked to be. Our hearts are heavy with that burden. With our own forest, we can pick up the soil, feel it, smell it, and know that our ancestors walked on this land and it is ours to protect. For this land, we are able to fulfill our promise.”

    There is currently a small sugaring operation on the land. The tribe plans to expand sugaring and grow produce using small-scale traditional Abenaki agricultural methods in existing clearings. The forest will provide other economic benefits such as firewood for those in need, hunting opportunities, and a place to gather traditional medicinal plants.

    “In spring 2013, for the first time in two centuries, we will be harvesting sap as a community,” said Luke. “Our ancestors taught this art to the colonists. We will be able to produce the first syrup as a community, as did our ancestors who were on this land hundreds of years ago.”

    Currently, the Nulhegan Abenaki do not have any tribal income. Proceeds from sugaring will help the tribe invest in further stewardship of the land and will support a youth education program for tribal and non-tribal children.

    The land will also be the new home of the Seventh Harvest, a community garden/teaching program that has been operating on Luke’s personal land. This year they had eleven families participating, growing food in the traditional Abenaki way, where corn, beans and squash are planted in a mound of soil, arranged so each plant benefits the other. “When I first saw the land I came across a clearing,” remembers Luke about his initial visit to the new forest. “I picked up the soil and it was this wonderful humus. I knew right off this soil would grow amazing food.” He expects that between 15 and 20 families could grow food in the clearing as part of the Seventh Harvest program.

    The land also has a trail system, which will be open to the public for pedestrian recreation.

    “It is very exciting to be part of the creation of a new type of community forest in Vermont,” said Tracy Zschau of Vermont Land Trust. “It would not have been possible without the hard work of the Tribe, Abenaki Helping Abenaki, and a diversity of funders and supportive members of the public.”

    The acquisition and conservation of this land was supported by private donations, the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, the Vermont Community Foundation’s Innovations and Collaborations Grant program, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through the Competitive State Wildlife Grant Program, the VT Chapter of the Sierra Club, and the Open Space Conservancy Inc. (OSC).  OSC, an affiliate of the Open Space Institute, Inc. established the Community Forest Fund with a lead grant from Jane’s Trust to support the creation and expansion of community forests in northern New England.

I listened to an interview on VPR’s “Fresh Air” this afternoon, concerning the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.  

Apparently in the last few months, the town had been grappling with the question of whether or not something had to be done about the proliferation of informal shooting ranges in residential areas, and random semi-automatic gunfire for recreational purposes.  

There had been such a growth in these activities that the town was divided between those who wanted more regulation and those who insisted regulation would violate their constitutional rights.

What I found arresting about this revelation was the fact that not even a week before the shootings, an almost identical controversy in Highgate, Vermont was reported on by Michelle Monroe in the Messenger.  

As in Connecticut, locals are divided between those who are concerned for their own safety and that of their children, due to the risk of stray bullets; and those who feel they are well within their rights to use their land as they see fit.  

There is heat in both communities over the issue; heat that almost never leads to tighter regulation, unless something like the Newtown shootings results in instant conversion to the cause.

But there is another interested party, an outside interest, which holds much of the power in these local skirmishes. That interested party is comprised of gun and munitions manufacturers, who enforce their hegemony over the gun debate through political activities of the NRA and similar organizations.

A gun manufacturer’s primary interest rests in selling more guns.  Like the manufacturers of cars, clothing and potato chips, their fortune lies in convincing us that one is never enough.  

But since the fundamental purpose of a gun is to kill,  the best marketing scheme must necessarily involve ramped-up kill potential, coupled with a heavy dose of good old fashioned paranoia.  From the multiple market saturations that have been achieved by the munitions industry, we can conclude that their marketing scheme is a lulu.

So while we’re distracted by the nearly impossible task of reconciling public safety with Second Amendment arguments; those guys are making out like bandits.  Thanks to the double edge of paranoia (to mix a metaphor) their cup is overflowing.

On the one hand, gun owners are reminded endlessly that  civilized people might at any time decide that enough is enough and put restrictions on gun sales.  On the other, since their market saturation has been so successful, new recruits can always be had through the argument that the only way to be safe against guns is to have a bigger one.

The Cold War may be over, but the Domestic Arms Race is burgeoning.

We are missing our biggest opportunity to stem the tide of assault weapons: manufacturer liability.   That boat sailed way back in 2005 when Republicans, with not inconsiderable Democratic support and under cover of post-9/11 paranoia,  pushed through a measure to essentially indemnify the gun industry from all liability associated with gun violence.

That was stupid to the nth degree.

