"I am the survivor of a failed late-term, saline infusion abortion at 31 weeks of gestation (that’s nearly eight months along), and it makes me physically ill that Vermont could become an abortion tourism destination for such procedures should the abortion amendment known as Article 22 or Proposal 5 pass this November. Proposal 5/Article 22 would enshrine in the Vermont Constitution an unrestricted right to abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If the voters of Vermont don’t vote this down, the Vermont Legislature would be constitutionally prohibited from passing any law that could restrict abortion, regulate abortion procedures or protect the unborn in any way at any point in their development." - Melissa Ohden, Late-Term Abortion Survivor.

https://youtu.be/GH7jVuB__HU

GOP candidate for U.S. Senate Gerald Malloy appeared on the “Howie Carr Show” on Thursday and said the current leadership of the Democratic Party is “hijacked” by extremist elements.

“I think what we’re seeing is the far left hijacked the Democrat Party and they’re frankly disconnected,” Malloy said. “And when my opponent talks about insurrection and a threat to democracy — when I talk to people here in Vermont, what’s on people’s minds is the economy, crime, and drugs.”

On Nov. 8 Malloy will face off with U.S. House Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who had just a 6% advantage in the polls a month ago.

“The campaign is going great, and gaining momentum every single day,” Malloy said. “Volunteers are just coming up left and right. We’re on a great path to victory.”

He added that the clear majority of voters — even in deep blue Vermont — are upset with how current Democratic leadership is going.

“I think I met about 30,000 Vermonters, and I have to say about 85% are very unhappy with the direction that the country is going,” Malloy said.

Carr commented as well, saying poor performance of Democrats on multiple issues is leading voters toward what could be a “red wave” for the GOP.

“The country is heading down a path to hell, that’s the bad news,” Carr said. “The good news is it’s really helping out Republican candidates like yourself — even in Vermont, I think people are waking up to what’s going on.”

Multiple mainstream media outlets have released polling that shows Democrats are in trouble for the general election in November.

“We’ve already seen articles from CNN and The Hill warning of a coming Republican victory. Now, even some Democrat election analysts are getting in on the act. Politico is moving races toward the GOP faster than one can reasonably keep up with,” Carr said.

Malloy said energy policies could lead to rolling blackouts in New England this winter.

“And you know why, because we decided to kill the oil and gas industry,” he said. “And it’s just getting worse, and people see that and they are ready for change.”

Carr noted that New Englanders have been getting warnings from their electric companies that electricity rates could double.

On the issue of crime, Malloy said a Burlington resident alerted him that the city has “gone to hell in a hand basket” in recent years. Malloy took this chance to remind voters that far-left politicians created this scenario.

“It gets back to defunding the police, it gets back to our wide-open southern border, the drug problems, and the progressive prosecutor movement that the far left is pushing,” he said.

The Daily Caller reported that the top three issues on voters’ minds are the economy, inflation, and crime. On all three, the GOP has a 7%, 9%, and 19% advantage, respectively.

“Democrats performed worse than Republicans on issues that were most important to voters in a Wednesday poll from Politico and Morning Consult,” the report states.

Nonetheless, Welch leads in donations to his campaign. Malloy said, however, the money he gets is translating into action.

“I’m one-tenth, probably less, than my opponent in terms of campaign dollars,” he said. “But we’re being smart about it and it’s going fantastic.”

Michael Bielawski is a reporter for True North. Send him news tips at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @TrueNorthMikeB.A

Article Courtesy True North Reports

By Sarah Mearhoff

Despite his pledge last November not to accept “any corporate PAC money,” Vermont’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, who is running for the U.S. Senate, has continued to accept sizable campaign contributions from high-powered industry groups that frequently lobby Congress.

And according to his campaign’s latest quarterly finance report filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission, those contributions include at least $17,000 from political action committees, or PACs, representing the sugar industry.

Welch’s largest contributor in the sector was American Crystal Sugar Company PAC, which made headlines this month when the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that the Minnesota-based company ranked among the top campaign contributors to members of Congress who voted against the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

American Crystal Sugar Company PAC donated $10,000 to Welch’s campaign in the third quarter.

Welch is not the first Vermont congressional candidate to receive money from American Crystal Sugar this cycle. Lt. Gov. Molly Gray, a former Democratic candidate for Vermont’s open race to replace Welch in the U.S. House, took heat from her primary competitors this spring and summer for a $5,000 contribution she received from the company’s PAC before the August primary. (State Sen. Becca Balint secured the Democratic nomination.)

