How badly do the police need Tasers?

 Pretty badly. After all, if police in Nashua, New Hampshire hadn't had Tasers this woman might have gotten away with the crime of buying more iPhones than the Apple store policy allowed.

 In a story that's bound to be widely picked up, local TV news stations in New England were having a field day Wednesday with blurry cellphone video of a tiny 44-year-old Chinese woman being held to the ground and tasered outside an Apple Store by a pair of Nashua, N.H., police.

Yes, according to CNN, the woman, who apparently speaks no English, bought two iPhones on Friday and was sent away when she tried to buy more for relatives in China. When she ordered more online and returned to the store to pick them up they again refused her and told her to leave.

She got upset, they called the police, and the police decided to hit her with 50,000 volts.

What I found most striking in this story is that the police didn't even pretend that they needed to do it to protect the safety of the officers or bystanders.

 “The officer approached her, told her she wasn't welcome in the store, and she refused to leave,” Nashua police captain Bruce Hansen told WCVB TV. He described the use of electroshock weapons as standard procedure when a subject refuses to obey a lawful order or resists arrest.

All those arguments about how Vermont “needs” Vermont Yankee?  Not even Entergy can make that claim with a straight face now.

According to Reuters:

Ignoring the odd phrasing for a moment; the point is that the ISO has agreed to delist Vermont Yankee from the annual forward-capacity power auctions for 2013-2016…because it simply isn’t needed.

This development comes on top of the Public Service Board‘s refusal to grant Entergy a delay in its requirement that a new certificate of public good be obtained for the relicensed plant to continue operating.  

The PSB is expected to rule on the question of Public Good in August of next year.  Meanwhile,  the New England Coalition is asking the Vermont Supreme Court to simply shut VY down, once and for all.  

So much storm und angst; just because Entergy wants to continue its game of “hot potato” long enough to wring a little more value from VY, and perhaps slide out from under its liability for decomissioning.

In the year and a half since Fukushima briefly brought the nuclear debate front and center here at home, U.S energy consumers may have left that lesson largely unattended while focussing on political dramas; but other nations are actively pursuing ways to extract themselves from dependence upon an aging nuclear energy “fleet” that looks more and more threadbare every day.  

Japanese consumers in particular have learned how corrupt and irresponsible have been the very agencies and individuals that were entrusted with regulation of that nations’ nuclear grid.

There are indications that our own Nuclear Regulatory Commission, in what appears to be a long established effort to diminish public anxiety, has been considerably less than candid and has deliberately dampened the lessons from Fukushima.

We learn, for example, from internal NRC memos, that even back on March 17, of  2011 they knew that not all spent fuel pools at U.S. reactor sites had been built to withstand the rigors of earth tremors:

Some US spent fuel pools are simply not ‘seismically qualified.’

And speaking of spent fuel pools in seismically active regions, Fairewinds Associateshas issued a new educational podcast that explains the consequences of locating nuclear reactors in seismically active areas, and takes a look at the issues associated with moving spent fuel from the damaged reactors at Fukushima.

We don’t really know how Vermont Yankee would fare if a significant seismic event had its epicenter near that facility.  Despite known design flaws and an age approaching the outer limits of its original life-expectancy, the NRC rushed to approve a twenty-year license extension of the aging VY facility before the dust had even settled at Fukushima.  Following NRC practice, a physical inspection of VY was not even required for relicensing!

I still find that pretty unbelievable.

Even the NRC seems to have partially gotten the point (although too late for VY), and as of August 2012, has suspended all new licensing of nuclear facilities until it puts together new regulatory conditions in response to a court ruling on spent fuel storage.

Unfortunately, the half-life of Vermont Yankee goes on and on.

The Burlington Free Press today continued its effort to milk a hot story for all it’s wor — ahem, I mean, cover an issue of public interest — with another article about the state’s reluctance to release documents in the Jim Deeghan case. Deeghan is the former Vermont State Police sergeant accused of massively padding his time sheets and writing almost 1,000 fake traffic tickets.

