Today I made a sign for the next anti-Trump protest. Never said I was an artist.
Doing Something.
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Author Archives: John S. Walters
News You Should View: Podcasts & Chicken Soup
This week’s edition of NYSV is a bit heavy on audio content and what we might call “human interest stories” — the inspiring features that are a staple of print journalism. Not the most earth-shattering content, but it’s an important aspect of a balanced news diet, especially when our plates are so often loaded down with heavy, indigestible fare.
There are quite a few podcasts in Vermont. The best are worth including in your regular rotation, and the others occasionally rise to that level. We’ve got some great examples this week, starting with (I think) the most gifted audio reporter in the state, Erica Heilman.
“Health Insurance is Hard.” That’s the title of Heilman’s latest “Rumble Strip” podcast. It’s more of an impressionist study in the frustrations of health care. And you can tell she’s an artist because she manages to get through an 18-minute story about bureaucratic hell without ever invoking the word “Kafkaesque.”
You could say this is about her friend Justin Lander’s effort to get health care without going bankrupt — or crazy. But it’s not a narrative. Heilman weaves together Justin’s words, exasperating voice mail, real live customer service staffers providing no actual customer service, and extensive use of the wallpaper “music” that serenades you while you’re on hold. It’s meant to be calming, but in Heilman’s piece it manages to be infuriating. Bernie was right: Medicare for all. (Bonus! The podcast opens with a rough-hewn but completely apropos “jingle” for her sponsor, East Hill Tree Farm.)
yDoing Something.
I did two related things today. I made a donation to the Vermont chapter of 50501 and signed on to their email list. 50501 is a brand-new national organization that’s been promoting days of protest against the Trump regime, starting with April 5 and continuing with April 19, with much more in the pipeline.
The Vermont chapter seems to consist of a handful of volunteers, and they’re having an impact far greater than their numbers. As of this writing, they’re more than halfway to their starter goal of $20,000. Chip in if you can, but definitely sign up for email updates.
The next national day of protest is May Day, Thursday, May 1. So far it looks like a lot of the gatherings will be in the late afternoon because weekday. Some protests are aiming for Sunday, May 4 because “Star Wars Day” seems like a great time to strike back at the Evil Empire. Many rallies are being announced close to the last minute, so keep informed and come on out.
Doing Something, Wet Cardboard Edition
Several hundred Vermonters, including Yours Truly, gathered at the corner of State and Main in downtown Montpelier for a Saturday morning protest against Orange Hitler and his gang. It was a lively event, and impressive considering that it was apparently organized at the last minute. (We’d been monitoring the 50501 website for events in the area, and we didn’t see a Montpelier rally on the schedule until late in the week.) Also considering that it started raining about halfway through the scheduled hour-long honk-and-wave. Most people stuck it out until noon, although some of their signs looked a bit worse for wear.
We got an encouraging response from passing vehicles, many of which honked their support and got enthusiastic cheers in return. It was a beautiful thing.
Do gatherings like this matter? Do they make a difference? I can’t prove that they do, but they’re better than the alternative of not doing something.
Come to the Table, Talk to the Hand
At his Wednesday press conference, Gov. Phil Scott was studiously noncommittal on the use of state prisons to house federal detainees. He unironically expressed the belief that it might be better for detainees like Mohsen Mahdavi to be kept in Vermont instead of being dragged off to Mississippi (where Vermont routinely sends its own inmates) or some other hellhole. But he left the door open to working with lawmakers on that issue and others, as the Legislature considers ways to manage state cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Behind the scenes, something very different is happening. The Scott administration appears to be stonewalling a legislative panel with jurisdiction over the prison contract.
This comes from Independent Rep. Troy Headrick, a member of the House Corrections & Institutions Committee, with additional input from fellow committee member, Democratic Rep. Conor Casey.
Headrick wrote a blogpost on April 16 detailing “executive obstruction” frustrating the committee’s work on the issue. “In committee, we have developed a tri-partisan consensus,” Headrick writes, “that Vermont has no business being complicit with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]’s repeated violations of due process, the First Amendment, and basic human rights.”
Unfortunately, he continues, this effort to end the feds’ use of state prisons to hold detainees has been “stalled… by direct interference from the Governor’s office.”
Continue readingDoing Something: A Follow-Up
Yesterday’s installment of “Doing Something,” my daily report on Doing Something Every Day in response to Trump’s assault on the government, democratic norms, and the rule of law, was about emails I had written to the chairs of the Vermont House and Senate Judiciary Committees. I suggested that one or both of the panels should hold hearings on how various state agencies and departments cooperate with (or are complicit in, your choice) Trump’s crackdown on people of color who are in the United States legally. I provided a starter list of questions and state agencies that should be included in such hearings.