In an April campaign fundraising email titled “When it comes to influence in Washington, Crystal is king,” state Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale — then a primary competitor for the U.S. House seat — said American Crystal Sugar “isn’t just any PAC representing corporate interests.”

“American Crystal Sugar is responsible for contributing to climate change with policy and practices that cause environmental destruction,” the email read, though it did not name Gray directly. The email also cited earlier reports of the company’s contributions to those who voted against certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.

Later, in June, Balint’s campaign spokesperson Natalie Silver told VTDigger of Gray’s American Crystal Sugar donation, “If Becca had taken money from people who had supported overturning the election, I would tell her to give it back, and I think that Molly Gray should do the same.”

Ram Hinsdale and Balint have both supported Welch’s U.S. Senate bid. Neither Ram Hinsdale nor Silver could not be reached for comment on Monday. American Crystal Sugar did not respond to an interview request.

Welch also received donations in August from the Amalgamated Sugar Company PAC ($2,500), American Sugarbeet Growers Association PAC ($1,000), Florida Sugar Cane League PAC ($2,000), Sugar Cane Growers Coop Of Florida PAC ($500) and the Western Sugar Cooperative PAC ($1,000).

Welch’s campaign did not make the congressman available for a phone interview Monday, and in a written statement, did not address VTDigger’s inquiries about donations from the sugar industry.

Hank Butler, a spokesperson for Welch’s campaign, said, "Over the course of this campaign and throughout his time in Congress, Peter has been working hard to deliver for Vermonters and always puts their interests first.”

When asked about his industry donations during a U.S. Senate debate hosted by VTDigger in September, Welch answered, “Well, all of my contributions and all my expenditures are disclosed, and every one of my votes is based on my judgment about what's best for voters.” He pointed to his endorsement by End Citizens United, a campaign finance reform advocacy group, and decried “dark money” in politics.

Asked in a follow-up question how such industry groups represented the interests of everyday Vermonters, Welch said, “Well, it can be a labor PAC, where you've got individuals who are part of the unit who are contributing to the PAC. It can be farmers who are contributing to the PAC.”

“And keep in mind, that amount, the most it can be is $5,000 and it has to be disclosed,” Welch continued. “So I am proud to get contributions from people through their joint effort to contribute to my campaign.”

American Crystal Sugar gave $10,000 to Welch by donating $5,000 to his primary campaign, plus $5,000 to his general election campaign. Both donations were recorded on Aug. 9, the day of Vermont’s primary election.

Vermont is home to neither sugar cane nor sugar beet farmers. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, which keeps annual records on Vermont’s crop yields dating back to 1866, sugar beets were reportedly cultivated in Vermont only in 2012. A tropical plant, sugar cane has never been recorded to grow in Vermont.

The Welch campaign’s acceptance of industry PAC donations is not new. In April, VTDigger reported on Welch’s multi-thousand-dollar contributions from PACs associated with the medical, agricultural, real estate and retail industries, among others. 

In the most recent period, too, the Democrat received contributions from the likes of the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers PAC ($5,000), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores PAC ($4,000), the American Institute of Architects’ PAC ($2,500), the American Veterinary Medical Association PAC ($2,000), the International Dairy Foods Association PAC ($1,000), the American Health Care Association ($1,000) and more.

Such PACs are technically not corporate PACs, according to the FEC. They’re trade associations, defined as “a membership organization of persons engaging in a similar or related line of commerce, organized to promote and improve business conditions in that line of commerce.” While these groups do not represent individual corporations, they are often funded by corporate insiders.

In total, in the third quarter, Welch received $266,775 from political committees. Those can include industry PACs, as well as leadership PACs organized by members of Congress, PACs operated by labor unions and more. Across this election cycle, Welch has received $878,442 in such donations, compared to over $2 million from individual donors.

While he pledged not to accept corporate PAC donations this time around, Welch has received such donations in the past from the likes of General Electric, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Toyota, Ford, Home Depot and more. It was these donations and others that padded Welch’s U.S. House campaign account of $2.1 million, which he carried to his Senate campaign.

Welch’s foe in the U.S. Senate election, Republican political newcomer Gerald Malloy, did not start out with the same campaign finance edge, nor has he come close to catching up.

