Monthly Archives: November 2021

Rumblings

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A major tectonic shift in the Vermont political world seems to be underway. If you listen closely, you can hear the rumblings.

According to the very active political grapevine, Sen. Patrick Leahy will not seek re-election, U.S. Rep. Peter Welch will run for his Senate seat, and at least three prominent Democrats are rushing to fundraise and assemble a team to run for Welch’s seat.

I’ve also heard from one good source that Gov. Phil Scott won’t run for re-election either. I’m not sure if I believe that; there’s no way he’d lose in 2022 unless the pandemic goes hog-wild (which is at least a possibility after the last two days’ case counts). But then, Scott isn’t your typical politico and isn’t motivated by the usual political impulses. Could be he’s feeling the strain of managing the pandemic for the better part of two years.

We’ll leave that aside for the moment and go back to Leahy. I’d expected him to run for another term for several reasons: He’d set the all-time record for Senate seniority in his next term, he’s at the pinnacle of power, and as chair of Senate Appropriations he can ensure a steady supply of federal dollars to Vermont.

Also, cynically, an elderly Senator can be propped up by a reliable staff, which Leahy has. But I don’t know his personal situation; looming health issues for him or wife Marcelle could easily lead him to step aside. Or maybe he just wants to enjoy some retirement time. Or maybe he thinks the Republicans will take control of the Senate in 2022. That’d make another term a lot less appealing.

After the jump: Jockeying for position.

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Fear Not, My Friends, the VPA Is On the Case

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Oh boy, we’ve had another incident of abuse and taunting at a high school sports event.

According to the Morrisville News & Citizen, last week’s girls’ soccer playoff game between Lamoille Union High School and Missisquoi Union High School was rife with abuse from the home Missisquoi crowd. They reportedly showered the Lamoille team with “repeated harassment, sexualization and debasement” throughout the match, according to a statement from Lamoille administration. More from the statement:

“Those gathered on the sidelines directed their comments at the players’ weight, chest sizes and disparaging their physical appearances. In addition, other players reported repeated comments about their families and parents. The level of spectator comments exceeded typical razzing of visiting players and support of their home team.”

It gets worse. Lamoille says the game officials did nothing to stop the abuse, which left some players asking to be taken out of the game or switched to positions away from the home crowd. The officials said the abuse wasn’t “mean enough” to warrant action.

These are the same officials who read the newly-minted Vermont Principals’ Association code of behavior before the match began. So we know exactly what that’s worth.

It shouldn’t surprise you that VPA chief Jay Nichols completely failed to step up to the situation.

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If Anybody Needs Me, I’ll Be Hiding Under the Bed

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I was about to write another post, but this number stopped me in my tracks. 487 Covid cases today. That’s half again as many (more than that, actually) as the previous one-day record.

Perhaps I was premature in writing that Gov. Phil Scott might soon be able to declare victory over the Delta variant. I mean, good God.

The figure comes with a caveat; an extraordinarily large number of tests were processed yesterday, and that contributed heavily to the high case total.

But still. Today’s other numbers were pretty bad as well. 55 hospitalized with Covid including 19 in ICU beds. Six new deaths. Test positivity rate continues its steady climb, now at 3.2%. So even accounting for the test processing total, there’s still a lot of Covid out there.

This isn’t an artifact, either. Health Department spox Ben Truman told VTDigger “the numbers are accurate and there are no associated glitches or delays,” referring to the previous single-day record of 330, which the department blamed on a computer error. Nope, that 487 is real.

Good thing Team Scott has five full days to come up with excuses before the governor faces the media again. They’ll need it.

Covid ain’t going away, folks. I’m making no unnecessary trips, masking everywhere I go, and might start double-masking. We will return to normal blogging activity after a brief sanity break.

It’s Shitkicker Time

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Way, way back in January 2015, I proposed an addition to then-governor Peter Shumlin’s executive team: the post of Shitkicker-In-Chief. “The duties would include pointing out the flaws in administration reasoning, deflating egos when necessary, and the occasional loud guffaw,” I wrote.

Despite his brush with electoral disgrace in the 2014 election, Shummy quickly reverted to the kinds of bad habits that helped derail his once-promising administration: “One of his worst is his almost-complete inability to admit that he was wrong about something — even if it’s something trivial. It makes him appear small-minded, overly defensive, duplicitous, and condescending.”

Gee, that sounds a hell of a lot like his successor, doesn’t it? Phil Scott, the former Nice Guy, is now prone to dismiss any questioning of his Covid policy, make demeaning remarks about those who disagree with him, and make transparently false statements. (His latest: his contention that he hasn’t changed his position on emergency housing when, in fact, he’s shifted considerably from his former demand that the program be ended by a date certain.)

So, it’s time for Scott to hire a shitkicker. He needs someone willing to tell him inconvenient truths such as “You’re wrong” or “That’s stupid” or “Bullshit, Mr. Governor.”

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Embarrassment Plus Compassion Equals Policy Shift

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We’ll take a couple thousand of these, thanks

“It hasn’t changed my thinking,” said Gov. Phil Scott at his Tuesday briefing. The subject was the state’s emergency housing program. Immediately after he said that, he went on to make it pretty dang clear that his thinking has changed and is continuing to change.

For that, a lot of credit goes to the intrepid band of advocates (including Tweeters-In-Chief Josh Lisenby and Brenda Siegel) camped out on the portico of the Statehouse. The needle has definitely moved since their protest began almost three weeks ago. The conversation has shifted from “We need to end the program soon” to “We’ll keep it running a while longer” to “We want to avoid throwing anyone out on the street, if only because the optics would be bad.”

