Author Archives: John S. Walters

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About John S. Walters

Writer, editor, sometime radio personality, author of "Roads Less Traveled: Visionary New England Lives."

Alleged Moderate Endorses Extremist

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Hey, is Jim Douglas getting crotchety in his old age? Is he sporting a tinfoil hat these days? First he turns his back (in a very limited, unimpactful way) on his alma mater Middlebury College for removing the name of eugenicist Vermont Governor John Mead from a campus chapel. Now he’s gone and given his imprimatur to state Senate candidate and certified extremist John Klar.

You know, the guy who ran against Gov. Phil Scott in the Republican primary two years ago? The guy who wants to recast the VTGOP as an ultraconservative, white supremacist-adjacent organization? That guy. “We need balance in Montpelier,” Douglas wrote of Klar. “We need real-world experience. John Klar has the energy and the background to tackle our problems.”

Hmmm. “The background,” you say.

This would be the same John Klar who’s been harassing the Orange Southwest School Board over a Black Lives Matter flag, which he calls “illegal,” and has accused BLM of practicing “reverse racism.”

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Hey Ted Kenney, This You?

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Ted Kenney, candidate for Chittenden County State’s Attorney who’s attempting the Philippe Petit-worthy feat of running as crimefighter and social justice warrior at the same time, might want to be more careful about the company he keeps. Especially in his own Facebook videos.

Kenney is the man at the back left of the group of supporters marching in the Essex Memorial Day parade. The man running point, in the green T-shirt and wide-brimmed hat, is Travis Trybulski, former officer in the Williston Police Department.

He’s a former officer because he and the town signed a “separation agreement” ending his employment. Why? Because Trybulski was the subject of a Brady Letter, a notification from a county prosecutor that an officer’s credibility is so tainted that the prosecutor will no longer use the officer’s testimony in criminal cases.

The reason given in the letter: Trybulski’s numerous “violations of the Fair and Impartial Policing policy through a clear pattern of profiling and bias.” (Information from the Vermont ACLU’s excellent Brady Letter database.)

The letter was signed by Chittenden County State’s Attorney Sarah Fair George, the person Kenney is trying to unseat in the August Democratic primary. In this endeavor, Kenney is more than happy to have the public support of a racist cop who basically lost his job because of Sarah Fair George.

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Was This Phil Scott’s Dumbest Veto?

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Gov. Phil Scott has been wearing out the old veto pen this year. He’s rejected a total of 11 bills this year, bringing his lifetime total to 35 according to VTDigger. He has nearly doubled the previous record-holder, Howard Dean, who amassed his 20 vetoes in 11 years. It’s taken Scott less than six years to rack up 35.

Scott has vetoed bills on questionable grounds before. But number 35 may be his dumbest one to date. H.728 would have ordered studies of a number of drug-related issues. But the one Scott objected to was a study of overdose prevention sites — places where people can use illicit drugs without fear of arrest.

I mean, c’mon, a study? The Legislature’s time-honored strategy for postponing tough decisions? What’s so objectionable about preparing a report that’s probably going to wind up sitting on a shelf gathering dust, or whatever the digital equivalent might be?

Well, if you look at his veto message, it appears that he misinterpreted the bill in a very fundamental way.

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What We’ve Lost

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“Why doesn’t the press cover __________?” is a question I’m often asked. There are a few answers, depending on context. Sometimes the press has covered it, but not as extensively or impactfully as you’d like. Sometimes there’s no coverage because it’s not that much of a story. But the most accurate answer is, “WHAT press?”

We all know the media business has shrunk, but I don’t think we realize exactly how far the shrinkage has gone or how deeply it affects the quality and quantity of news.

Go back, say, ten years. Not that long ago. The Associated Press had three reporters. The Burlington Free Press had at least two reporters at the Statehouse and covering state politics. The Times Argus and Rutland Herald had a three-person Statehouse bureau. Seven Days had three, and they’d deploy more if the need arose. VPR had two. WCAX and WPTZ each had a deeply experienced Statehouse/politics reporter full-time, and WVNY/WFFF usually had a young reporter on the beat most of the time.

