TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalBurlington City Council advances charter change to decriminalize sex work
BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - The Burlington City Council Monday night advanced a charter change to decriminalize sex work in the Queen City. If endorsed by the mayor, it would go before voters on Town Meeting Day.
Councilors say there are several benefits to removing language about sex work from the charter. One is that it gives them the ability to report crimes against them without incriminating themselves.
”We are not decriminalizing sex work here and in some ways I’m sad that’s not true, but it is a step in the right direction and it is getting us talking about this important thing that’s prominent in the community,” said Jane Stromberg, P-Ward 8.
But not everybody is happy to see sex work potentially decriminalized in Burlington.
“Prostitution is about the power and control men have over women’s bodies that women are a commodity to be bought and sold,” said Michelle Moran, a Burlington resident.
Read more: https://www.wcax.com/2021/12/14/council-passes-charter-change-looking-decriminalize-sex-work/
Essex-Westford school board member draws backlash for Holocaust comparison
member of the Essex-Westford School District board drew swift criticism online for an essay that equated public discourse about unvaccinated people and Jews in Nazi Germany.
In an essay published by True North Reports and the Vermont Daily Chronicle earlier this week, Essex-Westford board member Liz Cady wrote that the same “rhetoric” describing people who are not vaccinated against Covid-19 “was used in the years leading to WWII and during.”
During the Holocaust, “Religion and race were used instead of vaccination status,” Cady wrote. “I am not comparing what is happening now to the horrific genocide that took place in WWII, but I do believe we need to acknowledge the comparison of how that hate started then and how it is happening now: separating people into a desired group versus an undesired one.”
The essay sparked an immediate backlash online. Essex-Westford Superintendent Beth Cobb wrote on Twitter that she and school board Chair Erin Knox “would like to state unequivocally that nothing in Cady’s article represents the policies or beliefs of our school district.”
Read more: https://vtdigger.org/2021/12/28/essex-westford-school-board-member-draws-backlash-for-holocaust-comparison/
NH abortion, drunken driving and animal welfare laws take effect
CONCORD, New Hampshire — The new year brings new laws for New Hampshire, including an abortion ban that was passed as part of the state budget.
The budget Gov. Chris Sununu signed in June contained a provision prohibiting abortion after 24 weeks of gestation, with exceptions for the mother’s life or physical health. It takes effect Jan. 1, and Democrats already have drafted legislation seeking to repeal the new restrictions and to establish state-level protection for abortion access. Some also want to include the right to make reproductive medical decisions a constitutional right.
“Make no mistake, effective January first, the state of New Hampshire will be denying a woman the dignity to make personal, private decisions and instead inserting government into medical choices,” Rep. Marjorie Smith, D-Durham, said at a news conference earlier this month.
Other new laws taking effect Jan. 1 include:
Tyler Shaw’s law
Judges will be allowed to give longer prison sentences to repeat drunken drivers who kill or cause harm to others under a new law named for a Concord man who died in 2018.
Read more: https://bangordailynews.com/2021/12/28/news/new-england/nh-abortion-drunken-driving-and-animal-welfare-laws-take-effect/
Bexar County considers paid parental leave policy for employees
Jorge Fernandez started working for the Bexar County Elections Department in September as a technical support specialist. His wife, Ashley, gave birth to their daughter on Oct. 20, and he immediately took off what time he had accrued: about one and a half weeks.
“I used comp time that I had,” he said. “It’s paid time off that I get for overtime. If I work any extra hours, instead of it being overtime pay, they give us paid time off.”
What the county currently doesn’t give is paid parental leave. Without a policy, new parents are left to puzzle out how to secure time off to recover from childbirth and bond with a newborn while keeping their jobs and pay.
But things may be about to change. Commissioner Trish DeBerry (Pct. 3) tasked county staff to create a parental leave policy during a Commissioners Court meeting on Dec. 7 after learning there was none in place.
Read more: https://sanantonioreport.org/bexar-county-considers-paid-parental-leave-policy-for-employees/
Democrat Ben Downing drops out of Massachusetts governor's race
BOSTON — The first Democrat to formally announce a run for governor in Massachusetts said Tuesday that he is dropping out of the race.
Former state Sen. Ben Downing said in a statement he is dropping out of the 2022 election “with a heavy heart” because “we simply do not have the financial resources to continue. While it’s painful to admit, that reality has brought this chapter to a close.”
When Downing announced his run in February, he said his priorities would be addressing the coronavirus pandemic, racial inequity, climate change, child care, affordable higher education, and transit investment.
“Though my name will not be on the ballot next year, I will keep working for the principles that defined this campaign,” he said in his statement.
Read more: https://bangordailynews.com/2021/12/28/news/new-england/democrat-ben-downing-drops-out-of-massachusetts-governors-race/
Trudeau says China 'playing' Western states against each other
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said China has been “playing” Western states against each other and that democracies should present a “united front” in response.