And those tickets are the documents in question. The Freeploid has been seeking the names of motorists cited on the bogus tickets, and expected to receive them by now. But Deeghan’s lawyer has objected to releasing the list, and prosecutors have, so far, acceded to his objection.

In a diary posted on Monday, i noted my ambivalence about the Freeploid’s heavy use of Public Records Requests. On the one hand, it has every right to seek the documents and has sometimes uncovered stories that people need to know about.  

On the other hand, it’s a relatively easy way to conduct “investigative journalism” — file PRRs and wait for the documents to be released. And the Freeploid is never shy about patting itself on the back for its public-records safaris. But there are other tools in the journalistic woodshop. And, speaking as a subscriber who reads the (virtual) paper every day, my sense is that the Freeploid leans too heavily on PRRs and doesn’t spend enough time on other types of reporting and analysis.

Take the Deeghan case, for example. The Freeploid is getting a lot of mileage out of its request for that list of motorists; in the past week, it’s published two stories reporting that the list is still under wraps. Which seems a bit much. To be sure, the list is a public document and the ‘Loid is within its rights to pursue the list.

But I don’t give a tinker’s cuss about the list, or who’s on it. And when the Freeploid finally gets the list, I’m sure it will publish a nice long story reporting the reactions of folks who are on the list — a piece of reportorial puffery designed to get maximum mileage out of the story without any meaningful information.

After the jump: What’s really important in the Deeghan case.

What I do care about is how in hell Jim Deeghan was able to do what he is alleged to have done: faking his time sheets to such an extent that he was one of the highest-paid employees on the state payroll, racking up more overtime than just about anyone else on the force, and entering hundreds of fake tickets in the system. And what, if any, disciplinary action has been (or will be) taken against Deeghan’s supervisors. You know, the guys who signed his time sheets.

What kind of a system allows such wholesale abuses to happen? And keep on happening for years? If the system is so lax, how do we know there aren’t other fraudsters among Vermont’s Finest?

Those questions, as far as I’m aware, have yet to be answered. Meanwhile, the Freeploid keeps on chasing irrelevant — or, at best, tangential — issues because it can be done the easy way: through Public Records Requests.  

Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam.

Deleted. User Banned.  

Greetings from Dicksea, my Yankee friends, Double-Damned Yankee here.  

I recently drove from the ATL down to Columbus, Georgia, home to Fort Benning, where there are around 120,000 active duty US military.  

The main drag off the interstate into Columbus is called Veterans Parkway.  Along both sides are all sorts of bidnesses that are rare and/or non-existent in Vermont – pawn shops, title loan shops, massage parlors, ‘lingerie shops’, strip clubs, used car lots where you can pay by the week, check-cashing and payroll-advance storefronts, and others of similar ilk and repute.  Flim-flamming and scamming soldiers is the game here, like in many military towns.  

(There are eight Walmarts within 30 minutes of the base.)

It is a long proud tradition.  Back in the 1950s, Phenix City, just across the river from Columbus in Alabam, was put under martial law because soldiers were getting rolled, beaten and killed – moonshine, gambling, and prostitution businesses ran the town.

There are a million and one reasons to oppose the F-35s at BTV.   Having grown up a mile-and-a-half from a 3/8ths-mile Saturday night dirt racing (modified stock), and upstate NY 2 cycle-engine snowmobile drone from November to April (back when we had winter), I certainly can appreciate the noise argument.  

Out of sight (and out of hearing range), these planes – and the military excess they represent – might be out of mind.  But, rest assured, citizen, you paid for them (well, you and the Chinese), this is YOUR military, and these planes will be somewhere.

Perversely, precisely because you are the kind of people that care about these things, the folks who fly them and keep them in the air would be best off in your back yard.  

Just sayin’.

