sneigwh

Regulating “pro-lifers” and the Brand

2012-02-10T15:44:00.004-05:00

The Environmental Evangelical Network (EEN) a green evangelical “pro-life” group that supports EPA rules limiting harmful mercury is catching the wrath of fellow “pro-lifers”. The EEN favors specific restrictions on emissions from power plants because they will protect the health of the unborn. The EEN critics maintain that to portray safeguards against environmental hazards as “pro-life” is to “obscure the meaning of the term.”

While the EEN’ers still deny that human activity is driving global warming the group has urged support for regulatory restrictions by sponsoring TV, radio ads and billboards. A spokesman spells out their view this way: “We believe protecting the unborn from mercury poisoning is a consistent pro-life position,” Mercury exposure can cause mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness and blindness in infants. Low doses may result in developmental delays affecting walking, talking, attention span and learning disabilities.

However the EEN’s broader views and actions spell trouble for them from 30 other religious “pro-lifers” and conservative anti-EPA legislators including, The Family Research Council and Sen. James Inhofe. It appears these critics see a threat to the “pro-life” brand name. Says Inhofe about the EEN’s position: “To claim that EPA’s devastating, job-killing regime is somehow ‘pro-life’ is absurd.”

This is trouble junction in terms of controling of the issue when a brand boundary gets blurred and is no longer focused as they wish it to be. And worse still for Sen. Inhofe is the intersecting issue with his longtime pet villain, the “job-killing” EPA. Imagine the EPA protecting life?

Good News ! Vermont Fishing is Hot !

2012-02-07T17:45:00.006-05:00

The person who wrote the following Vermont State webpage’s wintertime recreation press release
“Fishing is Hot on Lake Champlain… and some memorable fish have been caught in recent weeks” probably didn’t have strontium or cesium in mind .But it certainly blends well with the Vermont chief radiologist’s news that a fish from Northern Vermont’s Lake Carmi tested positive for low levels of strontium-90 and cesium-137. The preliminary results are in the same range as found last August in a Connecticut River fish near Vermont Yankee. Bill Irwin, chief of radiological health for the Vermont Department of Health says this provides proof of what he had already decided …err hypothesized:

"We take this as some evidence that all fish in Vermont are likely to have radioactive cesium and strontium at these levels and that, as we’ve hypothesized, it is from nuclear weapons fallout and the releases of Chernobyl. All of us are glad to have proof and not just conjecture."

Good news! Call the tourist board because all the in Vermont fish contain radioactive strontium 90 and cesium. However if this shows the Lake Carmi fish was contaminated by nuclear weapons fallout and the Chernobyl disaster I shouldn’t think it takes our leaking Vermont Yankee out of contention as an additional source for contamination of Connecticut River fish.
Although the Lake Carmi fish had cesium in edible and inedible parts and strontium was found only in the samples bones, head, fins and scales. The Vermont Yankee fish had high levels of strontium 90 in the bones and small but measurable levels in the meat unlike the Lake Carmi fish.

A fish taken from the Connecticut River in 2010 had the highest levels of strontium-90 in bone that his department has seen in any samples.
"In that same sample we did find very low but measurable amounts of strontium-90 in the meat of the fish," said Irwin, which could have been a sampling or contamination error. "But we don’t know that."

The Lake Carmi fish as proof (not all "evidence" is "proof") reminds me of the line from the Nick Danger comedy skit where a supposed time traveler says “I have proof I’ve been to Ancient Greece! See look at this grape!” The Vermont chief radiologist found a grape.
Just remember, Bill Irwin is a culturally-sensitive guy looking out for you and your radiological health:

"There’s no danger in eating the fish," said Irwin. "Should we ever find that there are reasons to restrict diet from any sampling for any kind of radioactive or toxicological events, we would keep in mind different cultures have different diets."

Ever wonder how much local fish Bill Irwin eats?

Entergy Makes its Gesture

2012-02-04T11:14:00.005-05:00

Well Entergy of Louisiana can’t keep the valves at the plant oiled but they do keep their legal team lubricated with money. Entergy’s legal team was successful in the challenge to Vermont’s law covering Vermont Yankee operating past 2012.The Times Argus reports that Entergy has sent a message from New Orleans demanding Vermont pay $4.6 million in legal fees they claim they incurred in the suit against the State of Vermont.

