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By Guy Page
Any veteran community newspaper editor will tell you: it’s the rare voter and taxpayer who takes the time to craft detailed, thoughtful questions for local candidates for office and submit them for publication.
On July 19, Abby Crosby of the tiny Windham County town of Jacksonville, in advance of a scheduled meet and greet with a candidate for the Legislature, carefully write just such a legislative candidate questionnaire, and emailed it to Front Porch Forum.
FPF is an online outlet allowing neighbors to share information, news and comments with each other. The statewide, for-profit ‘Benefit Corp.’ begun in Burlington now has local platforms in most Vermont communities. Its branding slogan is “Helping Neighbors Connect.”
Which is what Crosby says she was trying to do when she submitted her 13-question missive covering taxation, carbon emissions, the cost of living, the quality of education, the 50×50 land conservation plan, elections, each candidates’ choice of committees, and more.
Front Porch Forum turned her down. It claimed Crosby had engaged in a ‘personal attack’ when she asked this following question:
“4) What will you do to remove CRT and DEI from our schools? What will you do to remove DEI practices from State government and how will you promote meritocracy in its place ?”
Sam, the FPF screener, called the ‘promote meritocracy’ reference a ‘personal attack.’ Crosby never mentioned any person in the question. Sam did offer to publish the questions if she deleted the offending phrase.
Crosby sent the full exchange with Front Porch Forum to VDC. It appears below, verbatim. Judge for yourself whether FPF is exercising appropriate editorial caution or exerting heavy-handed censorship in order to protect the sacred cow of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in schools.
– – – – – – –
Re: Meet Emily Carris Duncan, Candidate for State Rep
Abby Crosby • (abbycrosby9@gmail.com) • Collins Rd, Jacksonville
Posted to: Readsboro Whitingham Halifax
Jul 19, 2024
Discussion
In anticipation of tomorrow’s event, I have come up with a starter list of questions for this candidate, or any candidate. I don’t think we will have time to address all, so I am posting here in advance for consideration.
1) At 2023 Town Meetings in Halifax, Whitingham and Wilmington voters expressed to Rep. Roberts they largely were against H.5 which would absolutely increase our heating costs tremendously. At the Chamber of Commerce meeting this spring, the Representative admitted he voted for it despite it being largely against constituents wishes. This act strives to take away our choices for heating our homes by making propane, heating oil and wood extremely expensive, so we “choose” heat pumps operated with electricity. What is your view of this harmful act, and how would you vote on anything your constituents were clearly largely against?
2) Do you understand Carbon Credits, and how they give the very wealthy an excuse to use whatever energy they use as they have climate controlled homes using heat and/or a/c 100% of the time, and hire private flights, etc. Please explain how this financial instrument works exactly and how it impacts Vermonters.
3) How will you promote school vouchers and school choice so the money follows the child rather than the assigned schools? This way even home-schooled children would be funded, and public schools would have to compete for students or see decreased funding.
4) What will you do to remove CRT and DEI from our schools? What will you do to remove DEI practices from State government and how will you promote meritocracy in its place?
5) What will you do to reverse Vermont’s sanctuary state status which puts us all in danger of illegal actions?
6) What will you do to decrease our property taxes and bring them to below 2020 rates?
7) What will you do to reverse the 30 x 30 and 50 x 50 plan? This plan to make 30% of Vermont land conservation by 2030 and 50% by 2050 requires the unconstitutional act of forcing the sale of private land to the government. It also requires overriding local zoning laws. With 75% of Vermont land currently privately owned, there is no getting around this unconstitutional plan.
8) How will you reverse requiring EV’s and shunning our vehicles of choice without penalty? How would you disengage us from California laws which is required to allow Vermonters buy and own vehicles of choice? Keep in mind that most Vermonters keep vehicles much longer than the life of these environmentally unfriendly EV batteries.
9) How will you proceed to require identification to vote in Vermont for Federal, State and Local elections?
10) What is your position on the Vermont DMV significantly increasing fees (effectively taxes) in 2024 even though it was determined that the agency did not need increased funding?
11) Are you aware that as of this April Vermont was the #3-ranked state in Tax Burden on residents? The ranking will be worse once this year’s property tax increases are included in the calculation. How will you work to reduce this Tax Burden, and what ranking will you target?