Malloy raised $10,000 from PACs last quarter: $5,000 each from leadership PACs affiliated with Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

In total, Malloy raised $104,625 last quarter, and ended September with $61,165 in cash on hand. In that same period, Welch received $548,818 in net contributions, according to his FEC filing, and ended the quarter with nearly $2.7 million in the bank.

Article courtesy VT Digger

Press Memo
For further information, contact Mary at (802) 229-4885

Vermonters are questioning how the language of Proposal 5 was developed and who benefits from its passage. The answer can be found in the response to a Freedom of Information Act request of the Attorney General’s Office.

The records provided show that staff from the Attorney General’s Office worked at the behest of Planned Parenthood of Vermont, along with various legislators running for re-election in 2018, to develop the language of Proposal 5/Article 22 as well as Act 47.

Interested members of the media can find details of the FOIA here.

In 2019, after Prop 5 and Act 47 had passed, Planned Parenthood honored Attorney General T.J. Donovan and members of his staff, and Sen. Ginny Lyons at their annual PAC fundraiser as, "sexual and reproductive champions."

The State of Vermont now uses taxpayer-funded agents to discriminate against a business if the owner disagrees with Democratic ideology. Banana republic – Yes. Political cronyism – Yes. Totalitarianism – Yes. That’s the kind of government we now have in Vermont.

A specific example is the Northwest Regional Planning Commission (NRPC), which gets most of its funding from the State. Last year, I wrote an article for the Vermont Daily Chronicle warning parents that the public schools might be teaching their children about gender fluidity.

My article did not attack or blame anyone who identifies as transgender. I merely warned parents that the schools may be encouraging children to wonder if they are transgender. By doing so, schools encourage minors to disconnect from their physical reality and possibly mutilate their bodies for no good reason.

Because I wrote this warning to parents, the NRPC cancelled a contract my wife and I had with them. They told us flat out – my article was the only reason they cut us off, and they refused to discuss the matter with me. When we informed our State legislators, who happen to be Republican, of NRPC’s discrimination, their response was that they can’t do anything about citizen oppression committed by State agents because Democrats have ironclad control of the State legislature. 

When one political party has way too much power, that party can easily punish and strongarm anyone and everyone who disagrees with their ideas, even if those ideas are ridiculous and injurious.  We need balance back in Montpelier; or else the banana republic, political cronyism, and totalitarianism befouling Vermont will continue. Maybe you or one of your loved ones will be the next victim. Please get everyone you know to vote this November. Thank you!

The author is a Grand Isle County resident. His December 29, 2021 op-ed did not refer to any specific school, nor did it reference the NRPCVT generically or by name. The NRCPVT statement of inclusion pledges to celebrate diversity, including gender identity, in all of its policies and practices.

Robert Fireovid

Courtesy Vermont Daily Chronicle

In a few weeks we will be asked to vote on Article 22. Proponents have told us that it is necessary to protect the “reproductive rights” (abortion rights) of Vermonters. Yet abortion is already written into Vermont Code (Title 18: Chapter 223 Subchapter 1: Freedom Of Choice Act). So then why do we need a vague and poorly written amendment filled with undefined terms? Consider also, that it is no less vulnerable to being overridden by Federal Law than the existing code, which by the way already allows unrestricted abortion,

What exactly does “personal reproductive liberty” mean? It’s not defined anywhere. Can anyone tell me definitively what it means? Because the writers don’t seem to be able to. Perhaps more concerning, how far does “justified by a compelling State interest” go? It’s not defined in the document. Could it be a compelling state interest to abort anyone determined to likely be handicapped? Force someone on food stamps or other aid to get an abortion? How about sterilization?

Boiled down to it’s most basic, could Article 22 actually be saying “So long as the state has no compelling interest otherwise, citizens will have reproductive autonomy,” as some have suggested? Sounds about right to me.

Article 22 may sound good to the casual glance, but when you really look at it, and consider it, what you find is a can of worms that will benefit no one. And quite possibly cause great harm to the very freedoms we so value.

The Vermont Right to Life Political Committee recently announced it recommends pro-life Vermonters choose Libertarian nominee Ericka Redic for Congress over GOP nominee Liam Madden and Democrat nominee Becca Balint.

VRLCPC emphasized that it uses the word ‘recommends’ rather than the stronger term ‘endorses.’ And the party label adheres somewhat loosely to both candidates. Redic is historically a Republican with Libertarian leanings who chose to accept the Libertarian nomination only after the avowed political independent Madden won the GOP nomination in the August 9 primary. 

