Happy Blackout Day

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Happy Freaking New Year:Bye 2011

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

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

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).

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Hollywood Pagan Penguin Ploy Exposed

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?

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

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

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

Wrath of Pike ?


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

2011 Chief Stamper’s second lesson remains unheard

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?

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

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 !

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

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

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.

Lions,tigers and bears killed in Ohio

I heard about this early this morning and assumed it was some kind of joke or early morning radio prank. Forty eight animals were shot by law officers after escaping through open gates at a private exotic animal preserve. Eighteen tigers,seventeen lions three mountain lions six black bears, two grizzlies and a baboon. According to authorities a gray wolf and monkey are on the loose. The monkey may be carrying a virus.
The former Democratic governor had issued an executive order that might have closed the zoo but it expired under when the new governor a Republican took office. The rules are now under review again.

The order might have forced [zoo owner]Thompson to surrender his menagerie, said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States. Bill Damschroder, chief counsel for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said the order was unenforceable and that the Kasich administration is developing a law to regulate the ownership of wild animals. The Zanesville incident likely will speed its passage, Rob Nichols, a Kasich spokesman, said by phone.

Dubie dips his biscuit in the gravy

Vermont’s former Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie may be dipping his financial biscuit into some consulting gravy. The Vermont Press Bureau reports Dubie Solutions LLC is now registered with the Vermont secretary of state and that even for a time the firm was represented online.

It’s unclear whether Dubie Solutions, the limited-liability company registered by Dubie at the Secretary of State’s Office on June 27, has any paying clients. Dubie did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The company has its own website, however, saying “our team has the experince (sic) when you need results.”

“We have made investments in relationships,” the site says. “Let us tap into our trusted relationships to serve your needs.”

The site was up as recently as 2:30 p.m. Monday but had been taken down by 3:30 p.m. A cached version was still accessible via Google by searching “Dubie Solutions.”

Maybe the site was taken down to run a quick spell-check.

Dubie was unavailable for comment on how this new business might affect his rumored desire for a rematch against Governor Shumlin. But State Republican Party chair Pat Mac Donald still seems to be patiently for a gubernatorial candidate and expects to hear by the end of the month. Will Dubie be the solution? Exprince must count for something.

"...You've covered your ass, now" George Bush August 2001

I Googled this quote- "All right.You've covered your ass, now." A Google news search today Sept. 11, 2011 brings up hardly a reference to that line. In August 2001 President Bush is reported to have uttered it to an intelligence agent after receiving a briefing titled Bin Laden determined to strike in US.
One interesting article is found in the Guardian UK which has a review of three 911 books. The reviewer finds that in the past ten years the world has learned much about al Qaida and Bin Laden. He says:

Since then, of course, we have heard a lot about al-Qaida as a result of events that took place 10 years ago today. Perhaps even too much – and definitely too much that has been ill-informed. But one thing is certain: no one can say America was not warned about the biggest attack on its soil since Pearl Harbor.

The gist of the memo Bush received August 2001 summarized here from a 2004 article

The 1 1/3-page memo reported that U.S. intelligence officials had not been able to corroborate that bin Laden "wanted to hijack a US aircraft" in 1998. "Nevertheless," it said, "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

It said the FBI was "conducting approximately 70 full field investigations" throughout the United States that it considered bin Laden-related. The CIA and FBI, it continued, were investigating a tip called in to the U.S. embassy in the United Arab Emirates that said a group of bin Laden supporters were in the United States "planning attacks with explosives."

Well who could have predicted?

Generation of jobless

Maybe someone should do something about this-

Labor Day 2011 finds the US with the lowest portion of the 16-24 year old demographic employed since the government began tracking the youth market in 1948. Unemployment among that group this summer stood at 18.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ annual Labor Day weekend report, down a percentage point from the year before. However, only 59 percent of that age group was participating in the job market, either working or searching for a job. Overall unemployment stands frozen at 9.1 nationwide.

This depressing news isn’t shocking as warnings of the societal dangers are well known and have been sounded for almost three years. In October 2009 Business Week worried about the lost generation unable to enter the workforce and start careers. Studies suggest that an extended period of youthful joblessness can significantly depress lifetime income as people get stuck in jobs that are beneath their capabilities, or come to be seen by employers as damaged goods.

Maybe somebody could do something about this?

Would that Obama’s long awaited pivot to jobs speech might offer some hope or even change. Since the President has secured Speaker Boehner’s approval for the date and time for the speech there are calls (again, still?) for him to act boldly. Maybe he has something more creative up his sleeve than the cancelation announced Friday of scheduled changes to EPA clean air regulations. The Chamber of Commerce which lobbied hard for this move claims loosening regulations will aid job creation. Naturally it will also save industry expenses.