(That last bit is the quiet part out loud.)

This isn’t enough for the advocates, who continue their stakeout. But it’s substantial movement nonetheless.

At this point, Scott doesn’t really have a position. Until now, he was dead set on ending the program at a date certain. The date kept shifting backwards, but there was always an end in sight. Now, it’s not clear that there is. The governor sure avoided any talk of a deadline at the Tuesday presser.

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Is It Blind-Squirrel Time?

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This week’s gubernatorial Covid briefing had a different feel to it. There was, dare I say it, a bit of hope in the air. Not because Gov. Phil Scott’s Covid policies are finally paying off, but because vaccination for children ages 5-11 will soon arrive to pull his fat out of the fire.

So that was the message, repeated ad nauseam. The children’s vaccine is coming! Any day now! Please get your kids jabbed ASAP!

The message was hammered home by guest presenter Dr. Rebecca Bell, president of the Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She delivered a thorough, well-supported endorsement of vaccines in general and the Covid shot in particular. The development and testing process, she said, had produced “safe and effective” vaccine regimens for children. For parents on the fence about kiddie jabs, she noted that the uncertainty isn’t with the vaccine; it’s with the virus.

The only downbeat note came from DFR Commissioner and Statistical Soothsayer Michael Pieciak, whose crystal ball was once again pretty damn foggy. “Things could potentially improve significantly,” he said, before adding “They could get worse as well.”

Gee, thanks.

Scott and his minions laid out their plan to immediately vaccinate as many kids as possible. If federal approval came tonight, they said, vaccinations could start as soon as Thursday. (UPDATE: It appears that final approval will come tonight. The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee voted unanimously in favor; CDC director Rachelle Wolensky is expected to follow suit.)

There’s good reason for all the haste. Kiddie-vax may be the key to finally bringing down case counts to acceptable levels and, dare I say, actually turning the corner on the coronavirus.

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Old Veepies Never Die, They Just Get Stupider (UPDATED)

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Note: Second item has a significant update. Press WILL be admitted to Winooski/Enosburg soccer game.

Oh, you thought you were done with this, did you? Yeah, my awards for stupidity and/or obtuseness in the public sector have been on sabbatical lately — it’s been harder to see the funny this fall, mostly due to the ongoing pandemic. But here we are again! On the docket: Noblesse oblige at the homelessness protest, barring the media from a soccer match, an especially stupid Covid rationalization from Team Scott, and Bennington Justice rears its ugly head.

We have multiple awardees for the It Was Quite Literally The Least We Could Do Award. The recipients include Gov. Phil Scott, House Speaker Jill Krowinski, and Senate President Pro Tem Becca Balint. Brenda Siegel and Josh Lisenby, advocates for restoring the full emergency housing program, held what VTDigger helpfully called “a small rally” on Monday at the site of their Statehouse protest/campout. Apparently Siegel and Lisenby have cooties or something, because neither Krowinski nor Ballnt attended in person and Scott continues to resist meeting with them.

The Speaker and Pro Tem did issue a statement for Siegel to read, in which they endorsed full restoration of the program. Which is interesting since, as the governor points out on every occasion, they agreed to the springtime deal restricting the program. Nice of them to belatedly come down on the side of compassion. And while Scott could really use a spark of humanity, he refuses to meet with the advocates. But hey, as VTDigger put it, “they were granted an interview on Monday with Sean Brown, the commissioner of the Department for Children and Families.” Wow. “Granted an interview.” How noblesse oblige of them.

Brown reportedly said the administration would consider reopening the full program when/if (climate change, y’know) the weather gets really cold. Which tells you the administration sees this first and foremost as a PR problem. They want to be as stingy as possible, but they could do without pictures of freezing protesters or homeless people with hypothermia.

Onward and downward…

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What’s Eating Philbert Grape?

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This is fine.

Another week, another series of disappointing Covid numbers. Not only the high daily case counts but also hospitalizations, deaths, and a test positivity rate that’s creeping back up toward 3.

Still, I fully expect Gov. Phil Scott to come out swinging at his Tuesday briefing. I’d be shocked if we don’t get a rehash of carefully selected statistics, bland assurances that everything will be just fine anytime now, and denials that any policy changes whatsoever are in order.

After all, Scott spox Jason Maulucci told the Boston Globe on Friday that mask mandates are off the table. His… shall we say… creative reasoning? A mandate would undermine public confidence that Covid vaccines work.

Oh, you want it in his words? Here you go.

“We’re promoting mask wearing, but we don’t want to do anything that would damage the public belief that vaccines work.”

Wow, that’s a stretch worthy of Rose Mary Woods.

(Globe story is paywalled, but I was able to access it via one of the many retweets it got.)

After a very good performance for the first 15 months of the pandemic, Scott’s response to the Delta variant has been stubborn, unyielding, and dismissive of all criticism. He has also, as far as I can remember, failed to express any sympathy or concern for those who have died or become seriously ill or their loved ones. That’s uncharacteristic of him. Would a brief call-out at the top of every presser be too much to ask? Perhaps even a visit to a hospital or a grieving family? He should be capable of that, and it would be a powerful reminder of the essential humanity that’s made Scott an appealing figure to so many.

So what’s going on with our Nice Guy Governor?

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