Monthly Archives: September 2016

Journalism by Press Release

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Looking at my calendar, I see that we are almost at the halfway mark between the August 9 primary and the November 8 election. And I’m still waiting for the serious news coverage to begin.

So far, it’s been just short of pathetic. Reporters have chased around the obvious opportunities — press releases, press conferences, debates — but initiated very little on their own, and done virtually no fact-checking or analysis of candidates’ positions.

Maybe they’re just waiting. Or maybe the market-driven diminution of our media corps has reached the point where there simply isn’t any meat left on the bones.

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Coyote over the cliff

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Oh, here comes David Sunderland, woebegone chair of the Vermont Republican Party, with his biennial tradition: the totally cooked-up accusation that the Secretary of State has his finger on the electoral scale.

I suppose it’s only natural. After all, Republican Secretaries of State have a long and sordid tradition of playing partisan games. (See: Kris Kobach, Ken Blackwell, and Katherine Harris) But our guy, Jim Condos, may be a solid Democrat, but he’s never given any hint of impropriety in the handling of his official duties.

TFW you've hit "Send" on a stupid press release.

TFW you’ve just been @pwned by Jim Condos..

Still,;like Wile E. Coyote chasing the roadrunner, Sunderland can’t stop himself from trying. Remember two years ago, when he accused an Elections Office employee of partisan bias — without a single shred of evidence that the worker had acted improperly? Sunderland didn’t give a damn about imperiling a man’s career and good name, if he could score a few partisan points in so doing.

This time, Sunderland is raising a stink about the distribution of ballots for the November elections. He notes that different communities are getting ballots at different times. Some have already started mailing ballots to voters who want to vote early.

He raises an “equal protection issue” with some voters getting their ballots earlier than others, and thus having more time to ponder their choices.

Uh-huh. Like those voters are going to spend from now until Election Eve intensively studying their choices — and people who dot n’t their ballots until sometime next week will never be able to catch up.

But that’s not all.

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Hey kids! It’s time for Uncle Phil’s Funny Math!!!

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So far, our political media has seen fit to abdicate its responsibility to fact-check the gubernatorial campaign. Instead, it has simply reported without comment the cornucopia of questionable numbers endlessly repeated by Phil Scott.

I do give ‘em credit for reporting Scott’s frequent non-answers and failures to give specifics on his own damn policy proposals. But they need to go farther. Especially since the Scott campaign has apparently decided not to respond to my own inquiries for substantiation.

Some of Scott’s figgers need a better man than I to assess, me not being a budget expert. But others are so transparently phony that even a muggle like me can see through them.

In this post, I’ll sometimes stand on the shoulders of Vermont’s number-one budget expert, Private Citizen* Doug Hoffer. In the absence of any oversight by the media, Hoffer has begun a projected series of essays examining Phil Scott’s favorite numbers.

*He’s also State Auditor, but he’s writing these pieces outside the auspices of his elected position.

First, let’s take Phil Scott’s constant claim that taxes and fees have risen by $700 million during the past six years of Democratic governance. Team Scott has failed to provide any documentation, but there is a little something in his economic plan.

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More tax-baiting from your VTGOP

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Any day now, I expect Phil Scott to disavow the dishonest campaign tactics of his own Vermont Republican ParBWAHAHAHAHAHA Sorry, I thought I could get through that with a straight face.

At issue is VTGOP Executive Director Jeff Bartley’s continuing attacks on Sue Minter’s allegedly tax-happy ways. Problem: to make his case, he has to resort to fearmongering, gross exaggeration, and outright falsehood. So yeah, if Phil Scott were serious about negative campaigning, he’d clean up his own house first.

But I’m not holding my breah.

Bartley presents a two-fer in his latest press release, attacking Minter incorrectly for supporting a Vermont carbon tax (she doesn’t) and for pondering an expansion of the sales tax to include services (she’s considering it). The argument is taken further in this Tweet from @VTGOP.

Awww. Mean old lady wants to tax cute little boy’s haircut.

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Big Greenwashing

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Dartmouth College has announced a new, lavishly-funded institute to study energy issues. Or, as the PR bumpf puts it, the institute’s purpose is “ato advance the understanding and knowledge of a resource that powers modern life and is directly related to society’s standard of living and success.”

Great news, right?

Well, not everybody thinks so. As the Valley News reports, “environmentalists within the Dartmouth community described [the institute] as a ‘horrific’ example of influence-peddling.”

See, the full name of the new body is the Arthur L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society. That’s “Irving” as in Irving Oil, one of New England’s leading distributors of fossil fuel. The Irving family donated $80 million — roughly half the estimated cost of the thing, including a shiny new building to be erected on campus — in exchange for the naming rights and, some fear, a measure of influence on what exactly is studied.

This is a growing trend on college and university campuses: rich people with axes to grind putting up scads of dough to establish “institutes” devoted to studying questions of their choosing. And churning out “research” that, mirabile dictu, supports conservative and pro-business points of view.

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Want more development? Elect Phil Scott

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There’s been a lot of talk about the tax incentives and budgetary targets in Phil Scott’s newly released economic plan. There’s been less coverage of parts of the plan that might actually have the greatest impact: a strongly pro-business orientation in how state government operates.

