Another holiday edition of “Thumbs Up…” This time, featuring images of Santa from two cinematic classics: “Miracle on 34th Street,” and “Santa’s Slay,” starring former pro wrestler Bill Goldberg as evil Santa.

And speaking of holidays, this feature will be taking next week off; it should return on December 31.

Terri Hallenbeck of the Freeploid and Kirk Carapezza of VPR, for doing some very fine reporting on what could have been a joke of an assignment — accompanying Governor Shumlin and his merry band of F-35 supporters on their planespotting junket to Eglin AFB. The two scribes played it straight, but their reports made it clear that the entire trip was a dog and pony show. If it wasn’t for their sacrifice of time, energy, and their employers’ expense accounts, we wouldn’t have learned about golden moments like…

— Governor Shumlin saying “Wow” upon first seeing an F-35 and then, Captain Renault-like, allowing that he was “shocked” at how quiet the jet planes were, and trying to convince us that the F-35 is somehow quieter than the currently deployed F-16.

— The entire company doing their best Robert Parker impersonation, characterizing the sound in neo-Wine Spectator terms — “it’s a different sound,” “it’s a deeper sound,” and, from an Air Force Colonel, “deeper, throatier.”  Mmmm, roll the sound around in your ears: earthy, robust, unfiltered, yeasty, chewy.

— Winooski Mayor Michael O’Brien measuring the loudness on his iPad, and then trying to explain away the embarrassing result: the F-35 was quite a bit louder, actually. Oopsie.

So congrats to Hallenbeck and Carapezza for bringing their A-game to this nothingburger story.

Self-aggrandizing petropreneur Rodolphe “Skip” Vallee, for continuing to believe that he is the political equal of Senator Bernie Sanders. Last week, Skippy began airing anti-Sanders ads (on WCAX, natch) attacking America’s Favorite Socialist for being pro-corporation and anti-environment. And if that wasn’t sufficient evidence of Skip’s political tone-deafness, he also slapped a figurative glove across Bernie’s face: “I challenge Bernie to a VPR debate on the Keystone Pipeline and Lake Champlain cleanup.”

I’m sure Bernie got a good chuckle out of that. As if he would waste his time debating Skip Vallee. The same Skip Vallee whose last foray into the electoral arena was a run for State Senate, which he lost despite setting the all-time record for a State Senate race by spending $134,000. (He did, admittedly, have more success as a bagman for George W. Bush, for which he was honored with the ambassadorship to Slovakia, where he didn’t even start a war or anything.) He dipped his toe into the gubernatorial waters back in 2010 but decided not to take on Brien Dubie. So now he thinks he could tackle Bernie Sanders? It is to laugh.  

Oh, in doing some research for this nubbin, I came across an account of Skip’s political origins from the late great Peter Freyne:

After graduation in 1983, the Williams College hockey player sought an entry-level position with Democratic U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy. He didn’t get it.

…Vallee ended up getting an internship with Republican U.S. Sen. Bob Stafford, and he’s been a Republican ever since.

Ladies and gentlemen, Skip Vallee, man of principle.

After the jump: A beloved bridge, a sought-after brew, a Foodbank in need, and a late unlamented figure of the political fringe.

The Quechee covered bridge, for its imminent return to active duty. The ridiculously picturesque bridge was destroyed in Tropical Storm Irene almost a year and a half ago, along with a goodly chunk of the adjacent roadway. Well, according to contractors, the bridge is scheduled to reopen on December 28.

There’s still a lot of damage from Irene, a lot of bills to be paid and a lot of work to be done, but the return of the Quechee Bridge is a tangible sign of progress and a morale-booster as well.

The University of Vermont, for another bout of self-aggrandizement – -this time from new President Tom Sullivan. The Prez wants to make UVM more selective, i.e. harder to get into. (Vermont students would be exempt from his new tougher standards because, well, political suicide.) The idea is that being more selective leads to higher retention and graduation rates, which are markers of academic quality.  

The evidence for this? The most selective colleges, those perceived to have the highest academic quality, also tend to have the highest retention and graduation rates.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with being somewhat more selective. Although taken to the extreme, a dual admissions standard could result in a two-tiered student population: out-of-state students breezing through advanced courses, and Vermont students hanging on by their manure-encrusted fingernails. But this is just one more example of a self-aggrandizing trend at Vermont’s Most Distinguished Institution of Higher Learning.

