Free Republic

The effort to enact state preemption law-violating “gun control” measures in Burlington is being advanced in steps as recommended by Rep. Linda Waite-Simpson of Essex and anti-gun activists, the Vermont Federation of Sportmen’s Clubs reported yesterday, citing the latest “Vermont this Week” Public Television panel. The revealed game plan is to settle for incremental gains and then go back later to try for further measures, “[T]he Burlington City Council's charter committee changed its proposed gun control ordinance … in hopes of having it pass at the Burlington Council City Public Hearing,” VFSC told its supporters in an advisory alert. Moderator...

In a week when we celebrated one of the greatest speeches in history, we also saw discrimination win over science. Again. Ideology defeated reason. As a scientist, I was saddened in a way I am not usually wont. The Great State of Vermont threw away cheap clean energy this week out of ignorance and fear. Vermont chose to be stupid, and will hurt the environment as a sidebar.

Steven Salaita, an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, argues in a column posted this morning at Salon.com that Americans should stop saying "support the troops," calling it "trite and tiresome." He argues that patriotism and voicing support for the troops is merely a cover for American "imperialism" and likens American soldiers to murderers and ignorant individuals who "act like an Adam Sandler character."

A Unitarian church in Middlebury Vermont has been attempting to induce people to give their guns to the Government to be destroyed for a price far below market value.  From wcax.com: Minister Barnaby Feder says he recognizes that guns tend to sell for much more than $50 online, but that he hopes this incentive will at least make people aware of the option to dispose of firearms. So far no guns have been brought to the police department for cash. I do not see anyone organizing massive protests over this clear Church/State cooperation.   The money has been turned over...

RUTLAND — Joshua Severance says his Second Amendment rights to openly carry a firearm were violated, but Rutland police say they were following the law when they handcuffed and briefly detained the Milton man this week. In a case that appears destined to end in a courtroom, Severance, 26, says he was walking down a residential Rutland street Monday afternoon with his shirt off and his 9mm Beretta semiautomatic handgun holstered on his hip when a city police cruiser stopped in front of him and an officer ordered him to place his hands on the hood. “I figured they wanted...

Danilo Lopez will be allowed to stay in the country, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says. Lopez, a Vermont migrant-worker-turned-activist from Mexico, advocated for a new law allowing people without legal status to get drivers' licenses. Lopez was scheduled to be deported on July 5. In 2011, Lopez was traveling in a friend’s car when a police officer pulled them over for speeding. Lopez was turned over to Border Patrol, detained and released. Since then, he’s helped Vermont’s migrant worker community get access to driver's licenses. Earlier this year, Lopez said that the campaign for driver's licenses is really...

DANBY, Vt. — The stepmother of a Vermont man who shot a Hudson Falls man to death Sunday said her stepson was defending his family. Vermont State Police said Aaron Allen, 28, of Hudson Falls, died after being shot by Michael White, 24. Police said Allen went to a house on John Corey Road Sunday evening with a knife and was stabbing his ex-girlfriend, Heather Thompson, when he was shot. Thompson, 22, had a restraining order issued in Washington County against Allen because of an April arrest for unlawful restraint, police said. “He came to kill her, and who knows,...

Second Amendment activists have shot down gun-control legislation in Montpelier and are drawing a bead on Sen. Patrick Leahy’s anti-weapons-trafficking proposal and other measures in Washington. But Gun Owners of Vermont, the state affiliate of a group described by the New York Times as more militant than the National Rifle Association, hasn’t yet managed to kill Burlington’s bid to ban assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition clips. “Burlington is saying ‘our state government isn’t doing anything, our federal government isn’t doing anything, so we’re going to do something,’” comments State Rep. Linda Waite-Simpson (D-Essex), Vermont’s foremost gun-control advocate. “Burlington’s trying to...

Since the murder of 20 kindergarten students in Newtown, Conn., sparked a nationwide debate over firearms, Gov. Peter Shumlin has been unwavering in his opposition to any new Vermont laws aimed at restricting the rights of gun owners. “I just think you need a 50-state solution,” Shumlin said at a press conference last Thursday. “That’s not something that I feel any ambiguity about.” Could a new piece of information change his mind? At that same press conference, Shumlin was asked whether state and local police should be able to enforce federal gun laws that aren’t codified in Vermont statute. Federal...

MONTPELIER, Vt. - Vermont officials overseeing the state's transition to a single-payer health care system say providing health insurance to undocumented immigrants would not likely cost taxpayers much money. Lawmakers asked the Green Mountain Care Board to examine the costs of coverage for people who are here illegally. But officials say it's difficult to nail down a price tag because there are no firm numbers of how many undocumented people live in Vermont. It's estimated to be between 1,500 and 3,000. "But we did learn, I think, enough kind of useful facts about the demographics of the population and some...

