by Tom Licata Where’s Vermont’s attorney general when you need him? The Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicitly makes racism illegal. It states: “No person in the United States shall, on the grounds […]
Tom Licata: racism rampant in Burlington City Hall
Mazur: Destroying our economy
This country is facing a “fiscal crisis” exacerbated by Congress. In the past 18 months our fiscal debt INCREASED 30 percent to $28T. This is 25 percent more than all goods and services produced in a year.
Keelan: Equity, climate change consulting our new ‘growth industries’
If you own or work at a Vermont consulting practice that focuses on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusiveness (DEI), Climate Change, or Ethnic Affairs, you are in the right place for exponential growth.
Beck: State made the pension mess, State needs to clean it up
The State of Vermont created the $5.7 billion pension shortfall, and it shouldn’t expect employees and retirees to clean up the mess.
McClaughry: Bernie, Biden go after gun manufacturers
It’s like suing Ford Motor Company for providing the car that Bonnie and Clyde used to get out of town after robbing the bank. Or, to bring it home to Vermont, to sue a ski manufacturer when a skier veers off the slope and crashes into a tree. Or as Bernie Sanders put it when supporting the protection law in 2005, “If somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer … do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible? Not any more than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beats somebody over the head with a hammer.”
Page: 2,500 pennies for your conservative thoughts
The mainstream media has finally woken up and realized that conservatives no longer care what they think. Now they’re trying to woo us back – in the case of the Burlington Free Press, with $25 gift cards.
Condos praises Senate passage of universal ballot mailing
S.15 is a monumental step forward for voter access to the ballot box. Here in Vermont, and nationally, vote by mail has been shown to dramatically increase voter participation in the elections process. I am a firm believer that our democracy is stronger when we all participate.
New farm report is “Ceres in Wonderland”
The report recites some obvious challenges, such as “development pressure on farmland, generational transfer of farm assets, [and] changing consumer preferences and markets”. But in its Vision Statement for 2030 the report wanders off into what might be called “Ceres in Wonderland.” That’s a collection of correct and happy outcomes, an exercise noticeably infused with political correctness.
Conservative network forming – are you in?
by Tom McLinden If you are a fellow conservative, I invite you to join me in forming a new conservative action network in Vermont. Our mission would be to promote conservative ideals, […]
Page: Sanders signals tax hike, but mum on pandemic debt reduction
No-one in power in Congress is talking about pandemic spending repayment. Like credit card companies at Christmastime, Congress has pressured us to spend now and worry about payments letter. This morning, the first notice of Payment Due came in the mail, hidden in a predictably worded press release from Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders.
Heather is alive
Heather was a force of biblical proportions. She knew she was “fearfully and wonderfully made” in her mother’s womb by the Hand of God. He endowed her with the gift of speaking His word, His truth. She gave us a glimpse of what it will be like to sit in the presence of our Lord and Savior.
Evslin: spend big bucks on big change
by Tom Evslin Back when this picture was taken, VP Biden was running the stimulus program for the Obama Administration and I was stimulus czar in Vermont. The other two people in the picture are Vermont […]
Williams: H167 threatens Fish & Wildlife Board
Currently, the Fish and Wildlife board is made up of ordinary Vermonters who are considered practitioners of wildlife management by their peers. They represent a grassroots level of control of a Vermont tradition. They are not necessarily schooled in the sciences, but represent local, public opinion and their practical views and experience add to the decision making process-not emotion or politics. The current system of the Fish and Wildlife board is working, so why do we need to fix it?
Keelan: the last gas station in Vermont
In 2035 in Vermont, it came to pass that only one gas station remained in operation, and it was located in Randolph. The State’s fossil fuel czar had established that the gas station would be in Randolph because it is almost at the State’s geographic center.
Klar: free speech opponents say liberal UVM prof must go
Americans once regarded themselves as sharing agreement on most goals, just differing in desired means. But “social justice ideology” does not broach dissent: it negates traditional liberalism and free speech protections. Thus, “liberal” professors will be silenced as readily as conservative speakers such as those at Middlebury College. “Social justice” ideology behaves much like an institutionalized cult.
Fernandez: Boys will be girls
Six Dr. Seuss books are now blacklisted, probably never to be published again in the Uptight States of America. It seems that Dr. Seuss, tennis great Martina Navratilova and Vermont female athletes may soon have something uncommon in common.
Edmunds: Act 46 won’t let town fill school board slot
Under school merger law Act 46, “like so many pairs of misplaced reading glasses that can never be found when you want to read something,” Clarendon has lost its authority to replace its own resigning school board member.