“There’s been a bit of competition amongst friends because we’re capitalist democracies trying to do well, especially given the extraordinary economic opportunity of the rise in the Chinese middle class,” Trudeau said in an interview with Global News that aired on Saturday.
“We’ve been competing, and China has been from time to time very cleverly playing us off each other in an open-market, competitive way,” Trudeau said. “We need to do a better job of working together and standing strong so that China can’t play the angles and divide us one against the other.”
Trudeau’s comments come at a fraught time between the two governments. For nearly three years, China held two Canadians in jail as accused spies – a move Canada saw as retaliation for the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei Technologies Co.’s chief financial officer and eldest daughter of its billionaire founder.
Read more: https://www.pressherald.com/2021/12/25/trudeau-says-china-playing-western-states-against-each-other/
Sen. King pushes filibuster reforms to protect voting rights, electoral process
WASHINGTON — Sen. Angus King is worried about the state of American democracy.
“We are in a moment when democracy is in danger, when autocracy is on the march around the world,” King said in a recent telephone interview from the Capitol as he negotiated with his colleagues to protect voting rights and the impartiality of elections. “Our system is an anomaly in human history – the norm is authoritarians, kings and pharaohs and we are seeing (democracy) backsliding into authoritarianism before our eyes.
“The idea that it can’t happen here – that’s just not so, and that’s just what’s worrying me,” King added. “We have a lot of people who are just not committed to the idea of democracy.”
At issue is a bill – currently called the Freedom to Vote Act – that would set nationwide standards for mail-in and early voting; make Election Day a national holiday; extend financial reporting requirements for certain organizations; create a standard for states that require identification to vote; restore voting rights to felons on their release; require that voting machines have paper trails and protect local elections officials from being removed for partisan reasons. (Almost all of these measures are already in place in Maine and so would have little effect here.)
King said the protections the bill would provide for American democracy are so critical he is ready to support something he’s long opposed: reforming the filibuster so the measure can’t be blocked by the Republican minority in the U.S. Senate.
Read more: https://www.pressherald.com/2021/12/26/king-pushes-filibuster-reforms-to-protect-voting-rights-electoral-process/
Federal ambulance crews arrive to help Maine hospitals handle surge
Maine hospitals straining to care for COVID-19 patients got help Tuesday from the Biden administration as Federal Emergency Management Agency ambulance crews arrived to transport patients and free up capacity.
The FEMA teams were expected Tuesday, and had already started working at Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick, said John Porter, spokesman for MaineHealth, the parent organization of Maine Medical Center in Portland and seven other Maine hospitals.
Porter said the teams would help transport patients from one hospital to another or to rehabilitation centers so hospitals can more quickly make room for new patients who need care.
“Patient transports are an important piece of the puzzle in terms of maximizing our capacity,” Porter said.
A FEMA ambulance crew also arrived Tuesday at MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta, News Center Maine reported Tuesday.
Read more: https://www.pressherald.com/2021/12/28/maine-records-1423-new-cases-of-covid-19-in-first-report-since-dec-23/
Paul LePage tells Tom Saviello to 'bring it on'
Former Gov. Paul LePage said he hopes Tom Saviello enters the gubernatorial race.
“Oh, boy. I’d love it,” LePage said. “Bring it on.”
Saviello said Monday, though, that “he’s going to have to wait.”
Saviello said he’s focused on legal issues surrounding the proposed corridor to bring Quebec hydropower to New England and keeping his possible entry into the governor’s race in “a holding pattern” for now.
LePage is the sole Republican angling to unseat first-term Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who took his place after term limits forced LePage to move out of the Blaine House in 2018.
Read more: https://www.pressherald.com/2021/12/27/paul-lepage-tells-tom-saviello-to-bring-it-on/
Portland restaurants launch petition asking city for indoor vaccine mandate
Last week as she watched COVID-19 cases continue to surge in Portland and around Maine, Kate Klibansky decided to write an email to the owners and managers of the restaurant where she works suggesting they consider implementing a vaccine mandate.
“It wasn’t an ultimatum or a strong request, it was just me asking them to consider what information is out there and to consider implementing this policy that could have influence across Portland,” said Klibansky, who works as a bartender at Eventide Oyster Co.
Klibansky’s request worked. The restaurant group Eventide, owned by Big Tree Hospitality, has now launched a petition drive with other restaurants asking the Portland City Council to consider a vaccine mandate for certain indoor spaces including, but not limited to, restaurants.
“We believe that such a mandate is in the best interests of both the public health and the workers of businesses that are dependent on serving the public in settings that necessitate the gathering of people and often the removal of masks,” reads the petition, which as of Tuesday had been signed by nine restaurants besides Big Tree, which also runs Honey Paw and Hugo’s in Portland. There were more than 170 restaurants and bars in Portland as of July 2018, according to Press Herald archives.
Read more: https://www.pressherald.com/2021/12/28/portland-restaurants-launch-petition-asking-city-for-indoor-vaccine-mandate/
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