Friday, December 18, 2015
Attorney General Bill Sorrell announced Friday that Amphastar Pharmaceuticals has agreed to give the state a 20 percent discount off the wholesale price for the next year. Currently, Narcan runs about $30 a dose, so Vermont will get a $6 dollar rebate for each dose it purchases.
Gov. Peter Shumlin excoriated Amphastar last April for jacking up the price of Narcan. In a letter to the company, he noted that the state health department paid $113 for 10 doses in March and $183 for the same amount in April.
Demand for the drug has grown in response to the nationwide increase in prescription opiate and heroin addiction. Seven Days recently wrote about Vermont's efforts to distribute Narcan to addicts and their acquaintances, cops and drug-treatment staff.
States including Massachusetts and Connecticut have secured similar arrangements with Amphastar.
Tags: Narcan , Bill Sorrell , Peter Shumlin , Amphastar Pharmaceuticals , Image , Web Only
Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) campaign launched a withering assault on the Democratic National Committee Friday afternoon, accusing the party organization of “sabotage,” taking valuable voter data “hostage” and “actively attempting to undermine” its efforts.
Speaking at a press conference outside Sanders’ Washington, D.C., office, campaign manager Jeff Weaver threatened to take the DNC to court later Friday if it did not restore access to the voter data, which he called “the lifeblood of any campaign.”
“Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want,” Weaver said. “But they are not going to sabotage our campaign — one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history.”
Weaver’s blistering words followed the DNC’s decision Thursday to suspend the Sanders campaign from using the party’s voter database, which is maintained by vendor NGP VAN. The system allows individual Democratic campaigns to layer proprietary information — such as the identities of supporters, donors and volunteers — on top of communal data without allowing other campaigns to see it.
But as the Washington Post first reported late Thursday, the Sanders campaign managed to access information belonging to the Clinton campaign Wednesday. The data became available for a brief period that day as NGP VAN performed a software upgrade.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Presidential Campaign , NGP VAN , Democratic National Committee , Hillary Clinton , Recommended Reading , Image , Video , Web Only
Thursday, December 17, 2015
More than 90 percent of hotel patrons come from out of state, said Christopher Curtis, a Vermont Legal Aid attorney and co-chair of the 30-member Council on Pathways from Poverty. The fee would raise $12 million a year.
“It wouldn’t hurt anybody. It is a cup of coffee,” said Linda Ryan, the other co-chair for the council, which Gov. Peter Shumlin set up two years ago. She added, “If we are serious about ending homelessness, we have to raise new revenue.”
The council also recommended a cap on the state’s mortgage interest deduction, which would generate about $1 million. That, too, would be earmarked for affordable housing. Currently, deductions are allowed on mortgages valued up to $1 million. The council suggests reducing the upper limit to $500,000.
Tags: Council on Pathways from Poverty , Christopher Curtis , Linda Ryan , Image , Web Only
Later in the day, the Burlington-based progressive group Democracy for America did the same.
Both organizations made their decisions at the behest of members. While most labor unions leave it to their executive boards to dole out presidential endorsements, CWA president Chris Shelton said at a Washington, D.C., press conference Thursday morning that his union pledged from the start to abide by the results of a survey of its members.
"They voted decisively for Bernie Sanders," Shelton said. "This is absolutely a democratically come-to decision."
Similarly, DFA conducted a weeklong online poll that generated more than 271,000 votes. To win the organization's endorsement, a candidate had to win at least a two-thirds majority. In the end, Sanders took 87.9 percent, compared with 10.3 percent for former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and 1.1 percent for former Maryland governor Martin O'Malley.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , presidential campaign , Communications Workers of America , Democracy for America , Recommended Reading , Image , Web Only
"We are enormously proud that we have received more individual contributions at this point in the campaign than any candidate who is not an incumbent president," Sanders said in a written statement. "As the campaign continues to succeed, we expect those numbers to grow exponentially."
Sanders' campaign said it had raised more than $3 million since Monday, when it launched a public push to cross the 2-million-contribution threshold. The campaign did not say how much money it's collected since the end of September, when it announced it had raised more than $41 million since the Vermont senator joined the race. Candidates will next report totals to the Federal Election Commission at the end of the year.
According to the Sanders campaign, only incumbent President Barack Obama had collected as many contributions at an equivalent period, during his 2012 reelection campaign. Many of Sanders' more than 800,000 individual donors have given several times, according to spokesman Michael Briggs. Only 261 of them have donated the maximum allowable contribution of $2,700, Briggs said, meaning many can continue giving. Rival Hillary Clinton reported in October that 17,575 donors had maxed-out to her campaign.
