President Biden is under pressure from the Democratic Left to seize control of the Supreme Court, by packing it with additional liberal justices committed to upholding the Biden program. President Roosevelt tried that in 1937, and got hammered flat.  It would destroy the independence of the Judiciary and fatally rupture the American system of a government of separated powers and constitutional fidelity.

Vermont is on the cusp of having the least secure election system in the nation.

The bill that passed the Vermont senate 27-3 (S.15) is now under consideration in the house. It would make permanent the temporary, COVID-emergency provisions adopted for the 2020 general election, including the policy of mailing “live” ballots to all voters who are active on the voter checklist, regardless of whether or not the voter requests an absentee ballot.

A bill to register building contractors is just the first step toward eventual licensing even for local handymen, and enforced compliance with energy conservation building standards to defeat climate change, no matter what the cost.

Vermont ‘s All Payer performance , widely criticized , will almost certainly fall short of HHS agreement requirements in 2022. It’s time to move away from ever-increasing government management, and develop a demonstrably superior path of personal responsibility, informed patient choice, provider competition, price transparency, less third party payment , diminished regulation, liability restraint and outcome accountability.

While Vermont public school officials are carping about returning to the classroom post Covid, calling for higher taxes to pay for their pensions, and are otherwise consumed with controversies over mascot names and what flags get to fly on school grounds, Vermont families have been driving an interesting trend – using Vermont’s 150 year old school choice “tuitioning” program to put their kids into independent schools.

The new “Vermont Agriculture and Food System Strategic Plan” appeared last month. It contains some useful information, but the participants involved in preparing it are transfixed by their glorious Vision of all the good things that could be made to happen by an all-knowing government directed by wise and right thinking people – making use of millions of dollars raised from unidentified parties, who shop at the Farmers Market and competently manage their food scraps.

For five years now the climate change movement couldn’t get a vote on a politically dangerous carbon tax to reduce fossil fuel consumption, and produce millions of dollars to finance climate-worthy investments like home weatherization.  Now they’re trying push through a $1.3 billion over ten years “Thermal Energy Efficiency Charge”, formerly known as a tax. It will be levied not by accountable legislators, but unconstitutionally by the “unaccountable strangers” at the Public Utility Commission.

There is a proposal making its way through the Vermont House of Representatives to expand Vermont’s bottle deposit law. The bill would double the cost of a standard bottle deposit from 5 cents to 10 cents, and it would apply the deposit to “water bottles, wine bottles and containers for all noncarbonated and carbonated drinks, except for milk, rice milk, soy milk, almond milk, hemp seed milk, and dairy products.” It would also create a 15 cent deposit requirement for liquor bottles.