Archive for the ‘Campaign’ Category

There are few opportunities for voters to look at what is perceived as the down ticket office of attorney general, resulting in the continuation in office of someone who does not serve as a servant of the people. A great deal of explanation is needed to understand that the only statewide office not in the Vermont Constitution is in reality, perhaps the most powerful elected office in the state because prosecutorial discretion allows political considerations to intervene in the dispensing of justice. But I digress owing to my desire for substantial justice without procedural justice allowing a soft on crime regime to flower.

The video of the debate is below…

But before you spend the time to watch the whole thing, let me set the stage for you. The invitees were Progressive Charlotte Dennette, Liberty Union (now revealed to be socialist) Rosemarie Jackowski, Libertarian Karen Kerin, Democrat William Sorrell, and Republican Aaron Toscano. Jackowski did not attend, but sent a garbled statement that moderator Eli Harrington, program director from the Vermont Council on World Affairs, read for the viewers. Toscano, who had promised to attend, did not show up. I learned the next morning that he instead attended a college republican event. That left me facing the two big statists, Sorrell and Dennette.

Although it was not apparent due to the format, it is easy to dispose of CLF shill Dennette as a serious candidate because she ignores the US Constitution. She rants about the clean water act and the clean air act, neither of which are within the powers the constitution provides in Article I, Clause 8. While we all want clean air and water, it is clearly a matter for the states and the people who may be aggrieved by the actions of a particular property owner; and they have recourse legally in the courts.

Dean appointee and soft on crime Sorrell is equally easy to dispose of. Before delving into our differences legally, I must address his response to getting more bangs for the buck from his office as ridiculous in these economic times because he indicated a need for more staffing, while I made him cringe by proposing bringing all the attorneys general under one roof so allocation of resources could be more efficiently utilized. This demonstrates the difference between someone with real world management experience and a political appointee who has been there too long. At a cited cost of over $50,000.00 per year per prison bed, the question of defining non-violent offenders was sought as a question. Both of the liberals spoke about court diversion and other wishy-washy programs, when the Vermont constitution very clearly calls for “hard labor”. I pointed out that there are many tasks not being performed by the state that these offenders could be providing, and then needing only a dormitory to house them and feed them for their sentences, freeing the prisons for the violent and dangerous criminals.

Asked to explain why we were running under our party affiliation, I was stunned to hear Sorrell launch into his mother’s role in democrat politics, almost as if he does not share that party’s views. It is curious indeed that he has no better understanding. I explained that I am a libertarian because that most clearly represents what our founders of the nation and state embraced, liberty as long as it resulted in no harm to others and the dispensing of justice if harm results. Shockingly, Sorrell launched into his ideations concerning prevention, causing me to cringe in horror at the notion of offending the first amendment by making thoughts, words and actions wrongful in his eyes. God save us from such thinking. Other questions that we never got to would have led these two drones ever deeper into the statist swamp so it was fortunate for them we did not get there.

The summary statements were of the same ilk by the other two, but mine was laser like pointing out that Sorrell had been there too long and pointedly stating that his ideation of prevention is not law. I also chastised Dennette regarding VY, as I was fortunate enough to be one of the engineers on the project and fully understand that the reactor and its turbines are good for 100 years, despite the cooling towers leaking river water that is used to cool the process water that is in stainless steel piping to maintain the de-ionized water that is a must for the reactor system to not carry radioactivity. So VY is really very safe. The nonsense about having more hydro dams completely ignores both conservation and environmental concerns as it prevents migratory fish from making it back to their spawning grounds. I cited the loss of Atlantic salmon, shad, and at least one other species of fish that used to be found in abundance, but in declining numbers in the White River in my lifetime. Finally, I hammered Sorrell for claiming to protect families, when he has done nothing to protect children and the elderly. Apparently, they do not count as a part of the family, but not surprising since he had no response to the cyber crime problem that is defrauding the elderly without even the FBI caring because it emanates from outside the US. Please do watch the video.

Karen Kerin was interviewed by The Woodchuck Report’s Bonnie Scott.