Electricity grid expert: Vermont not so different from Texas
Everyone should winterize their electrical power grids. But each grid will encounter winter conditions that are extreme compared to the usual winters. For that, what you need is a robust grid with (for example) some nuclear plants with fuel stored on site, so the problems of winter do not become grid-wide catastrophes. Just-in-time renewables plus Just-in-Time natural gas is a recipe for the kind of disaster Texas had, and the kind that is embedded in many of ISO-NE’s future scenarios.
China’s human rights values OK with Biden
Chinese Communists Party (CCP) has developed massive detention centers for Uyghur and Turkish Muslim population where forced labor, rape, sterilization, starvation, torture and mutualization occurs. Human organs are harvested and eugenics is practiced to decrease the minority and physically impaired population.
Licata: Disgusting poster rooted in philosophies adopted by City of Burlington
Miro & the Burlington City Council – This is the kind of sickness and perversion you have wrought. Just an hour ago, while walking my dog, I found this pamphlet taped on a telephone pole at the corner of South Prospect & Cliff. Let me quote its entirety [profanity, racial and sexist epithets edited]:
Keelan: My apple pie will now be taxed
The Commission contends that broadening the tax base could reduce the sales tax rate from its present amount of 6% to 3.6%. As a long-time student of taxes, I don’t believe the rate of 3.6% will be around long before it is raised to 4% and higher in the not-too-distant future.
Condos backs “For The People” bill
We are seeing an unprecedented, all-out assault on voting rights in states around the country. According to the Brennan Center, there are 165 bills in 33 states aimed at making it harder for eligible Americans to vote, grounded in baseless and disproven claims of widespread voter fraud. It’s my understanding this number has grown since their data collection, now surpassing 250 bills. This opportunistic gambit is cause for alarm.
“Thermal Energy Efficiency” charge just another carbon tax
After the push for the carbon tax fizzled out in 2018, the “climate change” game turned to enacting a carbon tax by disguising it as something else. The latest version is called “the Thermal Energy Efficiency Charge”, and Sen. Bray has become its most ardent promoter.
Krauss: Wealthy VPR should restore citizen commentary
What would the outcome be if those ten newspapers, or all Vermont newspapers, suddenly decided for financial reasons to cancel the publication of letters and commentaries and reallocate the funds? Yet in all honesty, isn’t that what VPR did when it cancelled its Commentary Series?
Klar: The left’s hatred has escalated post-Trump
Donald Trump has passed from view, but the virus of New Leftism is thriving and easy to see. And what is visible is that it is a bitter, seething contempt, far wider than any one man.
Blakeney: Speak Truth Firmly to Evil
America has been the anchor of western civilization for the last century. Today we no longer articulate our values and principles. We listen constantly to leftist crap. This is the reason we have drifted so far off our moorings. It is time to stand for something.
Bishop: Employers say working from home is working
Many employers see the COVID crisis as a catalyst for change in the future of work, encompassing how people work, where, and with whom. Most employers are committing to a hybrid work model, where employees work from home regularly and frequent the office less.
Gagne: when some lives are dispensable, all are diminished
On Feb. 11th the Vermont House of Representatives introduced H248, a bill declaring that an unborn baby, beginning at 24 weeks gestation, is a legal person. Due to the miracles of modern medicine, babies have survived at even earlier than 24 weeks. At the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 triplets at 22 weeks gestation were born at UVMMC to the McShane family. Cian, born 12/28/19, weighed 1.08 lb.. Declan, born 1/2/20 weighed 1.47 lb. and Rowan, born 1/2/20 weighed 1.08 lb.. These three babies were discharged from UVMMC on July 15th, 2020 after reaching normal milestones in growth and development.
Evslin: Starlink internet gamechanger for rural Vermont?
FAQ about a possible internet gamechanger for rural Vermont, from tech entrepreneur Tom Evslin of Stowe – who has no financial interest in Starlink.
Vermont: reactive or reactionary?
Our ship of state is captained from the stern. We scan our wake for bad signs. A corpse floats by — we need a law. A raw sewage dump or fish-kill fouls our wake — we need a law. A powerboat swamps a canoe — we need a law. The water doesn’t freeze in February — we need a law.
Voting for children and against school budget
Life has changed so much in the last year – how I work, travel, and dress. Today I discovered the pandemic – or rather, our leaders’ misguided handling of it – has changed how I vote.
School employee insurance bill lacks transparency, could leave taxpayers on the hook
Meanwhile, the entire process surrounding this bill has been charted without an ounce of transparency. There has been no formal fiscal note to provide legislators with the cost of this legislative change. The legislative committees that deal with education, or with finance have not even reviewed this education-financing bill!