Look, UVM is a nice public university in a small state. It’s done pretty well with limited resources. But it is not, and never will be, on the level of “the most selective colleges,” and it’s unhealthy to think so.  It’s resulted. ironically, in an inflated view of UVM’s achievements and the quality of its faculty and programs. From here within Vermont, UVM is a big deal. But outside Vermont, it’s a small fish in a very large pond. And that’s okay. It’s really, really okay.

Marshfield-based nanobrewery Lawson’s Finest Liquids, for crafting brews that are almost too good for their own good. I showed up at the Montpelier Farmers Market a few minutes after opening on Saturday, and noticed a longish line of people outside the Vermont College of Fine Arts gymnasium, the home of the winter market. I thought maybe it was a group tour of the VCFA campus or something.

Then, when I’d finished my shopping, the line had gotten a whole lot longer — at least a hundred people. And one of them explained it was a line for the Lawson’s Finest table in the market. Lawson’s had organized an outdoor line, lest the beer-seekers overwhelm the entire joint. And, as Keith Vance reported, although Lawson’s had brought twice as many bottles as usual, they sold out before closing time and sent some would-be customers away beerless.

The Lawsons issued a statement on their website, in which they said they were “humbled and amazed at [the] turnout,” and apologized to those who arrived too late to get any beer. They also posted a nice photo of the astounding lineup.  

The Vermont Foodbank, which enters the holiday season and wintertime facing a big financial shortfall. The Times Argus (article paywalled) reports that the Foodbank, the state’s primary supplier to food shelves, soup kitchens, and shelters, needs to raise $1.2 million (about 20% of its annual budget) by the end of December.

“We raise a majority of our dollars in October, November and December, but we’ve seen pretty serious shortfalls in the past two months,” says Judith Stermer, the organization’s director of communications and public affairs. “That we’re so far behind is definitely disconcerting.”

That’s not the only bad news. The Foodbank isn’t getting nearly as much commodity items from the federal government as usual. And it could face more money trouble if the mucky-mucks in Washington don’t settle the fiscal cliff negotiations. If you’d like to help, you can donate through the Foodbank’s website.

______________________________________________________________

The late Thomas Naylor of the secessionist group Second Vermont Republic, for leaving a legacy of lies and bitterness behind him. Some may say it’s unkind to speak ill of the recently deceased; my view is that we should speak plainly of their lives for good and ill. And in Naylor’s case, primarily ill.

When Naylor first formed SVR, he attracted a variety of Vermonters from across the political spectrum, including quite a few leftists who were disgusted with the Bush war on terror. Turned out that he had allied himself with some southern neo-Confederate types, and had some very questionable views on the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. And when confronted about his views and associations by blogger “Thomas Rowley” and front-pagers here at Green Mountain Daily, he reacted with angry denials and furious counterattacks, and an attempt to undermine the career of at least one of his critics.

And in the process, he made it clear that he held some pretty noxious views. Afterward, a lot of his associates broke ties with him and SVR. The group continued to sputter on, but it ceased to be a meaningful force in Vermont politics. And in the immortal words of Louis Armstrong:

When you’re lyin’ six feet deep, no more fried chicken will you eat,

I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos.

In the wake of the Newtown shootings, we have lots of this:

The tragedy in Connecticut will convince communities across the country to cut other spending in favor of funding greater security measures, including adding armed guards at schools, said Peter Pochowski, the former executive director of the National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officers.

Okay, then. In order to preserve the NRA’s sweeping claims of Second Amendment gun rights, our schools (and public buildings, and shopping malls, and mass-transit systems, and places of worship, and and and) will almost certainly feel compelled to add new security on top of the childhood-killing shit we’re already doing:

Since the Columbine shootings in Colorado, schools across the nation have increased security. Burlington schools hold lockdown drills and evacuation drills on a regular basis, and keep only one door open to the public.

And I’m old enough to remember “duck and cover” drills and the sense of dread they communicated.

Well, we seem unable to do much about gun ownership laws because politicians are completely cowed by the gun lobby. But if we do face increased social costs because anyone who wants an assault rifle can have one, then how about this: We figure out how much security our schools need, and how much it costs (for the stuff we’re already doing plus the new stuff), and create a security tax on gun sales?

