“One such reform might be migrating public school personnel management structures more toward merit-based principles and systems while diminishing those based on longevity. Such would reduce pressures on both operating and retirement budgets while maintaining high levels of competency in our classrooms.”
Stone: I’m running because of my property tax bill
I wasn’t planning on running. What changed my mind? I got my property tax bill!
Roper: Gov. Scott Sounds Alarm Over (Un)Affordable Heat Act
Many people with a variety of relevant expertise testified before House and Senate Committees that completely transforming how we heat our homes and businesses, make hot water, and cook our food was going to be wildly expensive, incredibly disruptive, and logistically difficult if not impossible because, duh.
Rep. Sibilia: Doing Nothing is Not Going to Protect Your Pocketbook
But what’s really behind these rising heating costs? Global oil prices, which are completely out of our control. Big oil companies set prices that Vermonters have to pay. And while small, local heating oil companies are doing their best to help, six have closed this past year alone. These closures mean fewer choices for Vermonters and more dependence on big companies that raise prices whenever they want.
Montpelier, thieves and scoundrels. Vermont priorities?
Vermont has had a housing issue my entire real estate career. We have been unaffordable for 40 years! Vermont citizens are always last.
Williams: Who holds the future of America, Harris or Trump?
Mixed with hatred of former President Donald Trump, Democrats find the identity Trifecta of Harris electrifying. But political honeymoons do not last forever.
Klar: Vaccine Hesitancy Makes Back to School More Complicated
As more parents hesitate to vaccinate their offspring, government authorities claim their worries are due to disinformation or misinformation. The conflict has caused states to track medical and religious exemptions from school vaccination mandates.
Vermont’s Public Health Busybodies Have Been Busy
The assumption is that such inspection is proof of something guaranteeing a better public health outcome when there’s no evidence that this is the case. The COVID debacle aside, State and Local departments of Health combined with national standards have failed to stop every instance of commercial food poisoning or death.
Fernandez: Biased journalism influences western colonialism in Middle East
Western journalism stopped obscuring its polarizing left-wing bias by bashing a multitude of socio-politico issues deemed unacceptable to their globalist agenda.
Roper: $40 million/year just to administer Clean Heat Standard
Here’s another fun glitch in this convoluted moronathon: there is no funding source in place to actually set up the program.
Keelan: Vermont’s Fourth Branch of Government
Based on gross revenue, staff size, and the actual number of entities, it is indisputable that in Vermont, one of the largest, if not the largest, sectors of the State’s economy is the nonprofit sector.
Roper: Will VT lawmakers drive up heating oil to $8.00/gal in bid to save planet?
The final Potential Study of Clean Heat Standard is out. Myers Mermel nailed it.
Thayer: Vermont needs closed primary
Its nonsense to say that a Conservative cannot win against a Democrat-Socialist, because we are to Conservative. We are more of a true contrast from anyone on the other side. To me that is what is needed.
Koch: Back to the drawing board on school funding
The Democrats didn’t even punt. They missed the kick entirely and left the ball on the field as they headed for the showers. Vermont deserves better.
Property tax question blows up in radio host’s face
Yes, Vermonters ARE selling their homes and leaving Vermont after receiving the property tax bill, a lobbyist and wife of a St. J real estate agent says.
Green: Proposed ‘catch and release’ solutions
Our Legislature should abandon the revolving door approach to prosecution of serial offenders. Here’s how to do it.
Roper’s UNH Poll Analysis: Some Democrats are More Equal than Others
The higher our tax burden, the more loot they get to divvy up, and, yeah, they are definitely better off today than they were a year ago!
Candidate Sciortino pledge: NO to legislative pay raise, Clean Heat Standard
I pledge to you here and now that I will be a guaranteed “NO” vote on this and any bill designed to raise Vermonters’ costs to heat our homes and to keep warm in wintertime.
Roper: 45 days of early voting is bad, but….
Get out there, get involved, help your candidates do what it takes to succeed in November! Er… actually September and October. The election effectively will be over by around October 15. Them’s the rules!