Topics discussed include the office of Vermont attorney general, property rights, gun rights, healthcare, commerce clause, stare decisis, permits, government employee pay and more…

For sixty-six years I have been a staunch republican, but over the last few years I have been astonished at how many office holders elected as republicans embraced a different philosophy. The ideal of less government, lower taxes and less regulation of our lives, appeared to fall by the wayside, when it seemed advantageous for a republican to sacrifice principles to stay in office. I did not come to this easily. It was the product of examining the votes of legislators in view of the enormous growth of the body of laws. The evidence is beyond dispute.

When I was born, four months before D-Day, Vermont Statutes were a single volume about three inches thick. That held steady until the early 1960’s when the laws began to mushroom, ending with our current “Vermont Statutes Annotated” occupying three of my bookshelves. By what constitutional provision do annotations (prior court decisions) attain the status of law? How in the world did it suddenly become necessary to have such a prodigious growth of law in less than fifty years? The answer is in many parts.

First of all, the supreme law of the land is the U. S. Constitution per Article VI, Clause 2. By extension, the supreme law of Vermont must be the Vermont Constitution, as far as it is in conformity with the supreme law of the land. Any statute, whether federal or state that is contrary to the constitutions is without authority, although that is not the same as unconstitutional because the power to make that declaration resides with the courts when the machinery of government works properly and an offended party brings suit. It is the constitutions that represent the standards by which I must examine the government and the elected people who comprise the operators of that government. Clearly, as evidenced by the enormous growth of government and Vermont laws, the two major parties have not been faithful to the constitutions because legislation bringing us to this bloated government could only happen with the agreement of the two.

Second, there has been a huge shift of authority away from a government of, for and by the people to a government of professional politicians, the lawyers union and bureaucrats. Elections have become nothing of substance and all about popularity and slick PR. Obviously, the ability of large parties makes possible slick PR with political science majors and advertising gurus conjuring 4-5 word catch phrases that get repeated endlessly. That is particularly destructive of good law and too often stands in direct contradiction to the constitutions. Most annoying is one third of our government is only open to the members of the lawyers union, also called the bar. Nothing in the constitution of the nation or the state authorizes this surrender of a critical part of the government to a new nobility, after the founders fought to get us free of the one in England. I care nothing about lawyers and their mainstream of legal thinking today, as the measure must and always be the constitution.

Third and finally, after many years of being in the chorus, I have finally recognized that the incessant bickering and finger pointing between the two major parties serves only one purpose. That purpose is to distract us from what they are doing. The media loves it because it gives them instant stories. We, the people, are poorly served as the distraction keeps us from observing the facts and it is the facts that are making a wreckage of our constitutional republic.

As a libertarian attorney general, I will work in a non-partisan way to restore the laws to what the people have always thought they were, so help me God.

For Karen, public service means being a servant, not a master. That means doing what the people want legally under the constitutions and doing so by example.

A servant should not be better paid and rewarded than those in the private sector, so Karen proposes to accept no more than 80% of the wages paid the incumbent. Such an example should encourage other elected officials to reduce the cost to the taxpayers for their offices.

Karen has no desire to serve any longer than she is needed, and certainly not more than two terms when she would be seventy years old.

Leading by example was the hallmark of our first president and it is worthwhile to emulate that practice.

Until the 1960’s, we had a single book about three inches thick titled Vermont Statutes. Today, Karen has three bookshelves titled Vermont Statutes Annotated. The annotations are not law, but are merely the gist of court decisions. That is completely wrong because the courts do not make law in either the federal or the state government constitutional plans.

Indeed, it is taught in law school that such so called case law is not law, but merely may be persuasive. Yet, lawyers constantly cite such cases in their pleadings as if they were law. Worse yet, judges blithely accept such citations as law. Karen will work hard to end that perversion of our constitutional plan of government. This one issue is at the core of so many of the problems in Vermont and in the nation.

Making law is strictly confined to the legislative branch of government with the approval of the executive branch and we need to restore that plan to solve the many problems that have grown from this perversion.