Credit to both chairs, Sen. Nader Hashim and Rep. Martin LaLonde, for getting back to me within hours. More is likely to come, but I wanted to report back on what I’ve learned so far. Which is that neither of them needed my encouragement to become actively engaged on these issues.
Continue readingDoing Something.
Another daily report on my effort to Do Something Every Day about Donald Trump’s assault on government, free speech, and the rule of law. Today I sent emails to House Judiciary Committee chair Martin LaLonde and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Nader Hashim repeating an idea I explored in my most recent blogpost: That one or both committees hold wide-ranging hearings on the state’s immigration-related relationships with the feds. Cut-and-pasting the message to Sen. Hashim:
Sen. Hashim:
Hi, John Walters here. Not a constituent, but an interested party. You may have read my most recent blogpost about Gov. Phil Scott’s, shall we say, measured response to the illegal detention of Mohsen Mahdawi. It included a suggestion which I am repeating here because it involves the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The events surrounding Mr. Mahdawi’s kidnapping and detention raise a number of questions regarding state/federal cooperation beyond the fact that he is being held in a state prison. Cut-and-pasting a passage from the blog, in which I call for a hearing of the House or Senate Judiciary Committees or possibly a joint hearing to raise these questions with appropriate state officials.
“We know the motorcade that whisked Mr. Mahdawi away had Vermont license plates. What can the DMV say about that? Can it reveal who registered the vehicles? How does it facilitate this unAmerican secrecy? Do state or local police agencies participate in or offer any support to the Trump regime? What rules do sheriff’s departments operate under, if any? How does the Department of Corrections interact with the feds? Are federal agents allowed access to detainees in state prisons? Do they interrogate detainees in state facilities?
“That’s a starter list of questions. Such a hearing wouldn’t disrupt the system, but it would put useful information on public record and perhaps lead to legislation limiting state interaction with the feds.”
I think this would be a relevant and appropriate legislative response to Mr. Mahdawi’s detention. I hope you agree.
Thanks and best wishes,
John Walters
Phil Scott Dips a Toe Into the Resistance River and Finds the Water a Bit Chilly
At his weekly press conference, Gov. Phil Scott refused a call from Senate Democratic leadership to terminate Vermont’s agreement with the federal government that allows immigration detainees to be held in state prisons. “I’m not sure it helps the people being detained by moving them out of Vermont,” Scott said, citing a report that one detainee expressed relief that he was being held in our B.L.S.
And you know, he’s not wrong. At least not in one important way. Immigration attorney Brett Stokes of the Vermont Law and Graduate School and Falko Schilling of the Vermont ACLU told VTDigger that they’d prefer their clients to be close at hand, not sent to unknown facilities in other states — or even overseas. I understand that, and I think we should take their viewpoint seriously.
That said. There is a moral dimension to this question that Scott did not address. Do we as Vermonters want to be complicit in the Trump administration’s crackdown on alleged thought crimes? Are we comfortable being part of this authoritarian project? Phil Scott apparently is, as long as we can help shave the rough edges off.
I must also point out a bitter irony that went unnoticed by our news media.
“I get the frustration that people are feeling. People want to do something about what they see happening,” Scott said. ““But is that in the best interest of those who are being detained to just ship them off to somewhere else, Mississippi, Texas, wherever?”
Ahem.
Mississippi, you say?
Continue readingDoing Something.
My partner took the lead today, making a donation to the Harvard School of Public Health. What with Harvard specifically and “public health” generally under attack from Trump and his minions, it seemed like a timely thing to do.
The House Does a Big Thing that Phil Scott Won’t Do
The Vermont House of Representatives did something kind of impressive a couple weeks ago. Not that the media paid much attention, due in part to all Trump all the time — and I let it pass by for that same reason, but I can play catchup when events call for it. So here I am, belatedly.
Way back on April 2, the House approved H.91, the “Vermont Homeless Emergency Assistance and Responsive Transition to Housing Program.” Quite a mouthful, but the acronym is VHEARTH, which is catchy indeed.
But that’s not the impressive part. What the bill’s writers managed to do is create a new state program from scratch. VHEARTH is meant to replace the much-lamented and chronically underfunded General Assistance Emergency Housing Program, d/b/a/ the motel voucher program. Yep, legislative leaders had been begging Gov. Phil Scott to propose an alternative to vouchers for years. Seems they finally got tired of waiting for the chief executive to do his damn job.
I first learned of this five days later, when the Barre Montpelier Times Argus published a front-page story (paywalled, sorry) about H.91 gaining House approval. I was so surprised to learn of a major Statehouse development in my sadly reduced local paper that I had to check and double-check to make sure I hadn’t missed a story in the more customary outlets like VTDigger, Seven Days, or Vermont Public.
But I hadn’t. Those usually dependable organizations either missed a major piece of legislation achieving a milestone, or they deemed it unworthy of their attention. If it was the latter, well, they were sorely mistaken.
C
The Vermont Political Observer. 