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Comment Archives: Stories: News + Opinion
Re: “Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House”
Extremist Christians terrorize more Americans than any Muslim ever has. The Handmaid's Tale is not a dystopian fantasy to these sick people, it's their dream future.
I will always prioritize the well being of living women over fetuses, as do the vast majority of decent people around the world.
Posted by
Penelope
on 02/18/2019 at 3:12 PM
Re: “Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House”
There is a big difference between leaning on current federal statute and defining a State law. Per testimony in committee this bill creates legal means to stifle public education which encourages carrying a baby to term..."A public entity [any employee or office in any branch of government] shall not: ... (2) interfere with or restrict, in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information, the choice of a consenting individual to terminate the individuals pregnancy. Only abortion is protected in this way. Giving birth does not have such protection. So much for "Reproductive" rights. More like non-reproductive rights.
Posted by
Ronald Rossi
on 02/18/2019 at 3:01 PM
Re: “Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House”
"(D)ecisions on abortion should be made between a woman and her doctor."
Responding to Sharon Toborg and the cited "federal ban on partial-birth abortions": Information lacking in her comments are the details of WHY families and physicians choose these procedures... (and it is rightfully confidential until statistics and data are neutralized and collected). When the woman's or fetus' lives and/ or well-being are in danger, state and federal bans should have no place at all.
I have been very grateful in recent years to observe how emergency medical interventions can save lives ....
Perhaps one reason that medical ethical choice is a Human Right declared by international law--and certainly shouldn't be over-ridden by emphatic "public opinion."
Posted by
Renée Carpenter
on 02/18/2019 at 2:40 PM
Re: “Immigration Dispute Leads Feds to Withhold $2 Million in Grants From Vermont Police”
Love and/or hate can cloud ones thoughts. During the obama era, love of the man, his tone, his inflection, his spunk and his skin color drove millions to look at the world through rose colored glasses and embrace everything he said or did. This was done regardless of the damage his words and actions inflicted on our country. Loosening and ignoring the federal government's duty under the constitution to protect the homeland and creating new executive orders to exacerbate illegal entry was a very destructive effort by obama but out of love for the man the democrats promoted it it. Now, everything President Trump is trying to do to uphold laws and protect the homeland is being thwarted by the democrats. The state of VT is trying to do everything they can to allow illegal immigration and make it as hard as possible for the feds to do their required jobs and protect us all. How stupid is this? It's all done out of hate for one man and completely overlooks the implications to our country. This is what the democrats and their media, "entertainment" and education systems have accomplished. Their subversion is destroying this country. Many people are not capable of thinking on their own.
Posted by
PRichards
on 02/18/2019 at 9:08 AM
Re: “Cops Bust a Burlington Pot Shop That Hid in Plain Sight”
JEFF SPICOLI
So what Jefferson was saying was " Hey" you know, we left this England place because it was bogus! So if we don't get some cool rules ourselves, Pronto, we'll just be bogus too, yeah!
Posted by
ski pepsi
on 02/18/2019 at 8:15 AM
Re: “Vermont House Bill Would Allow Legal Cannabis Sales Next Year”
Looks like our clueless reps are going to blow this opportunity. Vermont should be positioning itself to do what we do best . Small quality craft production. If they insist on a huge buy-in upfront, only venture capitalists will be running marijuana businesses, and if they tax it to the point where the black market is cheaper, it is entirely self-defeating. A small, 6 plant indoor grow under the current law can yield 2-5 lbs a year. Who wouldn't like the extra income that could provide. But it looks like the home farmer will be left out of the equation.
Posted by
Rich Williams
on 02/17/2019 at 2:00 PM
Re: “Crumbling Local Roads Fuel Talk of a Vermont Gas Tax Hike”
How are those driving tax subsidized Green cars paying their "fair share"?
