The governor on Tuesday had the mayor of Vermont’s largest city and another housing policy expert on hand at his weekly press conference to tell Vermonters now is not the time for red tape when it comes to reforming the state’s land use law, Act 250.
“At least five right-wing Supreme Court justices seem poised to overturn Roe v. Wade and abolish the constitutional right of women to have an abortion. In my view, the United States Senate cannot and it must not allow that to happen.”
The state Senate voted 14-10 to approve a plan to cut the state’s business profits tax from 7.6% to 7.5% for most businesses beginning in 2023. The vote went along party lines with the measure opposed by the Senate’s Democratic minority.
President Joe Biden issued an executive order last year directing the heads of all federal executive agencies to submit a strategic plan detailing their efforts to increase voter registration and voting, even though their agencies have no statutory authority to have anything to do with voting.
Gasoline prices set a record Tuesday as President Joe Biden blamed inflation on COVID-19 and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The national average of a regular gallon of gasoline was $4.374, up five cents from Monday, and $5.55 for diesel.
H.715, a bill that would have mandated a switch of heating methods and fuels in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, fell one vote short of the two-thirds required for passage Tuesday in the Vermont House of Representatives.
When the pandemic struck, Vermont courts suspended all non-emergency proceedings. Statewide, it is estimated that just over 1,000 felony cases and nearly 2,200 misdemeanors have been pending for more than two years. While courtrooms have slowly reopened, the backlog has intensified.
A Defined Benefit Plan freeze must be implemented. This means no more plan participants will be admitted into the plan. Concurrent with the freeze, a Defined Contribution Plan would be offered to not only new hires, but also to existing Defined Benefit Plan participants.
In the 1990s, the average THC content in marijuana flower was less than 4%. It is now about 15% — and we’re talking about products with a potency of up to 80 or 90% THC.
A renowned and respected psychotherapist had postulated that we might need to reconsider the unconscious response to lockdowns and mandates — and his ideas were summarily dismissed by the voice of the state.
Topics will include Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet System, Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and Nicolás Maduro and the Chavismo movement, according to the bill.
While the legislative session enters into its final stretch, a handful of major political initiatlves are getting resolved and others might get decided this week.