Ah, I see a formulaic little news item typical for this time of year:

As the holidays approach, Vermont State Police are stepping up enforcement.

Very good. Details?

Troopers, along with local and county law enforcement agencies, will be conducting DUI checkpoints and increasing patrols in Windham County from Dec. 16 to Dec. 30.

Uh, boss? Question over here.

You’re doing special DUI checkpoints for the holidays, and you’re ending them on Decemer 30. Really.

Ever hear of New Year’s Eve? Biggest night of the year for drinking and driving?

Maybe they’re gonna have Jim Deeghan on duty that night.  

Oh noes, Skip Vallee is angry. And you wouldn’t want to see Skip Vallee when he’s angry.

The gasoline magnate, Republican moneybags and failed candidate is angry because Bernie Sanders is sticking his nose in Skippy’s profit margin. Ace reporter Paul Heintz has the deets:

The owner of nearly 40 Vermont Mobil stations has produced a 30-second political attack ad accusing Sanders of siding with “big business” to damage the state’s environment. And he’s threatening to plunk down a chunk of cash to put his ad on-air.

And by “siding with big business,” Skip means “asking questions about Vallee’s efforts to block a proposed Costco gas station in Colchester that would bring competitive pressure on the market.” But in the ad, Bernie is depicted as a corporate puppet bent on despoiling Vermont’s prostine environment:

“Leaders like Sen. Patrick Leahy have fought to provide resources to make Vermont a cleaner place. That’s why we are so disappointed with Sen. Bernie Sanders,” the narrator says as the soundtrack turns darker. “Bernie sided with a multinational, billion-dollar corporation over Vermonters – supporting development that will increase traffic and idling emissions and phosphorous runoff in Lake Champlain, leading to more algae blooms.”

Mmm-hmm, one more gas station at a bustling freeway exit will be the straw that broke Lake Champlain’s back. That’ll fly like a lead balloon: a big businessman trying to paint Bernie Sanders as a tool of big business.

Uh, Skippy, basic rule of politics: an attack ad, in order to be effective, has to reflect some measure of reality. Or at least an established stereotype of reality. Think the 2004 ad with John Kerry windsurfing, or this year’s Obama ads painting Mitt Romney as a hard-core one-percenter.

You can’t just take someone with a 30-year political record and slosh him with a completely contradictory accusation. Well, you can; you just can’t expect it to work.

Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in Vermont. If Skip believes that he can take on Bernie and hope to prevail, well, he’s seriously delusional. He needs to stop poking the bear and back slowly out of the cave.  

Suppose the US Congress were trading on the stock exchange and you followed the old saying that advises “buy on the dips”? Well then you would likely buy congressional stock because it can’t get much lower. But keep in mind that an upswing might be a long way off and past performance is no guarantee of future appreciation. Congressional job performance approval, according to a recent poll is just 9 percent. The poll of 1,000 people nationwide had a margin of error of 3.5 percent. 

That means Congress’ approval rating could be as high[!] as 12.5 percent or as low as 5.5 percent

 And while Congress struggles with a low and falling approval rating, a different pollster shows President Obama’s approval is on the move up.

Obama’s approval rating stands at 57 percent, the highest since May 2011, […] up 5 percentage points from before the election. And 42 percent [of poll respondents] say the country is on the right track, up from 35 percent in January 2009.

 This poll also indicates:

…overall, the public gives Democrats the advantage on handling the economy, 45 percent saying they trust the president’s party to do a better job on it, 39 percent favoring Republicans

But now there are reports that Democrats might take their advantage and consider Medicare and other entitlement cuts. With polls showing that large margins(70-25 percent) of voters oppose cutting Medicare, odds are the Democrats' stock might tank too.

Sen. Bernie Sanders came out yesterday with another salvo in his War On Gas Prices. This time, the dastardly socialist is using facts.



Facts!

Scurrilous bastard.