Reacting to this news Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell said he had thought the claim from Entergy would be “in seven figures” more in line with Vermont standards. The Attorney General says “I guess it [$4.6 million] shows the ‘David-versus-Goliath’ aspect of the case,” The mismatch is suitable but it’s kind of an ill fit otherwise for this situation as Goliath has won and is now making demands from David after this part of battle.

It also seems Sorrel had a surprising hope. Against all past dealings with Goliath he thought Entergy might make a gesture of being a good corporate citizen to atone for sins of the past.

Sorrell said he had even thought Entergy might not seek legal fees in a gesture of being “a good corporate citizen making up for the sins of the past and the misleading statements about the underground pipes.”

Sorrell had investigated Entergy officials for more than a year for possible criminal charges for the misstatements about underground pipes, which were later found to be the source of radioactive tritium leaking at the plant in 2010. Entergy executives had said such pipes did not exist.

Under pressure they grudgingly admitted to miss communicating about underground pipes.No criminal charges charges were filed; no case was brought so why would Entergy feel it had sinned? Hardly sinning in Goliath’s rule book, maybe in the eyes of Entergy Corp the only sin is losing.

Vermont State Police Cruiser Decals Sport a Pig

2012-02-02T20:41:00.007-05:00

See an important Sneigwhblog news headline UPDATE below

Vermont State Police cruiser decals are sporting a pig shaped splotch.
Someone wasn’t connecting the spots on the Vermont Sate Police decals made by the Vermont Correctional Industries Print Shop until it was too late. About 30 decals on VSP cruisers now feature a cow with a splotch shaped like a pig.

Apparently someone at the Correctional Industries shop altered the cow.
The Burlington Free Press says two state senators who former police officers are found some humor in it and one noted:

"This is not as offensive as it would have been years ago. We can see the humor," State Senator Flynn said.
He said the artist has talents that could be used elsewhere. "If that person had used some of that creativeness he or she would not have ended up inside."

But a State Police Major’s press release statement bemoaned that the cost of the joke will be borne by taxpayers.
No one suggested keeping the decal cow,pig and all.

Updated!
Now along with a Save the Pig petition it naturally follows that there is a Facebook page too
Save the Pig

Facebook Save the Piggie page

Vermont!

The NRC says: “… we mean it.”

2012-01-31T22:00:00.005-05:00

Woof,woof! The NRC is feeling good about itself. Sounding pumped, like a lean mean nuclear regulatin’ machine on their "blog" where they declare: “When the NRC says we consider new and significant information, we mean it.”
The story is that errors in recently submitted information were found during a review process for equipment replacement at an existing plant in the Southern US. Based on this new significant information the NRC found that designs for a new Economic Simplified Boiling-Water Reactor (ESBWR) plant might have similar errors.
What is the upshot of these NRC discoveries? It could mean the NRC must revise reports and/or have the applicants make changes to design control documents which will delay their final decision on design certification. New information comes to light, consideration given to the new facts, followed by regulatory action. Has a watchdog stirred?

“We mean it” yips the NRC watchdog. Well, ok calm down. So let’s say significant new information about potential seismic activity near an existing plant (let’s call it Indian Point-which rhymes with Vermont Yankee) was readily available; the NRC would of course considerate it in the ongoing relicensing process. Well not exactly as a former oil industry geologist writing in a vtdigger.com opinion piece points out:

Judging by Indian Point, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may be forcing us to base Vermont Yankee’s geologic risk analysis on antiquated data:“Much new seismological information is available since their initial approvals (of Indian Point) in 1973 and 1975. Nevertheless the US NRC, so far has not permitted any new information to be used or old information on which the original licenses were granted to be contested in considering extension of licenses,” according to a 2008 study by researcher Lynn Sykes.

New York State has an aggressive attorney general who has called upon the NRC to do a comprehensiveColumbia University seismic review as part of their Indian Point relicensing process. The New York AG must have considered significant the findings from 2008 by seismologists. They found that two intersecting fault lines near Indian Point were capable of creating a 7.0-magnitude earthquake. Despite all this, none of this recent information is incorporated into the current NRC process.

Now remember clearly the NRC claims–“When we say we consider new and significant information, we mean it”. Well, except when there are significant fault lines.

Sadly it's a Fake Washington Post

2012-01-24T19:42:00.008-05:00

Yes it's a fake. Guess this happens often as pointed out here.

