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by Guy Page

Today is Feedback Friday on VDC’s Hot Off The Press at 11:05 AM. There are no guests scheduled, but plenty to talk about. I hope you will call in with your comment or question. Here are some of the week’s top stories. You can read them all at vermontdailychronicle.com.

The battle over the future shape of affordable health care about to begin

The talking points for all sides are taking shape for next month’s likely congressional struggle over the future of subsidized health insurance – a/k/a Obamacare. Our three members of Congress all want to extend it and maybe make it even more government-funded and controlled, a single payer system like Canada’s. President Trump and the Vermont Republican Party preferred more consumer control over healthcare dollars and priorities.

Dave Soulia of FYIVT writes in his column, “Becca and the policy cliff” that The situation Vermonters are being warned about is not just a story of one spending bill or one vote. It is the product of a deeper policy design choice: treating a major subsidy as a temporary “emergency” measure, extending it in short increments, and allowing that structure to create a recurring policy cliff that repeatedly hangs over consumers and taxpayers.

What do you think? Would America, would Vermont, would you and your family be better off with government funded and managed healthcare, like Becca Balint wants? Or would you prefer to have the health care dollars and choices in your own hands? In a way it’s similar to the school choice vs. no school choice issue, which, depending on how you look at, empowers families to educate their children as they see fit or deprives schools of the much-needed revenue to provide quality, universal education, with already disadvantaged students suffering even more.

Transgenderism in schools is being fought out in the courts, and Vermont’s in the middle of it

And speaking of our congresswoman, Becca Balint is a lead author of a Supreme Court brief that opposes state transgender sports bans

They cite several incidents in which cisgender girls were subjected to investigations or public accusations after being perceived as not looking “feminine enough.”

Also in the transgender school wars, Marie Tiemann of Speak Vermont reports today that a federal court has said that schools can’t force students to use someone else’s preferred pronouns. Seems it’s a violation of their free speech rights. Do you think schools should be allowed to require their students to refer to others by their preferred pronouns?

Aaron Warner’s story about a Hartford Vermont school that mandates reading a ‘trans-positive’ book for middle schoolers went viral on the Libs of Tik Tok news site. “The novel includes passages suggesting to children that hating one’s body to the point of wanting to mutilate it might be normal for some of them.”

Should Vermont turn to tolls to pay for roads?

Also, is Vermont considering tolls? Maybe not….Vermonters are driving more fuel efficient cars. More of us are working from home or just plain driving less. That’s a good thing for air quality and other ways but it’s bad news for the bean counters in the Legislature who depend on these receipts to pay for the state’s share of the transportation fund. But some TV news talk about tolls appears to be just that, because states that use tolls lose federal highway funds. What do you think?

In other transportation news, of a sort, Wheels for Warmth raised over $100,000 to help Vermonters heat their homes. Governor Phil Scott, Community Action Agencies, Wheels for Warmth volunteers and partners announced the record-breaking year for the annual Wheels for Warmth initiative, which began in 2005.

Redistricting commit makes wild pivot on Act 73 – Gov. Scott is not happy

The headline reads, Keep it, kill it, change it: Act 73 report on school redistricting elicits strong reaction, disagreement. Neither the lengthy time frame nor the details were what either most legislators or Gov. Phil Scott had in mind when they passed the law this spring. The redistricting task force voted 10-1 to morph Act 73 into voluntary redistricting, rather than produce a choice of redistricting maps as required by the law. Gov. Scott cried foul, just follow the law; some small rural school districts like the new plan, and Behind the Lines columnist Rob Roper said it just goes to show Act 73 was always unworkable, scrap it and start over. These are your school tax dollars they’re playing with – what do you think?

This week, Mike Bielawski reported that a Vermont fraud expert and software developer found 13,000 voted ballots from undeliverable addresses in VT 2024 election. This is among several concerns in their new report titled the Vermont Voter Roll Integrity Analysis, prompting a response from the Secretary of State’s Office, sent to VDC by its chief of staff Bryan Mills on Friday, November 14. We’ll talking more about this with Mike on Monday. But what’s your opinion about the security and integrity of our mailed ballot system?

Some see a parallel here with Obamacare, which was supposed to be an emergency stopgap, not a permanent fix. But of course they wanted it to be permanent all along. Universal mailed in ballots – the U.S. is the ONLY country where states mails every ballot to every voter, regardless of what you might hear – were sold to the Vermont legislature and voters as a concession to Covid. It would be so much safer for the voters and the poll workers. And now…. Covid is over. But the universal mailed ballots – they’re still here. Should they be?

Feds provide info on ‘troubling encounter’ between ICE and Swanton store owner

Probably the best read VDC story this week was Monday’s headline Lawmaker describes ‘troubling encounter’ between ICE and local store operator. Representative Joe Luneau of St. Albans, a Republican, wrote a letter to Gov. Scott asking for transparency in the detention of a man from India at the Swanton convenience store he operates with his wife. The owner’s wife told Luneau that her husband – known to Luneau as Peter – had been taken for questioning in what she believed was a case of mistaken identity. Luneau said he wasn’t disputing the detention per se but wanted to know if, where and why he was being held. We have news on this: This morning, VDC received an email from Christopher Celozzi, Public Affairs Specialist for the Department of Homeland Security/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE):

“On Nov. 9, 2025, Officers with ICE Boston conducted a targeted immigration enforcement operation in Swanton, Vermont to arrest Premkumar Pankajkumar Patel, an illegal alien and habitual criminal offender from India.  Patel’s criminal history includes charges for DUI, assault and battery 2nd degree, petit larceny, and criminal possession stolen property. Patel illegally entered the United States sometime in 2019. A Justice Department immigration judge gave a final order of removal of Patel to India on December 9, 2020.  Patel will remain in ICE custody pending removal from the United States. Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem, ICE is committed to prioritizing public safety by arresting and removing criminal alien offenders from American communities.”

Also on the subject of border security, Compass Vermont wrote this week that Despite new law, Vermont police get more DHS cash than ever for patrols along border. The federal funding for Operation Stonegarden flows from the federal government to Vermont’s Department of Public Safety, which then distributes it to local agencies, who then conducts patrols coordinated with the U.S. Border Patrol. We’ll be learning more about this from Essex County state’s attorney Vince Illuzzi next week. So this story raises a question – if a 2017 Vermont law says local and state police can’t cooperate with federal officials on immigration detentions, what are we doing receiving funding to help them with border patrol? Is it possible they’re just looking for drug dealers? Do they turn a blind eye to border jumpers? I’ve heard both but what do you think about this?

And while we’re talking about law enforcement – Mike Donoghue reports that a South Burlington police officer was fired after prosecutor Sarah George refuses to take cases. “Wilson made a patently false statement in a probable cause affidavit and neglected to include exculpatory evidence which was in the possession at the time of writing the affidavit,” George maintained in her letter. When cops lie, should all of their cases be thrown out? Or just some? Or none at all?

It’s Feedback Friday. I want to know what you think. Call 802-244-1777.