Monthly Archives: August 2014

Marion Milne 1935-2014

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I’m saddened to hear of the death of Marion Milne, pioneering lawmaker, businessperson, and mother of gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne. VTDigger reports that she “died unexpectedly Monday morning at her home in Washington.”

I saw her in person for the first time at Milne’s campaign launch last month, and now I’m sorry I didn’t try to meet her and express my respect.

Marion Milne founded the family travel agency in 1975 shortly after graduating from Goddard College. That agency has grown and thrived under her leadership and Scott’s, during very challenging times for the travel agency field.

Of course, her most significant public moment came in 2000, when she was one of a handful of Republicans to vote in favor of Vermont’s groundbreaking civil unions law — the first step on the road to marriage equality. For her courage, she was voted out of office that fall after serving three terms in the State House. From a post-election account: 

Milne knew her vote could lead to the end of her career, as did others. State Rep. John Edwards, who represents two towns along the Canadian border, also got the boot in what became a single-issue race. Edwards, a former state trooper, said he started to get that sinking feeling while standing at a polling place Tuesday. He noticed the averted gazes, the voters who had never turned out before, the thumbs-up signs directed at the other two candidates.

… Edwards said he has lost longtime friends. Milne has endured slurs like “queer lover” aimed at her and her 13-year-old grandson and watched her travel agency lose business.

“There are a lot of people angry with me,” she said from her home, shaking her head.

She had endured a bitter campaign, often encountering hostility while going door-to-door and finding herself alienated from former supporters and friends. She was on the right side of history, but that must have been cold comfort at the time.

Marion Milne was a hard worker till the end, as reflected in this word from the Milne family: “On the day she died, Marion had an appointment to have her hair done, planned to work at her desk in the travel agency, and attend a board meeting for the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.”

I’ve written plenty about Scott Milne’s campaign, but now is not the time for partisanship. It’s a time for respect, love, and family. My best wishes to the entire Milne family and the agency, and to Scott, now faced with carrying on a long-odds campaign shadowed by the loss of his mother and business partner.

Godspeed, Marion Milne.

The Burlington Free Press ignores an obvious contradiction, gives Mark Whitworth a free pass

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Oh boy, another Monday morning, we’ve had a bare-bones staff all weekend and we’ve gotta have a local story to fill that big front-page hole.

I know! Let’s profile a sage Vermonter type and run a big photo of him in a stereotypical Vermont setting!

And there you have it, on page A1 of today’s Freeploid: Mark Whitworth staring manfully at the camera, with a big pile of firewood behind him.

Whitworth, for those just joining us, is the recently installed head of Energize Vermont, the benign-sounding advocacy group promoting the anti-wind cause. Whitworth took over from that carpetbaggin’ astroturfer, Luke Snelling, who’s gone to San Francisco to seek his fortune by greenwashing corporations with environmental image problems. Which is what he used to do out of the Massachusetts office of his ad agency. Hence “carpetbaggin'” — he may be a scion of a Vermont family, but he wasn’t living here when he fronted for Energize Vermont.

Anyway, on to Whitworth who, as the headline informs us, wants Vermont to “SLOW DOWN, ASK QUESTIONS” when it comes to our energy future. Seems we’re in a “rush” to implement renewable energy. Yeah, stupid, isn’t it? Just because global warming is a goddamn crisis doesn’t mean we should “rush” to build our homegrown renewable infrastructure.

The story treats his views with respect, which is not out of bounds for a softball profile of a public figure. But this one line caught my eye, not to mention my ire:

“I’m not pro- or con-wind,” he said.

Cough. Snort. Chuckle. BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

All righty then, Freeploid, riddle me this. This article is on page A6*. On the next page, A7, directly across from this article, is an over-the-top rant of an opinion piece by Whitworth that accuses Vermont’s environmental community of being corporate stooges, and repeats the tired arguments of the anti-wind crowd.

*In order to see the layout, you’ll have to access a print copy of the Monday edition or have subscriber access to the Freeploid’s online e-newspaper. The digital version includes the same content, but it’s scattered around the website. 

He’s “not pro- or con-wind,” eh? And reporter Joel Banner Baird didn’t challenge him on his obviously false and self-serving claim? And the editors didn’t think the article and opinion piece made for an uncomfortable juxtaposition?

