Category Archives: justice and corrections

Welcome to Vermont. Please step out of the car.

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Ah, leaf peeping season. Prime time for tourists, who come from far and wide to enjoy the autumnal beauty of our state.

Most tourists, anyway. If I were a person of color, I think I’d give it a skip. Especially if my car had New York or Massachusetts plates.

A few things conspire to put me in this frame of mind. First was a revealing, and disturbing, front-page spread in last Sunday’s Times Argus:

Racial profiling spurs state to action

And the sidebar:

“Invislble” racism in a mostly white state

The T-A is paywalled. If you’re not a subscriber, I recommend you find the paper in your local library. The stories are kind of eye-popping.

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And now, the next phase of the “Get Rid of Norm” campaign begins

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Yesterday, prosecutors and defense in the Senator Norm McAllister Incredibly Gross and Offensive Sexual Exploitation case got together and released the “discovery stipulation,” or in English, the projected timeline for a trial.

And as VTDigger’s Morgan True reports, it’s scheduled to take place “smack in the middle of the 2016 legislative session.”

Bwahahahahaha.

Wouldn’t that be fun? If McAllister remains determined to hold on to his seat, he’d have cameras following him everywhere he goes in the Statehouse, and following him back and forth to the courthouse, and reporters asking all sorts of embarrassing questions of fellow lawmakers (“Hey, Senator Mullin, got a minute? I want to ask about your old roomie.”), especially Republicans, and especially Franklin County Republicans.

Of course, legal experts say that delays are virtually inevitable, so the likely outcome is that the trial will happen sometime later next year. Buzzkill. Even so, the cameras and reporters will be swarming.

But with the legal schedule set, Republicans will redouble their efforts to convince McAllister to deliver the face-saving resignation they all desperately want. As Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning told me last month, once the discovery stipulation is revealed, “the process will be clear and Norm will have to face it.”

That is the hope, anyway.

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Police Chief Superspy: Is this what Burlington needed?

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Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger has announced his choice for new police chief: Brandon del Pozo, a veteran of 18 years with the New York City Police Department. He has, as they say, risen rapidly through the NYPD ranks; his current post is Commanding Officer in the Strategic Initiatives Office.

Hmm. The most famous NYPD “strategic initiative” I know of is its free-range intelligence unit, which routinely ignores jurisdictional boundaries in its search for potential terrorists. According to a 2011 report on NPR, NYPD Intelligence has “teams of undercover officers… who basically just troll ethnic neighborhoods. …They also have informants known as mosque crawlers” who serve as “the eyes and ears of the police department inside the mosques.”

The latter, notes NPR, would “seem to violate the federal privacy act.” It further notes that the unit is “creative in ways that come right up against the line of what the federal government or other police departments either can do, or feel comfortable doing.”

The expansionist NYPD even has an intell office in the Middle East, which seems like quite a stretch for a city police force.

Wait a minute, Mr. del Pozo himself claims credit for that.

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Procedural excuses for avoiding a moral imperative

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Despite the widespread pleas of responsible politicians (almost) everywhere, Norm McAllister continues to represent the good people of Franklin County in the State Senate. And I have to confess that I hadn’t considered how it would feel to be represented by that fetid pile of [ALLEGED] human excrement, until I read about a petition drive calling for his resignation.

Weston/McAllisterWhich made me realize that if I lived in his district, I’d want him the hell out of office ASAP. Even when the legislature is out of session, there is still business being done. McAllister is a pariah. He’s avoiding public events, he’s been stripped of his committee assignments, and as for “constituent service,” well, who in state government is returning his calls? Who, in their right mind, is depending on Norm McAllister for “constituent service”?

The people of Franklin County are (a) underrepresented, and (b) forced to bear the stigma of having McAllister as their Senator. If I lived there, you bet I’d sign that petition.

McAllister, for those just joining us, was arrested on the Statehouse grounds and charged with a whole bunch of skeevy sex crimes. As soon as the details broke, McAllister immediately lost every friend he might have had in Montpelier; but he refused to resign, and the legislature adjourned eight days laer without taking any action.

And now, Profiles In Courage, they are hiding behind process.

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Once again, Darcie Johnston has her finger on the pulse of the electorate

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As of this writing, the manhunt continues for Richard Matt and David Sweat, the two escaped murderers in upstate New York and Vermont. Cops on the lookout, distributing flyers all over the place; warnings to campers; constant updates in the local media, a sudden and very real outbreak of fears that Vermonters like to think they’re immune from.

And right on cue, here comes conservative political consultant Darcie Johnston, who hasn’t been on a winning campaign since she left the Jim Jeffords operation more than a decade ago, with the real question that’s on everybody’s mind. Not.

Yeah, really. Those goddamn featherbedding cops, traipsing through the fields and forests at all hours. It’s like a vacation when you think about it. The New York Times:

Those who know the terrain have made jokes that, if the men are in these woods, they are surprised the pair have not turned themselves over to the authorities by now, beaten up by nature and begging for a break. The rain has fallen regularly and hard. The woods are filled with skunks, porcupines and black bears. Then there are the bugs that swarm the forest this time of year: black flies, ticks and deer flies.

Usually, you can count on conservatives to support law enforcement and security as a true core function of government, and express gratitude to those who risk their own safety to preserve ours. But not Darcie, I guess.

I’d like to know her alternative. Call off the search and let the free market sort it out? Contract it to the private sector and hire the lowest bidder?