National Lampoon in 1972 did a faux front page with then President Richard Nixon yucking it up at the headline news that Senator George McGovern won the Democratic nomination to run against him.
Interestingly for several years many historians believed this to have been the last and final image ever taken of Nixon laughing.However it is now common knowledge that Nixon never had the last laugh.

http://apple.copydesk.org/2012/01/22/no-this-is-not-a-real-front-page-from-the-washington-post/

Hollywood:"We do some of that (online) stuff…”

2012-01-23T10:57:00.004-05:00

Inattentional blindness, a term for when a person fails to notice and react to stimulus that is in plain sight came to my mind while reading a rundown of last week’s SOPA/PIPA drama.

The demise of the dual Senate and House internet piracy bills is the latest in an ongoing almost traditional battle by two sides competing to influence policy. Thrown into this struggle of money power and influence is the capacity of the internet to quickly inform and gather opposition. One side and notably some powerful congressional players appear to have been thoroughly been blindsided by this capacity.

One report on Hollywood blindness says:

Some Hollywood executives acknowledge their own flat-footedness in trying to marshal public opinion as opposition mounted. While technology companies brandished the power of the Internet, Hollywood relied on old-media weapons such as television commercials and a billboard in New York's Times Square. It proved to be too little, too late.
One entertainment-company lawyer complained that opposing arguments were often inaccurate but spread like wildfire anyway on the Internet, leaving supporters scrambling to correct the information without the benefit of a strong online network.
"We do some of that (online) stuff, but it has to go through a committee of 14 people," he said. "The other side doesn't have conference calls. They just put stuff out there."

Where has the Hollywood entertainment industrial complex been? An amazing remark when you consider the Arab spring events and more recently the ongoing Occupy movements (or simply the last ten years of media upheaval) amply demonstrated the applied power of internet. Even the regular TeeVee news and radio broadcasters reported this for all to see -not sure if it was posted on any billboards. Television commercials and the Times Square billboards couldn’t turn the tide.

Sen. Schumer gets it says Sen. Wyden

2012-01-21T11:51:00.005-05:00

A report on this week’s SOPA and PIPA drama lists winners and losers. Google,Rep.Darrel Issa, Reddit and Sen. Ron Wyden landed on the winning side according to thehill.com

Rep.Lamar Smith, Sen. Patrick Leahy the MPAA and the Chamber of Commerce soundly on the losing end.

And President Obama coming in late to the parade is somewhere in the mushy middle or muddle.
It is a surprising mix of players from business groups,corporations and both political parties planted on both ends of the victory.

Washington Posts blogger Greg Sergeant observes it was “a huge victory for grassroots online organizing” and wonders about lessons learned:

Does the Senate Dem leadership really understand that its approach was a major threat to what makes the Internet a democratic force and that it needed a complete overhaul?

Senator Ron Wyden, the primary driver of opposition to the bill within the Senate, and he confirmed that the leadership grasps the depth of the problems with its approach, and is ready to address them head on.

Wyden singles out Sen. Schumer for grasping the situation and says he has “really now come to understand what’s happened in technology,”

Vermont's Senator Leahy is less understanding and to put it mildly disappointed with the outcome in his statement released after Majority Leader Reid killed the senate bill. Leahy’s stern warning raises the specter that Chinese and Russian criminals may even now

"...smugly be watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy And warns But the day will come when the Senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem."

Vermont Yankee: ‘yup tires still bald’

2012-01-18T11:25:00.009-05:00

Entergy according to the Times Argus is seeking NRC permission for Vermont Yankee to stop a current required inspection routine.

Instead of inspecting the steam dryer every time it shuts down for refueling, on average every 18 months, as currently required, Entergy wants to inspect it every seven refueling outages, or once every 10 years or so.

This is as if Vermont Yankee having been granted permission to drive a 40 year old nuclear vehicle with bald tires well above the legal speed limit has grown bored; bored with examining their old worn tires and repeatedly finding them still worn and tread-less ‘yup still bald’. So they want to stop the bother and expense of looking altogether. Simply put, if they ain’t looking they ain’t finding.
According to reports as of July 2010 required VY inspections discovered a total of 65 cracks. Entergy maintains that despite these "non relevant" cracks the steam dryer is in “good shape”.

The routine inspections are part of requirements the NRC placed on Entergy VY when it permitted the 40 year old plant to operate at 20 percent greater power production than the original design. A steam dryer is used to remove water from steam before it enters the power plant turbine. While not considered officially safety equipment by the NRC dryer failure can impact components that are. A test power up-rate of less than VY’s 20 percent at a similar US Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) plant resulted in major steam dryer failure.