He starts his opinion piece by comparing Vermont’s renewable strategy to President Bush’s conduct of the Iraq War. He paints the build-out of renewables a for-profit hustle by what he calls the “Big Green Alliance of Green Mountain Power, policians, and ‘environmentalists.”

Because Mark Whitworth and his allies are pure as the driven snow, and all others have been Assimilated by the Evil Utility Borg. Got that, Paul Burns? Brian Shupe? Jake Brown? Sandy Levine? Chris Kilian? You’re all corrupt. Unless you change your tune and agree with Mark Whitworth.

He accuses GMP and its co-conspirators of seeking to “put 500-foot-tall turbines and massive solar fields wherever we want — on sensitive ridgelines, in wetlands and on prime agricultural soils,” and “string transmission lines all over the place.”

Yeah, no. Nobody’s proposing anything like that. As I’ve written before, and as anyone who checks the public record can see, there are only a handful of places in Vermont where wind is economically viable. And I don’t think any utility, no matter how profit-hungry, would try to site energy projects on sensitive lands. Seeking profit involves knowing when and where to build, and sensible utilities know they have to be careful and appropriate with their decisions. If they aren’t, they’ll waste a lot of time and money on projects that will never be built.

Also, if you want “transmission lines all over the place,” look no farther than Energize Vermont’s own green-energy plan, which relies heavily on Hydro Quebec power from the far north. That’ll require a big fat buildout of high-tension power lines right across the Northeast Kingdom that Whitworth professes to love so much.

Whitworth is a True Believer. He sees himself and his allies as the defenders of Vermont’s sacred honor, and anyone who disagrees is a turncoat and a corporate lackey. He is entitled to his opinion, and I respect his commitment. But he shouldn’t get a free pass from Vermont’s Largest Newspaper.

George W. Bush’s education time bomb

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Some of our former President’s policies were clearly and obviously dumb, like the two wars that have left two countries in ruins, or his refusal to raise taxes to pay for those wars, or the laissez-faire attitude toward high finance that opened the door to the 2008 Wall Street meltdown.

A few of his policies looked good, at least on the surface. But it seems as though there’s a worm inside every apple. Medicare Part D helped seniors get their prescriptions, but it was unnecessarily complicated and barred the government from negotiating on drug prices; thus it was a huge giveaway to Big Pharma. On his watch, many standards and regulations were relaxed (or ignored), but acceptable cholesterol levels were lowered significantly; again, a giveaway to Big Pharma.

And then there was No Child Left Behind, an idea that actually brought Bush and Ted Kennedy together. But there was a time bomb hidden in the workings of NCLB:

Each year for the past 13 years, the NCLB Act has lowered the allowable percentage of students whose test results suggest they are not proficient in math or language arts. This year, that percentage became zero.

In effect, all it takes for a school to labeled as low performing is for a single student to fail to reach a score of proficient.

This, from a story published in the journalistic Dead Zone of the Saturday papers. The Mitchell Family Organ and the Freeploid both reported on what this means for Vermont schools; I’m quoting from the former.

The focus of the story is a letter written last week by Education Secretary Rebecca Holcombe, seeking to explain the fact that virtually every school in the state has been labeled “low performing” by the remorseless federal standard.

Most other states took advantage of a loophole in NCLB; they got federal waivers in exchange for agreeing to use standardized test results to evaluate teachers and principals. Why didn’t Vermont do likewise?

Holcombe said Vermont did not apply for the waiver because research has shown standardized tests to be unreliable for teachers in classrooms with 15 or fewer students, which compose nearly half of the classrooms in the state.

“It would be unfair to our students to automatically fire their educators based on technically inadequate tools,” Holcombe wrote.

Some other states have belatedly realized that the waiver is a bad deal, and are backing out. The problem is, NCLB sets draconian penalties for low-performing schools, potentially including the wholesale firing of school staff, the conversion of a “failing” school to a charter school, or even turning the whole thing over to the state or to a private education company.

