Tag: vermont

Sen. Bernie Sanders (D, Vermont) meets with some of his Jew-hating constituents.

You know, we hear a lot of guff from the American Left about how insular rural areas of Red States can be.  But I gotta tell you: speaking as a transplanted Northeasterner, listen to some of those progressives in Vermont and it’s like you’re in a time warp back to 1830 and the Know-Nothing Party.

This is from a recent town hall in Cabot, VT: basically, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Commie*, Vermont) had to stand at a podium and listen to a heck of a lot of angry Vermonter anti-Semites scream about Israel, to the point where he started screaming back about halfway through. Amazingly, from the aforementioned anti-Semites’ right. Heck of a thing when that guy’s the least vile person talking. Continue reading Sen. Bernie Sanders (D, Vermont) meets with some of his Jew-hating constituents.

Vermont. Or, ‘Why #Obamacare will not lead to single-payer.’

Megan McArdle finished up her article on Vermont’s single-payer woes by pretty much saying that, but I already knew it anyway. The basic problem? It’s going to cost at least $1.6 billion a year (or about 59% of Vermont’s current annual budget)… and there’s no way to pay for it except via massive tax hikes.  Megan notes that Vermont’s taxes aren’t actually high at all right now, and that implementing single-payer would immediately skyrocket that state’s rate to the highest in the country. And then she got puckish:

Now, you can argue that people should be glad to make this trade-off, not just for peace of mind, but because they will trade higher taxes for lower (no) insurance premiums. You can also argue that poor people in America should be laughing and dancing and singing all day because every one of them is economically better off than starving farmers in drought-ridden regions of Africa. Neither argument will do you much good, however, because that’s not how people think.

Continue reading Vermont. Or, ‘Why #Obamacare will not lead to single-payer.’

Vermont bails on its state exchange. *Temporarily*, of course.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

In the final pages of a law enacted in 2012, the [Vermont] Legislature spelled out a safety valve the Shumlin administration could use if the online health insurance marketplace then under development failed to operate as intended when it opened for business in 2013.

Vermont’s new insurance marketplace, like its federal counterpart, had a rocky launch Oct. 1 and remains plagued with glitches.

After trying to remain upbeat despite a month of malfunctions, Gov. Peter Shumlin last week invoked the legal safety mechanism that will give thousands of Vermonters the option to temporarily bypass Vermont Health Connect to obtain health insurance coverage for 2014.

They spent $170 million on that sucker, by the way. …And what else can I add to that? – Except to note that there are few things so permanent as a temporary delay.

Moe Lane

PS: These guys want to go single-payer. …And I am trying, and failing, to come up with a sentence that has more pure idiocy in it than is in that simple, straightforward observation.

Via

 

Vermont’s $3,800 single person tax.

Hi!  Are you a single person who lives in Vermont?  If you are, the intersection of those two particular circles of the Venn Diagram of Life means that you probably voted for Obama; and I just wanted to let you know: you’re about to get hit by a kinetic strike from orbit.  See, Vermont has worked out how much you’re going to have to pay next year if you buy your health coverage on the state exchange:

The state released proposed rates Monday. Examples show that a family of four with an annual income of $32,000 would pay $45 a month out of pocket. A single person making $40,000 would pay $317 a month.

Continue reading Vermont’s $3,800 single person tax.

End of Honeymoon: Pat Leahy wants clarification on federal marijuana rules.

(H/T: Instapundit) What an excellent inquiry, Senator Leahy:

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy is asking the Obama administration to clarify its position on the recreational use of marijuana, which two states legalized by referendum Nov. 6 but remains illegal under federal law.

…he already knows the answer, of course: the Obama’s administration’s position on all of this Reefer Madness is to cower in a corner and saying LALALA until things are better.  But Leahy’s constituents are moving ahead with legalizing pot in Vermont, so you can understand why the man wanted a clarification… what’s that?  Why is Senator Leahy calling the administration out publicly on this?  Aren’t they all Democrats, there? Continue reading End of Honeymoon: Pat Leahy wants clarification on federal marijuana rules.