For those just tuning in, Sanders has been raising a stink for months about the disparity between gas prices in the greater Burlington area and other parts of the state. He’s leveled accusations of price gouging against the four companies that own the majority of Chittenden County gas stations and thus, presumably, have significant price-setting power.

In the absence of tangible action, and amid continuing excuse-making by one of the Gang of Four, conservative moneybags and failed political candidate Skip Vallee*, Sanders has launched a website tracking gas prices in Vermont and offering proof that prices are consistently higher in Chittenden County and points north.

*In an e-mail to the Associated Press, Vallee claimed that “We are competitive in every market we are in.” Well yeah, that’s kinda the point, Skipper; you meet prevailing prices, but you don’t go lower unless you’re forced to do so by others.

Bernie’s website includes a lot of useful information for consumers, and resources on the broader issues in play.  

There’s a chart showing the persistent gap between average prices in Burlington and average prices across the state. There’s a pair of lists: one with the best prices in northwestern Vermont, all between $3.56 and $3.59 per gallon, and the other with the best prices anywhere in the state, ranging from $3.38 to $3.44. The lowest prices in Vermont, as of this writing, are all in Springfield, Ascutney, Ludlow and Middlebury. I could see an argument for lower prices in Springfield and Ascutney, located along I-91 relatively close to New England ports. But why Middlebury? It’s a small, remote market.  

Well, actually, we know why Middlebury’s prices are lower. As Seven Days reported back in July, Middlebury is home to Champlain Valley Plumbing and Heating, a retailer that’s willing to lower its prices. As CVPH co-owner Bill Heffernan told 7D, “We set the tone in Middlebury. Whatever we go to, people follow.” At the time, CVPH was charging $3.40 a gallon, while prices in Burlington ranged from $3.61 to $3.72.

Sadly, Burlington lacks a price leader like CVPH; instead, the Queen City is stuck with the Skipper and his ilk, satisfied to be competitive within the terms of their oligopolistic market. (Even as he continues to fight Costco’s effort to build a gas station off I-89 in Colchester. A curious move by such an ardent champion of competition.)

Joseph Choquette, a lobbyist for the Vermont Petroleum Association, kinda let the cat out of the bag when he told the Freeploid that prices are based on customers’ willingness to pay. Or, in other words, “we’ve got them over a barrel.”

“How are you going to force prices down if people are willing to pay them?” Choquette posed.

…He offered as well that people pay more for gasoline because they want other services or geographic convenience.

Yeah, like the “geographic convenience” of not driving from Burlington to Middlebury to fill your tank. Or the “geographic convenience” of Burlington’s often-fierce traffic: who wants to drive across town, or even a couple miles away, in hopes of saving a nickel a gallon? Not many. Burlington, with its traffic, relative affluence, and ownership concentration, seems to be ideal ground for a noncompetitive market that gives sellers a big edge over buyers.

And as for Choquette’s question, how’s this for an answer: You can force prices down through a combination of public embarrassment and the dogged determination of Bernie Sanders.  

A holiday-themed edition of our usual Monday feature “Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down…”

Jason “I Ran for Secretary of State and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt” Gibbs, for getting his new PR business off to a flying start by attaching himself, lamprey-like, to the second-biggest cash cow in Vermont politics: Bruce Lisman’s Campaign for Vermont. (The first is, of course, Lenore Broughton’s vanity project, Vermonter(s) First.)

Gibbs isn’t directly working for CFV; he’s got a contract with Capital Connections, a Republican-leaning lobbying shop* which numbers CFV as one of its clients. Sounds like featherbedding to me. Why does a lobbying firm need to outsource its communications strategy? And why should Bruce Lisman pay Capital Communications to pay Jason Gibbs?

* CC may well balk at that characterization, but when the testimonials on its website are all from prominent Republicans and conservative business groups, it’s pretty clear who’s buttering their bread.

