Category Archives: justice and corrections

More awfulness from the McAllister Files

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Oh, goodie. VTDigger has gotten hold of new information about disgraced State Sen. Norm McAllister (R-Limbo). It comes from a civil suit filed against McAllister by one of his alleged victims. Digger’s account is not for the faint of heart (or gut); it’s quite explicit, as in my view it should be. Our Distinguished Elected Officials have been ducking the hard facts all along. Their faces should be rubbed in the muck.

Which brings me to a VPO Special Offer. The first reporter who asks one of McAllister’s Senate defenders a question including the words “vaginal fisting” will get a $10 reward. Because that’s one of the many things he (allegedly, cough) subjected this woman to. Sample: “Senator, the allegations against Norm McAllister including forcible oral and anal sex and vaginal fisting. Why do you support letting this man stay in the Senate?”

Audio recording of the question constitutes proof.

The suit was filed by a woman called “Anna” who was a tenant on McAllister’s farm. She alleges frequent abusive sexual encounters over a two-and-a-half-year period. The squicky details in a moment, but here’s something VTDigger overlooked.

“Anna” moved to the farm in late 2012. The coercion began during her initial meeting with McAllister, and continued as long as she lived there. Which means we’ve caught McAllister in a big fat hairy lie.

He has said he didn’t start having sex with the other women until “After my wife died. Months after.”

Well, McAllister’s wife Lena Mae died on September 27, 2013.

I’ve gotta say I am shocked — shocked! — that a conservative family-values pol like Good Ol’ Norm was cheating on his wife.

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Planet Norm’s increasingly erratic orbit

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Any time a reporter has a few minutes to spare and wants to buy the Vermont media equivalent of a lottery ticket, all they have to do is give once-and-maybe-future-Senator Norm McAllister a call. If he answers the phone, he’s almost certain to say something dumb or offensive or both.

This week’s winner was Terri Hallenbeck of Seven Days, who wrangled a juicy quote from Good Ol’ Norm, whose internal exile has, unsurprisingly, failed improve his perspective. In fact, he’s showing signs of outright conspiratorialism.

The context: Hallenbeck was previewing this week’s Senate vote on marijuana legalization. At the time, it was looking like a very close thing — maybe one vote either way. Which prompted Hallenbeck to observe that this was “the second of two recent legislative initiatives on which [McAllister] might have swayed the results.” (The other one was the paid sick leave bill.) That is, if he hadn’t been suspended in January because of those pesky sexual assault charges.

Take it away, Norm…

Reached at home in Highgate, McAllister said he would have voted against both measures. “I got an idea that’s probably why some people didn’t want me there.”

Yeah, solid thinking. It wasn’t the multiple felony charges or the pending trial or the embarrassment of having an accused felon in their midst. The Real Truth is that Norm McAllister was simply too dangerous and had to be silenced! 

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Justice Scalia’s Chamber of White Privilege

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I suppose I have to begin with the usual respect-for-the-departed, Scalia-towering-intellect, beloved-by-all-despite-his-views stuff, because That’s What You Do when a prominent person dies.

That’s about as far as I’m willing to go, since Scalia wielded his influence as a weapon against many causes I hold dear. For me, praising his “towering intellect” is kind of like honoring the entrepreneurial spirit of Al Capone.

Besides, the exigencies of politesse didn’t prevent Republicans from pivoting immediately to the political; clearly, Ted Cruz and others got their research teams to work right away, preparing arguments for Saturday night’s Republican debate. So if they couldn’t be bothered to go beyond the formalities, neither will I.

On to business. Found something just so chock-full of unintentional irony that I couldn’t resist writing about it, even though it has nothing to do with Vermont politics. Apologies for straying; feel free to move on to the next post if you wish.

Scalia was found dead on Saturday morning at Cibolo Creek Ranch in rural Texas.

Roughin' it, rich white folks style.

Roughin’ it, rich white folks style.

And then on Sunday morning, the Austin American-Statesman runs a puff piece in its Travel section about that very ranch!

For those unfamiliar with the ways of the press, it’s common for newspapers to pre-publish and pre-distribute their non-news Sunday sections. But still: awkward!

But when I read the puff piece, I realized what a colossal slice of unintended irony it really was. And what an unintentionally appropriate place Cibolo Creek Ranch was for Justice Scalia to end his days.