Keelan: Womenfolk, avoid Church Street, Flat Street, and the State House
There are places that women should avoid for their own safety.
Koch: What is a Republican?
In the course of my short campaign for the State Senate to date, I have been the victim of the train of thought that all Republicans are alike.
Ofc. Glover: More car thefts last year than in previous four
Thefts ranging from businesses, homes, vehicles and theft of vehicles themselves are rising and raising concern across our community, region and state.
Roper: Who voted how to make Vermont so freakin’ unaffordable?
The key roll call votes driving up property taxes, energy costs, health insurance premiums and more.
Bossange: Trump’s seeming hypocrisy on immigration
Trump’s past comments on immigrants seem hypocritical, especially given his family’s, VP’s backgrounds.
Klar: Vermont Supreme Court sacrifices children to big pharma
Rules no liability even for experimental shots administered against parental wishes
Koch: Much ado about climate change
It’s time we stop trying to “lead the nation” and start trying to “save our neighborhoods.”
Mercier: Federal bill could ban non-citizen voting in public elections
“Let America Vote Act of 2024”: Noncitizen cannot vote in ANY taxpayer-funded elections in the US, held by or in any State, nor permitted locally.
Roper: What IS your cost ceiling for the Clean Heat Carbon Tax, Rep. Sibilia?
A question every Vermonter should demand every candidate answer RIGHT NOW.
Bossange: Are Trump and Vance “weird” or for real?
America deserves better than Donald Trump and JD Vance. Their brand of weirdness is not who we are.
Keelan: Affordable housing, at what cost?
The reporting of WCAX, Burlington Free Press, and Vermont Biz did not feature the cost per unit for the Main St. Family Housing multi-family apts.: $525,000.
Eshelman: the School Choice apple and Vermont’s judiciary
The plaintiffs in the Vitale v. Bellows Falls Union High School case must take another bite of the School Choice judicial apple.
Dame: A war on words
It is shocking to see how far Europe has fallen from traditional Western values, and where America is headed if we don’t get back on track.
Roper: Learning the wrong “Phil Scott” lessons
And what are the right lessons?
Klar: Zuck Bucks in 2024
Modernized voting, or election tampering?
Klar: Study shows lithium mining threatens water supplies
“Maladapted” environmentalism does more harm than good.
Dame: Democratic Party “No place for Moderates” any more
As the Dems push extremist candidates, the VTGOP embraces moderates.
Evslin: Republicans fell for Democrat’s brilliant (unintentional) head fake
Now Rs have the wrong player at bat.
Primary: Klar: John Rodgers for Lieutenant Governor!
Why I am supporting a former Democrat to lead Vermont.
Roper: We are governed by high school bullies
Poor Dave…. He thought he was being all good and woke, checking his white male privilege and using it to be a feminist ally and what does he get? “Creeper!” written in lipstick on his locker right before the prom.
Lindberg: why I don’t read the local newspaper anymore
Bought a copy and, reading it, quickly realized why he had stopped.
Klar: Paris Olympics displays climate change hypocrisy
Coca-Cola’s single-use plastic bottle boondoggle.
Wennberg: How Vermont won the biggest environmental lawsuit in decades
Vermont has been a “California Car” state for many years, along with several of our neighbors.
Cairns: Reassessment, etc. will price many homes out of property tax credits
Increased property assessments won’t increase the amount of the property tax credit.
Klar: Do cows or cars hurt the planet more?
EPA and UN eclipse logic with methane gaslighting.
Roper: EV fees should go to road maintenance and repair
Not to “non-public” charging stations.
Beck: How the supermajority operates
It isn’t moderate to impose $17B in carbon fees or increase electric rates by $1B, the super majority voted for these over the Governor’s veto too.
Keelan: Truth & Reconciliation Commission joins growing line of groups paid to Study
What exactly is going on in Vermont with all of these studies? The State is paying big bucks to fund “studies” on how to spend even more tax dollars.