Hey, I know: send in the drones and bomb ’em out. Might be some collateral damage, but I bet we’d save some precious taxpayer dollars.

How can I miss you when you won’t go away?

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(h/t to Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks)

Please allow me a brief gloat, a hearty chuckle, a moment of schadenfreude. Because this is just too f’n funny.

Sen. Norm McAllister (R-Franklin) is reconsidering his decision to resign from the Vermont Senate, according to a close ally.

“I don’t know what made him rethink it, but he has decided — he’s rethinking it is all I can say,” Sen. Peg Flory (R-Rutland) said Wednesday afternoon.

Heh, heh, heh, heh.

Here’s my message to Good Ol’ Norm: hang on for dear life. Make ’em drag you out kicking and screaming. Not because you deserve to keep your seat, hell no; but because your fellow Republicans (and really, the Dems as well) so desperately want to be rid of this entire affair.

I say, let ’em stew. They don’t deserve to get off this easy. Not when there are numerous second-hand stories about how ol’ Norm was a horndog at best, and maybe worse, to his female colleagues. Not when there are still serious questions to answer about what leadership knew, when they knew it, and what they did about it. (And if they really didn’t know, how loudly were they singing LALALALALA with their fingers in their ears?)

Not when there remains a distinct odor of clubby sexism around the Statehouse that needs to be dissipated once and for all.

Indeed, here’s my plea to the women of the Statehouse, past and present. If you had unpleasant encounters with McAllister, now is the time to step forward. So far, the only woman to do so is an ex-lawmaker. If some misbegotten sense of loyalty to the institution is keeping you silent, please speak up. You owe it to the truth, and to the women who will follow your footsteps.

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It’s not that simple

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One of my readers posted a comment basically wondering why, if women were being routinely victimized by soon-to-be-former Sen. Norm McAllister, they didn’t go to the authorities? Why put up with the abuse? Why not stay away from the guy?

It’s an understandable reaction. I’ve never been in that situation, and it’s almost impossible to imagine being in that situation. But many people are — more than it’s comfortable to think about — and they feel powerless to resist, evade, or report.

For one great example of this phenomenon, see Morgan Trus’s fine piece on VTDigger regarding “survival sex” — in which victims feel their well-being is dependent on their abuser’s approval. It’s a surprisingly common occurrence, especially in a society where many women are financially dependent on a man.

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Somewhere over a quiet drink, two lawmakers are synchronizing their stories

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Pity the poor Kevin Mullin, Senator from Rutland, and Tim Corcoran, Representative from Bennington. They had the misfortune to share a rental house with disgraced Sen. Norm McAllister (R-Siberia). And in that house, McAllister is accused of repeatedly raping a young woman who he presented to his colleagues as his “intern.” And now, Mullin and Corcoran find themselves on a hot seat of sorts. Or they ought to, anyway.

For his part, Mullin has claimed that the woman, 43 years McAllister’s junior, slept in the basement. Corcoran, however, seems to have a different recollection:

… Corcoran said Monday afternoon that, “as far as I know,” 63-year-old McAllister and the young woman he employed as a sort of legislative assistant were spending nights in the same room, on the occasions the woman stayed in the capital.

The young woman has said that McAllister raped her “just about” every time she stayed in the house.

Both Mullin and Corcoran seem to have adopted a relentlessly aggressive incuriosity about their roomie and his (cough) intern. Corcoran’s “as far as I know” is matched by Mullin’s “I assume [the basement is] where she slept.”

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Who is this “Norm McAllister” of whom you speak?

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It was a real pigpile in the Statehouse today, as every politician rushed to give their two cents’ on Sen. Norm McAllister. And while Friday’s reaction was shock and surprise and even a smidge of sympathy for Good Ol’ Norm, today it was the ultimate game of Hot Potato, starring McAllister as the spud in question.

But he was more than just a hot potato; he was more like a potato baked in the hot zone of a nuclear reactor, marinated in snake venom, glazed with a hobo-puke reduction and liberally sprinkled with powdered essence of skunk. Such was the unseemly haste with which Our Leaders sought to distance themselves from McAllister and his [alleged] crimes.

There were universal calls for his resignation, as if the presumption of innocence had withered and died under the sheer ick factor of the [alleged] offenses. And, quick as a bunny, Lt. Gov. Phil Scott announced that McAllister would resign within 24 hours.

The news of his coming resignation elicited barely-concealed sighs of relief and metaphorical mopping of brows all around. But there was one small problem: Nobody told Good Ol’ Norm.

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All of a sudden, the Senate needs an ethics committee

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Less than two weeks ago, Seven Days‘ Paul Heintz revealed that Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell had gotten a job with the Windsor County State’s Attorney under what can only be called questionable circumstances.

Last year, Campbell actively lobbied for the job on behalf of the SA, who happens to be a neighbor of his. After the job went through, Campbell inquired about it, and was hired without any search process.

In the story, Heintz raised the issue of creating a Senate Ethics Committee, which currently does not exist. Campbell, sounding a lot like Bill Sorrell attesting to Bill Sorrell’s innocence:

“We really haven’t talked about it,” Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell (D-Windsor) said earlier this year. “I can’t remember the last time there was something that even came close to a question of someone’s ethics.”

Well, you can file that one in the Ron Ziegler Memorial “Inoperative” File. What’s changed?

Good Ol’ Norm, that’s what.

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