According to the almanacs, the worst of winter is over. Once Valentine’s Day has passed, it’s a rare day when the temperature drops below zero. We can still accumulate a goodly amount of snow, and flurries are possible all the way through June. Still, the greater part of winter is past and one can feel a restlessness among Vermonters as we anticipate the rising of sap and the onset of Mud Season.
This restlessness exhibits itself in various ways, some of which are fairly outlandish. There was a group of flatlanders came through a while back, the Center for Public Integrity, they call themselves, trying to make a stink about the fact that Vermont is only one of three states which does not require legislators to disclose potential conflicts of interest. Michigan and Idaho are the other ethical cellar-dwellers.
The legislature is currently in session and very few politicians seemed to appreciate these outsiders coming in, trying to raise a squall in a sap bucket. Why, we’re just little old Vermont, we don’t have those kinds of problems here. We hardly know what a conflict of interest is.
Of course, there is the legislator I mentioned recently, the one who owns a video store and has a bill before the assembly that would imprison people who fail to return their video tapes in a timely fashion. We don’t pay any attention to the man behind that particular curtain, because everyone says that bill won’t pass anyhow.
Down in Addison County, the Republican Party seems pee o’d at the Addison Independent, a little twice-weekly paper that’s hardly big enough to put under the puppy. The GOP doesn’t like the slant of the Independent’s editorials, so they decided to pass the hat and start up their own paper, the Addison Eagle. The list of contributors was the finest collection of political also-rans in state history, including failed candidates for the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. senator and congressional representative. Among the more successful investors were a state senator, a state rep and the new Vermont national Republican committeeman.
The prospective publisher and general manager of this rag are a couple of former ad salesmen for the Burlington Free Press. I guess on the planet of Republican journalism, you don’t need writers to get a newspaper up and running. You do, however, need lots of cash – the Addison Eagle touched the GOP faithful for a quarter million dollars in seed money. That’s a chunk of change for Addison County, Vermont. Perhaps the publisher needs oak paneling for his office.
All these facts became twice as interesting when it was learned that the prospective general manager has a long criminal history of swindling folks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay off his gambling debts – so maybe that money wasn’t going for paneling after all.
Suddenly the Vermont Republican party was swept by an epidemic of ethics and the investors decided it might give people the wrong idea if politicians were investing in the media, and they all put a stop on their checks.
Now, even if we required our elected officials to disclose their conflicts of interest, which we don’t, most of these politicians would not have anything to declare, because they lost their elections. So, by taking the long way around the barn, Vermont is still safe for democracy, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s getting so I have to duck below the dashboard when I drive through New Hampshire.
No Ethics Need Apply
According to the almanacs, the worst of winter is over. Once Valentine’s Day has passed, it’s a rare day when the temperature drops below zero. We can still accumulate a goodly amount of snow, and flurries are possible all the way through June. Still, the greater part of winter is past and one can feel a restlessness among Vermonters as we anticipate the rising of sap and the onset of Mud Season.
This restlessness exhibits itself in various ways, some of which are fairly outlandish. There was a group of flatlanders came through a while back, the Center for Public Integrity, they call themselves, trying to make a stink about the fact that Vermont is only one of three states which does not require legislators to disclose potential conflicts of interest. Michigan and Idaho are the other ethical cellar-dwellers.
The legislature is currently in session and very few politicians seemed to appreciate these outsiders coming in, trying to raise a squall in a sap bucket. Why, we’re just little old Vermont, we don’t have those kinds of problems here. We hardly know what a conflict of interest is.
Of course, there is the legislator I mentioned recently, the one who owns a video store and has a bill before the assembly that would imprison people who fail to return their video tapes in a timely fashion. We don’t pay any attention to the man behind that particular curtain, because everyone says that bill won’t pass anyhow.
Down in Addison County, the Republican Party seems pee o’d at the Addison Independent, a little twice-weekly paper that’s hardly big enough to put under the puppy. The GOP doesn’t like the slant of the Independent’s editorials, so they decided to pass the hat and start up their own paper, the Addison Eagle. The list of contributors was the finest collection of political also-rans in state history, including failed candidates for the offices of governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. senator and congressional representative. Among the more successful investors were a state senator, a state rep and the new Vermont national Republican committeeman.
The prospective publisher and general manager of this rag are a couple of former ad salesmen for the Burlington Free Press. I guess on the planet of Republican journalism, you don’t need writers to get a newspaper up and running. You do, however, need lots of cash – the Addison Eagle touched the GOP faithful for a quarter million dollars in seed money. That’s a chunk of change for Addison County, Vermont. Perhaps the publisher needs oak paneling for his office.
All these facts became twice as interesting when it was learned that the prospective general manager has a long criminal history of swindling folks out of hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay off his gambling debts – so maybe that money wasn’t going for paneling after all.
Suddenly the Vermont Republican party was swept by an epidemic of ethics and the investors decided it might give people the wrong idea if politicians were investing in the media, and they all put a stop on their checks.
Now, even if we required our elected officials to disclose their conflicts of interest, which we don’t, most of these politicians would not have anything to declare, because they lost their elections. So, by taking the long way around the barn, Vermont is still safe for democracy, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s getting so I have to duck below the dashboard when I drive through New Hampshire.
I wonder what’s going on in Idaho this week?