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Reporter Mark Davis, political editor Paul Heintz and news editor Matthew Roy were subpoenaed on November 19. Franklin County Deputy State’s Attorney Diane Wheeler directed the three to appear December 23 in Franklin County Superior Court with notes and recordings they collected in reporting on the case.
That appearance has since been delayed at Seven Days' request, Wheeler said.
Davis and Heintz wrote news articles that included material from interviews with the senator, and Heintz interviewed one of his alleged victims. Heintz has also written political columns about McAllister.
McAllister, who was arrested May 7 at the Statehouse in Montpelier, has pleaded not guilty to three felony counts of sexual assault and three misdemeanor counts of prohibited acts.
Seven Days is seeking to have the subpoenas quashed in court.
“As the founders recognized, democracy requires a free and vibrant press. That freedom is threatened when lawyers demand to put reporters on the witness stand, peer into their notebooks and otherwise deputize them as agents of law enforcement," Paula Routly, the paper’s publisher and coeditor, said in a written statement. "Seven Days is serving its readers by reporting this story — and standing up for the First Amendment by challenging these subpoenas."
Tags: Norm McAllister , Seven Days , Vermont Senate , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
A powerful panel voted 3-2 Wednesday to recommend suspending Sen. Norm McAllister (R-Franklin) from the Vermont Senate. The resolution, if approved by the full Senate in January, would bar him from serving until the conclusion of criminal sexual assault proceedings against him.
The Senate Rules Committee made its decision at a dramatic Statehouse hearing during which McAllister himself made a surprise appearance. He told his colleagues he was “not guilty of any of the charges” and warned against stripping him of his powers.
“I’ve had constituents tell me that they will bring a lawsuit if I’m not allowed to represent them,” the 64-year-old Highgate farmer said.
McAllister, who sat alone through much of the two-hour meeting, addressed the panel for five minutes before its members voted on his fate. He told them he had been “bullied, threatened” by some of his colleagues and “financially ruined” by the legal proceedings.
“I understand you feel you have to do something,” he concluded. “But it’s kinda like — I see it as, you’ve got somebody down on their knees, so kick ’em in the head.”
Tags: Norm McAllister , Senate Rules Committee , Image , Video , Web Only
Edin Sakoc's conviction for lying to immigration officials was overturned by a judge in July. In documents filed in U.S. District Court, the former Burlington resident agreed to leave America and never return in exchange for having charges against him dropped.
The "denaturalization" process is expected to take several months. Sakoc has a wife and young daughter who could remain in the U.S.
Sakoc was accused of kidnapping and raping one woman and assisting a soldier who murdered two other women during the Bosnian War in 1992. Sakoc, a Muslim, was in a military unit that battled ethnic Serbs. The women he is accused of targeting were Serbs. He denied the rape, and said he participated in legitimate wartime actions.
Tags: Edin Sakoc , Bosnia , U.S. District Court , Burlington , Essex , Image , Web Only
The cable access station says it combed through more than 1,000 hours of Bernie tape to compile an hour-long look at his rise from long-shot mayoral candidate to presidential contender. You can buy the DVD online for $25.
Footage includes the kickoff rally for Sanders' 1985 mayoral campaign, Sanders at the airport returning from a controversial trip to Nicaragua, the opening of the Burlington Community Health Center, and an appearance at a St. Albans railway workers strike.
As a bonus, there's random footage of Bernie playing softball, hockey, tennis and basketball. Just because, apparently.
But mostly, there is a lot of Bernie standing at a podium, saying Bernie things.
Tags: Senator , Bernie Sanders , Bernie Bits , Burlington , CCTV , Presidential Campaign , Image , Recommended Reading , Web Only
Shumlin, 59, and Hunt, 31, announced in June they planned to marry but did not state a date.
An announcement from the governor’s office Wednesday morning said the governor’s sister-in-law, Evie Lovett, performed the ceremony. His daughters, Olivia and Becca, and his brother, Jeff, also attended.
Referring to Hunt as Vermont’s first lady, Shumlin said in the announcement: “We are so fortunate to have such a beautiful partnership and to be able to spend the rest of our lives together.”
Hunt is an artist, a landscape gardener and a student at Mount Holyoke College. Shumlin and his previous wife, Deborah, divorced in 2013.
The announcement said the couple plan to live in southern Vermont after Shumlin leaves office in January 2017. Both Shumlin and Hunt are from the Putney area. The three-term Democratic governor is not seeking reelection.