Not that long ago in 2009 VY was happily bragging about their Nuclear Energy Institute(NEI)industry trade group award winning (cost saving) remotely operated steam dryer inspection mechanism. Certainly a clever thing but it wasn’t as if Entergy had an award winning repair to any “non-relevant” cracks in the worrisome steam dryer. They just found a slick way to monitor the steam dryer’s aging –and naturally cut costs.

An annual reduction of 3.6 person-rem of radiation exposure is expected along with a minimum $500,000 cost reduction per outage.

Also not that long ago Entergy hired a Vermont PR firm to splash on a quick fresh coat of PR paint? The IAMVY.com campaign and tagline safe, clean, reliable that resulted ring just as hollow now as in 2009 just before tritium leaks were disclosed. Now Entergy requests permission to practically stop required steam dryer inspections. I propose a new tagline for Vermont Yankee in the form of a question: VY:What could possibly go wrong?

Happy Blackout Day

2012-01-17T17:13:00.002-05:00

find out more here

Happy Freaking New Year:Bye 2011

2011-12-31T18:39:00.004-05:00

Timely tune

Movin' towards that big 5-0
Headed towards that big 5-0
Now, who's that scarecrow I do see
In the mirror lookin' back at me
Some things you gotta take your shot
Half work out and half do not
The nickel laughs when it gets tossed
Yeah, we're bangin' on that drum now
And shake that rattlesnake
We're plowin' through 'til sunup,
Oh, just tryin' to stay awake––and we're
Headed towards that big 5-0
Headed towards that big 5-0

The NRC: A Snail Pacing

2011-12-18T14:51:00.007-05:00

NRC Chairman Jaczko and four of his commissioners have been in an extended wrangle over among other things the speed with which the NRC should act on the post Fukushima disaster safety recommendations made by the Near Term Task Force. Obama appointee Jaczko favored an expedited (by NRC standards) implementation and four of his five commissioners balked favoring more “stakeholder input” and a different time frame (aka snail’s pace?). This disagreement and other ongoing spats, which Senator Bernie Sanders described as an attempted coup against the chairman went high profile this past week in Republican Darryl Issa’s congressional hearings when Jaczko and the NRC commissioners testified.

So when all the dust particles settle, at what speed will the recommendations be moving? According to the NRC's Blog the Near Term Task Force’s recommendations have been handed off to a new group.

[…]The group is called the Japan Lessons-Learned Project Directorate. The directorate will support a steering committee consisting of senior agency managers to coordinate and implement the task force recommendations per with our Commission’s direction, including its goal of striving to implement the recommendations within five years.

An important aspect of our path forward is stakeholder engagement with members of the public. We will seek input through public meetings to help us determine whether changes may be required to improve safety at U.S. nuclear power plants.

In 2008 candidate Obama called the NRC “a moribund agency…captive of the industry that it regulates.”
It still sounds plausible enough three years later.
The Huffington Post reports that vocal Jaczko critic NRC Commissioner Bill Magwood did consulting work for the Fukushima plant’s owner Tepco when he was in the private sector. Not that there is anything wrong with that as the information was provided for his NRC confirmation process.
According to Ryan Grim at Huffington:

Magwood, a Democratic appointee, would be the leading candidate to take Jaczko's gavel if the coup succeeds, according to people familiar with the internal workings of the commission (as well as through a simple process of elimination: the other Democratic panel member is not considered a serious candidate for the chairmanship).

CEO Profit'$ Shine on Brightly ,Quite Insane

2011-12-17T18:08:00.007-05:00

Well hard times come no more! According to The Guardian CEO pay survey it just got a little shinier for some in that city on the hill. While austerity and stagnation is the order of the day for the majority of Americans some of the country’s top bosses got pay increases of between 27 and 40% last year.

America's highest paid executive took home more than $145.2m, and as stock prices recovered across the board, the median value of bosses' profits on stock options rose 70% in 2010, from $950,400 to $1.3m

The top of the top came from the health care industry. The head of the world’s largest healthcare firm McKesson’s John Hammergren made over $145million in 2010 the majority from stock options.
Just for laughs here is some local perspective on how much money Hammergren’s $145million is in a human scale. In Vermont, Federal spending cuts to LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program funding to low-income households) might ultimately result in funding to the state going from $27.5 million in 2011 to approximately $11.6Million for 2012.

