Who won and lost the week in Vermont news and politics? Behold, The Scoreboard for the week ending Friday, April 26:

Winners:

Chikin — Everybody’s favorite kale-eating t-shirt maker, Bo Muller-Moore, lost round one of his fight against Chick-fil-A this week. Apparently the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office thinks we’re all too stupid to distinguish between kale and “chikin” — whatever that is.

Bankers, smokers and low-income workers — A last-minute proposal by Gov. Peter Shumlin to stick five large banks with a higher franchise tax rate seems to be going nowhere in the Senate, while the Finance Committee has put higher cigarette prices on the back burner. Most significantly, the committee’s leaving alone the Earned Income Tax Credit, which Shumlin tried to gut.

Vermont newspapers and radio stations — They got a half-million-dollar infusion of cash earlier this year when the beverage industry went on a spending binge to kill the soda tax. Now those aren’t empty calories.

Vermonters First — The state’s left-leaning political establishment loves to poo-poo the conservative super-PAC-turned-lobbying-outfit, but it does so at its own peril. The group’s latest mailer — it hit House Democrats who backed a trio of tax increases — shows it’ll relentlessly target its opponents in the 18 months leading up to the next election.

F-35 opponents — The plane-haters nabbed a high-profile ally this week when Ben & Jerry’s cofounder Ben Cohen scooped up the anti-Pentagon rhetoric outside Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Burlington office. Runner-up loser: Leahy, who’s refused to personally sit down with the opposition, but who was more than happy to take a phone call Tuesday from Cohen. Guess you gotta have Chunky Monkey bucks to get your calls returned!

Losers after the break…

Paul Heintz was part of the Seven Days news team from 2012 to 2020. He served as political editor and wrote the "Fair Game" political column before becoming a staff writer.