Last week, Gibbs announced the opening of his very own communications firm, modestly dubbed “Jason Gibbs, LLC.” Its home on the Interwebs will be the equally modest “gowithgibbs.com,” which had been his campaign website for that ill-starred 2010 run for Secretary of State.

And now, you can buy a piece of the (ahem) expertise and (cough) connections that helped him lose to Democrat Jim Condos by a mere ten percentage points, and that fueled his run as Jim Douglas’ utility infielder — taking on whatever cabinet post was open, regardless of relevant experience.

But congrats to Gibbsy for turning the chickenshit of his resume into the chicken salad of a well-connected consultancy. He must actually have some communication skills; otherwise, how could he convince anyone to buy the expertise of a warmed-over Republican operative in a Democratic town?

Low-income working Vermonters, for taking it in the shorts under the next step of Governor Shumlin’s health care reform plan. VTDigger reports that ShummyCare, as it stands today, would lay the financial smackdown on Vermonters with incomes above the poverty level but still low enough to offer not much more than raw, precarious sustainability. Those people currently get subsidized care through Catamount Health or the Vermont Health Access Plan (VHAP); when the system switches to an insurance exchange in 2014, those two programs will end and their clients will pay higher rates in the exchange.

How much higher? Try almost $10,000 for a couple earning $45,000 a year. Or $6,000 for an individual making $33,500 a year. That’s not a total of 10K or 6K — those are the increases.  That couple would be paying a total of almost $17,000 for health insurance. That’s 38% of their income, just for health care.

Last week, Governor Shumlin said the state can’t afford the $18 million it would cost to hold working Vermonters harmless. Well, merry f*cking Christmas to you too, Governor. That seems awfully harsh, especially since Mark Larson, Commissioner of the Department of Vermont Health Access, has said that the state expects to save $10-15 million because it will no longer be subsidizing health care through Catamount and VHAP. Perhaps Shumlin already has other plans for that money.

The process is just beginning; we’ll see what Shumlin comes up with, and what the Legislature can do. But they’d better come very close to eliminating this draconian levy on the working class, or ShummyCare will seem like a bitterly unfunny joke to the very Vermonters it’s supposed to be helping.

It’s times like these that I appreciate the existence of the Progressive Party. I’d hope the Prog caucus can hold the Dems’ feet to the fire on this, especially considering that Martha Abbott withdrew from the gubernatorial race in order to lend full support to ShummyCare.

After the jump: Shoutouts to two good Vermonters, a State Police Moebius Strip of disinformation, and Bruce Lisman, Sooper Genius.

Robert Appel, outgoing head of the Vermont Human Rights Commission, for eleven years of service in a challenging job. He will join a Hinesburg law firm and begin to enjoy the higher earning potential of a lawyer in the private sector. Which, after his long tenure in public service, I can’t begrudge him.

Appel told VTDigger that his most important case was a 2006 state Supreme Court decision that defined prisons as “places of public accommodation,” which meant, among other things, better psychiatric treatment for inmates. He also represented a lesbian couple in their suit against the Wildflower Inn of Lyndonville, after it refused to host their wedding. Allen Gilbert of the VTACLU said Appel’s biggest accomplishment was clarifying the legal definition of discrimination, which is a murky area in Vermont law. And Gilbert concluded:  

Robert dedicated a large chunk of his life to assisting people who are often maligned, marginalized, and forgotten, helping them to seek a measure of justice. He should be honored for that.

the Vermont State Police, for an iffy adherence to transparency, and for giving an apparent promotion to the guy who signed Jim Deeghan’s timesheets. VSP Lt. Marc Thomas was Deeghan’s supervisor at the Williston barracks during a good chunk of the time that Deeghan was apparently faking vast amounts of overtime and writing hundreds of fake traffic tickets. Thomas was removed from the Williston post after the scandal broke; now he’s been named by VSP Director Tom L’Esperance to serve on a Violent Offender Task Force run by the U.S. Marshals’ Vermont office.

