Just got a tip from a reader that there are robocalls coming into Vermont from an organization called the Consumer Energy Alliance “touting all the jobs, energy security, and cheap gas prices which, in their view, strip mining for net-energy-loss tar sands oil and piping it from Canada to Texas will supposedly bring.”

The questions were nakedly persuasive, and also asked the gender of the recipient, and whether he was over 50.

The Consumer Energy Alliance is a classic “astroturf” group (i.e. industry-funded operation masquerading as a grassroots-type organization) previously known for lobbying to open up public lands in the US to oil exploration. Lots of references on the web link it to a long time corporate operative named Michael Gibson, but the links that backed that up are dead, so I can’t confirm.

So is this then a “push-poll?” A true push poll targets enough people to make a difference in overall public opinion, and that gets pricey – especially in a case like this, where this is likely a national call (why would Vermont specifically be targeted). This is why, when it comes from a politician, such a phony persuasion poll is probably message testing rather than a full-on push.

But in this case, who knows? There’s a lot of industry money tied up in this, and this sort of communication and message propagation seems to be all that this organization does. It wouldn’t shock to me to find out that this was a genuine push-poll, which means the scale of it must be massive. Anyone else get such a call?

A reminder from GMD pal Bill McKibben about what’s at stake with this issue (and if you aren’t familiar with the issue, click here to get caught up):

We have, not surprisingly, concerns about potential spills and environmental degradation from construction of the pipeline. But those tar sands are also the second-largest pool of carbon in the atmosphere, behind only the oil fields of Saudi Arabia. If we tap into them in a big way, NASA climatologist James Hansen explained in a paper issued this summer, the emissions would mean it’s “essentially game over” for the climate.

Governor Shumlin held a press conference today, thanking Vermont’s “Corporate Angels” who have donated to disaster relief. He was joined by some of  the higher profile angels in an effort, not simply to show gratitude, but naturally to encourage even more support. Via the press release, the angels in attendance (and their corporations’ respective contributions) were:

• Vermont Public Radio President Robin Turnau: $627,000 from a one-day fundraiser.
• Green Mountain Coffee Roaster President and CEO Larry Blanford: $250,000 donation.
• Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont President and CEO Don George: $150,000 donation.
• National Life President and CEO Mehran Assadi: $120,000 donation.
• President and CEO of Subaru of New England Ernie Boch Jr.: $100,000 donation.
• Northfield Savings Bank President and CEO Thomas Pelletier: $100,000 donation.
• IGG Software Inc. President Dr. Ian Gillespie: $30,000 donation.
• Coca-Cola: $25,000 donation

Great stuff to be sure (even if the amount from Coca-Cola probably amounts to little more than the annual income from a few vending machines). It’s encouraging to see that kind of money moving where it’s desperately needed.

Unfortunately, while the phrase “corporate angels” sounds catchy, it’s been taken a few times over.

There is, for example, the Corporate Angel Network, which provides free flights for cancer patients on corporate jets. There’s a Corporate Angels “angel” investing network (not too creative naming there, to be sure). There are “corporate angels” supporting the Global Angels charity, which helps disadvantaged children and communities. There’s a “corporate angels” company that provides administrative support for business. And so on…

I’m just sayin’: don’t forget to Google.

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God Bless! Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” – Elizabeth Warren

From NECN:

He’s the most popular politician in Massachusetts and for months Republican Senator Scott Brown has been leading the pack of democratic challengers — until Elizabeth Warren arrived on the scene last week.

The latest poll shows Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren with a slight edge over Scott Brown, 46-44 percent.

Former Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie may be dipping his financial biscuit into some consulting gravy. The Vermont Press Bureau (paywalled)reports Dubie Solutions LLC is now registered with the Vermont secretary of state and that even for a time the firm was represented online.  

It’s unclear whether Dubie Solutions, the limited-liability company registered by Dubie at the Secretary of State’s Office on June 27, has any paying clients. Dubie did not respond to repeated requests for comment.  

The company has its own website, however, saying “our team has the experince (sic) when you need results.”  

“We have made investments in relationships,” the site says. “Let us tap into our trusted relationships to serve your needs.”  

The site was up as recently as 2:30 p.m. Monday but had been taken down by 3:30 p.m. A cached version was still accessible via Google by searching “Dubie Solutions.”

Maybe the site was taken down to run a quick spell-check.

Even though Dubie was unavailable for comment on how this new business might affect his rumored desire for a rematch against Governor Shumlin State Republican Party chair Pat Mac Donald is still patiently waiting for a gubernatorial candidate.She expects to hear from the former Lt. Gov. by the end of the month. Will Dubie be the solution? Experience must count for something.  

To read reports like Nancy Remsen’s, one would think that the transition of the 160 or so female inmates from the Windsor and Northwest prisons to the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility was a bit bumpy, but more-or-less going OK. One could even conclude that everything’s peachy, despite some whining from inmates.

Not so.