The tax could be restricted to the most dangerous weapons — anything with rapid-fire capability, cop-killer ammunition, etc. — if you’re concerned about placing a burden on someone who just wants a handgun or standard hunting weapons. But the tax should be high enough to hold our schools (and malls and buses and subways and churches) harmless for security costs.

Fair enough? All we’re doing is correcting a flaw in the market: assigning the true costs of gun ownership where they belong.  

On Friday I posted two diaries addressing, in different ways, the financial difficulties Vermont is facing. We have an extremely tight budget situation, and a number of problems that need to be faced — some requiring large investments of money.

Meanwhile, Governor Shumlin has restated his staunch opposition to increases in taxes he defines as “broad-based.” Vermont Press Bureau:

If Democrats can abide his no-new-taxes pledge now, Shumlin said, then they’ll earn the electoral trust they’ll need to proceed with single-payer health care in 2017.



“That sets the foundation, builds the confidence and gives us the support of Vermonters that allows us to do the others things that I say other states don’t dare do,” Shumlin said.

When I first read this, I thought it was reasonable: the Administration is making bold plans for a single-payer health care system, and if it establishes a reputation for fiscal probity, the voters are more likely to trust Shumlin’s management and less likely to believe shrill opposition from the likes of Vermonter(s) First.  

But an article in Friday’s Times Argus made me think again. The Vermont Press Bureau’s Peter Hirschfeld reported that the Legislature has no plans to consider broadening the sales tax to include services as well as goods. The idea was bruited about last spring, but when it became a focal point of Vermonter(s) First’s blitzkrieg of attack ads, that early enthusiasm quickly evaporated.

And then it hit me: those attack ads didn’t work.

Vermonter(s) First spent almost a million bucks of Lenore Broughton’s money, and made nary a dent in the 2012 election. The Democrats cemented their hold on state government.

What’s more, the chair of the Vermont GOP has all but written off the 2014 election; Jack Lindley has said it will take at least two full election cycles to rebuild a competitive Republican Party.

So what are the Democrats afraid of?

After the jump: a unique opportunity for political boldness.

Vermont does face big challenges. But Vermont Democrats have a huge amount of political capital, and won’t face a serious threat anytime soon.

If ever there was an opportunity to go big, this is it. The Governor has gone big on health care reform, and he deserves full credit for that. He’s also pushing hard for renewables and energy efficiency. But given the strength of his position, there is room for more boldness. He’s got the power, and if the initiatives don’t have an immediate payoff, he’s got the time. This is a tremendous opportunity to put Vermont on a new course to solve our problems and create a better state.

I don’t know exactly which initiatives should be undertaken. But if the sales tax needs fixing, why not fix it? Why not find new ways to pay for infrastructure investments?

Why not, as regular commenter Minor Heretic says, take up Tony Pollina’s proposal for a Vermont state bank?

The initiatives need to be well thought-out and carefully chosen. But there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t be, given the experience and expertise in his cabinet, plus the financial know-how in the Treasurer’s and Auditor’s offices.

We’ve only heard pieces of the Governor’s plans for his second term, and it’s quite possible that a wide-ranging and ambitious agenda is already in the pipeline. I sure hope so. Because if Democrats operate out of fear, as they seem to be on sales tax reform, we will miss a golden opportunity to turn our problems into opportunities.  

(As we are all still processing this tragedy, I expect many will share here when they are ready. Here’s a start.   – promoted by JDRyan)

I know this isn’t necessarily the very best place for this, but I just have so many thoughts and feelings after the shooting yesterday in Connecticut and I’d like to get them out.  Maybe it’s because I live in the Northeast, or because I grew up in Connecticut not far from where the shooting happened (and still have a lot of friends and family down there) but the outpouring of grief and shock (and really reactions of almost every kind) that I see over Twitter and Facebook seems extraordinary.  Seemingly this event, in my little world, has affected people more than any other in recent memory.  