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I almost feel sorry for the Franklin County GOP

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Please note: “Almost.”

The various critters who live under the Golden Dome must have felt a great sense of relief when Sen. Norm McAllister’s trial was delayed by at least three months. The trial was to have begun this week, and would have featured a parade of elected officials taking the stand and doing their best Sergeant Schultz impersonations. “I saw nothing. I heard nothing. I know nothing.”

Unseemly, to say the least. And it might have interfered with the free flow of Democracy In Action that we usually see at the Statehouse this time of year.

(Hey, you in the back row: Stop laughing.)

So now it’s put off until May 10, when the Legislature will almost certainly be safely adjourned. Ohh, you can bet your sweet bippy they’ll be gone by then.

Well, it’s a relief for the Legislature. It’s the worst possible news for Franklin County Republicans. McAllister’s trial won’t even begin until a mere fortnight before the filing deadline for major party candidates.

I’m sure the party is lining up a candidate for McAllister’s seat (two current Representatives, Carolyn Branagan and Corey Parent, are being mentioned). But I’m convinced that McAllister is clueless enough to file for re-election.

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Not looking good for legalized pot

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A lot of lawmakers are throwing stones at the idea of legalizing marijuana in Vermont this year. A lot of influential lawmakers. The latest, and perhaps most dispiriting: the brontosaurus of the State Senate, “Democrat” Dick Mazza. He’s chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, which is one of the committees that would have to pass the bill, because reasons. In an interview to be broadcast this Sunday on WCAX-TV, he sent loud signals that he’s prepared to put the kibosh on the idea. Bottom line?

… I say let’s not hurry it. I don’t think a year or two will make a difference, but let’s answer all these questions with our eyes wide-open.”

In addition to that cheery comment, he also argued that public-safety funding needs a boost before making pot legal. His reasoning:

“Public safety always has some sort of shortfall. The reason they do is because we are asking public safety to do more, more and more. There are a lot more crimes in Vermont, so before you burden them with a service, let’s make sure that they are fully funded on their existing services that they are providing today.”

Not sure what he means by “burden them with a service.” I could infer that he expects more trouble for the police if marijuana is legal. This is a common sentiment among law enforcement types and lawmakers looking for reasons to vote “No,” but the evidence is decidedly mixed, where evidence exists at all.

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At the very least, the Mitchells owe us some answers

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Your Publisher's mugshot.

Your Publisher’s mugshot.

Hey, remember when Catherine Nelson was arrested for re-enacting that A-ha video with her car and various downtown Rutland fixtures? Two days before her promotion to Publisher of the Rutland Herald and Times Argus?

And remember outgoing publisher John Mitchell’s inadequate explanation of the whole thing?

Well, this week it got worse. She pleaded “no contest” to charges stemming from that incident. And in the process, we learned something strange and troubling about her taste in drinking buddies. Paul Heintz:

Nelson finally admitted that she had been drinking with a man named Henry Hance, a habitual offender who, according to the Herald, has been convicted of more than a dozen DUI and drug charges, along with assault, arson and grand larceny. An hour and a half after her own DUI, Nelson blew twice the legal limit.

I’m sure those who follow the news in Rutland are painfully aware of Mr. Hance. RutVegas is full of, shall we say, colorful types; but Hance has got to be in the Top Ten. His record of violent, criminal, drug-dealing behavior covers his entire adult life.

So why the freakin’ hell is the new Publisher of the Rutland newspaper — one of the city’s most prominent citizens — hanging around with one of the city’s worst citizens?

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Drug-inspired racism: it’s not just a cartoon

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Oh, here comes Maine Governor Paul LePage, the gloriously unfiltered hambone, with his typically offensive comedy stylings. This time, he’s explaining the causes of Maine’s drug epidemic:

“These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty… these types of guys… they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.”

Hahaha, what a clown. Can’t believe the voters of Maine have chosen that schmuck as their chief executive — not once, but twice!

Good thing we don’t have any of that ignorant nonsense in Vermont, right?

Right?

Well, actually, it reminded me of something I read a few months ago in Seven Days.

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Bill Sorrell gets religion

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There was some welcome news from Vermont’s Eternal General about a month back. Bill Sorrell had begun a series of public hearings on the subject of incarceration — specifically, whether Vermont is putting too many people behind bars. Sorrell and others are gauging public sentiment on the question, and considering whether the Legislature should “adopt a resolution to steer Vermont’s criminal justice system away from incarceration,” according to VTDigger’s account.