12) If you are elected, what committee(s) will you target and why?
Thank you for your consideration.
Whitingham and Halifax property tax payer.
FPF responds
Crosby received this response:
Front Porch Forum
5:00 PM (6 minutes ago)
to me
Hi Abby – Your posting, below, does not comply with FPF Terms of Use. See the highlighted portion. If you’d like to remove the personal attack and re-post, we’ll take another look.
Best wishes,
Sam
Member Support
FrontPorchForum.com
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Categories: Media
Censorship at its finest
Emily is a person of color. So obviously referring in a negative way to CRT or DEI would be an “attack” to a person of color, as each and every person of color has exactly the same opinion on everything. And obviously CRT and DEI are perfect ideas. (sarcasm)
Of course Vt.’s Marxists don’t want anyone thinking about their “5 Year Plans”, they could have struck the the CRT/DEI questions & allowed the rest, in true watermelon style, AKA green on the outside & red on the inside. #7, their 30X30 and 50X50 “plans” highlight this absurdity, as if land confiscation and forced “emissions cuts” of CO2, which we exhale, in a state of 600,000 people, will change the weather? So speech is stifled and conversation criminalized to conform with their idea of “Democracy” and not highlight the heresy in questioning their new green religion.
To me, it seems like question #5 was a more inappropriate and prejudicial personal attack – a personal attack on all refugees, insinuating that they are dangerous criminals that we should fear. “5) What will you do to reverse Vermont’s sanctuary state status which puts us all in danger of illegal actions?”
I’ve known, and worked with, many refugees and their families. They are all proud, hard-working, virtuous people.
Buy they’re not all vetted. Their first act in a new country was to break the law. Why would they not break more? We have a process, lets follow it. Many people in past three years have been assaulted, raped or murdered by illegal aliens. How much of that is ok to you? No other country in the world does this. It’s not kind, fair or compassionate.
Big difference from a refugee and illegal migrants. We see what is happening with the illegal migrants and their activities. Look at NYC. A refugee has a completely different status in being here.
KC, it is absolutely true that a refugee is completely different. The problem is they have changed the parameters of who is a refugee, so many who cross now just say they fear their government, etc. They no longer have to prove it.
Front Porch Forum’s – “terms of use” Let me see if I understand… “wake up and become left enlightened or shut up” There’s apparently no room at the cool kids lunch table for us.
My first reaction was ” Your posting, below, does not comply with FPF Terms of Use.”
I haven’t seen any comply rules This reflects FB and the old Twitter constant statement to shut down concerns by individuals. Sam must be an implant to VT, with no values and acts like GOD. His position and mentality is designed to keep VT in the dungeon without free speech. That guy lives in a box. Seems FrontPorchForum.com is a communist site. The questions and points by Abby Crosby are realistic and supported by the concerned. Again what are the COMPLY RULES? If they were posted, I’m sure the support for this site would collapse. Who needs his site and the guy?
Wonder if the nursery rhyme JACK AND JILL WENT UP THE HILL would be obsessive?
They cited Terms of Use 2.5 which reads as follows: “You agree not to submit content that intimidates, degrades or is hateful toward an individual or group of individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, or disability; sexual orientation, gender identity or expression; or economic, housing, or immigration status.”
They said my use of meritocracy fell under this rule. Here is one definition of Meritocracy:
meritocracy /mĕr″ĭ-tŏk′rə-sē/
noun
– A system in which advancement is based on individual ability or achievement.
– A group of leaders or officeholders selected on the basis of individual ability or achievement.
– Leadership by such a group.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
Sue them. It’s that simple until somebody puts them in their place they’ll keep doing it.
Typical, and not surprising the only reason I am on it is ” keep to your friends close keep your enemies closer” It’s a way to track their disingenuous preferences.
They said the same exact thing to me when wrote a post about geoengineering.
Whatever happened to such questions emanating from League of Women’s voters and put before all candidates with answers printed and disseminated? Thanks for doing your homework in an excellent fashion, Abby.
It’s better for the lefties to hide anything that might interfere with their mission to control everyone and everything.