Far from a real effort at improving education, No Child Left Behind is a real-life version of the old frog-in-a-pot-of-water meme. If you put a frog in hot water, so the story goes, it will jump out. But if you put it in cold water and gradually heat it to boiling, the frog will stay put and die. If NCLB had tossed the system into a boiling pot, there would have been instant reaction. Instead, it slowly and steadily turned up the heat. Whichever option the states chose — performance or waiver — school systems are right and truly screwed.

Kudos to Secretary Holcombe for pointing out the inherent absurdity in the situation, and how the system “does not serve the interest of Vermont schools, nor does it advance our economic or social well-being.”

It’s just another rotting apple in the Bush-el. Worst… President… Ever.

Postscript. Let the record show that Your Two U.S. Senators, Jim Jeffords and Patrick Leahy, voted “No” on the final version of NCLB. They were two of only ten Senators to do so.

Everybody loves good ol’ Phil

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I think I’ve identified the source of Lake Champlain’s outbreak of blue-green algae: last week’s party in Senator Dick Mazza’s Corvette-laden “garage” on behalf of Lieutenant Governor Phil Scott. Enough horseshit was generated to feed an algae bloom for months.

I’m sorry I missed it. Guess my invitation got lost in the mail. Fortunately, the Freeploid’s Nancy Remsen was there, and made the Mazza Tov the centerpiece of her Phil Scott profile in the Sunday paper. From her account, I extract a few gems…

The Republican lieutenant governor glad-handed Republicans, Democrats, lobbyists and business leaders…

I guess Good Ol’ Phil won’t be a supporter of VPIRG’s campaign finance reform agenda. Just a guess.

“It is great to see such a bipartisan crowd,” [former Governor Jim] Douglas observed. He wasn’t surprised, he said, noting, “Phil Scott is the kind of Vermonter who doesn’t worry about someone’s party label.”

Immediately thereafter, Douglas revealed himself to be the kind of Vermonter who DOES worry about party labels:

Douglas urged the crowd to help re-elect Scott to “make sure we don’t have lopsided government.”

As I have observed before, should we be electing people based on affirmative action? Or should the onus be on Republicans to craft a message that actually resonates with the Vermont electorate?

Oh wait, here comes Senate Penitent Pro Tem John Campbell, who was on hand to offer his almost-not-quite-nudge-nudge-wink-wink non-endorsement.

“I’m here to support a friend,” Senate President Pro Tempore John Campbell, D-Windsor, said as he stood near Scott in the Corvette showroom. Campbell qualified his support, saying, “I’m not raising funds for Phil.”

Isn’t that nice. I guess I shouldn’t think of this as treason.

No, I guess not, because as Campbell says, he’d support a real actual Democrat for Lieutenant Governor, but he won’t support Progressive Dean Corren even if he wins the Democratic nomination. Campbell just can’t overlook Corren’s long-ago “bashing” of Democrats, even though today’s Corren has definitively foresworn any and all Dem-bashing, promises to work hand-in-hand with Democrats, and is much more politically aligned with Governor Shumlin than is Phil Scott. But I guess Campbell, like Jim Douglas, is unfortunately obsessed with party labels.

Also on hand, making excuses for their Phil-anthropy, were State Senator Dick McCormack and Burlington Democrat Ed Adrian. McCormack “acknowledged that his views on many issues are probably closer to Corren’s, ‘but what I’ve done with Phil really counts for a lot.'”

Awwwww, how thweet. As for Adrian, well, he offered his own variation on the VTGOP’s affirmative action theme: keep Phil around as the token Republican.

If Democrats occupy every position of power, they are just going to fight among themselves. What is wrong with having a moderate, token Republican who would frankly be considered a Democrat elsewhere in the country?

Sorry, Ed, color me unconvinced. What’s wrong with having a “token Republican” in the Lieutenant Governor’s office is that, as a member of the Senate Rules Committee and the tiebreaking vote on legislation, he could become a significant roadblock in the push for single-payer health care and campaign finance reform. And I am unmoved by the fact that Scott would be considered a Democrat in West Virginia or Nebraska. It’s like Roger Allbee running for a Democratic Senate seat in Windham County: he may be a liberal Republican and he might make a really good Senator from, oh, Rutland County or the Northeast Kingdom, but he’s too centrist for the Windham electorate. Same with Scott: he’d be a fine Lite-Gov if it were entirely a ceremonial position, and he’d be a breath of fresh air in Montana or Wyoming, but as Lieutenant Governor of Vermont he’s a potential obstacle to Governor Shumlin’s top priority. Which is why Shumlin has all but endorsed Dean Corren.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never had the chance to fall under the up-close-and-personal spell of Phil Scott’s charms*, but I don’t get the Scott fetishism among so many of our Democratic officeholders. It’s reminding me quite a bit of the Vince Illuzzi fetishism of two years ago. Nobody gave Doug Hoffer much of a chance because he was a Progressive, and a rather abrasive one at that, while Everybody Loved Vince.