Beck: It isn’t Moderate to crush Vermonters
Clean Heat Standard was designed for the benefit of special interest groups and climate legislators with no understanding of economics, science, or Vermonters.
Klar: Fox News vindicated in lawsuit for telling the truth
The defamation suit that Nina Jankowicz, former dir. of Homeland Sec.’s disinformation board, filed against Fox News was dismissed in DE, July 22.
Malloy: Seize the day, Vermont
Vermont does not have to struggle continuously. There’s an opportunity right in front of all Vermonters for themselves and the 14th star to shine bright. Seize the day.
Warner: Big Brother about to be your daddy in Massachusetts
Mass. Bill H4750 To eliminate Fathers and Mothers from birth certificates passes 40-0.
Roper: Speaker Krowinski feeling the (“Clean”) Heat
Spews misinformation about her Party’s misleadingly named “Affordable Heat Act” fiasco.
Ellis: The Prosecutor vs. the Felon
The 2024 election has completely changed with a single letter. It happened so swiftly and so absolutely that no one can be blamed for being a bit confused.
Klar: AOC wants to impeach two Supreme Court justices
Why? You have to read it to believe it.
Warner: Dear Democrat neighbors, we need to talk about your mental health crisis
Pew Research indicates more than one in two (55%) “white women” who identify as liberal in their political ideology suffer from some form of serious depression or anxiety.
Walch: The reality of the Clean Heat Standard
Two maxims that used to be part of investigative journalism have now fallen to the public: (1) do your own research and (2) follow the money.
Warner: What the assassination attempt on Trump reveals about our government
We have witnessed an unprecedented amount of convoluted government activity shedding light on its current state.
Klar: America’s shrinking farmland threatens food security
Solar panel fields have been reclassified as farms.
Roper: Clean Heat Standard comes with $17 BILLION price tag!
Would require $3.20 per gallon carbon tax on home heating fuel.
Wennberg: Fund each student’s education, not the System
Before Act 60, regardless of the funding formula then in place, every time the property tax reached about 70% of the cost of education, a tax revolt ignited..
Klar: No, solar panels are not farmland
Government counts solar panel arrays as agricultural lands.
Roper: Conservation Law Foundation cashes in on GWSA “Please, Sue Us!” Clause
Vermont taxpayers will foot the massive bill for legal costs
O’Neil: How Kamala Harris silenced dissent, demonized conservatives
Harris has many disadvantages and questionable decisions to account for.
McCormick: Democrat helping Republican defeat Sen. Chris Bray
Republican Chairs must use this opportunity to mobilize all voters to see the necessity to shift the Senate with 11 or more Republican Senators.
Cargill: The legal cases that prove education choice is constitutional
The overarching question is whether education choice is constitutional. In most states, the answer is yes, as we highlight in a new study.
Roper: No way. Shocker. Who’da seen this coming?
The real scandal here is that the Democrats are choosing a nominee for president in a manner like the Soviets in their day chose a General Secretary.
Roper: Education “reform” committee overtly stacked with special interests
Meet the ‘Blob’: Vermont’s new Commission on Public Education or just another tax-and-spend scheme?
Klar: What’s causing this brutal heat wave?
Cheap fakes of climate science.
Warner: What the Trump assassination attempt says about us
As individuals we still possess the power to engage our political enemies with honor and integrity at a time when both of those appear to be passé.
Klar: Trump felony convictions imperiled
Void, mistrial, or delay? Trump may not be a felon much longer.
Lintz: Guide to Vermont’s new Short Term Rental Tax Law
A guide in Plain English!
Caiazza: Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) falls short
Environmentalist: I conclude that although RGGI has been effective raising revenues it is not an effective CO2 emission reduction program.
Roper: Make Big Oil Pay? Court says no way
Make Big Oil pay? Heck yeah! But it ain’t gonna happen. And in the meantime, we are going to dump a whole lot of money and time – neither commodity we can’t afford to waste – down a legal commode.