The League of Women’s voters has never and would never put such loaded questions before any candidate.
I have used FPF in the past, but somewhere around the middle of the covid insanity I was banned. I was posting regarding the access limitations to a very important town issue that was being discussed (Lincoln Elementary leaving the Mt Abe school district) I made some comments about useless covid protocols and also quoted MRNA platform researchers and developers (who were pro vax) from Penn Gazette (University of Pennsylvania), and they didn’t post it…AND they deleted my account for violating the terms of use. I’m so glad I never flipped a single penny to support them, they are simply another version of Pravda, albeit considered a private entity despite the fact they receive some govt financial support. They are quite simply a State, Marxist mouthpiece. It would be great to see another version of this, but a truly open forum.
As a candidate for the Vermont House from Chittenden 23, I would welcome these questions. Though I’m not well-versed on all the issues, the core value in all of these questions is the matter of government overreach. Government’s mission should be to protect our way of life, not control it. Thank you, Abby Crosby, for so eloquently questioning your candidate.
Why is anyone “shocked” by FPF punting any questioning of DEI? Our own State government has it installed in each agency, mandates the training of it, and has it’s own stand alone department. It’s still alive and well in Vermont with the blessings and full support of the State on taxpayer dimes.
The good news is there is chatter that certain corporations are quietly dismantling it, and some “sanctuary” areas are working with ICE behind the scenes. Even BLM wrote a un-endorsement for diversity hire Kamala. The unraveling has begun and VT will be the last to catch up – unfortunately.
Thank you Abby! You are right! Don’t stop fighting! Wonderful to see a young person unafraid to speak the truth. This is far from a first regarding fpf’s speech censorship. If you are paying them, stop. We can and should vote with our wallets.
Those aren’t questions – they’re controversial statements along the lines of “when did you stop beating your wife?” So disingenuous.
Re: “So disingenuous.” ???
A ‘psychological projection’.
“The term is most commonly used to describe defensive projection—attributing one’s own unacceptable urges to another.”
Re: “Those aren’t questions ..???
Really?! Yet another false premise.
“3) How will you promote school vouchers and school choice so the money follows the child rather than the assigned schools?”
Perhaps the question is better put to you, if you don’t want to address the School Choice question: “when did you stop beating your kids’? Or, better still, “when did you stop beating everyone else’s kids’?
Or, we can reasonably discuss the pros and cons of School Choice instead of avoiding the question.
A loaded question is a form of complex question that contains a controversial assumption. Such questions may be used as a rhetorical tool: the question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner’s agenda. Wikipedia
Again Mark (whoever-you-are), your “question attempts to limit direct replies to be those that serve the questioner’s agenda”?
If you want to discuss the pros and cons of School Choice, let’s have at it. But you not only want to ‘limit direct replies’, your ‘agenda’, obviously, is to avoid the discussion entirely.
Front Porch Forum should be renamed Front Porch Propaganda. It only publishes information for leftist consumption by leftist propagandists. Any submission of free thought is kicked to the curb. I have never been on the site as I know what it is. All conservative and libertarian minded people should not bother with it and leave for the progressives and communists to wallow happily in their own lies. Abby Crosby’s crime was asking questions that should be asked in a forum that doesn’t want them asked because it might make someone question the false narrative. It’s the same reason why you never see a prominent Commiecrat politician like a Joe Biden or Kamala Harris sit for an interview with Fox News or Newsmax. Or an interview with a Tucker Carlson, Greta Van Susteren or Sean Hannity. They can’t take the heat, so they stay out of the kitchen.
I believe you are correct.
I do not normally read the postings myself, but earlier this year I spent a few weeks at it. I saw that government agencies, including Democrat/Progressive Legislators, provided nearly 100% of the paid advertising dollars. I say again: our tax dollars are paying the operators of the site. There were a few, very few, independent business advertisements.
Follow the money. The site has no reason to allow criticism of government agencies when those agencies are making them big money.
Even if not a non-profit Front Porch Forum may still be legally obliged to allow opposing points of view.
FPF deactivated my account overnight. No communication, just deactivated. I had sent them the definition of meritocracy and asked they explain how it goes against their rule 2.5. They never addressed this.