The candidates in the race for the U.S. House seat represent an surprising array of choices for Vermonters to sort through.
If you think that the U.S. Congress is doing a fine job and should just keep on doing what it always has, then Molly Gray, who is somehow perceived as an interloping carpetbagger while simultaneously being a native daughter of Vermont, is the choice for you. She is the darling of the Democratic establishment and will be a loyal footsoldier for the party leadership.
This is the same Democratic leadership that helped the anti-choice Henry Cuellar eke out a victory over pro-choice candidate Jessica Cisneros even as the news about the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade was reverberating across the nation. Henry is also a good footsoldier, and that is what leadership wants.
If you want a candidate who still believes in the promise of representative government (regardless of so much evidence to the contrary) with loads of legislative experience and a willingness to compromise in order to get to the legislative finish line, then you can choose Becca Balint.
U.S. Rep. Peter Welch tries to talk a good game about serving the people. But his performative puffery, like bragging about not taking PAC contributions while still raking it in from trade associations that are nothing but PACs with another name, shows that he is as at the heart...
A large country, armed to the teeth, entering into the dusk as a superpower, makes outlandish claims about another, much smaller and weaker country. The rest of the world's nations scratch their heads and wonder at these claims. The large country amasses troops and armaments near the smaller country.
The rich and powerful seem to share at least one trait: They have a remarkable ability to ignore the real life consequences of their pronouncements, acquisitions, and policies. President Joe Biden puts on his earnest face and speaks with great empathy during his speeches. When campaigning, he assured us that he would end the suffering being inflicted on asylum seekers by the brutal border policies of former President Donald Trump. But after a year in office, asylum seekers are still...
In the Groundhog Day edition of The Commons, columnist Elayne Clift bemoans “circumstances grounded in the principles of our country's founders are slipping away.” She then goes on to write about voting rights and voter suppression. Our founders saw fit to own slaves and protect slavery. They suppressed the vote for everyone except propertied white men. There were some principles mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, but no one in power has bothered to live up to them yet.
St. Patrick - U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy - is resigning, and the great realignment has now begun. The question is: Do we want to continue the current model of feckless, middle-ground maneuvering that is laying the groundwork for a radical right-wing takeover of national politics? Or is it time to support candidates who recognize that the times have changed and that our politicians need to change with them? U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, who has announced his candidacy for Leahy's seat,
If you were at the supermarket with your 6-year-old child, and you saw them take a candy bar off of the rack and start to eat it, would you simply shrug and pretend you didn't notice? Or would you stop them and explain why that is wrong? And would you love them any less for their mistake? And if that same child started picking on the neighbor kids, making them cry by taking their toys and being physically aggressive, would...
We keep hearing a recurring refrain these days: How can people not accept facts? How can people believe that the government is lying about the election being fair? Why can't people just accept reality? Why indeed? While the current crop of “denied truths” seem incomprehensible to most Americans, it is just the latest preferred fiction that we use to guide our conduct and social organization. Let's start at the beginning and close to home. When predominantly British settlers expanded inland...