Posted by
Valerie Mullin 1
on 02/17/2019 at 9:54 AM
Re: “Opioid Deaths Rise in Vermont but Plummet in Chittenden County”
"At the same time, the total number of Vermonters who died of an opioid overdose continued to increase."
In other words, Vermont's two State economic, educational and social status not only continues, its polarity is being exacerbated.
I implore everyone to watch economist Thomas Sowells recent interview - especially those of you not living in Chittenden County. Your community survival depends on knowing the data and being able to read between the lines of Vermont's pervasive political rhetoric.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS5WYp5xmv…
Posted by
Jay Eshelman
on 02/17/2019 at 9:01 AM
Re: “Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House”
Government, whether state or federal, is not God. Remember the phrase 'do not mess with Mother Nature'. Follow the statement or suffer the consequences for being weak.
Posted by
Peter Rousseau1
on 02/16/2019 at 3:19 PM
Re: “State Revokes Burlington Guidance Director's License”
Why no accountability up the line for those that interviewed, vetted, and hired what amounts to sheer incompetence?
Is that not a display of incompetence and the other hand not knowing what is/was going on as well or was a merit hire the last thing they were looking to accomplish?
Posted by
JimM
on 02/16/2019 at 7:40 AM
Re: “Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House”
Brynn Hare testified in the Judiciary Committee that late-term abortions are legal in Vermont now and would remain so if H.57 were to become law. Abortion advocates cite the federal ban on partial-birth abortion as though it prohibits all late second and third trimester abortions. It does not. It prohibits a specific type of abortion procedure, but there are other procedures used to abort babies later in pregnancy. D&E abortions, in which the unborn child is dismembered and removed piece by piece; and induction abortion, in which the baby is given a lethal injection in utero and then labor is induced to deliver the dead fetus, are methods of abortion used in the second and third trimesters. Dr. Lauren McAfee testified that she performs these procedures at the UVM Medical Center.
Posted by
Sharon Toborg
on 02/15/2019 at 10:50 PM
Re: “Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House”
The Supreme Court can't overturn a previous case. They can decide a new case differently.
Roe v Wade has already been surpassed by later cases.
The same way dred scott wasn't overturned at the court level. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott…
It was a later, different case that changed things, along with constitutional amendments.
Posted by
doom
on 02/15/2019 at 6:14 PM
Re: “Walters: One Year Later, Fair Haven Still Resonates”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co…
Https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk…
And even suicide, not that it has anything to do with this, isn't abnormal. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co…
And while suicide is up slightly, "The CDC study found that 54% of Americans who died by suicide had no known mental health illness."
So at best, the most insane overreaching denial of gun rights based on some sort of mental health check wouldn't even get half that "gun deaths" to go away.
Your conflation from suicide, to gun deaths, to "lives lost at the point of a gun" hurts your argument.
Posted by
doom
on 02/15/2019 at 5:36 PM
Re: “University of Vermont Faculty and Students Sound Off As Presidential Finalist Visits Campus”
UVM is a bloated institution that fails to benefit from state support. Buying into the idea that corporate money is good for STEM is a sign of loss of academic rigor. Good scientists realize that bad science is often done when corporations hold the money strings. The scientific literature is rife with authors denying conflicts of interest when their funding comes exclusively from a corporation or group whose interests are central to the experiments.
A healthier source of funding is from the state or the NSF, or any of the federal agencies that fund science. We are living in a world where corporate interests trump the interests of society or indeed the world. We are seeing our climate deteriorate because we can't control the greed of the people making money off that deterioration. This model for UVM buys right into that mentality. It's got to stop.
Posted by
Barbara Alsop
on 02/15/2019 at 1:39 PM
Re: “Former Burlington Guidance Counselors Describe 'Toxic' Workplace Under Director”
jeez cashman that is really a moronic comment.
Posted by
benning matsumoku
on 02/15/2019 at 1:06 PM
Re: “Walters: One Year Later, Fair Haven Still Resonates”
Suicide isn't a crime, at least not one that is related to mass murder in the way you just decided to link it. Half of "gun deaths" are suicide. Most of the remainder are related to gang and drug violence.