This, while Thomas’ culpability in Deeghan’s alleged fraud is still under investigation. And when the Freeploid came looking for answers on the appointment, the following bit of transparency comedy ensued:

[Public Safety Commissioner Keith] Flynn referred other questions on Friday to L’Esperance, who punted to department spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro, who was unable to provide any information.

Yeah, that’s why they call ’em “public servants.”

Now, I have mixed feelings about the Freeploid’s incessant poking at the transparency issue. On the one hand, our state and local governments tend to be too closed-off, and that’s not good for the quality of governance or for the public trust. On the other, sometimes I think the Freeploid spends so much of its time on document hunts because it’s an easy way to do “investigative journalism.” Put in a records request; if there’s a delay or a refusal, you’ve got a story. If you don’t get everything you wanted, you’ve got a story. If you get everything on time, you can usually find something to write about. The Freeploid is constantly patting itself on the back for being a public watchdog, and constantly referring to its past transparency scoops (real or inflated), but there are other ways to serve the public interest, and the Freeploid too often falls short of the mark.

Arts impresario Meg Hammond, for continuing to bring creative cultural activities to central Vermont. Hammond and partner Ben T. Matchstick were the team behind the beloved and lamented Langdon Street Cafe, which maintained an insane schedule of concerts and other activities in a tiny Montpelier space.

Hammond is now Events Manager at Goddard College, and has amped up Goddard’s profile in the local cultural scene. She’s organized a really interesting series of concerts at Goddard’s Haybarn Theatre (coming in January: jazz legend Archie Shepp!!!) and she’s scheduling special exhibits at the Goddard Art Gallery in downtown Montpelier. Its latest is a showing by Vermont sculptors Kat Clear and Torin Porter; before that, there was a show of political art by Peter Schumann and the Bread &  Puppet Theater. I’m glad she’s found a new outlet for her talents.  

Vermont’s mental health care system, reeling from the departure of two key leaders and the news of a looming budget shortfall. Last month, Patrick Flood announced his imminent departure as Commissioner of the Department of Mental Health. Even as he was leaving, he maintained that all was hunky-dory with the refashioning of a new health care delivery system.  

It’s hard to believe his assurances now that he’s been joined on the way out by Dr. Jay Batra, DMH medical director and pre-Irene director of the now-closed Vermont State Hospital. And now that we’ve heard two different versions of bad budget news for the mental health care system. By one account, its expenses will rise by almost 50% next year. By another account, the gap is quite a bit smaller than that but still significant, at a time when Governor Shumlin is looking to cut expenses. Not a good time to be a provider or a patient.

Bruce Lisman, Wall Street sooper-genius and newly-bashful* founder of the Campaign for Vermont (Prosperity). for drinking the Republican consultancy Kool-Aid and simultaneously killing whatever remained of his “nonpartisan” credibility. Lisman’s CFV has been repped by the Republican-leaning lobby shop, Capital Connections; now, CC has farmed out the strategic messaging part of that work to Jason Gibbs, LLC.

*On the CFV website, the section formerly known as “The Lisman Perspective” has now been dubbed “Our Perspective.” How communal of you, Mr. Lisman! Is that one of Gibbsy’s rebranding ideas?

So, let’s see. In the first few months of the year, Lisman poured over $200,000 into a completely failed attempt to influence the 2012 political dialogue. After that, Bruce pulled back his horns; no paid advertising, only a smattering of public appearances and op-ed pieces, and the rollout of an energy policy platform full of free-market bromides that was universally ignored and sunk without a trace.

And now he’s turning to a former Douglas Administration functionary and failed Republican political candidate to handle what appears to be a relaunch of CFV. Inspired, I have to assume, by Lenore Broughton’s success in following the same course with Tayt Brooks. International Man of Mystery?

And not only that, but he’s paying a middleman to employ Gibbs, thus throwing bad money after bad. And this is a guy who’s supposed to bring world-class business acumen to our public policy debate?

No thanks.