When the move was proposed, it was pitched as both a money-saver and a positive for the women. They would have more access to services and programs, by virtue of being in Chittenden County. At this point, though, it is proving to be yet another case where government seeks to balance its books on the backs of its most vulnerable citizens; in this case, a small population of generally working class women who are ofttimes afflicted with addiction issues and histories of domestic abuse.

It was only a year ago that the state still approached this population as one worthy of rehabilitation, rather than simply being locked up in a holding tank and dumped out to possibly re-offend when their sentence is complete. But once the state saw a chance to make money at their expense, the change was fast-tracked by political professionals who didn’t understand the issues, even though the hubbub is that many in the Corrections Department considered it a bad idea.

After the flip to get a glimpse of Vermont’s new paradigm for incarcerating women offenders, including ways that the state may not be keeping its promises.

Cast Into the Pit

The Northwest Correctional Facility and the Windsor Correctional facility – where women inmates had been housed – in many ways were doing it right. There was outside space for inmates. More significantly, there was opportunity for employment. There were jobs in the print shop, in auto repair, in maintenence and the kitchens – there was even a modular home-building program in the St. Albans facility that could lead to certifications in any number of skilled trades. The inmates not only learned skills that could help them find employment (and not re-offend upon release), they also learned to work together.

It’s important to remember that women inmates are different than their male counterparts. Many of these women have zero work experience, from having kids early and staying home with them. Many have been financially dependent on boyfriends or spouses – in some cases, abusive ones. Many of these women will end up back in bad situations when they are released, simply because they see no other option. Supporting them in breaking out of these cycles and providing them education and hands-on skills to be self-sufficient are crucial goals, and should be the measure of any serious corrections system.

As far as the physical space went in the previous facilities, some of the rooms were like bad dorm rooms with sets of bunkbeds accomodating as many as 6 inmates. Some rooms were singles and even had televisions. All the women had ready access to outside space. Inmates could mingle freely. Although they were prisoners, and their freedoms and privilege were rightfully restricted, they afforded a measure of fundamental respect and privacy as an obviously necessary precondition for meaningful rehabilitation.

Now, it’s a different story.

The Chittenden Facility is a jail that was not designed for long-term sentences – and while most inmates are in for around 40 days or less, there are long termers sentenced to several years. There is 1 small classroom, a weightroom and a gym.

There is almost no employment, besides a handful of jobs in the kitchen and maintenence. No facilities for skills training and development.

There is also no meaningful outside space. “Outside” consists of a small stretch of grass with a basketball hoop. Inmates can go outside 3 times a week (if it’s not raining) but are strip searched everytime they re-enter, as drugs could conceivably be passed over the fence to them. Interaction between prisoners is restricted to those within their unit (20-40 inmates), meaning inmates in some cases have been cut off from important friendships they had developed in the previous facility.

Since bleach is not allowed, the inmates are sleeping under sheets soiled and yellowed by the previous male occupants. Women have to approach guards for each individual tampon or pad, since the paper could conceivable be used to roll cigarettes. Inmates cannot flush toilets without asking guards.

The women are crammed into rooms holding double the capacity they were intended for. Despite a specific clause in the legislation authorizing the move which specified that inmates would not be housed in the gym, that is precisely what is happening while improvements are being made.

As far as educational programs, they have dwindled to a trickle. There are plans for basic workplace training, possibly some motorcycle maintenence – but nothing on the scale of what was done at the St. Albans facility. Legislators and advocates were assured that they would have access to programs outside the facility in Chittenden County, but at this point it’s unclear which inmates would even be allowed to leave and under what circumstances.

It’s ugly – and according to scuttlebutt, the political interests that pushed this change were warned by Corrections professionals that there would be this kind of trouble.

Understand two things: one, of course this is prison, so it’s not supposed to be fun, but these women have had their physical and rehabilitative situations radically changed. It’s bad enough to start out in a shithole, but these women were being worked with and rehabilitated. Trained. Educated, given a basic degree of respect and dignity on which they could rebuild themselves into better people. Now, that has been pulled out from under them.

Just stop and consider for a moment the psychological effect that must be having.

There are promises, sure; programs in the community, a greenhouse. Some of these things are paid for, some are not. There is money for plumbing, window and gym improvements. There is a grant being written to find federal money for another building to give these women something to do by returning and expanding programs and easing the crowding issues that have already emerged.

Considering the budget situation in Washington, however, hanging hopes for improvement on federal money strikes me as a pipe dream. The fact is, this is not going to get meaningfully better soon, given the simple fact that this facility was never appropriate for the purpose for which it is now being used, and never will be. Period.

It’s All About the Money

Publicly, the Shumlin administration sold the move as a good opportunity for the inmates, but also as a financial boon to the state. By consolidating the women and opening up more space elsewhere, more of Vermont’s male prisoners (currently housed in Kentucky prisons at an extra cost to the taxpayer of somewhere in the low-$20ks per bed) could be returned to Vermont to serve their sentences. In this way, it was pitched as a moral, not simply a financial, good.

In fact, I’m told that the number of inmates who have been returned from Kentucky is no greater than the number that could already be absorbed by pre-existing vacancies in the Windsor facility.