One counter-intuitive gravity defying feature of high end pay packages is that stock prices may go down yet compensation continues to head up for some departing and retiring executives. Notice three out of these four highest paid departing or retiring CEOs were leaving companies where shareholder stock prices had declined during their tenure.

Ronald Williams, former head of Aetna, a health insurer, exercised 2.4m options for a profit of $50.4m. Aetna's stock price declined by 70% from when Williams assumed the role of CEO in February 2006 until his retirement. At pharmacy chain CVS, Thomas Ryan made a $28m profit on his options. During Ryan's 13-year tenure as CEO, CVS Caremark's stock price decreased almost 54%.

Omnicare's Joel Gemunder retired last August and received cash severance of $16m, part of a final-year pay package worth $98.28m. Adam Metz, the former boss of General Growth Properties, a real estate company that specialises in shopping malls, walked away with a $46m cash bonus in 2010. GGP executives received nearly $115m in bonuses from the firm as it emerged from bankruptcy.

It may always to be good at the top. However for most Americans, maybe “all they can do is stare from a distance at that city's glimmering towers” (to lift a line from part of a well known speech).

Kale or Chicken?

2011-12-06T19:49:00.008-05:00

Kale OR Chicken?

Chicken OR Kale?Kale OR Chicken?Kale OR Chicken?Kale OR Chicken?Kale OR Chicken?

Kale OR Chicken?

It's kale...no it's chicken
KALE,KALE,KALE,KALE...chicken?

clip and save coupon HERE

Hollywood Pagan Penguin Ploy Exposed

2011-12-04T13:41:00.007-05:00

Media-wise parents will want to keep their vulnerable children from seeing the politically correct propaganda of HAPPY FEET TWO.

Thought for minute I had fallen for an Onionesque prank on TPM until I followed their link and found that sadly it’s no joke. Happy Feet Two a squeal to last year’s hit animated family film Happy Feet has really raised the hidden liberal agenda warning bells at a christian movie review site.

They warn potential viewers:

Very strong mixed pagan, politically correct worldview promoting homosexual same-sex partnerships and homosexual adoption and promoting radical environmentalism and global warming hysteria throughout, including eating meat is seen as bad as are all humans,

...no sexual content but speaking of “making eggs with other penguins”; no nudity[penguins have tuxedos]; no alcohol; no smoking or drug use; and, children deliberately disobey father, children are rebellious, and comments on existentialism fitting in with humanist elements noted above.

They smoked out a subversive agenda most people could hardly imagine. Leaves one to ponder how the liberal Hollywood propaganda machine can survive this embarrassing setback. Guess this kills plans for Happy Feet Three.

And the workhouses,Newt - are they still in operation?

2011-12-03T11:04:00.003-05:00

Newtie the Republican idea man:

“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid,” he said.

”I tried for years to have a very simple model,” he continued. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they’d have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

Who but Newt Gingrich could blame child labor laws for entrapping children in poverty and pack so many old dog whistles in such a short remark? But perhaps he was just helpfully offering evidence in support of former Sec. of Labor Robert Reich’s description of the current scrum of Republican candidates.

Reich: They're not conservatives. They're regressives. And the America they seek is the one we had in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century.

Or, I suppose the strategy minded Gingrich as he headed to South Carolina was just blunting accusations that his recent stance on immigration was humane. I understand that is a bad thing for him in the context of the battle for the Republican nomination.
Anyhow, up in various polls and with undiminished confidence Newt the Gilded Age regressive told ABC News the other night“I’m going to be the nominee,”

Protecting our homeland in Vermont: The Early Daze

2011-11-30T07:59:00.005-05:00

Longtime media observer Jim Romenesko visited his archive machine yesterday to see what he had been writing about ten years ago. Among other items is a Vermont based story the Rutland-Herald had in November 2001.Just months after 9-11 a photographer on assignment for the Brattleboro Reformer was seen taking photos of Vermont Yankee and threatened him with arrest under a Vermont treason statute.