On the other hand, VTDigger was barely more than a glimmer in Anne Galloway’s eye.

Well, actually, it was Galloway by herself, working her ass off. No time for glimmering.

Now, Digger has three Statehouse reporters plus issue specialists who frequent the Statehouse when their beats are involved. So that’s an improvement over the good old days. But look at the rest of the landscape.

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Nolan Bravely Confronts Mayonnaise Crisis

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See? There’s slightly less mayonnaise than there could be!

The Christina Nolan campaign is treading dangerously close to self-parody.

Last Wednesday, Team Nolan posted a brief video on social media showing the candidate in front of literally hundreds of mayonnaise jars talking about a mayo shortage.

It was probably her most viral campaign vid to date, but the attention was all negative. Condiment jokes flew around Twitter. The scorn was well-earned; this was bad, really bad. Downright embarrassing, in fact, for a major-party campaign for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Setting, lighting, text, delivery, sound, were all barely acceptable by community access TV standards. It’s something you might have expected from Nolan’s low-wattage Republican opponents.

This video was only 27 seconds long; to enumerate its offenses against politics will take far longer.

Let’s start at the top. Nolan, dressed to make her seem human and relatable. But they went a little too far with it. Lumpy sweatshirt, oddly bulgy tan shorts and flip flops? It’s possible to dress casually without looking like, well, a slob. Also, the colors make her fade into the background.

She stands, rather awkwardly, in front of a nearly-packed supermarket display to talk about supply chain issues. Whose idea was that? Couldn’t they find a display that was actually empty?

And why mayonnaise? (Team Nolan later posted a much better video of her in front of a nearly-empty display of baby formula, which is the supply chain issue of the day. Not mayo.)

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VTDigger’s Twitter Account Calls Gubernatorial Race Five Months Early

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Well, that settles it. Phil Scott has won re-election to a fourth term as governor.

He has, according to VTDigger’s Twitter feed, which assumes that legislative Democrats will once again face Phil Scott veto threats in 2023. Here’s the entire tweet:

Yup, it’s confirmed in the text beneath the photo of the Statehouse dome as seen through autumn (?) leaves. Phil Scott, re-elected. Brenda Siegel might as well pack up her tent and head home.

Seems like a teeny-tiny breach of journalistic principle, does it not? Calling the election five months before it happens?

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Wanted: Local Officials With Guts

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We’ve got a disturbing trend on our hands: Small-town officials coming under heavy pressure from small groups of loud people. Or even one single person.

I’ve written at length about stealth conservatives running for local office, rabble-rousing over critical race theory and Black Lives Matter, and arguing over school mascots. But three more incidents have recently come to the fore: the Chester library board suspending Drag Queen Story Hour, the Canaan school board facing demands to remove books from the school library, and the Randolph school board voting to take down a “Black Lives Matter” flag.

This isn’t going away anytime soon. The American Library Association says it’s getting more reports of attempted book banning than ever before. The head of the ALA, Deborah Caldwell-Stone, says “It’s a volume of challenges I’ve never seen” in her 20 years in the organization.

“When you have organizations like Heritage Foundation and Family Policy Alliance publishing materials that instruct parents on how to challenge books in the school library or the public library, right down to a challenge form enclosed in the booklet so they can just fill it out, you’re seeing a challenge to our democratic values of free speech, freedom of thought, freedom of belief.”

It’s never been easy to be a local official. It’s a lot of work. You’re always on call. When things go wrong, you get the blame. But these organized movements present a new level of difficulty. Local boards of all kinds are facing loud, insistent demands from tiny cohorts of The Aggrieved.

Our local public servants don’t need any more headaches. But they’ve got ’em, and they’ll have to respond.

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This Should Be a Very Good Year for the VDP

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Recently I was talking with a couple of friends in the #vtpoli world, and I casually remarked that 2022 should be a good year for the Vermont Democratic Party. I thought it was kind of obvious, but I was met with puzzled looks. So I explained my reasoning. And I thought that if the VDP’s advantage is less obvious than I thought, maybe it needs to be explained in this space.