The sickness in so many of our hearts right now makes sense to me.  While I’m sure there are details coming out that I do not yet know of (I’ve stayed away from the news coverage, and have pretty much just been on Facebook and Twitter), the random and senseless killing of so many small children- and so many people in general- in a place that we tend to think of as safe (an elementary school) is just heart breaking.  The needless loss of something so innocent and precious as a child’s life is heavy enough, but then one thinks of all that these family’s will be enduring, and even more heartbreaking, during a time of the year when so much of our attention is on joy and sharing and being with family and loved ones.  To be honest, my heart is just so heavy thinking of it all, thinking of the needlessness and pointlessness of such suffering.  Then I think of the trauma that the surviving children, and teachers, and parents, and the community will have to try to process and move through.  My stomach was churning all of yesterday, and last night as I watched my own daughter it all just brought a near numbness to my entire being.  Hundreds of miles away, and yet, will I ever thoughtlessly (stressless-ly) drop her off at pre-school again? Is there any sense in feeding the anxiety’s that appear when one begins to go through all the possible nightmares that await around each or any corner?  Is it possible to ignore such feelings? The tears that well-up are the only softness that dulls desolation.  Yet hopelessness and despair and fear are never the most fitting response- to anything- and were likely the very seeds that began this tragedy, so I try my best to watch those feelings arise, recognize them for what they are and the trouble they bring with them, and I wait patiently for calm and clarity and strength to slowly re-warm by body and my thoughts.

So many will, or are, saying “Now isn’t the time to bring up political issues”, “Do not politicize this tragedy” and the like.  There seems to me no appropriate “politicizing” of someone’s individual experience; their loss and the tremendous suffering of those directly involved.  Yet aren’t politics specifically the results of everything we do or allow? or at least our reactions to the events around us?  It seems most obvious that when someone choses to act in such a vicious, horrific manner such as this it’s exactly the time to ask where and how such a person can or should have access to the kinds of weapons he used to carry out the mass murder of so many people, so many children, and to ask what can we do in our communities and our society to identify and provide help for people with such homicidal notions.  Political decisions allowed this person access to the kinds of weapons used to murder 20 young children.  Political decisions perpetuate a system of health care which is incapable of preemptively identifying people with severe mental illness and has a poor record of providing quality services and aid to help such people cope with their troubles.  It is our politics itself which defines a world in which anyone feels not only the urge to act in such a way, but feels that urge strong enough to act- feels that such an action is somehow justified, and right.

The people in Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and Iraq, and Gaza (and so many other places) live with this very same kind of fear and anxiety, and grief and heartache for lost loved ones- lost children- continually.  What’s the difference between a soldier carrying out the orders of sociopaths who have no regard for the lives of others in the pursuit of their aims and someone who behaves such themselves alone?  Is it really reasonable to be devastated when such violence comes to our own communities yet to allow and accept that in our names our government regularly commits the very same kinds of violence against innocent people?  If you begin to answer this question with some kind of justification for our own “safety” from supposedly violent terrorists or sociopaths bent on “killing Americans”, I’m afraid it may be that your own self-interests aren’t too far from the very feelings that led the killer in CT to act in exactly the same way- to justify the murder of innocent lives to do what he believed best served his own interests.  Perhaps that is why our nation has lived through this kind of event before, and will live through it again (just as the communities in Pakistan and Gaza and elsewhere will too).

It seems to me that the vast majority of people the world over are not interested in killing and destroying the lives of others.  It seems to me the vast majority of people the world over want to live peacefully, with the comfort of clean water and healthy foods and warmth, with a sense of safety among loved ones which allows us each to enjoy our brief time on this planet.  Yet we accept a world in which the small minority who feels it OK to kill with no regard for the lives of others, in pursuit of goals which have everything to do with the enrichment of themselves only, are allowed to do so.  We accept a world in which a small number of people are given the resources and weapons to carry out senseless murders- even of children- and all with the justification of protecting us from people who would be willing to carry out senseless murders.

One of the most disheartening responses that many will have isn’t that we should question a government which drops bombs and fires guns to solve it’s problems (and teaches us all to do them same)- many will say gun control or strengthening our mental health services won’t diminish such tragedy’s, because, they say, people are “evil” or are “assholes” or are “greedy” and as such this will just happen.  But we live in a world where there is more than enough food, and resources, and wealth so that each and every one of us could be afforded to live a healthy and comfortable life, free to enjoy ourselves and the world around us- yet we accept a way of being that denies these things to the vast majority, allows massive excess to sit in the pockets of just a few, and then call it “human nature” when despair and desperation overwhelm and push some to behave with disregard for the lives of others.