What do you do when you are an assistant professor at a public university and you’ve been caught red-handed retweeting a tweet advocating murder? If you’re University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, you delete your entire Twitter account ... We’re glad he won’t be advocating violence on Twitter any longer. Hopefully, he will use the freed-up time to seek help from a mental health professional. * * * Update: What exactly is Loomis hiding? Before he deleted his Twitter account, we managed to make note of a few of his angrier tweets

If you don’t lock up your guns – or at least keep them unloaded – when you have guests, you could be sued when something goes wrong. One Vermont family is finding out just how horribly wrong things can go: They are being sued for wrongful death in the wake of an accidental shooting between two house guests, which left one of them dead. The suit alleges that the family was negligent, because the weapon involved in the incident was loaded, unsecured and belonged to a family member. Tragic Facts Jeffrey Charbonneau, 24, and his friend Nick Bell, 25, ran...

What started as a “top secret” Obama administration stealth initiative – illegal alien amnesty – has now become publicly and painfully obvious as millions of illegal aliens line-up to receive their “priority deferment.” Per immigration expert Mark Krikorian: What does President Barack Obama call a bill which has repeatedly failed in Congress? A law! The Department of Homeland Security yesterday began accepting applications for the “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” (DACA) amnesty program. The move will award renewable two-year grants of legal status, including work cards and Social Security numbers, to illegal aliens claiming to have arrived before their 16th...

Lisa Miller and daughter Isabellea August 15, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Kenneth L. Miller, a Mennonite pastor who helped a little girl and her mother to flee the United States to escape the girl’s court-imposed lesbian “mother,” has been convicted on the charge of “aiding and abetting a parental kidnapping.” A Vermont jury returned the verdict yesterday after only four hours of deliberation. He is free while awaiting sentencing, which could bring a punishment of up to three years in prison.  Miller’s attorney, Joshua M. Autry, says he is considering an appeal. Following the verdict, lesbian Janet Jenkins filed a civil...

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont prosecutor says an Essex homeowner who stabbed to death an intruder found in his home in the middle of the night acted in self-defense and no charges will be filed. On Tuesday, Chittenden County State's Attorney T.J. Donovan released the results of his investigation into the June 1 incident at the home of 40-year-old Shawn Garrett.

WINOOSKI, Vt. - "I know they don't leave their door open like that late at night," Christine Cusson. Cusson watched as police swarmed her neighbors' home early Tuesday morning. She lives on River Street in Winooski with her young son. But a violent home invasion has her second guessing their safety. "It's pretty hard," she said. "It's scary." Police say at 1 a.m. Tuesday the tenants in an apartment heard a banging at the door. The male resident told police the woman standing outside was a stranger. She was looking for another man who occasionally stayed with the Winooski couple....

Jury finds Va. Tech negligent in '07 shootings By STEVE SZKOTAK, Associated Press – 1 minute ago CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. (AP) — A jury has found Virginia Tech negligent for delaying a campus warning of the first shootings in a 2007 campus massacre that left 33 dead. Jurors returned the verdict Wednesday in a wrongful death civil suit brought by the parents of two students who were killed on April 16, 2007, in the most deadly mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Jurors deliberated for 3 ½ hours before awarding $4 million to each family, and the state immediately filed a...

Several Democratic senators are calling on the Obama administration to allow Syrians who are already in the United States to stay, at least temporarily, out of concern it would be "too dangerous" for them to return home. The senators want President Obama to invoke what's known as "temporary protected status" for thousands of Syrians in the U.S. The designation typically is given to foreign nationals whose home countries are beset by war or natural disaster and who could face harm should they return. The senators argued that Syrians in the U.S. are in just that kind of predicament, as Syrian...

MONTPELIER, Vt. - The two Mexican farmworkers were nervous. Seated in a pickup truck whose driver had been stopped for speeding on a Vermont highway, they didn't know what to expect from the state trooper. They'd heard of other farmworkers being detained or deported in the largely white state, whose $560 million dairy industry relies on Mexican farmhands like them. But one of the men also had been in a similar stop in New York and didn't get bothered.

Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s independent senator and the only avowed socialist in the U.S. Senate, announced Thursday afternoon that he has officially proposed a constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision from 2010. (Sanders is also an occasional contributor to In These Times.) That ruling gutted a portion of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, passed in 2002, which forbid electoral advertising by corporations, nonprofits and unions. Reactions to the decision mostly split along partisan lines, with Republicans calling it a blow for the First Amendment and Democrats predicting it would allow corporate influence to undermine the democratic process....