Turn the screws on them and break their will
David Ismay, an attorney and former senior official of the Massachusetts governor’s administration, is not, I assume, a well-known name in Vermont. However, he should be.
Lawmakers say criminalizing prostitution is racist
Ten Vermont legislators have sponsored a bill (H.268) to create a “Sex Work Study Committee” concerning the legalization of prostitution in Vermont. This bill strives to rewrite Vermont history via an absurdly vacuous lie that Vermont prohibited prostitution because of “white supremacist” motives.
How is Bernie-buddy Omar still in Congress?
For years Democrat Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has given hate speeches and tweeted anti-American, anti-Semitic, and anti-Israel statements, but only Georgia Republican, Marjorie Green, has been displaced from Congress for one similar comment.
Legislature looks at new school taxes, ignores performance review
The Vermont Tax Structure Commission has delivered its report, and its recommendations should trigger an intense debate. Switching public education support to the income tax and expanding the sales tax to include services will be very controversial. It’s regrettable that the legislature didn’t begin with a performance review, to decide what state government should be doing with $4.5 billion a year, and then address the tax structure needed to pay for it.
If tragedy strikes due to police defunding, will City be responsible?
Concerned about the looming loss of adequate early morning police patrol coverage due to “defund the police” measures, Tom Licata of Burlington recently wrote two letters to Burlington City Council and city officials. Receiving no response, he shared them with Vermont Daily.
Parkland authorities coddled killer
The Valentine’s Day gift given to Parkland, Florida was the direct result of, a predictable consequence of misunderstood human behavior. Frightening to me is that experts in psychology and human behavior understand well, but this knowledge is being ignored and in its place come Progressive political policies which seek to deny what do many others know.
Rest in peace, Rush Limbaugh
My introduction to the Late Great Rush Limbaugh happened in 1989 when I was assigned to the Island of Guam as Administrative Officer of the Naval Station there. His syndicated show came on in the wee hours of the morning. I could just barely pick up the broadcast on my personal small radio. But I strained to hear the broadcast, which fed an inner need of mine.
School buses deliver free lunch to wealthy kids – what’s up with that?
The same government that seeks to mandate electric school buses to avert climate change, dispatched a fleet of diesel-fueled school buses to deliver lunches! Was that in the best interests of children? Employing the National Guard’s tanks would have been comparably efficient….
Change-maker resigns from ‘old boy’ Vermont Democratic Party
Last week’s news of the abrupt departure of the Vermont Democratic Party’s Outreach Director was disturbing on a number of levels.
Discussion will be missing from many Town Meetings this year
Town Meeting Day in Vermont is the first Tuesday in March. It will be different this year because of the pandemic lockdown. Many towns, including Cambridge, will not be gathering in person. In this podcast Erica interviews several town meeting moderators about why town meeting is important, and what we will be missing this year.
The Tragic Case of Lisa Miller’s encounter with Vermont Family Court
Last month, after more than ten years in hiding, Lisa Miller surrendered herself to American authorities at the U. S. Embassy in Managua, Nicaragua. Miller, now in custody at the federal detention center in Miami, faces kidnapping and conspiracy charges. She’ll likely be found guilty but, in reality, she’s a victim of bad ideas. A mom, attempting to protect her daughter from her own bad choices and our society’s attempt to redefine marriage, parenting, and the family.
Commentary This Week: Race-based home funding, Town Meeting during pandemic, school tax reform, gun rights, and ‘defund the police’
This week, Vermont Daily has scheduled a lineup of five provocative commentaries written by thoughtful Vermonters about current issues.
Skin color no basis for home ownership help
In my experience, attempting to undo bad policies by instituting more bad policies is not an effective solution to anything. Study after study show that well-intentioned efforts like these do more harm than good especially for the people who are targeted for help.
More funding! More funding!
The Public Utility Commission, at the direction of the legislature, has “joined the chorus of voices seeking climate action”. Its all-fuels energy report takes note of the state’s ambitious carbon dioxide emission reduction goals, and almost screams what’s needed on every page: “More Funding!”
To understand cancel culture, re-read “Chicken Little”
To create order from this confusion, to determine what is nonsense, to detect gaslighting and decide what is valid, we need to revisit three classic sources. These re-reads will remind us that we are capable as individuals of sorting out what is good for us and what is being foisted on us by the masters of group think.
Anti-Trump activists persuaded Big Tech to censor pre-election conservative ‘disinformation,” Time Magazine reports
Staunchly liberal Time Magazine reported Feb. 4, approvingly and in great detail, how a shadow, progressive-led campaign to defeat the re-elect Trump campaign persuaded Big Tech to suppress conservative “disinformation.”