So we should be talking about not only a world in which guns are so readily available; we should be talking about why our mental health services aren’t capable of identifying and aiding people in such dire situations.  We should also be talking about a society which the news media will go full tilt in obsessive coverage of this tragedy in order to maximize ad dollars as we look to them for answers and information to help us all understand what just happened.  We should be asking why it is that we live in a culture where the random killing of innocent people seems like a legitimate means towards one’s goals or solution to one’s problems.  To what end and for what purpose have we handed over the entire fabric of our lives to the hands of a few who care not for any life but seek only their own personal gain? Through the media and our schools we internalize their sociopathic logic and become defenders of it ourselves, awakening briefly when the viciousness of this way of life rears its destruction close to us.  But we live it ourselves in our work, in our relationships, without a thought of it because it is often all we know.  How can we know a different way? this is what we’ve been taught, and this is how we’ve lived and watched our parents and friends and neighbors live for all our lives.  I fear that until we are able and willing to recognize and question these things, we will merely continue to suffer through completely senseless tragedy after completely senseless tragedy.  We will have no choice but to continually morn the violent death of innocence and hope for as long as we accept a world which produces such things, and for as long as we collectively believe that no other world is possible.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that the election is safely over* or that the new legislative session is just around the corner, but it seems like the Vermont budget is under siege: new requests, new demands on the public purse are flying in from every direction.

*Republican conspiracy theory.

We have the unfunded mandate (in state law) that 80,000 Vermont homes be winterized by the year 2020. The Thermal Efficiency Taskforce is calling for an 11 cent per gallon excise tax on home heating fuels to fund that effort.

We have a special committee about to report on how to address a big financial squeeze in our transportation system. The problem there is dependence on gas tax revenues at a time when fuel efficiency has increased and is likely to keep on doing so. That panel is almost certain to seek new funding sources.

And then there’s a draft report from the Agency of Natural Resources that says Vermont would have to spend $156 million per year to meet clean-water standards. The ANR suggests a few possible sources, but nothing nearly large enough to even approach that figure.

After the jump: the hits just keep on a-comin’.

On top of that is the unknown gap between necessary reconstruction after Tropical Storm Irene, and the amount that FEMA will be willing to pay for state buildings and highway culverts. We still await FEMA’s decisions, but the agency has already made it clear that the amount will be less than the Shumlin Administration had requested.

And let’s not forget the prospect that low-income Vermonters will face sharp increases in healthcare costs under the new insurance exchange. The legislature will face heavy pressure to narrow that gap, if not fill it entirely.

There were also the dueling reports last week about an imbalance in the Department of Mental Health budget: one, from VTDigger, put the shortfall at $20 million. After that report came out, DMH officials changed their tune and said the real gap is around $5.3 million.

I’m sure there are other items on this list. For instance, Secretary of State Jim Condos is calling for changes in election law and campaign finance law, some of which will require new reporting systems.

All of this coming at a time when the Joint Fiscal Office estimates that next year’s budget is out of balance to the tune of $50-70 million.

I don’t really have a conclusion here, I just thought it’d be good to see all of this in one place. This is going to be a really difficult legislative session, even with the Dems’ one-sided majorities.

It’s times like this I’m very happy to be right where I am — a sideline observer of the process, rather than someone who has to figure out what in hell to do.  

This is an example of why I love Vermont – just in from the ACLU in a press release:

MONTPELIER — The Vermont Supreme Court gave electronic privacy a big boost Friday when it approved restrictions placed upon police when conducting searches of electronic devices.

In the case, police in Burlington were investigating a report of a person applying for credit cards online using someone else’s identity.  Once the police narrowed the investigation to a street address where they thought the perpetrator might live, they asked a judge to issue a search warrant for “all computers or electronic media” located in the house, even though the house had multiple residents.

The judge issued the search warrant, but was wary about approving a broad search of all computers, iPads, and other devices that might be in the house.  So he imposed a number of restrictions on the search, including that the police could only look for evidence relating to the alleged identity theft, had to turn the devices over to a third party to conduct the search, and would not be permitted to prosecute a suspect based upon evidence of other crimes found on the devices.

After obtaining the search warrant, state prosecutors appealed the search restrictions to the Vermont Supreme Court.  Prosecutors argued that under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, judges must either approve or deny search warrant requests but may not approve them with conditions.

