News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
The University of New Hampshire released a poll (The Green Mountain State Poll) on how Vermonters feel about the economy, taxes, and the high cost of living. While an overwhelming majority of Republicans think it stinks and is getting worse, and a majority of Independents tend to agree, 25% of Democrats said, “Nah, things are … Read more
Monday was the first day of school in Vermont, and this weekend, we celebrate Labor Day – two milestones at which point voters, so says conventional wisdom, start paying attention to politics. Let’s certainly hope so because live ballots will be mailed out to all voters on the checklist in less than a month! While … Read more
Libs of TikTok shared a story about the Vermont Department of Health. It has issued a fatwa on the proper use of language and adopted a moral obligation to ensure that we do not incidentally hurt each other’s feelings as if that’s their job. This is Vermont. Hurt feelings must be a burgeoning public health … Read more
The Vermont Supreme Court has doubled down on its recent decision denying Vermont parents and their children basic constitutional safeguards against unauthorized government infliction of an experimental vaccine on a young public school child. After an ill-considered opinion that shielded schools and vaccines from all state law claims for administering an experimental vaccine to a … Read more
The Vermont primaries are over, and the official general election campaign season of 2024 has begun! With property taxes increasing by unprecedented amounts, energy costs rising with a new, potentially massive tax on home heating fuels up for a vote in January 2025, another double-digit premium increase for health insurance just announced, a new payroll … Read more
A controversial Vermont Supreme Court decision reached the rather astonishing conclusion that the government can vaccinate very young children with experimental products without parental consent or legal recourse. The ruling is surreal in a state that claims it prizes individual liberties. If not overturned by sane minds in the US Supreme Court, the consequences of … Read more
Sent to me by a reader is the case of a man who was imprisoned for helping a mother and her child escape abuse. The mother, having found faith, sought to protect her child from her abusive former lesbian lover. Philip helped transport them to safety, leading to his imprisonment. Philip shares his journey and … Read more
For going on half a decade, beginning with the lead-up to the passage of the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) in 2020, the Democrat/Progressive majority’s Voldemort number – that which shall not be named – is what these greenhouse gas reduction policies will cost Vermonters. They have already spent millions of our taxpayer dollars on … Read more
Phil Scott is by some accounts the most popular governor in the United States with an approval rating of around eighty percent. Ergo, lots of political pundits and big dollar donors who want to change the direction of state policy advise aspiring politicians to “be like Phil” to get elected. Yes and no. But mostly … Read more
At the end of July, the Vermont State Supreme Court issued a decision on a lawsuit brought by parents whose grade-school child had been injected with a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 ‘vaccine’ against their will. According to the school, the six-year-old was inoculated in error, for which they apologized, but the parents sued them … Read more
The details are behind a paywall, but according to Morning Consult, Vermont Governor Phil Scott has an 81 percent approval rating. Did they poll people who don’t live in Vermont, or, more likely, he’s seen sympathetically as an abused spouse? Scott is a victim, like them, of the immovable object that is Vermont’s current veto-proof … Read more
I am endorsing John Rodgers in the Vermont Republican Primary to be Vermont’s next Lieutenant Governor. I do not generally endorse candidates in primaries, because I believe people should be encouraged to run and the Party should avoid internal conflict where possible. Indeed, Greg Thayer asked me earlier in this election cycle to endorse him … Read more
There were a couple of nuggets in a couple of VT Digger stories that, taken together, are worth noting because they highlight a real problem with how things currently run under the Golden Dome – that is, with a maturity level found in your average middle school cafeteria. The first piece comes from a story about the … Read more
The recent—and unfortunately more regular—flooding Vermont has experienced since last summer has damaged a lot of infrastructure, but the impact on our roads due to washouts is a big one—and an expensive one for the state and local municipalities. This raises a critical question of where the money is going to come from to fix … Read more
If you are a rank-and-file Democrat in the Vermont House of Representatives – a soldier in the Supermajority – you are told by Party leadership how to vote. The majority leader will, in fact, hold up a paper sign, Yes or No, informing you how to cast your ballot on key issues. And you better … Read more
When Agency of Natural Resources secretary Julie Moore testified to the Senate Natural Resources & Energy Committee back in January 2023 that the cost of the Clean Heat Standard program would be $2 billion over the first five years, 2026-2030, — an amount that she said would result in an additional 70¢ per gallon for home heating … Read more
Of course, we knew this was coming. In fact, they told us so. It was one of the very first Behind the Lines stories back on January 30, 2023 (I started this column on January 11th of that year) that shared the video clip of The Conservation Law Foundation’s Chase Whiting testifying to the Senate Committee on Natural … Read more
The Democrat/Progressive supermajorities that voted to override Governor Scott’s vetoes of laws that resulted in the massive property tax bills most Vermonters are receiving this month are now spinning the line that they did the responsible – nay courageous — thing by kicking the can down the road and appointing yet another panel of (mostly) … Read more
The Burlington Police Department and the public met at City Hall on Thursday afternoon to share information and solutions regarding how to curb increased crimes in The Queen City. Both the public and the understaffed department shared exasperation as well as hope that things could improve. Much of the meeting was Police Chief Jon Murad … Read more
Just this past May, the Vermont legislature passed Act 122 (S.259), the Climate Superfund Bill also known as “Make Big Oil Pay!” The idea behind it is that Vermont taxpayers will blow $600,000 hiring a bunch of consultants and bureaucrats to manufacture a sciencey-looking, totally serious – no really — accounting of the damage done … Read more