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Eighty-five of 100 U.S. senators voted to renew the president’s power to indefinitely detain Americans, denying them of their fundamental right to due process.On December 19, by a vote of 84-15 (Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, did not vote), the Senate sent the Fiscal Year 2014 version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to President Obama’s desk. Although an overwhelming majority of Republicans and Democrats signed off on the evisceration of the Bill of Rights, a small coalition of Independents, Republicans, and Democrats refused to accede to such a devastation deprivation of rights. A list of the lawmakers...

"Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other elected officials?" That's the question Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) put to the National Security Agency's chief in a bluntly worded letter Friday. It seems, however, that the agency cannot categorically say no. Sanders didn't use the word "spy" lightly. He was careful to define his terms, indicating he meant the collection of phone records from personal as well as official telephones, "content from Web sites visited or e-mails sent," and data that companies collect but don't release to the public.

The real life magic-mushroom, banana dictatorship envisioned by George Orwell just went full retard. From VT Senator Bernie Sanders: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today asked the National Security Agency director whether the agency has monitored the phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress and other elected officials.“Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying, on members of Congress or other American elected officials?” Sanders asked in a letter to Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director. “Spying” would include gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or emails...

As 2014 midterms approach, some Democrats are running-not walking-away from Obamacare....coming out of the woodwork to voice opposition. •39th President Jimmy Carter: "His major accomplishment was Obamacare, and the implementation of it now is questionable at best." •Barney Frank, former Massachusetts Congressman: "I think we paid a terrible price for health care." •Former Democratic Presidential candidate, Howard Dean, a doctor: "The Affordable Care Act's Rate-Setting Won't Work." Obamacare was primarily designed to decrease the number of uninsured Americans and reduce healthcare costs. But experts say it will have the exact opposite effect. What started as a promise to insure 40...

The Talk Shows December 29th, 2013 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Democratic former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Joaquin Castro, D-Texas.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Gen. Michael Hayden, Former National Security Agency Director; NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake.THIS WEEK (ABC): A look at game changers in 2013 (I can’t help thinking it’s Auburn running back Chris Davis).STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Secretary of State John Kerry. STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Neera Tanden, president and CEO of...

MONTPELIER, Vt. - Betsy Bishop and staff at the Vermont Chamber of Commerce spent much of the year on the phone, convincing business operators to bring their insurance business to the state's online marketplace. But now, they're calling back to let them know the plans they picked won't be available Jan. 1 because of bugs and delays. "And we're having a bit of trouble convincing people to come off their decision. They're saying to us now we want to stay with Vermont Health Connect, which is great but there's no way for that payment mechanism to work," Bishop said. Bishop...

Back before a handful of other states adopted “Constitutional Carry” laws providing for permitless carrying of concealed firearms, the practice was called “Vermont Carry,” as the Green Mountain State stood alone throughout the 20th Century in not prohibiting it. Long known for lenient gun laws and low numbers of homicides, Vermont represented the perfect real-world test of economist John Lott’s “More Guns Less Crime” thesis. Which made it a threat to the gun-grabbers… Vermont had also enacted firearms preemption legislation, meaning laws were set by the state, prohibiting municipalities from establishing a “patchwork quilt” of conflicting ordinances that would make...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the Senate’s most unabashedly progressive member, told the Burlington Free Press on Friday that he may run for President in 2016 if there is not a suitably liberal candidate. Sanders, who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, cited the need for a candidate who can tamp down on Wall Street, oppose austerity cuts and tackle climate change.

America is turning into an oligarchy — that was the message Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s self-styled socialist U.S. senator, preached to more than 100 progressive activists last Saturday at the annual fall getaway of the S.C. Progressive Network. Sanders had been on a week-long romp of the former Confederacy, and during his tour, he hit up the Progressive Network gathering taking place among the live oaks, Spanish moss, and scattered cabins of the historic Penn Center on St. Helena Island. Sanders said he had never spoken publicly in the South, but it’s been something the New Englander had always intended to...

Enlarge image Credit Taylor Dobbs / VPR Bob Dougall of Bolton, left, and Diane Tardif of Essex Junction came to Burlington Monday to protest proposed gun control measures. Burlington’s City Council Monday night heard public comments about proposed charter changes that would increase regulation of firearms in the city.Contois Auditorium in Burlington’s City Hall was standing room only, and the city council opened the auditorium’s balcony for a one-hour public hearing on the proposed changes.Four charter changes were at issue: The first would ban guns from any establishment with a liquor license; another would require police to seize firearms...