*Maybe it’s his private-label cologne, a bi-attractant blend of pleasing moderation with rich, manly undertones of racing fuel and asphalt. 

Except when it came Election Day, it turned out that the inside-the-Dome crowd didn’t represent the electorate as a whole. I’m hoping the same thing happens with Corren, for the sake of single-payer’s prospects in the Senate, and in order to drive another stake into the heart of the old-boys’ network, go-along-get-along atmosphere that beclouds our Most Stagnant Deliberative Body.

Art Woolf spews numbers, provides zero insight

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In the past, I’ve given UVM economist Art Woolf two nicknames: Vermont’s Loudest Economist, for his inescapable media presence; and Vermont’s Laziest Economist, for his thoroughly conventional views. Well, now I’ve got a new one: The Human Almanac.

In addition to (Lord help us) educating the next generation of UVM students, Woolf also does a lot of corporate consulting, publishes a costly newsletter, and writes a weekly column in the Burlington Free Press. The latter is where I see his work, and it’s consistently unimpressive. The typical Woolf column includes an oversized chart or graph (to fill space), a shallow review of statistics, and/or a bit of thoroughly conventional wisdom, all served up in a few hundred words.

In his last two columns, he didn’t even bother injecting a bit o’ the old C.W. They were just bland overviews, free of any context or insight.

This week’s entry is “Vermont Fertility Rate 15% Lower Than U.S.” And, well, that title just about covers it. The column is full of shameless padding, like this:

The average Vermont woman will have 1.6 babies over her lifetime. …Of course, no one has six-tenths of a baby, but when we’re dealing with large numbers of women, and large numbers of babies, fractions and decimals do play a role.

Do tell, Art. I was picturing a landscape littered with partial baby corpses. Glad you set me straight.

He also stretches the content with a parade of irrelevant, or marginally relevant, statistics:

The fertility rate for the U.S. as a whole is 1.9 babies per woman over her lifetime, so Vermont’s fertility rate is about 15 percent below the U.S. average. By contrast, Utah, the state with the highest fertility rate, is 25 percent above the national average.

It’s like a high school student writing a five-page paper.

The “bulk” of the column is given over to a recitation of current and past numbers from the US and the world, followed by one paragraph listing possible reasons why Vermont might have a low fertility rate. That paragraph ends with:

We really don’t know the full reasons.

For this, we need an expert?

Woolf wraps things up with this thrilling conclusion: low fertility has consequences for the economy.

Last week’s entry in the Woolf oeuvre was even less meaty “Vermont Immigration patterns Differ From U.S.”

Stop the presses!!!!!

Do you mean to tell me that Vermont has fewer immigrants from Latin America than, say, Florida or Texas? I am shocked, shocked.

But yes, that’s the knowledge bombshell Woolf drops on our heads: Vermont gets relatively few immigrants, and most of ’em are from Canada or Europe. No shit, Sherlock.

Woolf doesn’t even try to contextualize this nothingburger of a column. The big conclusion reads like this:

Sometimes it’s hard for Vermonters to understand why the concerns and passions about immigration run so deep. One reason is that our immigrant population, and our experience with immigrants, is very different than it is in the rest of the United States.

I really, really hope that Woolf’s own ($150 per year plus tax) newsletter has more to offer than his Freeploid blurts. For that matter, I hope he’s doing some more substantive academic work to justify his UVM sinecure. Because judging by his newspaper columns, Art Woolf is a man without substance.

The implosion of RecruitFour

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Ruh-roh. Something’s rotten in RecruitFour, the “movement” aimed at getting Republican write-in candidates for the four statewide offices without an official Republican on the ballot. As I’ve reported, RF has been unveiling their “slate,” beginning with Burlington attorney Shane McCormack for Attorney General and moving on to pro-F35 activist Nicole Citro for Secretary of State and Stefanie Webster Dion, budget director of Champlain College, for Treasurer.