Eagle eyed Vermont Yankee officials saw a photographer taking photos and called police. Rob Williams the VY spokes-person/ flack back then noted with gravitas worthy of the times:

“It’s a police matter. We have been in a heightened state of awareness and we’ve been working closely with the Vernon Police Department,” Williams said

The Vernon Police Chief Randy Wheelock (reportedly he knew the photographer) and Windham County State’s Attorney Dan Davis referred to Vermont Statute Title 13, Section 3481, titled "Treason and other offenses against the government,"

Davis said he became aware of the treason statute after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and especially after three men of Middle Eastern appearance were seen photographing the Bellows Falls hydroelectric station owned by U.S. Gen. “I don’t think it’s a good time to be publishing photos of Vermont Yankee,” Davis said. “But I didn’t write the law.”

The relevant Vermont law states that it is unlawful: “while the United States is at war or threatened with war” to map, draw, model or picture without authorization “property of any corporation subject to the supervision of the public service board, or of any municipality or part thereof” punishment calls for imprisonment of not more than ten years.

States Attorney Davis said he would be surprised if this case was prosecuted. The Rutland-Herald and others noted that an image of the Vermont Yankee control room was featured on the Vermont Yankee website.

My sense is that we aren’t that crazy anymore. However, if asked to I am not confident that I could prove it.

The FBI and UC Davis' Katehi

2011-11-24T08:27:00.003-05:00

No straight line can be drawn from the pepper spray incident on the UC Davis campus but it does make an interesting backdrop from which to read about the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board. Dave Zirin explains in The Nation

In 2010, [scandalized Penn State’s recently resigned President] Spanier chose[ UC Davis Chancellor Linda] Katehi to join an elite team of twenty college presidents on what’s called the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which “promotes discussion and outreach between research universities and the FBI.”

The Advisory Board,started in 2005 has concerns that include violent acts by animal rights terrorists, research theft, acquisition or theft of technology and information sensitive enough to harm national security. Secrecy surrounds the meetings between university officials and the FBI and the contents are kept classified.

Zirin reminds us that

As has been true with the FBI since Hoover, give them a foothold, and they’ll take off their shoes and get cozy. Their classified mandate has since expanded to such euphemisms as “counter-terrorism” and “public safety.” It also expanded federal anti-terrorism task forces to include the dark-helmeted pepper-spray brigades, otherwise known as the campus police.

After a week of images showing black helmeted body armored police on US streets and campuses and questions being raised (the National Lawyers Guild filed a FOIA request with DHS and FBI) about possible national “agency” coordination in the almost simultaneous break-up of Occupy encampments Zirin’s closing questions are appropriate.

Given the personal character on display by these two individuals, [former Penn President Spanier and UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi] why should anyone trust that the classified meetings have stayed in the realm of “cyber theft” and intellectual property rights? What did the FBI tell Chancellor Katehi about how to deal with the peacefully assembled Occupiers? Was “counter-terrorism” advice given on how to handle her own students?

Pepper Spraying Officer Pike mit Klaus

2011-11-22T18:13:00.004-05:00

Wrath of Pike ?

Officer Pike is everywhere.
See pepper spraying Officer Pike in art history here

2011 Chief Stamper’s second lesson remains unheard

2011-11-19T09:40:00.014-05:00

Online sites and radio interviews have recently featured former Seattle Chief of Police Norm Stamper’s reflections on the 1999 WTO demonstrations dubbed the Battle of Seattle.
Regarding his role Stamper states bluntly “My support for a militaristic solution caused all hell to break loose.” This, he observes lead to “…some cops clearly overreacting, escalating and prolonging the conflict”
Along with his fairly thorough rejection of militaristic police tactics that Chief Stamper draws from his leadership experience over ten years ago is his other lesson. It’s been largely unheard and unlearned. How unlearned? See image from Davis California November 2011 of officer casually spraying protesters with pepper spray.

It is ironic that those police officers who are busting up the Occupy protesters are themselves victims of the same social ills the demonstrators are combating: corporate greed; the slackening of essential regulatory systems; and the abject failure of all three branches of government to safeguard civil liberties and to protect, if not provide, basic human needs like health, housing, education and more. With cities and states struggling to balance the budget while continuing to deliver public safety, many cops are finding themselves out of work. And, as many Occupy protesters have pointed out, even as police officers help to safeguard the power and profits of the 1 percent, police officers are part of the 99 percent.

A widespread awakening seems an unlikely prospect (mind those police pension cuts) but one retired Philadelphia Police Captain (in his dress blues) marched in OWS events in New York City and was arrested last week.It was reported he held a sign that read. “NYPD Don’t Be Wall Street Mercenaries,”

Second life for Newt?

