Rob Roper

Rob Roper is a freelance writer covering the politics and policy of the Vermont State House. Rob has over twenty years of experience with Vermont politics, serving as president of the Ethan Allen Institute (2012-2022), as a past chairman of the Vermont Republican State Committee, True North Radio/Common Sense Radio on WDEV, as well as working on state statewide political campaigns and with grassroots policy organizations.

Who Wins “Biggest Dunce” Award for the Biennium?

This is the 150th Behind the Lines post since I started this page eighteen months ago at the beginning of the 2023-2024 legislative biennium. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed, shared, and grown the audience over the past year and a half, and welcome to many new subscribers who have joined in the last few weeks!

Read more

A Truckload of Manure

The rhetoric surrounding the passage of the Clean Heat Carbon Tax (Act 18) was full of talk about “social justice,” a “just transition,” “engaging traditionally marginalized communities,” and “moving at the speed of trust.” Yeah, well, shocker, that was a truckload of manure!

Read more

Howard Dean vs. Phil Scott? Yes, Please!

Howard Dean made news the other day when he reminded Vermonters he was still alive. The dude is bumping up against the actuarial tables at 76, after all, and anyone born the last year Dean held public office is now of legal age to drink, which would come in handy if the increasingly radicalized Leftist activist returned to power.

Read more

Supermajority Votes for Even Higher Health Insurance Costs

Ask people why Vermont is unaffordable, and health insurance is one of the main pillars of our unaffordability crisis, along with education property taxes, the cost of housing, and energy prices. These highly regulated by our legislature plans go up every year by amounts far in excess of inflation. For 2024 alone, the Green Mountain … Read more

Woman Palestinian flag jihad pixaby

Night Cap: The New Klan with a Nazi Twist

Watching enormous crowds of Americans shouting blatantly racist chants in support of an agenda that is unapologetically genocidal, and backed by internationally recognized terrorist organizations – met with at best indifference and at worst the active support of our elite institutions of government, news media, education, and entertainment — I can’t help but think, this … Read more

Cartoon hit with taxes

Democrat Supermajority Has No Interest in Solving the Property Tax Mess They Made

Democrats in the State House were parading around this week with a banner insisting, “If you make a mess, you clean it up!” Yeah! Big talk! They think this should apply to oil companies regarding climate change (another story I’ll get to soon), but apply that message to themselves regarding the colossal property tax tsunami of a mess they’ve made for us. Well, not so much.

Read more

Vermont logo with chinmey

The Clean Heat Standard is too complicated to implement

The Clean Heat Standard (CHS), the “Rube Goldberg” carbon tax on home heating fuels, became law almost a year ago over the veto of Governor Scott. The Democrat/Progressive supermajority that passed the CHS did so without providing – or even considering in any significant detail – how it would work or what it would cost. … Read more

Light bulb filament original Photo by Alessandro Bianchi on Unsplash

Left Wing Logic: Nothing in Vermont Is Affordable, Why Should Energy Be?

Most people would say, if you’re in a hole, stop digging. Not Peter Sterling, the executive director for Renewable Energy Vermont, who testified before the House Environment & Energy Committee last week, posing the loopy logic that legislators shouldn’t worry about passing policies that drive up the cost of electricity because the cost of everything else is unaffordable too. What’s worse than the argument itself is that the lawmakers are apparently buying into it!

Read more

Another Dumb Constitutional Amendment….

The Democrat/Progressive Supermajority in Montpelier isn’t just oblivious to reality. They are actively hostile to it. One has to conclude that they are purposefully attempting to destroy our state economy because nobody could actually be this stupid by sheer accident.

Read more

Anti-Fossil Fuel Lobbyist Caught in Hot Mic Moment…

Peter Sterling, Executive Director of Renewable Energy Vermont and one of the chief nit-wits in Montpelier lobbying for every policy imaginable to force you and me to cut our carbon footprints down to stone age levels (because of the “existential climate crisis”), was caught on a hot mic — during a Climate Council meeting no less!! — gleefully making plans for a spur-of-the-moment ski trip to Chamonix, France.

Read more

House Passes Renewable Energy Standard Amidst Cloud of Baloney

This week, the House voted in favor of H.287, an act relating to the Renewable Energy Standard, by a vote of 99-39, with eleven members absent. Even with a half-dozen or so Democrats joining all of the Republicans in voting NO, it looks like the Democratic Party leadership has twisted enough arms, if everyone were present, … Read more

Share to...
BufferCopyFlipboardHacker NewsLineLinkedInMastodonMessengerMixPinterestPrintRedditSMSTelegramTumblrVKWhatsAppXingYummly