Until gun manufacturers have some skin in the game when it comes to gun-violence prevention, they will continue providing consumers with ever newer and deadlier toys.  And they will continue to promote a culture of gun-worship and paranoia that will only worsen with time.  This is their business model, and it works;  just as “Joe Camel” and the “doctor” recommendations worked to make Big Tobacco the rich and powerful industry it was before Americans decided they’d had enough of lung cancer deaths.

It’s time to go back to some liability for gun manufacturers in the event of gun violence.  If they don’t want us to limit the “right to bear arms,”  then they should have to accept the victims’ “right to bear torts.”

 In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre and their threat to picket the funerals there's a petition on the White House site to have the Westboro Baptist Church “legally recognize[d] as a hate group”. It already has over 158,000 signatures.

Tempting as it is, you shouldn't sign it.

 First off, there is no such “legal recognition as a hate group”. It's a political label but it has no legal significance.

Second, and more importantly, this is a proposal to have the government single out one group for some kind of adverse treatment based on the religious or political views of that group. This is entirely antithetical to the First Amendment and the core values that underlie our system of government and way of life.

I take a back seat to nobody in my loathing of this organization. That is why they need and are entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.

There is no basis to claim that it isn't a bona fide church: plenty of church and religious groups espouse hateful ideas. Even churches that espouse hateful ideas are entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.

Granted, the Phelpses and their followers are undoubtedly among the vilest, most hateful people on the face of the earth.

On the other hand, so far as I know the Westboro Baptist Church has never done anything to actually hurt anybody.

They never killed anybody, burned down any buildings, or put a price on anyone's head for publishing a book or cartoon they didn't like.

 There's no sign that they ever harrassed or beat women and girls for wearing what they considered indecent clothing.

And there is certainly no evidence that they ever delivered thousands of children to the hands of child rapists, and then established religious edicts to prevent the exposure of the criminals. 

No, as far as I can see, the Westboro Baptist Church has done a lot less damage than almost any “mainstream” church.

Besides, it's not the popular ideas and groups who need the protection of the First Amendment.

So don't sign the petition. Hate the Westboros all you like, but don't ask the government to use the power of the state to silence them. 

If we start taking away rights from the Westboros because they express political views we don't like, where do we stop, and who will protect us when someone tries to silence us.

(This piece was written before the Friday Children’s Massacre in Newtown and serves as both a well constructed argument for marriage equality and a reminder that equality, decent treatment, and love are some of the things that counter the culture of violence. JBecker makes a case for a step toward a culture of equality that President Obama can and should take. — Promoted by NanuqFC)

May 9, 2012, the day that President Obama completed his personal evolution on marriage equality, is a day I will never forget as long as I live. Despite the fact that a flurry of media reports and online chatter that day had led many reporters and LGBT activists, myself included, to expect an announcement–and even though by that point I’d already been married and working for marriage equality for more than six years – I was not prepared for the emotional impact of Obama’s words. Nor can I overstate their impact on me: sitting there at my desk, watching a President of the United States tell me and millions of other LGBT Americans that he respects and values our relationships, our marriages, and our families on an equal footing with his own, I broke into full-out sobs. After the remarks were finished I called my husband Michael at work; we cried together and told each other over and over how much we loved each other, overwhelmed by the magnitude of what had just taken place. I felt prouder to be an American that day than I ever had before.

Viewed alongside the Obama administration’s refusal to defend the paradoxically-named “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) and the President’s pro-marriage equality positions on ballot measures in North Carolina, Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, and Washington, it becomes abundantly clear that Obama’s support for the freedom to marry extends well beyond mere words. However, with the Supreme Court poised to decide the fate of California’s Proposition 8 – and possibly that of dozens of similar state constitutional amendments across the country, depending on the scope of its ruling – it is time for Obama to once again stand up and speak out for marriage equality.

Why? Well, for starters, while the administration has filed friend-of-the-court briefs in lower courts arguing that DOMA forces the federal government to adopt an unconstitutional and exclusionary definition of marriage, it has not yet done so before the Supreme Court. And it has remained silent on the Proposition 8 case, a case which could potentially address the fundamental question of whether the freedom to marry for LGBT Americans is a right protected by the U.S. Constitution.

President Obama, himself a constitutional scholar, has so far declined to weigh in on this critical constitutional question. A reporter for Metro Weekly posed it directly to White House press secretary Jay Carney in a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, but Carney refused to offer further comment. The next day he went one step further, abruptly walking out of a press conference after being asked by two separate reporters about the Prop 8/DOMA cases.