Search warrant applications are not contested, so at the request of the Vermont Supreme Court, the ACLU-VT, the national ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, “argued that the Fourth Amendment permits judges to tailor search warrants to avoid overly invasive searches.”

On Friday, the Vermont Supreme Court agreed, concluding that conditions limiting the invasiveness of digital searches “serve legitimate privacy interests.”

According to ACLU-VT staff attorney Dan Barrett, “The decision really addresses two questions. The first is whether judges have any ability to limit the invasiveness of digital searches.” The second, he added, is “whether each of the conditions imposed by the trial court that issued the warrant [was] permissible.”

[T]he court held that a judge’s authority to limit the invasiveness of a digital search is the same as the judge’s authority to limit a physical search.  Justice John Dooley, writing for the majority, explained: “A judicial officer might authorize a search of a person, including his pockets, without any particular basis for thinking that evidence will be found in the person’s pocket as opposed to elsewhere on his person. But that same officer might permissibly refuse to authorize a search of the person’s body cavities based on evidence of similar generality.”

In both physical and digital searches, the court held, “the investigatory promise must justify the collateral exposure” of a person’s private life.

“That’s a very important statement for modern privacy,” said Allen Gilbert, ACLU-VT executive director.  “We’re pleased that the court recognized that electronic devices like iPhones have incredibly personal information on them, like who your intimate partners are, what your finances are like, and whether you have health conditions.”

When it came to the second question – the legitimacy of each of the specific conditions that the trial court imposed on the search warrant — the Vermont Supreme Court upheld all but one.

More about that “one condition” on the flip.

 

The sole condition struck by the Supreme Court was the requirement that the police not use evidence of other, unrelated crimes that might be discovered during the search.  “[W]e find this instruction unnecessary for privacy protection and inappropriate,” the decision held, because the search would be conducted by a third party, and the police therefore wouldn’t stumble upon evidence of an unrelated crime.

“The trial court did some very forward thinking and borrowed some ideas from electronic discovery methods in civil litigation,” said Barrett, “things like turning the hard drive images over to a third party data contractor, and having the contractor perform the actual search, to avoid giving the police free reign to view whatever files they like.”

Gilbert said, “From Washington, D.C., where Congress is updating decades-old laws about e-mail privacy, all the way to Vermont, courts and policy-makers are getting the message that privacy matters. This decision is a very positive result for personal privacy.”

A copy of the court’s decision is available on the ALCU-VT Web site at http://bit.ly/UGbRis

So the balance wavers but continues: public records should be public; our private, non-offending lives are private and not a pond for police to go fishing in.

Now, if we could just get the legislature to stand firm on not allowing the police warrantless access (i.e., fishing) to the prescription drug database!

Governor Shumlin has made it clear he firmly opposes any increase in “broad-based taxes.” Don’t even think about it, is his message to lawmakers who’ll be looking for ways to address a tough budget situation.

His definition of broad-based taxes? Income, sales, and rooms and meals.

The first two are no-brainers. But rooms and meals? Is that really a broad-based tax? Or, to put it another way, is it really broader-based than some other forms of taxation?

Vermont has a goal of weatherizing 80,000 homes by the year 2020, which would save a whole lot of money and energy; but there’s no funding mechanism in place to meet the goal.  According to the Vermont Press Bureau, a task force will recommend a tax on most home heating fuels — kerosene, propane, coal, and fuel oil. Natural gas, reports VTDigger, is already subject to an energy efficiency tax; biomass and firewood would be exempt.

At his news conference last week, Shumlin was specifically asked if such a fuel tax should be considered “broad-based.” After a substantial pause, the Governor finally said no, such a tax would not be broad-based. Not so fast, says Matt Cota of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association:

“This is a broad-based tax,” he said. “Whether you’re rich, poor, or a business, everyone pays.” Cota estimated that about 170,000 homes in Vermont use heating oil or propane, representing about 70 percent of the housing stock.

I’m inclined to support a fuel tax that would fund weatherization. Fossil fuels are undertaxed as it is, since their prices don’t reflect the costs of carbon emissions. A fuel tax for weatherization is perfectly logical. Kills two birds with one stone.  

But I have to agree with Cota: it is a broad-based tax.

 It’s less broad-based than sales or income, but it’s certainly broader-based than the rooms and meals tax. It’s also much more regressive; the rooms and meals tax hits higher-income people harder, while a fuel tax would have a bigger proportionate impact on poorer people.

