Tag: vermont

State police investigating social media claims about VT pedophile MAP gathering this weekend

The Vermont State Police today commented on intense local, state and online social media buzz about a MAP (Minor Attracted Persons) gathering reportedly scheduled to occur in Washington County beginning on Thursday, September 19. Minor Attracted Persons is another term for pedophiles.

The social media posts have named two Washington County individuals as playing a role in the reported gathering, and also have speculated on the location. VDC is withholding these names and other details, as neither the event nor the Sept. 19 event have been confirmed. A website promoting a Washington County MAP event was taken down from the internet.

Vermont Daily Chronicle reached out to the Vermont State Police today for their comment. Spokesperson Adam Silverman responded:

“The Vermont State Police is aware of reports circulating online that a gathering of individuals calling themselves “minor-attracted persons” might be taking place this weekend in Washington County.

“VSP is unable to monitor events or groups that engage in activities that courts have ruled are protected by the First Amendment regardless of the views those groups express. If we receive reports of criminal conduct, we would be able to open an investigation.

“That said, since being made aware of this potential event, VSP has been working to understand what this event might entail and how best to manage any security-related and safety-related concerns for those involved and everyone in the vicinity.”

At today’s noontime press conference, VDC asked Gov. Scott if he had any updates on these reports. He passed the question along to Vermont Department of Public Safety Deputy Commissioner Daniel Batse, who said they have heard “conflicting reports.”

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No Means No: The Child in Vermont Said No, So What Good is the Vermont Supreme Court Ruling?

During the height of the COVID19 pandemic debacle, suggestive reasoning in advocating for Federal vaccine mandates was used to nudge the unthinkable. This observation is directed at a 2022 article by Fraser and Neuss in the journal Chest. At a time when it was already known that the vaccines failed to prevent transmission, the authors nevertheless attempted to nudge subtly toward a nationalized approach to vaccine mandates without explicitly stating this position. Their approach is easily criticized for its passive-aggressive tone, lack of clarity, and failure to fully engage with counterarguments.

I will argue that via a detailed analysis of the principle of informed consent. I will argue that solicited, explicit, and voluntary agreement before administering medical procedures, particularly vaccinations, without pretext, coercion or presumption, is a basic human right. The Vermont Supreme Court’s recent ruling, interpreted by some as allowing schools to vaccinate children without explicit parental consent, is highlighted as an anomalous but significant threat to informed consent and parental rights. In particular, in addition to rights to choose (accept or decline) proferred medical options, this ruling potentially enables the state to enroll children in long-term vaccine safety studies without parental knowledge or consent, contravening ethical standards outlined in 45 CFR 46, the Common Rule, and other federal regulations designed to protect vulnerable populations.

Case examples, such as Murthy v. Missouri (2024) and Medical Professionals for Informed Consent v. Bassett (2023), are used to illustrate the importance of maintaining individual rights and informed consent in public health policies. These cases underscore the necessity for clear legislative frameworks and robust protections to prevent overreach and maintain public trust.

I call for more direct and transparent discussions on vaccine mandates, urging a balanced approach that respects individual autonomy and informed consent while addressing public health needs. The current trend of suggestive reasoning and ambiguous policy advocacy undermines ethical principles and fails to provide a solid foundation for public health strategies.

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School That Gave Child COVID-19 Vaccine Against Parents’ Wishes Immune From Lawsuits: Court

A school that injected a minor with a COVID-19 vaccine despite the boy’s parents telling school officials they did not want him to receive a COVID-19 vaccine is immune under federal law, the Vermont Supreme Court has ruled.

The Federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) protects state and school officials who were named as defendants in a lawsuit brought by the minor’s parents, justices said in a July 26 decision.

“We conclude that when the federal PREP Act immunizes a defendant, the PREP Act bars all state-law claims against that defendant as a matter of law,” Justice Karen Carroll said.

The PREP Act, signed in 2005, grants immunity to administrators of covered vaccines except in cases involving willful misconduct. COVID-19 vaccines are covered because of a 2020 declaration, extended multiple times thereafter, by the U.S. health secretary.

Dario and Shujen Politella sued officials after their son was injected with a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 shot in 2021 at the Academy School in the Windham Southeast School District. Before the school hosted a vaccine clinic, district and state officials confirmed that students needed parental consent to receive a vaccine, and the boy’s parents said they did not consent. Just days before holding the clinic, Mr. Politella emphasized to the school’s assistant principal that the parents did not want the boy to receive a shot.

The boy was removed from class on the day of the clinic and labeled as another child, who had already been vaccinated. The boy told workers his father said not to give him a vaccine, but they distracted him with a stuffed animal and gave him a shot, according to court documents.

The Vermont Superior Court dismissed the suit from the parents, finding that they needed to bring litigation in federal court under the PREP Act’s immunity exemption.

Lawyers for the parents, though, argued that officials did not show that the PREP Act covered their actions and that the case should play out in state court according to state laws. In a brief to Vermont justices, they pointed to other cases in which that has happened.