Sanders puts Tucson attack in fundraising crosshairs.

Title written with (fully justified) malice aforethought.

Senator Bernie Sanders – the socialist Senator from Vermont who we’re supposed to pretend isn’t a socialist because the Democrats get upset about us bringing up the entire ‘socialism’ thing – has decided that the best way to handle last weekend’s attempted assassination of a Congresswoman (and the murder of six people, including a nine-year-old girl) is to send out a fundraising letter blaming the whole thing on the right wing.

Given the recent tragedy in Arizona, as well as the start of the new Congress, I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few words with political friends in Vermont and throughout the country. I also want to thank the very many supporters who have begun contributing online to my 2012 reelection campaign at w ww.bernie.org…

[several paragraphs’ worth of Left-pornography]

…

In light of all of this violence – both actual and threatened – is Arizona a state in which people who are not Republicans are able to participate freely and fully in the democratic process? Have right-wing reactionaries, through threats and acts of violence, intimidated people with different points of view from expressing their political positions?

Bernie Sanders’ answer is, of course, “Not if you give me money!”  That the attacker was a 9/11 Troofer who opposed the war and believed in shadow conspiracies – which is pretty much Sanders’ fund-raising base right there – is irrelevant to the Senator’s purpose, which is to transfer as much money from the pockets of the gullible to his own*.  So is the charmingly naive bourgeois notion of ‘human decency,’ which might have otherwise kept the Senator from Vermont from engaging in this behavior.  Nope: this is about bringing in the cash by making people afraid and hateful – which would be ironic, except that anybody who is a voluntary socialist in America is dead to the concept anyway…

Moe Lane (crosspost) Continue reading Sanders puts Tucson attack in fundraising crosshairs.

VT-GOV Democratic recount finally resolved…

Questions of corruption by Democratic nominee, alas, still remain.

…after two weeks. It’s hard to tell whether the general lack of energy involved was from civility or ennui: Republican Lt. Governor Brian Dubie was polling at over 50% for most of the candidates, and polls at 55%/36% against eventual nominee Peter Shumlin.  Don’t expect a lot more polling of this race, by the way: as near as I can tell, its Toss-Up status among RCP and Cook is based mostly on that it’s Vermont and the incumbent Republican governor isn’t running.

But since lack of energy isn’t good for people, let’s kick it up a notch: as VT pro-tem Senate President Shumlin appointed David Blittersdorf to his state’s Clean Energy Development Fund.  Blittersdorf then proceeded to apply for (and later get) over 4 million in tax credits from the fund while he was serving on its board.  Blittersdorf has also contributed 8 grand to Shumlin’s campaign coffers.  Shumlin’s response to all of this is to ask for Blittersdorf to resign from the CEDF; he won’t return Blittersdorf’s campaign contributions, apparently.

Does Shumlin think that it should end there?  I’m mildly curious.

Moe Lane

PS: Brian Dubie for governor.

Crossposted to RedState.

Bernie Sanders: Kinsley Gaffe, or just not paying attention?

Contra Gateway Pundit (and Hot Air), I am not certain that Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) actually meant to imply that the Democrats were going to destroy private health insurers. Given that he is in fact a socialist, it may be that being one has finally killed enough brain cells to make him not notice that he answered the question so poorly.

Look, it’s not my fault that intellectually speaking being a self-identified socialist in this day and age is much like being a self-identified Flat-Earther*. It just is. And it makes you do dumb things, like tell private insurance companies that the United States Senate is coming after them with a mad gleam in its eye. Given that, true or not, this is precisely the impression that current Senate leadership does not want to create… well. To use the terminology of the guy that the Senator spent the last eight years ineffectually fighting: heckuva job there, Bernie.

Moe Lane

PS: More seriously, please remember: no matter what happens with the health care plan, neither Senator Sanders, his family, nor his close associates will ever suffer from the more onerous aspects of it. Because while all animals are equal, some animals are more equal than others.

*Well, except for the former’s higher historical body count.

Crossposted to RedState.