Keelan: the Welcome to Vermont Tax
The sustainability of many cultural institutions would be nonexistent without the second homeowner.
Bucchieri: Unfair ‘open primary’ allows Dems, Progs to influence GOP convention
The opposing team dresses some of its players in your team’s uniform. They infiltrate your team and sabotage its plays. Neither fair, nor ethical.
Walch: Follow the money to find who benefits from electrification
Even if the grid is working, if people can’t afford paying their electric bill and have no other fuel source as a back-up, they won’t be able to cook or heat.
Kinsley: Rebuttal of teachers’ union hit piece against Scott
Tinney’s “hit piece” on Governor Scott is nothing new for the VT-NEA, although I’m surprised by the shrillness of the tone.
Roper: Clean Heat Standard will hurt poor Vermonters on LIHEAP heating assistance
More testimony damns this damnable law.
Dame: VTGOP joins Senator Welch in calling for Biden to drop out of presidential race
“We also encourage the other members of Vermont’s Federal Delegation to join us and Senator Welch in asking Biden to step aside for the good of the country.”
MacDonald: The emissionary position
If you really want to lower “global emissions”…
Haines: Iran influencing Gaza campus protests
Statement from Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines on recent Iranian influence efforts.
Ellis: Biden’s conflict of interest
Many stalwart Democrats consider Biden a liability: The good of the country is at stake, and Biden’s age is endangering us all.
Dame: Smaller paychecks start this week
One estimate indicates we are garnishing the wages of Vermonters to the order of nearly $120 million per year.
Roper: What “Paying Just a Little More” really means
An analysis of the new payroll tax that hit this month.
Fernandez: Pondering Pascal’s Wager in secular Vermont
“Old time religion” practitioners are now the odd souls in the Green Mountain State’s nouveau humanist-pagan zeitgeist. Social vengeance replaced divine mercy.
Lee: The ATF has resumed openly murdering Americans
It seems the ATF intends to confuse the public and exercise increasingly arbitrary power to terrorize and prosecute American gun owners. Abolish the ATF.
Ellis: Turmoil in the West Wing
In a nationally televised debate seen by 50 million-plus people, we saw an 81-year-old president struggle to string words together for 90 minutes.
Ehlers: Beware blue-green algae – check before you swim
Blue-green algae produces neurotoxins and liver toxins. The problem is growing rapidly as politicians accelerate development and fail to regulate polluters.
Malloy: Read the 1972 article about taking over Vermont
In 1970, Blumstein and Phelan proposed political migration to a single state for the purpose of gaining political control and then establishing a living laboratory for experimentation. Pollak takes that idea and applies it to Vermont.
Dame: VTGOP calls DNC plans to circumvent convention a true “threat to democracy”
After last week’s unsettling performance at the Presidential Debate, Democrats have been in full panic mode.
Dawson: How to stop politics from dividing families in Vermont
With the arrival of summer, one in which families tend to spend more time together, experts are recommending avoiding political chats to keep the peace.
Klar: The First Amendment odyssey of Julian Assange
An icon of whistleblower journalism tastes freedom.
Bufka: to revive dying America, let us “mutually pledge to each other”
Our country seems to be dying. We can help it to be reborn. But we can only do that together.
Despathy: Scott Campbell’s Astounding Delusion
This demented irony is sadly lost on many legislators with tunnel vision who choose their favored industries and agendas over the people in Vermont.
MacDonald: Fossil-fuel companies won’t pay for “climate change” – Vermonters will
Fuel companies should stop doing business in Vermont. The State is, after all, in a huge hurry to get to its all-electric, no-fossil-fuel paradise.
Roper: The Property Tax gaslighting has begun!
No, a 14% property tax increase is not a decrease.
Klar: Industry fraud brings down Boeing planes
Senate subcommittee grants whistleblowers a platform.
Angwin: Stasi come home
The rise of the Informer State.
Banzhaf: Obama for Vice President?
Constitutionally OK, some legal experts say
Keelan: “Extend and pretend”
Has the Vermont Legislature lost its compass?