Regarding tax changes and budget cuts, Scott would have to work with large — possibly veto-proof — Democratic majorities in the Legislature. But a lot of the pro-business orientation is a matter of executive authority. “Governor Scott” could do a lot to make his administration business-friendly without any legislative input.

And let there be no doubt: Phil Scott would be a very business-friendly Governor. So much so, that it calls into question his image of political moderation.

There’s one item that leaped off the page when I was reading his economic plan. He foresees a dramatic re-orientation in the Act 250 permitting process. First, he would establish a 90-day time limit for major permitting applications, and a four-week limit for “minor licensing and permitting.”

I don’t know how he plans to enforce the time limits. And given his vagueness in other areas, I imagine he doesn’t know either.

And then there’s the second thing, which could be even bigger. He wants “Act 250 permit specialsts to serve as pro-growth guides.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

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Phil Scott serves up a man-sized portion of word salad

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I think I understand why they tried to cut off Phil Scott’s healthcare policy press conference after a mere eight minutes of questions. Because to judge by this week’s unveiling of his economic plan, he has a very hard time when he has to get specific.

The plan was presented in a 56-page or 39-page* booklet, which was supposedly comprehensive and detailed.

*It was originally touted as 56, but it turned out to be 39. That included fourteen and a half pages of large glossy photos, mainly featuring Phil Scott. 

That all fell apart as soon as reporters started asking questions. And pretty soon, you could almost see the smoke rising from the candidate’s ears.

The most obvious FAIL was his inability to provide numbers for his “detailed” plans. He admitted that the costs of his numerous tax-incentive ideas haven’t been calculated. He acknowledged that there wasn’t any detail to his energy plan. He ducked a question about specific cuts he would make in the state budget. And when asked how much money would be saved if all 50 of his proposals were implemented, he answered thusly:

I don’t know, to tell you the truth. We haven’t done that analysis.

Exsqueeze me?

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Phil Scott by the pound

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Y’know, if I didn’t think Phil Scott was a different kind of politician, a straight shooter who refuses to indulge in gamesmanship, I’d congratulate him for a decent bit of trickeration today. See, on the morning of WDEV Radio’s Tunbridge Fair debate (the one he refused to take part in), he held a press conference to unveil a major policy initiative.

Complete coincidence, I’m sure. Because Phil Scott would never resort to such shenanigans.

The big unveil was Scott’s “comprehensive blueprint for economic growth.” And it seems \designed to counter the criticism that his campaign is short on specifics. It weighs in at a robust 56 pages — although that includes roughly 14 pages of large photos, mainly featuring Phil Scott.

The document includes a “12-part Economic Growth Plan” with “more than 50 specific ideas, initiatives and proposals.”

Trying too hard, are we? Looks like a high schooler trying to pad the ol’ word count.

Most of those 50 ideas have been previously announced. Some appear to have little to do with the economy, including “Restoring Faith &: Trust in State Government” and “Addressing Vermont’s Opiate Epidemic.”

Some of the “specific ideas” are fundamentally nebulous, like his assertion that he will “encourage and support all employers” and “retain and recruit the best medical professionals.”

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How not to prove you’re not a xenophobe

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The Rutland Firsters claim that all they want is more information about the proposed settlement of Syrian refugees in their city. Well, now we know what kind of information they’re looking for.

On Tuesday night, that not-at-all nativist, not-at-all racist, not-at-all xenophobic organization held an “informational” meeting — and invited two speakers from the InfoWars School of Nutbar Conspiracy-Mongering.

The opening act was Philip Haney, who claims the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government, and that the global Islamic terror network is “operating in plain sight” right here in America.

The headliner was James Simpson, making his second appearance in Rutland this year. Simpson whips up a toxic brew of terror, Sharia Law, and secret United Nations plots to undermine America and create one world government. He also claimed an “affiliation” between the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Black Lives Matter.

I guess he missed the connection with the fake moon landing. It was Arabic civilizations, after all, that pioneered numbers, mathematics, and astronomy. Making people believe in the moon landing is obviously a way to promulgate the Grand Caliphate Conspiracy: get us believin’ in that space and science stuff they fabricated, and it’s one small step to global Muslim rule.
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Phil Scott is not a chicken, but he’s running a chickenshit campaign

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Almost two weeks ago, I contacted the Phil Scott campaign asking for some simple but crucial information. It ought to be readily available, a simple email away.

The response to my repeated emails and phone calls?

Nothing. Not even a courtesy “Hey, we got your message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”

Crickets.

Here’s my question. Phil Scott regularly claims that over the past six years of Democratic governance*, taxes and fees have increased by $700 million.

*He never refers to Peter Shumlin by name, it’s always the collective Democrats. Hive mind? 

All I want is the numbers. Which taxes and which fees have increased by how much? When you add them up, do they equal $700 million?

That’s all.

C’mon, if I were running a campaign and making that kind of claim, I’d make sure I had the figures close at hand. Indeed, he shouldn’t in good conscience make that claim unless he knows it’s true.

Right?

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