Not so fast, my friend.

Turns out that RecruitFour has been promoting candidates without their permission. Two of the three, Citro and Dion, have gone on the RF page to decline the honor. Citro:

While I am flattered there are those who think I would make a great candidate for the Secretary of State of Vermont, I will be not running for this position. …I do not rule out a scenario in the future where I might use my ability to effectively communicate the voice of Vermonters again, but a run for any office is not in my plans right now. Thank you for your show of confidence!

And Dion:

I echo Nicole’s comments. I am flattered and won’t rule out future service to the State but I will not be running for this position. Thank you so much for your vote of confidence!

Okay, how can I describe this nutty endeavor? Counterproductive? Wacko? Doomed? Creepy?

Yeah, I think “creepy” is about right. Publicly promoting a candidacy without the candidate’s permission? That’s closer to identity theft than it is to responsible, effective politics. No wonder the “brains” behind RecruitFour hasn’t publicly identified him/herself.

Speaking of which, said “brains” did post a brief explainer a couple days ago:

This effort started with one Republican–not the establishment, not the party apparatus–just one Republican. Just one Republican who believes in a state of 600,000 people we can find four qualified Republican candidates to run for Auditor, Treasurer, Secretary of State, and Attorney General.

The folks we are trying to draft did not encourage this effort, they are merely the recipients of this bottom up effort from the people of Vermont.

Keep this in mind as you fail to see a multi-million dollar campaign for this effort. This is grassroots baby, all the way. Freedom and Unity!

See,that’s the problem with Facebook: it only takes one person to erect a plausible a Potemkin village.

As for the identity of this “one Republican,” I have no idea and I really don’t care. The name “Jeff Bartley” has been suggested to me — the state GOP’s “Victory Campaign Director” and chair of the Chittenden County GOP. I dunno; he’s served on his share of Titanics in the past (notably Len Britton’s Senate bid, which ended with Bartley suing Britton for unpaid wages), but this seems awfully sad even by his standards.

Anyway, I think it’s safe to bid a fond farewell to this stillborn “movement.” RecruitFour, we hardly knew ye.

This could be bad. Really bad.

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Today was Day One of the new regime at the Tennesseean, Nashville’s daily newspaper. If you’re wondering why this is relevant to a Vermont political blog, well, the T’n is part of the Gannett chain, and is the “beta” version of Gannett’s “newsroom of the future.” As in, Coming Soon to a Gannett Paper Near You, i.e. the Burlington Free Press.

(Sharp-eyed journalism observer Jim Romenesko pointed out today that this is the second time in eight years that Gannett has launched the “newsroom of the future.” Guess it didn’t take the first time.)

Screen Shot 2014-08-07 at 9.33.14 PMThe Tennesseean is still in the process of downsizing and downgrading its newsroom staff, but today’s was the first edition under Executive Editor Stefanie Murray, head cheerleader for the new N.O.T.F.  And there, on the front page, was a story about the Kroger supermarket chain, a major T’n advertiser, lowering prices in its stores. 

And this is news…… why?

But wait, there’s more. If you went to the T’n website today, the homepage was dominated by — mirabile dictu — an ad from Kroger touting its new low prices! Wow, wotta coincidence.

This screenshot only includes the top half of the print edition’s front page. (Full front page can be seen here.) Below the fold is an almost equally ghastly front-page “news” story about twerking as the new fitness craze. I kid you not.

Seems to be a very aggressive application of the T’n’s new commitment to “audience analytics” driven journalism. Give the peoples what they want, and the stupider the better.

Coming soon to a Freeploid near you.

Johnston, Feliciano and Sunderland: Closing the circle

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After writing my previous posts about Darcie “Hack” Johnston’s personal attacks on Scott Milne, I happened to check my other other email account, which I sometimes neglect. And there I found the trigger to all this garbage: a press release by VTGOP Chair “Super Dave” Sunderland attacking the Libertarian Party in very extrreme terms. Specifically, the Libs’ stand on drug legalization.