And no, I’m not saying we should increase the rooms and meals tax instead. I’m just saying I don’t buy the Governor’s reasoning.  

Especially since we’ve got this other big item staring us in the face: a huge bill for water quality improvements. The Agency of Natural Resources says the state would have to increase spending by $156 million a year to meet our water quality challenges. That’s such a high price tag that the ANR didn’t even try to recommend a way to raise it all. It suggested a range of taxes or surcharges, including a stormwater fee for each property, a surcharge on the income or property tax, and taxes on items that contribute to water pollution such as motor fuels or fertilizers.

Even if we approved all those measures, we’d still be far short of the needed revenue. The best we can hope for is a substantial influx of federal money — at a time when the feds are trying to tighten their belts. But to get even a decent start on improving water quality, we’re facing some tax and fee increases.

And none of them are on Shumlin’s list of broad-based taxes. He has crafted a definition that will let him present himself as a fiscal tightwad, while leaving himself quite a bit of wiggle room to increase state revenues.  

Yes…this will be fun.  A love affair between a 64 year-old Palestinian man (Me-I’m 64) and a 62 year-old Israeli woman that started back during the Six Day War in ’67 (Summer of Love).  My apologies to Bob Dylan, but I can’t help it.  I’m calling it:

  TANGLED UP IN JEWS

Yeah.  let’s see…

“Early one mornin’ the rockets were flyin’

I was layin’ on my face

Wonderin’ if she would get hit by one

If she was still livin’ in occupied space

Her folks they came over from Florida

Settled on the West Bank

Her daddy didn’t like the rag on my head

He had me driven off by a tank

Then I was standin’ in the Gaza Strip

Listenin’ to my friend Bin

I must admit I felt a little uneasy

When the IDF started comin’ in

And went tearing through…

…Tangled up in Jeewws…”

I met her during the Six Day War

Back in nineteen sixty-seven

She fed me bread at the interment camp

And it wasn’t even leavened

She was sixteen and unorthodox

And I was eighteen for Allah

Her daddy ran the camp like a Nazi

She said: “You’re not like all those mullahs”



And then she turned around to look at me

As her Daddy had me led away

I heard her say over his shoulder:

“We’ll meet again someday

On a settlement that’s new…”

…Tangled up in Jeewws

We were living together in ’73

When I volunteered for the Yum Kipper War

The Egyptian captain didn’t like me much

He said: “You’re the one with the Jewish Whore”

All the time I was in the Sinai

I kept her picture pure as a flower bud

Wonderin’ if we’d ever be the same again

If her hair was still red as blood

But Ariel Sharon kicked our asses

And Sadat said he’d had enough

Everything was gettin’ occupied

And Tel Aviv’s terms were gettin’ tougher

And harder to chew…

…Tangled up in Jeewws

Yes.  And must have my hero flee to New York City for a while and hit the nightclub scene, like that little fucker Arafat did in the mid-seventies.  Have him run into Jesse Jackson in ’84 who will say to him:



“…so you better take that rag off of your head

And take a look around

Don’t you know where the fuck you are?

Don’t you know this is Hymietown?

I said so on the news…

…Tangled up in Jeeewws…”

Oh, this will be…Hey, gotta remember to mention The Prophet:



“And I studied the words of Muhammad

It didn’t take me very long

Never understood what all the fuss was about

Maybe HE should have made it a song



I threw rocks in the Intifadas

And Bin taught me how to watch out for mines

But I never could get her out of my head

I was wonderin’ about her all the time



So after years of hangin’ out with Bin

I became withdrawn

The only thing I knew how to do

Was to make a bomb

And I always made it wrong

But I paid my dues…

…Tangled up in Jeeewws…”

So, this should piss about everybody off.  If I do it right, that is.  

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

I'm finally getting to this story that kind of got buried around election time, but it really shouldn't be.

One of the most effective advocates in the State House is my friend and colleague Laura Ziegler. She's worked for many years as a paralegal, representing New Yorkers in involuntary mental health cases, and she's lived in Vermont for years, spending time at the Legislature on mental health issues, completely on her own.