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Man Who Was Arrested for Flipping Off Cop Settles for $175,000

A man who was arrested and charged for flipping off a Vermont State Police (VSP) officer settled his case last month for $175,000.

“Far too often, police abuse their authority to retaliate against and suppress speech they personally find offensive or insulting,” Lia Ernst, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Vermont, tells Reason about the case. “This settlement demonstrates that violating these rights does not come without a cost.”

Through the settlement, Gregory Bombard will receive $100,000 in damages. The ACLU of Vermont and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which both represented Bombard in his suit, will receive the remaining $75,000.

All told, Bombard spent “about a year fighting the criminal charges and more than three years seeking declaratory relief,” a spokesperson for FIRE tells Reason.

Jay Riggen, the officer who arrested Bombard, “retired from VSP effective May 31, 2024,” a spokesperson for the Vermont State Police tells Reason. “We have no additional comment on this case.”

In February 2018, Bombard was stopped by Vermont State Trooper Riggen, who believed Bombard had given him the finger while driving—an allegation Bombard denies. However, after Riggen walked away from the car, Bombard flipped Riggen off and swore at the officer in frustration for having been pulled over.

In response, Riggen pulled Bombard over again and arrested him for disorderly conduct. “The first one may have been an error,” said Riggen during the arrest, referring to the reason for the initial stop, but “the second one certainly was not.”

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Vermont Cops Terrorize High School Students With ‘Mock Shooting’

A group of Burlington, Vermont, high school students were touring a local police department as part of a forensics class this week. In the middle of a presentation from a detective, the unthinkable happened: a masked gunman burst into the room and seemed to open fire.

The students were terrified. One says she dove on the ground, hurting her knee. Another says she reached for her phone to text her mother.

But soon, the students realized that they weren’t actually being shot at. Instead, they were the victims of a bizarre “demonstration” from the local police.

According to Seven Days, a Vermont independent newspaper, the students had no idea that the presentation would involve a mock shooting. Students were watching a detective speak at the front of a room when they heard screams. Two women ran in, followed by a man wearing a ski mask, who—it seemed—began firing.

“I’m shaking and crying because I’m like, ‘Oh my god, I’m gonna get shot,'” one student told Seven Days. “It felt so real.”

The students eventually realized that the shooting was fake after police officers in the room failed to do anything to stop the apparent gunman.

While performing a fake mass shooting with high schoolers was obviously a terrible idea, it’s unclear whether high school staff also share some blame for needlessly terrifying the students. 

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Vermont’s Republican Governor Allows Ban on ‘Ghost Guns’ to Become Law

Vermont’s Republican Governor Phil Scott has allowed a ban on “ghost guns” to become law without his signature.

The bill, S.209, prohibits Vermont residents from possessing “unserialized firearms,” such as those created with 3D printers or kits purchased online.

According to a report from VT Digger, “The legislation does not prohibit home-built guns, but it does require that a Vermonter with an unserialized gun take it to a licensed firearms dealer, who can then conduct a proper background check and inscribe a serial number onto the weapon. It also establishes higher penalties for anyone who commits a crime while in possession of an unserialized firearm.”

While allowing the bill to become law on Tuesday, Governor Scott wrote a letter to legislatures saying he was allowing it to become law because, “As a public safety measure, I agree firearms should be serialized.”

Gov. Scott’s letter concluded, “Again, while my concerns on the practical impacts and enforceability keep me from signing this bill, I’m allowing it to go into law because I understand the fears behind access to untraceable firearms and respect the effort to tailor the scope and exceptions to limit impact for law abiding citizens.”

“To allow a bill to go into law without a signature is a middle-ground approach available to the governor — in between striking it down with a veto and endorsing it with a signature” VT Digger noted. “Scott holds the record for issuing the most gubernatorial vetoes in state history: 46.”

The bill was strongly opposed by Second Amendment defending organizations, including the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs.

Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs President Chris Bradley told VT Digger that the group would let its current lawsuits challenging Vermont’s ban on high-capacity magazines and the state’s waiting period laws play out in court before challenging other “unconstitutional laws.”

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Vermont Lawmakers Consider Removing Psilocybin Legalization Provision From Psychedelic Study Group Bill

A Vermont legislative panel continued its consideration on Thursday of a bill that would legalize psilocybin in the state and establish a work group on how to further regulate psychedelics for therapeutic use.

Though members of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee took no formal action on the measure, S. 114, they heard invited testimony and signaled their openness to making a number of changes to the underlying proposal—including removing the legalization portion and instead making that an issue for the work group to study.

“It could be that decriminalization is going to get in the way of therapeutic use,” said Sen. Ginny Lyons (D), the committee chair. “What we’re looking for is the value of therapeutic use.”

Other possible changes to the bill raised by lawmakers during the hearing included adjusting the membership of the work group, for example to remove members of the legislature and add a representative from the University of Vermont Medical School—something Lyons suggested during the committee’s initial consideration of the bill last month.

