Monthly Archives: July 2016

The dreams of youth, so quickly dashed

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Nice little Q&A by VTDigger with one of the legions of young people inspired by Bernie Sanders to throw his hat into one of the many available rings. In this case, 28-year-old Nick Clark, running for State Representative. He wants to provide a voice for the millennial generation, a group under-represented in the Statehouse. 

Fair enough, and I welcome new people to the political process. I just hope his dreams aren’t permanently dashed when he gets mollywhopped in the August primary.

Clark is running against two seasoned Democratic incumbents, Jim Masland and Tim Briglin. Both are respected members of the caucus, and both have the nearly bulletproof status of “incumbent.” Methinks Mr. Clark, like many of his fellow Bernie-inspired young progressives, is in for a big fat disappointment. I hope it doesn’t transition into disenchantment.

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Disclaimer over here, boss?

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Recently, an opinion piece by the doughty and redoubtable John McClaughry made the rounds. It appeared in some newspaper op-ed pages, and in the Commentary column of VTDigger.

And it involved a significant, undisclosed, conflict of interest.

McClaughry’s missive was a big sloppy wet kiss on the feet of Charles Koch, one of the infamous Koch brothers. McClaughry regurgitated a few nuggets of wisdom from Koch’s recent book, Good Profit. The book is a self-serving explication of why the Koch brothers are fine, principled businessmen with a strong focus on customer service and an aversion to big gummint.

Except when they can profit from it, of course. Curiously, one Kochbit highlighted by McClaughry concerns Koch Industries’ production of ethanol, which is almost entirely a creation of government subsidy. McClaughry writes with evident approval:

… out of principle, Koch opposes the present government mandate to blend ethanol into gasoline as a political scheme that produces “bad profit.”

Which has not prevented Koch Industries from continuing to enrich itself with this alleged “bad profit.” But somehow McClaughry overlooks the evident hypocrisy and praises Koch for a principle he never acts upon.

But I digress. The point isn’t that McClaughry has blessed the world with a few hundred words of free-market rhetoric, but that his own conflict of interest was not disclosed by VTDigger.

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Down the rabbit hole with Annette Smith

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Vermont’s most notorious eco-scold Annette Smith is known for walking a fine line between activist and crackpot. She manages to retain a measure of political clout in spite of her habit of brandishing cherry-picked junk science in her perpetual battle against wind turbines, solar arrays, and anything else big, shiny, or corporate that might dare to penetrate the borders of our green and pleasant land.

For those who think the “crackpot” label is excessively mean, consider this: Annette Smith is, or has been, a proponent of the ultra-fringey “chemtrail” theory. In that, she is a full-fledged member of the Tinfoil Hat Brigade.

In case you hadn’t heard (lucky you), chemtrails are supposedly secret chemical seedings of the atmosphere from high-flying jets. The purpose is either mind control or poisoning the people or geoengineering or fomenting climate change in the service of globalism or the fossil fuel industry or — well, pick your own secret government plot.

Of course, they’re really nothing but contrails: lengths of harmless water vapor that typically disperse within a few minutes.

But if you believe that, you’re just one of the SHEEPLE who has yet to realize THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE!!!!!!!

I’ll provide examples of Smith’s chemtrail advocacy below. But just in case I need to explain the relevance, well, as a good lawyer might say, “it goes to the witness’ credibility.” If she believes in something as loony-tunes as chemtrails, why should we take her seriously on wind or solar energy?

Okay kids, now take a deep drag on your hookah and follow me into Wonderland…

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