2011-11-15T17:59:00.003-05:00

Would anyone that remembers Ole Speaker Gingrich from the nineties really have believed this could happen?
Yes, Newt is the newest “not Mitt” candidate this month. A PPP poll shows Newt in the lead in the Republican race. He has a lead of 28 percent up 13 percentage points in one month.

The PPP analysis highlights just what a big turnaround he's had: "Gingrich's lead caps an amazing comeback he's made over the last 5 months. In June his favorability nationally with Republican voters plummeted all the way to 36/49. Now he's at 68/23, representing a 58 point improvement in his spread since then. As recently as August Gingrich was mired in single digits at 7%, and even in September he was at just 10%. He's climbed 18 points in less than 2 months."
from csmonitor.com

Surprise! Inconsistencies between What Companies Say and What They Do

2011-11-12T20:36:00.007-05:00

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the Citizens United decision he authored:

“With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions.”
“Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits and citizens can see whether elected officials are in the pocket of so-called moneyed interests.”

Wonder how that is working so far?
Reports about a study conducted by the Sustainable Investments Institute titled Analysis Counts More Companies with “No Spending” Policies, but Reveals Inconsistencies Between What Companies Say and What They Do shows early trends among S&P 500 companies since the game changing Citizens United decision.

It was found that the number of companies with declared policies on corporate oversight of direct spending jumped to 24% from 14% a year ago, but only 14% of S&P 500 companies actually give a numerical report on how much of their trade association dues are spent for political purposes.

In addition the study uncovered inconsistencies between companiesʼ stated political expenditure policies and what is actually spent. Fifty-seven of S&P 500 companies state they will not make political contributions, up from just 40 in 2010. But an in-depth search of federal and state records shows that only 23 of these companies actually refrained from giving to candidates, parties, political committees and ballot measures in 2010.

So policies are proliferating but well less than half of the companies with stated political expenditure policies actually followed their own guidelines.
Other findings include:
• The percentage of political spending coming from groups that do not disclose their donors has risen from 1 percent to 47 percent since the 2006 midterm elections
• political spending by 501c-designated non-profits increased from zero percent of total spending by outside groups in 2006 to 42 percent in 2010.
• Outside interest groups spent more on election season political advertising than party committees for the first time in at least two decades, besting party committees by about $105 million.
• The amount of independent expenditure and electioneering communication spending by outside groups has quadrupled since 2006.
• Seventy-two percent of political advertising spending by outside groups in 2010 came from sources that were prohibited from spending money on political ads or campaigns in 2006

But let’s remember what Justice Kennedy confidently imagined:

“With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions.”

Sure, prompt disclosure of political expenditures, unless corporations want to hide them or not follow their own policies at all or just not bother to because, well because they can.
Money equals "free" speech and “corporations are people, my friend.”

Irene ate my single payer !

2011-11-12T08:15:00.003-05:00

Well maybe that will happen if a retired Wall Streeter and Vermont resident who spoke to the annual meeting of the famously conservative Associated Industries of Vermont has his way. Bruce Lisman maintains that Irene recovery costs must side-track other state policy initiatives. The Irene recovery an “all in” bet (as he calls it) is so big it should preclude what he considers two other “all in” bets, specifically single-payer and investment in renewable energy. Lisman told the AIV …

"...But maybe this is not the moment to introduce two all-in bets [single payer, renewable energy investment] that would freeze, well, people like you [manufacturers, financiers and entrepreneurs], who might make decisions about expanding a business or adding people or thinking about new capacity or new markets. Maybe not this moment.”

Not surprisingly he doesn't entertain the possibility of even a modest upper income tax increase.

Practically a living mirror opposite of the Occupy Wall Street movement, Lisman sits on the board of National Life Group, is retired chief of JPMorgan’s Global Equity Division and served as Senior Managing Director of the defunct investment bank Bear Stearns, and plans to launch the Campaign for Vermont.

His campaign will champion what he claims are “centrist, down-the-middle, common-sense” policies and focus on prosperity. While no specific policy initiatives were offered it was made clear according to the vtdigger article that scrapping both single payer and renewable energy investment are paramount features of the campaign. He brands both efforts “large, profound” and “maybe intrusive in a fashion”.

A recent poll shows a plurality of Vermonters supporting the new health care law. So maybe it isn’t a surprise his argument found less than enthusiastic support even among business types.