However, pressure is mounting on the Obama administration to clarify its position. Ted Olson, co-counsel for the plaintiffs seeking to overturn Prop 8, urged the government last week to file a favorable amicus brief in the case, saying in a conference call with reporters that such a statement from the administration would have “great effect.” Prominent gay blogger John Aravosis accused the White House of ducking the issue and predicted that anger from the LGBT community will only increase the longer the administration sits on the sidelines. The Courage Campaign is petitioning President Obama and the Department of Justice to weigh in, pointing out that a White House brief asserting the unconstitutionality of state bans on same-sex marriage would “influence the Supreme Court, make headlines and help further move poll numbers” in the direction of equality. Richard Socarides, a prominent lawyer, LGBT activist, and former White House official under Bill Clinton, told BuzzFeed‘s Chris Geidner that the administration won’t be able to avoid taking an official position on Proposition 8 because the solicitor general will be asked about it during oral arguments. Socarides also noted:

“The opinion of the administration as expressed by the Department of Justice is almost always an important persuasive factor considered by the court. It is, after all, the opinion of the government.”

Finally, Greg Sargent recently wrote in the Washington Post that the President must file such a brief because it could help goad the Supreme Court into ruling broadly on the constitutionality of marriage equality itself (as opposed to issuing a narrower ruling applying only in California) and prepare the public to accept a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

As Olson’s co-counsel David Boies and many others have said, marriage equality is the defining civil rights issue of our time. The tide of public opinion on this issue is changing at an unprecedented rate – in 1996, the year DOMA became the law of the land, a scant 27% of Americans supported same-sex marriage. Fast forward just sixteen years, and polls now consistently show that a majority of Americans endorse marriage equality, with support increasing across every age group and in every region of the country. Most importantly, though, young people favor marriage equality by overwhelming margins: a recent USA TODAY/Gallup poll pegged support for same-sex marriage among those under 30 at a whopping 73%. Tom Goldstein, publisher of the influential SCOTUSblog, predicts that in another twenty years, “it will be broadly (if not uniformly) accepted that discrimination against homosexuals related to marriage is invidious and irrational.” Quite simply, it’s no longer a matter of if marriage equality becomes law, but when.

President Obama made civil rights history in May when he affirmed his personal support for the right of same-sex couples to marry in states that allow them to do so. But now, with Americans continuing to embrace marriage equality at lightning speed and the precious civil rights of millions hanging in the balance, it’s time for President Obama to evolve once again: he must publicly acknowledge before the Supreme Court of the United States that the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law applies to all couples who wish to marry, regardless of the state in which they live or whether their spouse is named Michael or Michelle. If he fails to do so, it will be an ugly blemish on Obama’s otherwise stellar civil rights record. But if the President takes this historic step, this champion of LGBT rights — a self-described “fierce advocate” for the LGBT community — will also have evolved into a hero.

Originally posted at the Huffington Post.

(Well argued, with history and nuance. – promoted by NanuqFC)

That all persons are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

 – Article 1st, VT Constitution

Diving into the gun thing now, recall that I'm a firm supporter of an individual right to bear arms.  But let's do keep in mind the context and nuance involved.

As I've said before, I hate glib treatments of what is a fairly complicated issue, fraught with tension between personal liberty and the needs of society.  So the “join the militia, carry a musket” reduction of the 2nd Amendment annoys me just as much as “arm every teacher.”  If we're to have a meaningful discussion and actually find the wherewithal to accomplish something policywise, we need to go a little deeper than bumperstickers and Facebook memes.

The “join the militia” crowd is certainly correct that the 2nd refers to a well-regulated milita, and that it is tied to the people's right to keep and bear arms.  There's an important reason for that: the Framers recognized a need for our young nation to defend itself, but they also had a great fear of standing armies.  

That's something generally missed by the Gohmerts of the world who misquote Washington.  Not allowing Congress to appropriate Army monies for more than 2 years was a moderate check on standing armies.  Giving Congress (and the President) a great deal of authority to regulate and call upon militias, and including the prefatory militia clause in the 2nd, was no accident.  And while we generally ignore the 3rd today, quartering of soldiers by a standing army really happened in colonial experience, so prohibiting it constitutionally was important to a great many people.

Point is that the Framers did not single-mindedly wish to arm the civilian population to fight off the tyranny of the government they were designing, but in large part to defend that government from threats, including…rebellion.  To ignore this aspect is to be disingenuous at best.

Regardless, to those who argue that the 2nd only protects some collective right and are against an individual right: give up, you've lost.  And really, to a certain extent, it doesn't matter.  All rights have limits because they can conflict with others, so the discussion should be about what the reasonable bounds are.

We have guidance, oddly enough, from a SCOTUS decision that I often cite as establishing an incorporated right to bear arms.  Again, Scalia's majority opinion in Heller (2008) said:

Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose…Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.^{26 [Footnote: We identify these presumptively lawful regulatory measures only as examples; our list does not purport to be exhaustive.]}

We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time.” 307 U. S., at 179. We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of “dangerous and unusual weapons.”