I’ve got six reasons for seeing a big 2022 ahead for the Dems. Let’s start with their inherent advantage in the Vermont electorate. Statewide, a generic Democrat starts out with at least a 10-point edge over any Republican not named Phil Scott. In the Legislature, the Dems consistently hover right around the two-thirds mark — usually just above in the Senate, just below in the House. But at worst, they can expect to hold more than 60% of all legislative seats. (It must be really depressing to be a Republican lawmaker, knowing you have little influence and no prospects.)

Other factors give the Dems an even bigger edge in this particular year. Like Proposition 5 and the U.S. Supreme Court. When Democrats proposed enshrining reproductive rights in the state constitution, it seemed kind of superfluous. I mean, who’s going to ban abortion in reliably blue Vermont? Now, with the high court’s majority trending in a Handmaid’s Tale direction, reproductive rights are in question. Even before Alito Mussolini’s decision was leaked, Vermont Democrats saw Prop 5 as a turnout-booster in a non-presidential election year. Now, reproductive rights are front and center and Prop 5 is, as they say about police procedurals, “ripped from the headlines.” It should galvanize pro-choice voters.

After the jump: Money, organization, an unprecedented campaign season, and a unique Democratic resource.

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Turns Out, Jim Douglas’ Anger Was Entirely Performative. Shocking, I know.

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In my previous post, I expressed a bit of puzzlement about why former governor Jim Douglas chose the New York Sun as the place to express his sudden disdain for Middlebury College. Well, now I know why: Because any Vermont publication would have asked embarrassing questions.

Douglas, for those just tuning in, is upset over the college’s decision to take former governor John Mead’s name off a chapel building because Mead was a fervent and influential proponent of eugenics. In his essay, Douglas said he was staying away from his 50th class reunion because of the anesthetic-free Meadectomy.

I’ll miss seeing my classmates and reminiscing about our college days. My regret would be greater, however, if I were to pretend that I was happy to be there, in the shadow of Mead Chapel, the scene of the College’s expunction of the Governor’s legacy.

Time to call bullshit.

Douglas may have skipped his class reunion, but he gave no indication that he would give up the “Executive in Residence” title he’s enjoyed at Middlebury since 2011, or that he would cease his part-time teaching role. Apparently he’s not too upset about being “in the shadow of Mead Chapel” to completely absent himself from campus.

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Finally, Jim Douglas Has Found Something to be Mad About

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Ever notice how almost every photograph of former Vermont governor Jim Douglas looks the same? The not-quite-convincing smile, the middle-disance stare, the resolutely dead eyes? It’s almost as if he’s thinking to himself, “I wonder what puppy tastes like.”

Well, something has finally shattered that phlegmatic exterior. What, might you ask, is capable of piercing Douglas’ impregnable fortress of blanditude?

An alleged insult against a dead white guy.

Douglas, who could have had his pick of Vermont media outlets to carry his thoughts, took to the digital-only pages of the New York Sun, a conservative outlet that has nothing to do with the original city paper, to post his screed about why he’d decided to boycott his 50th class reunion at Middlebury College.

He did so because the college had the temerity to rename the Mead Memorial Chapel. It had borne the name of former Vermont governor John Mead, but the college took down his name because, uhh, Mead had been a proponent of eugenics.

Pish tush, says Douglas. A lot of people were pro-eugenics in the early 20th Century. And aside from that little flaw, Douglas says, Mead was “a decent man, as well as a generous benefactor” and a veteran of the Civil War to boot.

Problem is, John Mead wasn’t just some random dude who thought the gene pool needed a little purification. He used his platform as governor to call for an official policy of eugenics in Vermont, which led to one of the darkest periods in our history.

[In 1912,] Mead gave a farewell address to the Vermont Legislature in which he advocated for the use of eugenic theory in creating legislation and policy. His comments in that speech about marriage restrictions, segregation and sterilization inspired the research behind the Eugenics Survey of Vermont and led to the legalization of voluntary eugenical sterilization two decades later.

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