Vermont’s health-care exchange website may be even a bigger mess than the federal-run HealthCare.Gov. And health care in Vermont may be headed for a unique train wreck due to its efforts to become the first state in the country to implement a single payer plan. One of the president’s key selling points of the ACA was the promise that if you liked your plan, you could keep it. We’re learning that’s often not the case as Obamacare is implemented across the country. And in Vermont, there has been no pretense of such assurance. As of January 1, 2014, in Vermont,...

MONTPELIER — State officials are investigating how federal health care reform may allow Vermont to save on the cost of providing health services to its incarcerated population. Federal statutes prevent Medicaid — a shared state and federal program — from being used to provide health care to people behind bars. But detainees who qualify for a non-Medicaid plan on the exchange may now be able to use exchange insurance plans while in jail, potentially saving the state the cost of providing health care for them. “One of the new aspects that we’re exploring under the Affordable Care Act is that...

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...

Rangers issue a handful of citations over the weekend for alleged trespassing. The government shutdown closed the national park Oct. 1. For months, Julie and Eugene Gillies of South Portland planned to celebrate their wedding anniversary in Bar Harbor. They weren’t about to let a political fight in Congress get in the way of their plans to see Acadia National Park, which they visited on their honeymoon 34 years ago. Riding on small motor scooters beneath a bright blue sky Sunday morning, the couple went around the barricades and past the sign declaring the park closed and joined what they...

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he will push legislation to end the NSA's controversial program to collect records on all U.S. phone calls. He argued that the program invades Americans' privacy rights while doing little to thwart terrorist attacks. But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, argued that the phone data program is critical for protecting national security. "I will do everything I can to prevent this program from being canceled," Feinstein said during the hearing....

A New Hampshire academic institution's leadership has approved a $3.6 million housing project for its lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex and allied students. The Board of Trustees at Dartmouth College decided to approve the project, known as The Triangle House, at their meeting in September with work set to begin this month. Before launching The Triangle House, Dartmouth already created a "Gender Neutral Program" which "allows for same-gender, opposite-gender or other-gender identities to live together regardless of biological sex." Dartmouth is not the only New England academic institute to recently expand its housing options to include LGBT or gender...

If Congress fails to pass a budget by next Monday night, many parts of the federal government will be shut down. House Republicans have passed a budget that includes the de-funding of the Affordable Care Act but it’s an approach that has very little chance of passing the Senate. So the question is whether this stalemate will lead to a government shutdown. Speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Patrick Leahy denounced the House Republican approach. “They have no interest in fixing problems or making it better only in blowing it up. They don’t come up with one single idea that...

The protesters who uprooted a 9/11 memorial display at a liberal arts college in Vermont claimed they were defending Abenaki tribal lands and taking a stand against U.S. imperialism.The Abenaki tribe’s response? “Disgusting.”Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Abenaki Tribe, said his tribe did not approve of the actions taken by five people–including one student–at Middlebury College last week. (RELATED: Student destroys 9/11 memorial, citing U.S. imperialism)“We didn’t know anything about this and if we had we certainly wouldn’t have sanctioned it,” he said in a statement to The Addison Independent.The 9/11 memorial display consisted of 2,977 flags placed in...

UPDATE (9/12/13): Here is part of a statement written by Amanda Lickers, the woman Shireman-Grabowski claimed to assist in removing the flags. Lickers says she is a member of the Onondowa’ga Nation, which is a part of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The statement was posted in an article on the website Climate Connections: yesterday i went to occupied abenaki territory. i was invited to middlebury college to facilitate a workshop on settler responsibility and decolonization. i walked across this campus whose stone wall structures weigh heavy on the landscape. the history of eugenics, genocide and colonial violence permeate that space so...

Two of five unidentified protestors uproot flags dedicated to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks in a midday protest. (middbeat/Rachel Kogan) A 2,977 flag memorial was ripped out of the ground in front of Mead Memorial Chapel shortly before 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 11 by a group of five protestors claiming that the flags were on top of a sacred Abenaki burial site. The flags — meant to commemorate each of the 2,977 lives taken in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks — have been posted in the grass between Mead Chapel and the Davis Family Library annually in...