Laura's general method of operation is to spend hours reading bills, court precedents from other jurisdictions, scholarly articles, and then use what she's read, together with her great memory of the law and her powers of analysis to bug the professional advocates and lobbyists in the building and let us know what we're missing, why what we're missing is important, and why we have to pay more attention to somem overlooked issue.

I think she realizes that her attentions are sometimes inconvenient to the people she's trying to talk to, but she also knows, as to the people who know her in the State House, that she's pretty much always right. 

Laura's not the kind of person who gets a lot of recognition or appreciation, but that changed this year. On November 10, at its annual meeting, the Vermont chapter of the ACLU honored her with their David W. Curtis Civil Liberties Award.

Here's the citation:

 The American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont

presents its Thirtieth Annual David W. Curtis Civil Liberties Award to

Laura Ziegler

 for protecting the rights of psychiatric survivors and people with disabilities and for her steadfast commitment to government accountability.

 Laura Ziegler has been a tireless, self-appointed advocate for citizens who are frequently marginalized and unheard in our society. For them, she simply seeks a measure of justice. In her advocacy work, Laura often clashes with public officials. She files many public records requests to learn the details of government actions. She attends public meetings to understand and follow difficult issues, often reminding participants of past actions they did or did not take. She complains when she feels the open meeting law is being violated. But she also expresses appreciation for a good law passed or a bad one defeated. A society could ask for no better public citizen, and we are proud to honor Laura with our David Curtis Civil Liberties Award.

 November 10, 2012

Montpelier, Vermont

I can't think of anyone more deserving of this recognition. 

Unlike some of my colleagues in this space, I’m not particularly exercised about the F-35 issue. I just don’t think it’s going to make that much difference, and there are far bigger items on the political agenda.

That said, my goodness, Governor Shumlin’s little Florida junket was a complete waste of time and the GBIC’s money, wasn’t it? The best he can hope for is that this event will be quickly forgotten. It certainly won’t change anyone’s mind, and it displayed one of Shummy’s less endearing political quirks — his inability to appear plausibly concerned with the opinions of people who disagree with him.

So he goes down to Florida with a bunch of F-35 supporters and two journalists — Terri Hallenbeck of the Freeploid and Kirk Carapezza of VPR. And how do these reporters show their appreciation? They take pictures of him palling around with junket bankroller Ernie Pomerleau, and wearing big ugly headphones whenever he’s anywhere near those Air Force whisperjets.  

And what’s worse, they report some of the stupid stuff the junketeers had to say.  

Shumlin said when he first saw the plane, “Wow.”

“I’m shocked at how quiet the F-35 is,” Shumlin said afterward.

Shumlin tells Pomerleau there’s only one thing that could convince him that the noise between the two jets is appreciably different: “If I can’t hear you on the flight home!”

Ba ha ha, he used the same joke on Paul Heintz last week.

“Volume – seems to me – is about the same. But don’t forget the F-16 is not using the afterburner. You crank that afterburner and I bet you that the F-16 is louder,” Shumlin says, standing on the tarmac.

So the F-35 might be louder, except when the F-16 is. Brilliant.  

And finally, best of all:

“The noise issue should not hold us back from embracing the F-35,” Shumlin says.

(Quotes #1 and 2 from the Freeploid; others from VPR.) Summing it up, then: the Governor came down with “open ears” but wouldn’t change his mind unless he was deafened by the F35, his evaluation of the noise was laughably transparent, and finally, he says the noise doesn’t matter.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger joined Shumlin in elevating his own foot and inserting it between his lips. Freeploid:

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, who came as a supporter of the jets, went away unchanged. “It’s a different sound,” he said. “There was not a dramatic difference.”

Winooski Mayor and amateur audiologist Mike O’Brien, the only F-35 agnostic on the trip, performed a scienterrific evaluation of the noise with his iPad. Which unfortunately showed the F-35 blasting 114 decibels to the F-16’s 101. (Decibels are logarithmic units, so a difference of 13 dB is quite substantial.) And then he proceeded to make excuses: the F-35 may have seemed louder because it flew closer to him.  And,

“They’re both loud,” O’Brien said afterward.

Of the F-35’s sound, he said, “It didn’t blow my socks off. It’s a deeper sound. It’s really hard to compare the whole thing this quickly.”

In other words, the whole thing was pointless.

Our thanks to Mayors Weinberger and O’Brien for their invaluable public service, and our best wishes to the Governor on his Italian vacation.