You also don't include any other reason the us may have a higher suicide rate. There are plenty of other countries that have higher rates than the us, but you failed to include those.
Posted by
doom
on 02/15/2019 at 12:31 PM
Re: “Winooski Voters to Consider Another Downtown Parking Garage”
Follow the Money: this boondoggle is intended to enrich certain Winooski employees and contractors, there is already a vast surplus of parking available in the existing garage.
I recommend that someone investigate the expense reimbursements, employee bonuses and side deals that are in place to get a full picture of what is happening here.
A new garage is not needed for the following reasons:
* Less than 20% of the total parking spots in the current Winooski garage are occupied at any given time.
* Several ENTIRE floors of the current Winooski garage currently sit vacant 7 days per week!!
* The city has reserved the majority of parking spots in the current garage for "permit holders" only, however the city completely refuses to actually issue parking permits (call/email Jessie Baker and confirm for yourself.)
* The maintenance, operating and total financial costs on the current garage exceeds the revenue generated from parking.
* An unreasonable amount of money is paid to Winooski employees and contractors to maintain and operate the garage relative to other garages of this size.
Posted by
ConcernedVermonter
on 02/15/2019 at 12:19 PM
Re: “Walters: One Year Later, Fair Haven Still Resonates”
Are people seriously disliking low crime?
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/…
Everything is far better than it was just a decade ago.
New England is even better than average.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/…
You can compare this with nics checks over time, roughly seeing how many additional guns there are in public hands.
https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_f…
Posted by
doom
on 02/15/2019 at 11:27 AM
Re: “Walters: One Year Later, Fair Haven Still Resonates”
"Doom" suggests that worrying about guns, which he or she terms "hoplophobia" is "ridiculous." it's not. "A steady rise in suicides involving firearms has pushed the rate of gun deaths in the US to its highest rate in more than 20 years, with almost 40,000 people killed in shootings in 2017, according to new figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDCs Wonder database shows that in 2017, 39,773 people in the US lost their lives at the point of a gun, marking the onward march of firearm fatalities in a country renowned for its lax approach to gun controls. When adjusted for age fluctuations, that represents a total of 12 deaths per 100,000 people up from 10.1 in 2010 and the highest rate since 1996.
What that bare statistic represents in terms of human tragedy is most starkly reflected when set alongside those of other countries. According to a recent study from the Jama Network, it compares with rates of 0.2 deaths per 100,000 people in Japan, 0.3 in the UK, 0.9 in Germany and 2.1 in Canada.
Jama found that just six countries in the world are responsible for more than half of all 250,000 gun deaths a year around the globe. The US is among those six, together with Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela and Guatemala." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/d…
Posted by
JohnGreenberg
on 02/15/2019 at 11:26 AM
Recent Comments
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farmerdms: Way to go Vermont! Now how do we make sure they are legal AND rare. What is the…
Re: Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House
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Penelope: Extremist Christians terrorize more Americans than any Muslim ever has. The Handmaid's Tale is not a dystopian fantasy…
Re: Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House
-
Ronald Rossi: There is a big difference between leaning on current federal statute and defining a State law. Per testimony…
Re: Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House
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Renée Carpenter: "(D)ecisions on abortion should be made between a woman and her doctor."
Responding to Sharon Toborg and…Re: Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House
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PRichards: Love and/or hate can cloud ones thoughts. During the obama era, love of the man, his tone, his…
Re: Immigration Dispute Leads Feds to Withhold $2 Million in Grants From Vermont Police
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Re: “Walters: Abortion Rights Bill Headed for Floor Vote in the Vermont House”
Way to go Vermont! Now how do we make sure they are legal AND rare. What is the unmet need for family planning and how do we assure the fewest possible unplanned pregnancies?