Said one business leader when asked if he agreed with Lisman that Irene’s recovery cost should make it necessary to scrap healthcare reform and stop investment in renewable energy: “Let’s focus on Irene, get ourselves set, but the other issues are critical and important to the state and I don’t think we can ignore them.”

Another attendee took exception to the “all-in bet” can’t-walk-and-chew characterization of the problem: “I don’t know that I agree with that. I think there’s room for small bets in more than one area.”

Looks like Lisman’s Irene-based campaign to scrap healthcare and renewable energy investment aka Campaign for Vermont hasn’t found the moment and is more than half a bubble off-center.

An astounding withholding tax twist

2011-10-28T19:56:00.008-04:00

This could give the term corporate tax an entirely new meaning .The State of Illinois is now allowing certain corporations to keep their employee’s state income tax withholding for ten years. Recent Illinois legislation allows chosen companies to retain all of the income taxes withheld from new hires that expand payroll and half of the taxes for existing workers whose jobs are retained.

Moveon.org has a video (via Atrios) and here is an earlier article by David Cay Johnston.

The Illinois deal shows how competition between the states, and with other countries, helps big corporations wring subsidies from state governments even as the states are being forced to fire teachers and other public workers because of a weak economy that has cost jobs and tax revenue.

Why would the state let companies do this? Most big companies pay little or no state corporate income tax, because companies arrange to take expenses in higher tax states and profits in states with little or no corporate income tax. So the only way to finance incentives without the state writing a check is to let the companies pocket their workers’ state income tax.

However while diverting tax taxes from public purpose to private use the State of Illinois is deep in red ink juggling its own finances. Turns out they are having trouble paying their bills. Three years ago they had a two week turn around on state payments now late payments are the norm. In order to handle budget shortfalls they are deliberately delaying billions of dollars worth of payments for months at a time .The AP found almost half the outstanding sum was more than a month overdue.

It’s hard to imagine any corporation operating here in Vermont ever being shy in the endless effort to get what they must see as only their fair advantage (example here) - so it’s hardly out of the question this scheme in some form might not be lurking in our own future debates.

IBM:big,blue and chips on its shoulders

2011-10-24T09:52:00.003-04:00

IBM in Vermont is again crying crocodile tears and threatening to hold its breath until it turns blue. Well it isn’t IBM precisely but a surrogate croc. Leave it to Vermont millionaire businessman Jack McMullen’s fine tuned political instincts to pen an op-ed regurgitating the time worn “ IBM- may- leave- Vermont- if…” line at the very moment the Occupy Wall Street movement seems to be peaking.

59 percent of adults either completely or mostly agree with the OWS protesters according to an October National Journal survey reported by Atlantic Magazine. Also sympathy toward corporations is low as shown by a Sept. 2011 Gallup poll indicating 70 percent of respondents favor hiking taxes on corporations by eliminating tax deductions.

But with bullet point efficiency McMullen sobs out the alleged historic wrongs inflicted on poor IBM by mean old Vermont.

• you never gave us the circ highway you promised,
• you never got us the low power rate we wanted,
• you never gave us relief from act 250 ,
• you never gave us assistance in training insufficiently prepared new workers

Ah, but it’s his justification for an emotional tender spot that long ago bruised the fragile corporate heart that dredges up the grandest crocodile tears. Millionaire and failed US Senate candidate McMullen recalls the time Bernie Sanders actually *gasp* publicly criticized IBM.

Says McMullen:

Its eventual extinction will have been caused in large part by the failure of political leaders to respond to clear signals from the largest private, taxpaying employer our state is ever likely to have.

In the 1990s, then-Congressman Sanders launched a very public campaign [supporting IBM workers who were] criticizing IBM for [unilaterally] changing its 1960s-era pension plan to remain competitive with nimbler, newer entrants into the semiconductor business.
I am told by the same source [an unnamed most senior IBM corporate executive] that IBM’s then-CEO, Louis Gerstner, reacted to Sanders demagoguery with a statement something like: “Don’t the politicians in Vermont realize there are more than a dozen other states vying for our business?”

So take it from businessman Jack McMullen, the man who lost a shoo-in Republican primary to Vermont farmer Fred Tuttle, that IBM feels pain at not getting what they want.

Who doesn’t, eh Jack? On the other hand, many go forward to other goals or find ways to compromise for the mutual good of the community, while others clutch old grudges, keep crying and holding their breath to get attention.