Scott, Dems smear conservatives in push for ‘unity’
Ron Lawrence: This calls into question our Governor’s support for the Party to which he claims to belong. It certainly calls into question his leadership and devotion to uniting the Party. And, it calls into question his personal character. What kind of person engages in this sort of smear tactic—except only silence his opposition?
Gov. Scott, why aren’t ski tourists following Covid rules?
Vermonter’s are doing what is asked of us. We are wearing masks, not gathering, quarantining if we leave the state, limiting our children’s ability to go to school full time, etc. We are doing this all because you said we need to protect fellow Vermonter’s. It seems to me, you are asking a lot of us while turning the other way when it comes to protecting us from others.
Don’t let small businesses suffer for following emergency rules, NFIB says
When Governor Scott declared a state of emergency on March 13, 2020, a whole new world of “small business challenges” landed on the backs of those small business owners from which they may not recover.
Vaccine recipient describes the Day After
Vaccination Day +1: I planned on some cross-country skiing but didn’t have much energy. “What’s going on?” I asked my Chief of Intrapersonal Security.
Youth worker sees differences between secular, churched kids
Many secular-minded parents have no interest in having their kids attend evangelical churches. Well, I have had the chance to get to know some of these young people at my church. I also had the chance to get to know some secular young people with whom I worked with at a store awhile back. I offer the following observations.
Flying elephants aren’t pretty
Friedman is complaining – correctly IMO – that much of what is sold as recession relief is actually socialism for the rich at the expense of everyone else and at great long-term danger to the economy.
Vermont Daily publishes media/legislators contact list
As a free service to our readers, Vermont Daily has assembled an online spreadsheet presenting, on one page, the names and email addresses of most Vermont media accepting letters to the editor and op-eds, and the email addresses and districts of all legislators. The list can be accessed from the Vermont Daily home page menu, by clicking on Media/Legislator contact list.
Don’t worry about trillions in national debt, say “Modern Monetary” theorists
As the United States uses deficit spending to stimulate our economy, supporters of unprecedented borrowing refer to a relatively unknown economic doctrine called Modern Monetary Theory [MMT]. Here’s how it works – or, at least, how they say it works.
Commentary: Vermont not immune from mob rule mentality
The lesson here is clear. A political party spent several years gaining control of the government and then demanded complete conformity to their ideas. They implemented a concentrated ‘fake news’ machine which relied on the dictum that a lie repeated over and over becomes the truth. Anyone who opposed them were considered undesirable as members of society and were to be deplored and silenced. No dissent of any kind was tolerated.
Collective Guilt, Democratic hypocrisy
Of course the violence was appalling and indefensible. Just like the violence over the last four years.
VP Pence can ‘Stop the Steal’ and keep the peace
“Unlike the small mercenary mobs we have seen this year, America will have tens-of-millions of rightly angry Americans defending their very way of life – their family, their property and their faith – from an outlaw-government,” Mark Shepard says.
Have you been called a traitor? Answering the charge of treason
I’ve been called a traitor for questioning the legitimacy of the presidential election. It’s a serious, painful charge. But is it true?
Thank you, Subscriber
Your interest, encouragement and support made 2020 a growth year for Vermont Daily. Since New Year’s Eve of 2019, subscriptions to Vermont Daily have more than doubled. Just yesterday, the number of comments passed 1000! Many of you contribute financially on a monthly or one-time basis to defray webhosting, advertising and software expenses. Others write news and commentary. You are all part of the team that makes Vermont Daily an expanding enterprise.
Courts, Congress fail to fight electoral fraud
Even responses to concerns for relaxed Election Integrity standards are dismissive and not what would normally be expected. And now Americans are about to trust that which is untrustworthy, accepting election results that will not or cannot be validated due to relaxed standards. Our concerns are routinely dismissed as false or unfounded and without merit.
Goodbye to TCI
Gov. Scott is not likely to put forth detailed objections to TCI. He’ll raise a few questions, point to pandemic uncertainty, and pay his customary homage to climate change orthodoxy. But he clearly sees that this is just one more elaborately concealed carbon tax. He knows what that will to do families and Covid- stressed businesses, he has opposed that for four years, and he won’t buy it. Good for him.
Rob Roper or John Walters on Marxism in BLM, Antifa, 1619, Extinction Rebellion – which one is right?
Well, a columnist’s gotta write about something. And anyway, this depiction of ideological plumbing was just too tempting a target for the H.L. Mencken of Vermont.
“If you’re not saying something, you’re saying something” – using the bullhorn of freedom of the press
Freedom of the press is freedom of speech with a bullhorn. The average newspaper, radio or TV station knocks on the doors of thousands of Vermont homes and says “I have something important to tell you.” The press is a powerful public good. It must be protected from government suppression.
