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An arrest Friday in the case of a Vermont state employee accused of shopping with taxpayer dollars. Lisa Peduzzi of Plainfield is charged with embezzlement. In a press conference, Gov. Peter Shumlin said there were 19 cases to date of possible fraud. Peduzzi is in state custody and police were searching her home Friday. The governor called Peduzzi's alleged actions "fairly sophisticated deception and long-term fraud." He said, "I mean it was a fairly crafty and involved a scheme. It was not simply putting your fingers in the till and gabbing a couple of bucks." Peduzzi worked for the Vermont...

COLCHESTER, Vt. (AP) -- A bunch of kids in a minivan are solving twin challenges in northern Vermont: refugees struggling to find the food of their homelands and farmers looking to offload unwanted livestock. The half dozen kids - that is, baby goats - that arrived last week at Pine Island Farm were the latest additions to the Vermont Goat Collaborative, a project that brings together new Americans hungry for goat meat with dairy goat farmers who have no need for young male animals. Some dairy farmers who otherwise would discard bucklings at birth or spend valuable time finding homes...

Governor Cuomo has signed off on the National Popular Vote Compact, giving New York's 29 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote. SILive: Count New York in. The Empire State has joined the National Popular Vote compact with legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. States that have signed on to the interstate agreement will award electoral votes for president to the candidate who receives the majority of the national popular vote. "With the passage of this legislation, New York is taking a bold step to fundamentally increase the strength and fairness of our nation's presidential elections,"...

That honor now goes to New Jersey. Tax reforms passed in the latest budget represent big improvements for corporations, but not so much for individuals. ... Still, New York remains a burdensome place to earn a living. The reforms did not change the state's poor rankings for having high sales taxes (No. 38), individual income taxes (No. 49) and unemployment taxes (No. 45). Meanwhile, the governor announced Tuesday that the state tax department collected nearly $4 billion in evaded taxes in the past year, a 5% or $200 million increase compared to the year earlier.The state collects about $87 billion...

A plan, now stealthily making its way through state legislatures with astonishing speed, would junk the Electoral College and award the presidency to the winner of the popular vote. The plan involves an Interstate Compact where states would commit to select electors pledged to vote for the national popular vote winner regardless of how their own state voted. When enough states pass this law, sufficient to cast 270 votes which is the majority of the Electoral College, it will take effect. So far, nine states and the District of Columbia, casting 136 electoral votes, have joined. This is halfway to...

WASHINGTON — Bernie Sanders has been calling activists and traveling the country with a question: Could he vault from his US Senate seat representing what is fondly called the People’s Republic of Vermont to the White House? His next stop in search of an answer is the first presidential primary state of New Hampshire, where this weekend he plans to bring his campaign complaint about America becoming an “oligarchic society.’’ The lawmaker, who is possibly the most liberal of all members of Congress — and the only one to call himself a democratic socialist — said in an interview this...

It’s not often that a U.S. government agency gets caught red-handed abiding by its charter and performing its publicly-avowed and legislatively-approved duties. But last week the AP "broke" a long and breathless story from Havana that nailed the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) for just that. In their own words, "a secret plan aimed at undermining Cuba’s communist government," was courageously exposed by the AP’s intrepid Havana bureau. Such is the magnitude of the scandal that a red-faced and snarling Senator Patrick Leahy is now chairing hearings on Capitol Hill where he grills USAID director Rajiv Shah on...

link only: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-11/vermont-s-single-payer-dream-is-taxpayer-nightmare?cmpid=yhoo

Democratic lawmakers and campaign finance reform advocates quickly bashed Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision to strike down total limits on individual campaign contributions, warning of future corruption in elections. Meanwhile, Republicans largely cheered the ruling from the narrowly divided court, which found it unconstitutional to impose caps on the aggregate amounts that one person can donate to campaigns, parties and political action committees. Calling himself “all for freedom,” Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday commended the ruling, saying “donors ought to have the freedom to give what they want to give.” And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who had filed...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Tuesday declined to voice support for Democratic legislation that would ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips. Reid said he would bring gun-violence legislation to the floor and open it to a lengthy amendment process. But he declined to endorse the assault weapons ban introduced last week by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), which has the support of the 2nd- and 3rd-ranking Senate Democratic leaders. “She’s talked to me about her assault weapons. The new one. She believes in it fervently and I admire her for that. I’ll take a look at that,” he...

Since winning the governor’s seat in 2010, Peter Shumlin has pledged to make Vermont the first state in the country with a single-payer health care system. But a key legislative ally now says the proposal might not be as politically viable as Shumlin seems to believe. And Senate President John Campbell says it’s time to start putting together a contingency plan. Shumlin has backed off on his promise to deliver a publicly funded plan by January of 2017. But while the timeline may have moved back, Shumlin says he’ll still reach the goal. Campbell, however, isn’t so sure. And he...