So the right exists, but its extent is still open for debate.  Perhaps we can't (nor would really want to) enact an outright ban of all weapons, but it certainly seems that we have a great deal of latitude to regulate gun safety so that citizens can exercise their rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

Prohibiting the manufacture, import and possession of particularly deadly weapons isn't too far out of the realm.  What about registration, requirements to carry liability insurance and have adequate, safe gun storage, taxing the shit out of ammo to pay for improved school security and mental health treatment, etc, under powers granted by the Commerce, Taxation and Elastic Clauses?  

That all remains to be tested, but does any of this place an undue burden on your exercise of your 2nd Amendment right?  I don't think so.

And if you really are concerned about government tyranny, consider this from Heller:

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service—M-16 rifles and the like—may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large. Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks.

I'm more concerned about drones than tanks and bombers, but the point remains: you and your neighbors ain't gonna stop tyranny with your Bushmaster Blackout.

Here is an assuredly non-comprehensive list of rebellions and other violent incidents in the United States, not counting events before we had any officially organized government.  FTR, I'm making no value judgement on their merits, nor on factors that contributed to outcomes, just noting there have been quite a few examples of people attempting to fight what they viewed as tyranny with weapons:

• Shay's Rebellion (1786-87) – suppressed; under the Articles, led to the Constitution.
• Whiskey Rebellion (1791-94) – suppressed; but hey, tax evasion went on!
• Fries's Rebellion (1799-1800) – suppressed; yet another tax revolt.
• German Coast Uprising (1811) – suppressed; slave revolt, few firearms.
• Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831) – suppressed; slave revolt, some firearms.
• Dorr's Rebellion (1841-1842) – suppressed; resulted in electoral reform in RI.
• Taos Revolt (1847) – suppressed; resistance to US occupation of Mexican territory.
• Harper's Ferry (1859) – suppressed; abolitionist insurgency.
• Civil War (1861-1865) – suppressed; Federal power strengthened, slavery abolished.
• Green Corn Rebellion (1917) – suppressed; draft resistance.
• Battle of Athens (1946) – VICTORY; local government disbanded.
• Puerto Rican Nationalist Revolts (1950) – suppressed; still a US territory.
• Wounded Knee (1973) – suppressed; ugly all around.
• Ruby Ridge (1992) – suppressed; illegal weapons.
• Waco Siege (1993) – suppressed; illegal weapons.

Have fun stormin' da castle!  Not a great probability of success with violent resistance.  However, non-violent resistance has historically been rather successful at beating the house odds:

Our findings [using data on major resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006] show that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53 percent of the time, compared with 26 percent for violent resistance campaigns.

There are two reasons for this success. First, a campaign’s commitment to nonviolent methods enhances its domestic and international legitimacy and encourages more broad-based participation in the resistance, which translates into increased pressure being brought to bear on the target. Recognition of the challenge group’s grievances can translate into greater internal and external support for that group and alienation of the target regime, undermining the regime’s main sources of political, economic, and even military power.

Second, whereas governments easily justify violent counterattacks against armed insurgents, regime violence against nonviolent movements is more likely to backªre against the regime. Potentially sympathetic publics perceive violent militants as having maximalist or extremist goals beyond accommodation, but they perceive nonviolent resistance groups as less extreme, thereby enhancing their appeal and facilitating the extraction of concessions through bargaining…We assert that nonviolent resistance is a forceful alternative to political violence that can pose effective challenges to democratic and nondemocratic opponents…

Weapons have changed since our nation's founding.  So have non-violent tactics and strategies.  If you're really worried about tyranny, I'd submit you have a better chance defeating it by putting your guns down, and working to end drone strikes overseas, getting rid of our standing army, etc.

We live in a complex society, and gun violence is a complex epidemic.  There is no simple solution, and even sophisticated, multi-faceted approaches offer no guarantees, only mitigation of the problem.  Sure, criminals and crazies and commies will still get guns, but the work factor is increased if we have rational gun safety management systems in place, as I think the data bears out.

One of our biggest obstacles to figuring this out is we don't do non-violence very well.  At home we blame rape victims for what happened to them, taser people with little restraint, and execute innocents.  And while we rightfully mourn the children and adults in CT, we also use remotely-controlled weapons to end the lives of children and adults abroad.  Perhaps it's time to establish a Department of Peace that would at least work to alter our default posture and:

• Provide much-needed assistance to efforts by city, county, and state governments in coordinating existing programs; as well as develop new programs based on best practices nationally
• Teach violence prevention and mediation to America's school children
• Effectively treat and dismantle gang psychology
• Rehabilitate the prison population
• Build peace-making efforts among conflicting cultures both here and abroad
• Support our military with complementary approaches to peace-building.
• Create and administer a U.S. Peace Academy, acting as a sister organization to the U.S. Military Academy.

Give it the same budget as we have for drones, say, and maybe we'll start getting a handle on our violent society and State.