Still, Vermont pro-life voters might wonder why a nominee of the famously pro-choice Libertarian Party got the nod over the nominee from the Republican Party which, alone among Vermont political parties, includes in its Vermont party platform this plank: “We value the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.”

While both candidates oppose the proposed federal ban on abortion, they disagree on Article 22, the state’s proposed “reproductive liberty” constitutional amendment. As they stated during a September 15 VTDigger candidate debate, Madden supports Article 22. Redic opposes it. Furthermore, she passionately states her support for crisis pregnancy centers and mourns that as a young woman she had an abortion without knowing CPC help was available. 

Redic and Madden state their views, beginning at about the 21:10 mark. 

VT Digger: Earlier this week, Senator Lindsey Graham proposed a bill that would ban abortion nationwide at 15 weeks of gestation. Miss Redic, at VTDigger’s Republican primary U.S House debate in June, you said you would not support a federal abortion ban, saying the issue should be left to the states. Is this still your position?

Redic: Yes, it is it is still my position. I think that the reality of the circumstance that we’re in right now is that there are literally hundreds of thousands over a million women every year in the United States who find themselves in a position of being pregnant and not knowing what to do. I was in this position in my early 20s, and being born and raised in Vermont, where you just get taught, because our culture here is such that if you get pregnant out of wedlock and you and your boyfriend is not gonna, whatever, then you just get an abortion. That’s just what you do, and so that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. 

Now that I’m older I actually can’t have children, so now I’m going to miss out on the opportunity of motherhood because I didn’t know that there was an organization out there that could help me, not only with my medical care and supplies, but giving me parent coaching, giving the father parent coaching, and helping us work together as a family. That’s why I support organizations like Aspire now that help women in crisis pregnancy, to know that they can choose life, that they can keep that child. 

What I want to see, in a place like Vermont where we give over a million dollars to abortion clinics, like a million and a half dollars to abortion clinics, and zero dollars to Pregnancy Resource Centers, what I would love to see is for our state to Reject article 22 to say that abortion up to nine months is not okay. 85 percent of Americans agree.

VTDigger: Mr Madden, at that same June debate you said you would support compromise abortion legislation based on fetal viability. Please describe what a suitable compromise of abortion legislation would mean to you.

Madden: Ericka, I’m so sorry that happened to you. That’s heartbreaking. I’d like to start with some areas of agreement. I agree with Ruth Bader Ginsburg that access to abortion is central to a woman’s dignity. I agree with Justice Ginsburg that this issue is better decided by legislation than by courts. And I agree that the Constitutional grounds for protecting abortion is better rooted in equal protection clause rather than the Roe versus Wade privacy rights argument. 

But where I agree with Becca is that I think we agree that 99 percent of abortions happen before a fetus is independently viable, and those should be protected choices, and we agree that the majority of all abortions after that are likely due to the health of the mother being in jeopardy or the fetus being incompatible with life. 

So I think we would agree that if we were to allow states to prevent some late-term abortions, excluding the ones that I just mentioned, we would be only preventing an extremely rare instance of elective abortions in the last term, which is probably like less than one in a thousand. 

Where we disagree is that I believe it is relevant when a child can live independently of the mother and that provides a moral and legal complexity that deserves attention. Even if elective late term abortions are rare, we provide regulation around all sorts of other rare occurrences when they’re ethically relevant. 

This week Becca Balint sent a text message to thousands of Vermonters saying that she needed money because her opponent is anti-choice and at first I was kind of angry about this because I thought it was misleading to say that someone who believes in a constitutional amendment protecting 99% of the choices is not anti-choice. 

But I’m thinking about it more, and I’m realizing that I don’t think you actually see that there’s nuance here, Rebecca, and I’m so happy to be a voice for the middle 80% of Vermonters who want a voice in this discussion.

Get an extra ballot? Get one for someone not living there? Read on!

Just yesterday I was on a local radio station and once again the very first caller wanted to talk about the problem happening in Vermont with our new mail-out ballot process.

Well the Republican Party is taking action to correct this.  That's why we launched an "Excess Ballot" Reporting system from our website.  You can find the link here:

If any voter has received a ballot that was sent to their address incorrectly, they can complete a report on our website that we will forward to the proper election officials for challenge or removal.

We can't continue to allow easily solvable problems like this to cost the state money and frustrate voters with excess ballots.  If Democrats don't care about improving our election systems, then Republicans will step in and do what we can.

Now that we've created the reporting system we need YOUR help to get the word out.  Share with your neighbors and friends.