Sunderland meant to remind Republicans that if they support Libertarian Dan Feliciano in the gubernatorial primary, they’re effectively endorsing a very fringey set of principles. That’s all fine, but his letter included this incendiary passage:

Let’s be clear about this:  Vermont Libertarians would release all the heroin traffickers and professional dealers who have peddled their poison on our streets.  And all those felons who were arrested, charged and brought to justice by dedicated members of law enforcement for importing and profiting from the hardest and most addictive drugs would be set free and have their criminal records expunged if the Vermont Libertarians had their way.  Then what?  You know the answer:  They’d be back at it.

That’a a very inflammatory accusation. Let’s check it. From the Vermont Libertarian Party platform: 

7. CRIME: Repeal all consensual crime laws to focus police resources on crimes to property and persons. To ease the strain on our judicial systems, we support greater use of alternative dispute solutions. We propose amnesty for all convicted non-violent drug offenders.

There’s a huge difference between the Libs’ stand and Sunderland’s characterization, and the key phrase is “non-violent.” Sunderland would be right if, and only if, all our imprisoned drug dealers were purely nonviolent offenders. And that is simply not true: the real bad guys in the drug trade commit acts of violence and are punished for same. The vast majority of non-violent offenders are either consumers or low-level dealers.

In short, Sunderland stretched the truth beyond recognition. And that explains Johnston’s Twitter rampage.

Note: I said “explains,” not “justifies.” Johnston took it from the realm of distorting a political position to attacking a person’s integrity. That’s still outrageous, and Johnston should still take it back.

But the real news here is this: Why the hell did Sunderland jam a stick into the hornets’ nest? The Libertarians are not a serious threat to our two biggest parties. At least, not usually.

My inference is that Sunderland is truly worried about Feliciano’s write-in campaign. He’s worried that Feliciano could actually beat Scott Milne on August 26. That shows how desperate things are getting in Republicanland.

Feliciano: It’s worse than I thought

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No sooner did I post my last entry, than I got some new information that  changes things for the worse. As you will recall, Republican political consultant Darcie “Hack” Johnston took to Twitter yesterday to basically accuse Scott Milne of being a druggie — or at least potentially drug-friendly — based on Milne’s youthful indiscretions from more than 30 years ago.

Feliciano’s only Twitter response was to correct a minor factual error in the Hack’s Tweets; he didn’t address her attempted sliming of Milne.

Turns out he didn’t do so on Twitter, but he did send a message to his supporters. To wit:

Screen Shot 2014-08-07 at 12.59.36 PM

Wow, there’s a real two-for-one shot. He signs onto Johnston’s vile attack, and elides the fundamental contradiction between Libertarianism and employing anti-drug panic to slam an opponent. Because after all, decriminalization is one of Libertarianism’s core principles.

Well, Dan, you’re wrong, and dangerously so. This kind of baseless attack has no business in a political campaign. If you can’t beat Scott Milne on the issues, then this kind of stuff will bring more shame to yourself and your cause than to Mr. Milne.

Also, you’re wrong about “some Vermont GOPers…trying to make this an issue.” Ask any Republican: I am not a GOPer. I am a liberal observer of the political process, and I think Johnston’s words are despicable.

Besides, it’s not Vermont GOPers making this an issue; it’s you and Darcie Johnston. Please take the honorable course, or I will have to assume that you have no honor when it comes to political ambition.

Dan Feliciano lets Darcie Johnston go there

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Yesterday, Republican political consultant Darcie “Hack” Johnston, now tooting her horn for Libertarian Dan Feliciano, unleashed a truly nasty personal attack against Scott Milne. In case you need a reminder:

Screen Shot 2014-08-06 at 6.45.53 PM

When I reported on her gratuitous slimeballing, I called on Feliciano to disassociate himself from the Hack’s Milne-shaming. Well, the candidate himself took to Twitter to issue a correction, to wit:

Screen Shot 2014-08-07 at 12.33.37 PM

Ohhhh. So I guess there’s no problem with insinuating that Milne is pro-drugs, as long as you get Feliciano’s resume right.

This is like a detective walking into a crime scene with a pool of blood on the floor, and stepping over it to straighten a crooked picture frame on the wall. C’mon, Dan, you can do better. I hope.