Many of the businesses that deliver fossil-based heating fuels (oil, propane, natural gas, and kerosene) in Vermont are small, mom & pop operations. Some, as describe by Matt Cota of the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association, are just one person “with a truck and a cell phone.” These companies exist on the margins of financial viability. The Clean Heat Standard now being contemplated by the legislature as part of the Global Warming Solutions Act will drive many these fuel dealers out of business – and where will that leave their customers?

From December 2019 – December 2021, the M2 money supply (cash, checking deposits, and easily-convertible near money) increased 41%. This graph shows the close relationship in growth in the money supply and the inflation rate. We’ve had at least 5% inflation since May 2021, and up to 7% in November 2021, the latest month recorded. The inflation rate is the price of the same bundle of goods from 12 months ago to now.

An article in VT Digger today trumpets, “Attorney general reminds Vermonters of propane protection laws as snow, cold continue.” In Vermont, propane fuel dealers are required by law to deliver to customers, even if the customer isn’t up to date with paying all their past bills. We don’t let people freeze to death – if you heat with the fossil fuel propane that is.

Over the years our federal government has created all sorts of citizen corps. During World War I it was the American Protective League, that my grandfather belonged to. During the Depression, it was the Civilian Conservation Corps, pioneered by an old Vermonter named Perry Merrill. President Kennedy’s contribution was the Peace Corps, sending idealistic Americans off to distant climes to help life up the ignorant natives. President Johnson hatched the Job Corps, camps to train idle youths in needed job skills. The Northlands Job Corps Center in Vergennes survives to this day.

With the retirement of Justice Stephen Breyer, President Biden announced his intention to replace him on the Supreme Court with a Black woman. A following ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, disagree with that racial approach to filling the seat:

Today, January 27, is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. According to a 2020 study from the Claims Conference, an alarming number of individuals from age 18 to 39 know little about the Holocaust, and young Vermonters are little different in this regard. The Claims Conference has advocated for Jewish Holocaust survivors since 1951, distributing $90 billion in compensation.

Women in Vermont are being told Proposal 5, the so-called Reproductive Liberty Amendment, will preserve a woman’s right to choose along the lines of Roe v. Wade. This is a highly misleading claim. What the vague language Proposal 5 actually does is give the father of an unborn child an “right to personal autonomy” equal to that of the woman.

Read Proposal 5 and you will see clearly that it mentions neither women, nor abortion. It says,

Six months ago, the Blue Ribbon Tax Structure Commission recommended expanding Vermont’s “sales tax base to all consumer-level purchases of goods and services except healthcare and casual consumer-to-consumer transactions” while reduce the sales tax rate to 3.6%.* Given the chance to consider the proposal, one senator appeared especially eager to consider the proposal.

You may be interested in a new national organization called Country First. It was launched last year by a man I admire, Rep. Adam Kinzinger. He is an eight term central Illinois Republican and was an Air Force pilot in the Iraqi war. He voted to impeach President Trump after the January 6 Capitol riot, and thus earned Trump’s undying enmity. The Democrats in charge of Illinois have just gerrymandered his district, so he will step down from Congress next January to lead Country First.