In 2011, Vermont passed the nation's first single-payer healthcare system, "Green Mountain Care." While the law was supposed to be fully enacted by 2017, it has become apparent that there's no solid plan in place to actually pay for the healthcare of all Vermont residents. Democratic lawmakers, citing missed deadlines and past failures, have begun to call for Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin to "shelve" the plan. “The deadlines for proposing financing have been missed two years in a row now, so to me that’s very disappointing. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that there is no financing plan,” Condon told...

No, no it can’t Vermont Health Connect is a disaster. It’s a disaster even by the standards of other troubled state health care websites. And Green Mountain Care, its attempt at single payer, is an even bigger disaster. (via Ace) Al Gobeille, the chair of the Green Mountain Care Board, says additional tax revenue will be needed in order to make a publicly-financed health care system affordable for all Vermonters.And Gobeille says he won’t shy away from the challenge.“That’s the question that everybody runs from, but I’ve never run from it,” said Gobeille. “It’s going to come from a...

Stephanie Predel is off heroin. But the Bennington, Vt., area, where she lives, is in the throes of an epidemic. BENNINGTON, Vt. — Stephanie Predel, a stick-thin 23-year-old freshly out of jail, said she was off heroin. But she knows precisely where she could get more drugs if she ever wanted them — at the support meetings for addicts. “I can get most of my drugs right at the meeting,” she said. “Drug dealers go because they know they’re going to get business.” She added, “People are going into the bathroom to get high.” Bennington, a pre-Revolutionary town of 17,000...

Dozens of parents and concerned citizens gathered outside the office of the Vermont Department for Children and Families in Rutland Monday. They want answers from the child protection agency after two-year-old Dezirae Sheldon was allegedly murdered by her stepfather, 31-year-old Dennis Duby. "The signs were there. Pay attention to them. This little one could have been alive," said Lindsay Miller, who took part in the protest. Those signs include a child abuse investigation last year into Dezirae's mother -- Sandra Eastman. In July she was convicted of breaking the baby's leg and then waiting at least a week to seek...

The Talk Shows February 23rd, 2014 Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows: FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.; Govs. Scott Walker, R-Wis., and Peter Shumlin, D-Vt.MEET THE PRESS (NBC): National Security Adviser Susan Rice.FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Govs. Bobby Jindal, R-La., and Martin O'Malley, D-Md.THIS WEEK (ABC): Former President George W. Bush.STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Govs. Rick Perry, R-Texas, Mike Pence, R-Ind., Dannel Malloy, D-Conn., Jay Nixon D-Mo.

Maria von Trapp, whose family's story was told in The Sound of Music, has died. She was the last surviving member of the musical family of seven brothers and sisters and passed away in her sleep at home in Vermont at the age of 99 on Tuesday, PEOPLE confirms. Von Trapp, who was the second-eldest daughter, and her family fled their home in Austria to escape from the Nazis in the 1930s and eventually ended up in the U.S., where their story inspired a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical and the popular 1965 movie starring Julie Andrews.

What do you mean "us," Kemosabe? If Howard Dean wants to push a job-killing agenda of higher taxes and other redistributionist claptrap, that's his business. But could he please spare us the faux populism? In an email Dean sent out earlier today touting the "Inequality For All" house parties his DFA group is organizing [and what sounds like more fun than getting together to gripe about what other people have?], Dean wrote [emphasis added]: "These 'Inequality for All' Watch Parties are just the kind of action we need to start leveling the playing field between the 1% and the rest...

In a brief to be filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, 19 Democratic senators are siding with the Obama administration against evangelical Christian businessmen who argue that paying for their employees’ birth control, a requirement under Obamacare, violates their company’s religious freedom. The senators—five of them women—argue in their “friend of the court” brief that the owners of the Oklahoma-based crafts store chain Hobby Lobby are not exempt from the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate simply because some forms of birth control offend their religious beliefs. Hobby Lobby’s owners, David Green and his family, are suing the federal...

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a potential 2016 Republican presidential contender, is trying to refocus the debate over National Security Agency surveillance on the terrorists who actually succeed in pulling off attacks in the United States.Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a potential 2016 Republican presidential contender, is trying to refocus the debate over National Security Agency surveillance on the terrorists who actually succeed in pulling off attacks in the United States.“The federal government has not been effective enough monitoring and surveilling bad guys,” Cruz said this week as the Senate awaited President Barack Obama’s NSA reform proposals which he’ll announce...