Sorrell being Sorrell, he cautioned that nothing much would happen anytime soon.

“It would be like moving a battleship through thousands of individual decisions by prosecutors and judges, and in no small part on the decisions by corrections personnel on when the individual is released,” Sorrell told VTDigger.

Still, if this is how Sorrell plans to spend a chunk of his final year in office, then bully for him. We’ve been imprisoning more and more people for the past three decades, with no appreciable effect on public safety. Our prison population is aging and getting more expensive. It also features an appalling over-representation of Vermont’s teeny-tiny black population.

African-Americans make up just 1 percent of the population of a state that is 95.3 percent white, yet they make up 10.3 percent of Vermont inmates. Put another way, a Vermont inmate is more than 10 times as likely as a resident at large to be African-American.

So if Vermont’s top law enforcement official is on board with reducing incarceration rates, that’s a really great thing. More power to him.

One question, though.

Where the hell was Bill Sorrell all this time?

ICYMI, for the past two decades of our mass incarceration binge, he’s been Vermont’s top law enforcement official. So, welcome to the party, Bill. Sorry it took you so long to get here.

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Senate closes ranks around Good Ol’ Norm

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Like the frog in the hot water, I guess you can get used to anything if it happens slowly enough.

This week’s “Fair Game” column from Seven Days’ Paul Heintz is a substantial piece of work. He managed to contact almost every state senator and get them on the record regarding their disgraced/disgraceful colleague, Norm McAllister. Highly recommended reading, although it might make you shoot coffee out your nose.

And surprise, surprise: over the last several months, the air has gone out of the “Get Rid of Norm” balloon. Indeed, the person who seems to have suffered the most from this affair is Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning, who’s been leading the charge to expel McAllister. Many of his fellows blame him for being too aggressive, and Heintz reports that the issue has fractured the Republican Senate caucus.

Which just reinforces my view of the State Senate: it’s a clubby, tradition-bound institution whose members have an excessively high regard for themselves and not nearly enough concern for, oh, serving the people and stuff like that.

According to Heintz, the conversation has moved away from expulsion and toward the possibility of suspending McAllister pending the outcome of his criminal trial. Which, c’mon, is a weaksauce idea intended to diffuse the pressure and provide a pretext for barring McAllister from the Statehouse. Because when push comes to shove, the thing they’re most worried about is the media circus of McAllister showing up for work, and reporters badgering Senators with uncomfortable questions. Here’s a good one:

“Senator Mullin, you shared a house with Senator McAllister. You saw him take his teenaged “assistant” to bed every night. She has said that McAllister raped her ‘every time I went down there… just about.’ You’re an intelligent man; how could you possibly be unaware of what was happening under your own roof?”

(Mullin, by the way, was one of the few Senators who failed to response to Seven Days’ inquiry. Brave man.)

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Silence descends at MSNBC

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Outside my usual bailiwick, but I’m compelled to write. And if I need a pretext, well, Benen is a Vermonter.

Today, dozens of reporters tramped through the apartment of the alleged San Bernardino shooters. Some of them, including MSNBC and CNN, went live as their reporters rummaged through the belongings of the dead couple, brandishing pictures of unnamed people and pieces of legal identification before the cameras.

The spectacle revealed nothing. It was, as the Washington Post put it, “life-sucking.” It was despicable. It was a sign that journalistic ethics have been completely subsumed by the endless hunger for ratings.

The authorities say they have completed their investigation of the apartment. I find that hard to believe. What I do know is that if they ever want to go back in there, they won’t be able to use anything they find as evidence. The whole scene is irretrievably tainted.

And people think bloggers have no standards. Today, I prefer my profession to journalism.

Even the news anchors seemed to be choking back their revulsion. CNN’s Anderson Cooper called it “bizarre,” and a CNN security analyst spoke about compromising a crime scene. MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell begged reporter Kerry Sanders not to show pictures or ID’s on the air.

The networks seemed to realize what a ghoulish clusterfuck they’d just taken part in. MSNBC later issued a very tepid semi-apology. CNN boasted that it had not showed pictures or IDs, which is just the worst of many offenses.

After getting home this evening, I turned on Rachel Maddow to see what she would have to say about it.

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