So, who is filling up the other beds? What wasn’t discussed in public statements, but did come up in the House Institutions Committee was the opportunity to lease space too the US Government to house federal prisoners to the tune of about $55k per bed. That’s a big, big incentive to get the women out and leave a few more Vermont prisoners in Kentucky facilities.

But sadly, it was never an either/or scenario. Clearly, federal beds could have been completely seperated from the women’s facility in St. Albans, making the move unnecessary. It just would’ve cost some of that money they were bringing in.

Bottom line: 160-some working-class, sometimes-addicted, women criminals weren’t worth spending the money on – or even worth making less money to accomodate.

Yuck. As a Vermonter, I’m ashamed.

It’s time for the Legislature’s Corrections Oversight Committee to get serious. The deference to the administration is unseemly. They can make noise, ask tough questions. This is a good group (Reps. Emmons, Haas, Heath, Lippert, and Sens Sears, Ashe, Fox, Hartwell and Snelling), they know better – they just need to understand that it’s past time to demand accountability. When the adminsitration makes a claim about money that is being saved by warehousing women this way, dig into those numbers. How much less would we net if we put some of that money back into the population of inmates bearing the burden of that savings, all in order to return to a paradigm of rehabilitation?

I encourage folks to contact your elected  officials on this. Use the little “raise your voice” icon below for an email form keyed to your Representatives and Senators.

Not the end of this. Stay tuned.

(Cross posted at EconomicStability.org)

There are three legs in Kucinich monetary reform bill: HR 6550 the National Emergency Employment Defense Act:

1) End the private creation and destruction of money through fractional reserve banking, and replace it with full-reserve banking.

2) Replace money supply with debt-free US dollars issued by the treasury, in an amount specified by an independent monetary commission.

3) Incorporate the Federal Reserve into the US Treasury for supervisory and regulatory expertise. Fed is no longer privately owned.

Vermonters, please call Senator Sanders ((802) 862-0697) and Leahy (1-800-642-3193) and ask them to submit this bill in the Senate when Kucinich submits it this fall. Then, call Peter Welch (802-652-2450) and ask him to co-sponsor in the House.

If you have any very conservative friends whose heads you’d like to see explode, this may be the trick:  per The Associated Press:

When Navy Lt. Gary Ross and his partner were searching for a place to get married, they settled on a site in Vermont, in part because the state is in the Eastern time zone.

That way, the two men were able to recite their vows before family and friends at the first possible moment after the formal repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Just after midnight Tuesday, the partners of 11 years were married.

There’s something chilling about living and working in an environment where you have to be completely silent and circumspect about extremely important aspects of your life.  It creates a bitter chill on your world, one which creates unnecessary stress and is a form of psychological violence that can cause damage.  It belongs in the dustbin of history and I’m hoping it stays there.

I’ve been looking to get photos of a Hudsonian Godwit for years now.  

This weekend I succeeded.  

I think this may have to go in an exhibit.

These were taken at Sandy Point, the far end of Plum Island, Massachusetts, just past the end of the Parker River Wildlife Refuge.  Most were taken Sunday, but the bird was visible both Saturday and Sunday, foraging in the sand and water for small worms or eels, sucking them up through its long, upturned beak.

Godwits travel for thousands of miles without a break.  In the US you only get them during migration.  This one was probably stopping off to do a lot of feeding before it continues its trek from the far north to the far end of South America.    Getting to see it this close and in this much detail was a real treat.

The photos here are all smaller versions.  Clicking on them gets you to the larger, more detailed, photos on my web site.

This was one hell of a way to get a new life bird.

I was stunned this morning to learn that Vermont’s AP Chief John Curran, 54, had apparently died of a sudden heart attack yesterday while mowing his lawn.  

Even though Curran was an award-winning journalist with a 20-year history of hard-hitting stories, he remained connected to his community and appeared able to uncover the human side of every story.  

I had just finished reading an excellent and touching piece that he had written about the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene in Vermont that was published in yesterday’s Rutland Herald and was reflecting upon John’s ability to capture the human spirit, when I read that he had died.

We (Arnie and I – at Fairewinds) get a lot of press calls with questions about nuclear power especially in light of the Fukushima nuclear accidents this year.  Since most papers have evening deadlines or industry press releases come at the end of a regular business day, we often find supper or our evenings filled with press phone calls. John was one of those reporters who was always warm, communicative, and respectful and cognizant of the fact that we are not paid for any of our time answering press questions.  Some reporters have been so disrespectful that there are times I don’t even bother to answer their calls.  Not so with John Curran or AP’s Vermont office, as their contact has always been very respectful and even-handed.

A brief story about Curran from AP is on the wire via CBS.  I hope a more thorough Vermont-centric piece will be written in the coming days.

I spent five years as a newspaper journalist.  I know that journalists with John Curran’s ability to get to the heart of a story and touch the human spirit are rare.  

Condolences from GMD to John’s family and his colleagues at AP in Vermont.

I hope others will write in to share their memories of John Curran.