Additional members of the panel would include representatives from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the state Office of Professional Regulation and the advocacy group Decriminalize Nature.

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Vermont House Passes Bill To Legalize And Fund Safe Drug Consumption Sites Over Governor’s Objection

Vermont’s House of Representatives has passed a bill to create and fund overdose prevention centers in the state, part of a pilot program aimed at quelling the ongoing epidemic of drug-related deaths. It’s another attempt by lawmakers to allow the facilities following Gov. Phil Scott’s (R) veto of a 2022 measure that would have established a task force to create a plan to open the sites.

If the measure, H.72, is enacted into law, Vermont would join Rhode Island and Minnesota in authorizing the facilities, where people can use illicit drugs in a supervised environment and be connected to various support services, including treatment.

Led by Rep. Taylor Small (D) and 28 other co-sponsors, the bill in its current form would earmark $2 million to support the creation of two overdose prevention centers along with $300,000 to study the impacts of the program.

After adopting a number of amendments, the full House passed the measure on Thursday, advancing the proposal to the Senate.

“People around the country are acknowledging that old, stigmatizing approaches aren’t working, while evidence is clear overdose prevention centers save lives,” said Grey Gardner, senior policy council for the advocacy group Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), which supports the legislation.

Since 2010, Gardner noted, overdose fatalities in Vermont have climbed by nearly 500 percent.

“The priority needs to be saving lives, improving connections to care, and benefiting communities,” he said, “and that’s exactly what overdose prevention centers are proven to do.”

Among the more notable recent changes ahead of House passage, an amendment offered by Rep. Eric Maguire (R) added a local opt-in provision that would allow sites to open “only upon an affirmative vote of the legislative body of the municipality.”

Earlier House amendments to the bill doubled the funding for the sites—from $1 million to $2 million—and directed that funding to study the pilot program should come from the a state opioid abatement fund.

Even if the overdose prevention center legislation passes the Senate, where it has been referred to the Health and Welfare Committee, it still faces a possible veto from Scott.

“I just don’t think that a government entity should be in the business of enabling those who are addicted to these drugs that are illegal,” the governor said of the measure, according to WCAX.

Scott wrote in his 2022 veto message on the earlier legislation that “it seems counterintuitive to divert resources from proven harm reduction strategies to plan injection sites without clear data on the effectiveness of this approach.”

Though Rhode Island and Minnesota have state laws on the books allowing safe consumption sites, New York City became the first U.S. jurisdiction to open locally sanctioned harm reduction centers in November 2021, and officials have reported positive results saving lives.

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Video Shows Vermont State Trooper Arrest Man for Flipping Him Off

Newly released video footage shows a Vermont state trooper arresting a man on disorderly conduct charges for the First Amendment–protected activity of flipping him off.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Amendment advocacy group, released dashcam footage today showing the 2018 arrest of Gregory Bombard, who is pursuing a lawsuit alleging his free speech rights were violated by the arrest.

Bombard was driving through his hometown of St. Albans, Vermont, on February 9, 2018, when he was pulled over by Vermont State Trooper Jay Riggen. 

Riggen accused Bombard of giving him the finger. Bombard denied it, but he was incensed about being pulled over for such a trivial matter. “That would be considered freedom of expression, so I’m going to file a complaint against you,” Bombard said.

“And you’re more than welcome to,” Riggen responded. “So here’s the issue: Although it may be freedom of expression, it’s so unusual that it requires intervention to make sure you don’t need help of some kind.”

As Bombard’s lawsuit explains, Riggen’s reasoning was legally deficient. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, which covers Vermont, held in 2013 that the middle finger’s “nearly universal recognition” as an insult made it unreasonable for an officer to interpret it as a distress signal.

Bombard tried to continue the conversation, but Riggen concluded the traffic stop and walked back to his car. Bombard was not content, however. As Bombard pulled away, he actually did flip Riggen off.

“It looks like as he pulled away he called me an asshole and said, ‘Fuck you,'” Riggen relayed into his radio. “Flipped the bird. I’m going to arrest him for disorderly conduct. There were multiple people around there.”

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Bernie Sanders funneled $200K in campaign cash to wife and stepson’s nonprofit institute, records reveal

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders quietly funneled $200,000 from his campaign’s coffers to his wife’s nonprofit institute, which appears to do very little work and pays six figures’ worth of compensation to her son, Fox News Digital has found.

The independent senator’s committee cut two $100,000 checks to the Sanders Institute for reported charitable contributions in January and March, its Federal Election Commission records show. The expenditures are the largest from the Sanders campaign to any entity this election cycle.

The senator’s wife, Jane O’Meara Sanders, and stepson, David Driscoll, co-established the Sanders Institute in 2017 to act as a think tank to promote progressive voices, The Washington Post wrote at its launch. 

“The purpose is to revitalize democracy in the support of progressive institutions,” Jane Sanders told the Post. “Our feeling is at our point in time, our country is at a crossroads, and people are engaged in a political process that can be opaque.”

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