Right Side Up - November 19th 2024

Good morning. It's time for right side up. I'm Bill Huff and together with my co-host Mike Taglevier. We're going to talk local politics. What's happening in your neighborhood this morning, Mike? Good morning. How are you? I'm doing okay. Hunt season. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what's happening in my neighborhood. I hear bang bang bang out through the woods. Yeah, I was out trying to gather up things that I don't want covered in snow, so I didn't get out of the woods today I should have. I'll say you have them in a hurry. You do a little deer hunting out there? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I, um, I don't know about you, but one of my favorites is, um, deer burgers. Yeah. Venison, mix in some beef fat. I mean, that's the best burger I've ever had.

Yeah, I tell you, that's what we had always done traditionally. I grew up in Maine, been in Vermont for 40 years. I grew up in Maine. And yeah, we'd always trim it up well and then add beef fat to it. But when I got to Vermont, I had a platiful of meat that I took down to a place to have ground. I didn't have a grinding machine. And so they're asking about what I want to mix in. And the big thing in Vermont, apparently, was sausage.

Oh, really? Yeah, pork sausage. OK. So you get the fat, right? But you also, you know, get the flavor seasoning. Yeah. Yeah. Breakfast sausage. And it's actually pretty darn good. I'll have to try some of that.

Yeah. Hey, before you leave the studio today, that reminds me, I made some Hunter's planned beef venison snack sticks. Okay. I'll send some home with you and a little chili. That's that's my big thing. Okay. I won't turn down. Yeah. So, yeah, that was good. I happen to get a deer in Maine, finally.

And I went out yesterday, walked around in Vermont a little bit. So that kind of some old stomping grounds. It was good to get back up in there, but not a whole lot of deer sign. I'm pretty sure I had a moose in front of me. There's an old clear cut. So growing up thick now, I couldn't walk through it, but walking. You could hear it. Oh, I could hear it. And you could hear the crunch crunch and then the limb would snap.

Yeah. And every once in a while, you know, he quickened the pace. I think, oh, he's going to come right out. Well, 45 minutes and I couldn't get him out of there. But I'm pretty sure there's a moose. I've called moose out of that section before. Yeah. That's fun. It must be huge. They must be huge.

They can be yeah, I called one out of the that old clear cut here four or five years ago When I was up there and man he came out mad. He ain't getting ready to rock It was amazing it was before the deer season I was up in there setting up some cameras and all I had was a was a pistol So when he stepped out throwing his horns around I yelled at him and said hey buddy, that's close enough We see each other

You know that I'm not a mousse now. I'm not a competition. So he finally shook his head and walked back back into the woods. And then I heard him take off and I'm pretty sure his two poles and a cow. So there was competition going on. I think that's why he was so readily came to the call. He thought that he had more competition there.

OK, well, he can probably smell the competition, too, better than you can. But it's fun. Any time you can have game animals that close and kind of control their behavior a little better. It's a rush. I've heard from a friend who I go hunting with over in New York in the Catskills. And they had a couple of guys get some nice animals this past weekend.

Hey, Dennis, and it's, uh, it's lean. It's healthy. It's sustainable, renewable. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. And it doesn't know. Well, I was going to say it doesn't cost you much. You kidding me? At the time you consider what goes into tears. It's probably some of the most expensive meat you'll ever ever get. No, but look, the fresh air, the deer camp is fun. So it, and I, I need to get out and get one because I haven't

I haven't bagged one in I think it's going on two and a half years. Yeah, I've been a few years for me. Yeah, just well too busy politics. Exactly. And we need to get on that topic too. That's what we do on right side. I was not a hunting show. No, but it's nice to talk about something and break it up a little bit. Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

But we aren't talking elections again, you know, the election a couple of weeks now over, but there's still still stuff going on. It's, you know, kind of, kind of important. One thing that popped up was from Windsor County. Right. And of course, we're, we're the right side up is broadcast on WNTK and UVR, which both stations are in New Hampshire, but they broadcast into central Vermont as well. Predominantly Windsor County.

So, this particular topic should be of interest to everybody in Windsor County. So, I think we're going to reach a lot of people with this one then. Okay. And the deal is, the Windsor County GOP Committee produced a map and put it on Facebook if you want to see this thing.

But it colored each one of the towns in Windsor County according to who won the most votes for their Senate seats. Now, Windsor County is a three-seat district.

three seat district. Three, three senators. That's because of population. Yeah, for all ones account, Windsor County is huge. And there's some, some larger towns there, Springfield, uh, uh, Heartland, um, Ludlow. Okay. So interestingly enough,

Almost every one of the southern towns, I think there were four towns in particular Baltimore Cavendish and Ludlow. Okay. All three of those towns voted for the three Republican Senate candidates in that particular race. If it were up to those three towns, they'd have three Republican senators. Okay. Now go ahead.

Well, there were more towns and over Bridgewater, Chester, Springfield and Weatherfield where they voted the two of the top three vote getters were again Republicans. Okay. So if you can visualize this, you can see that the entire southern part of Windsor County

voted overwhelmingly to be represented by at least one, if not two, we're police, two Republican senators. And what was the, the end result? Three Democrats or progressives. Yep. Okay. Yeah. And so this really makes the case against these, these blocks, these three seat districts.

They, the Democrats, they run as a block. They campaign as a block. And they win as a, as a block. Right. And, and so you, it could be set up in a way that it was separate Senate districts. Sure. If there were, if there were truly Democratic, you would divide Windsor County by thirds.

You'd have the northern third, a center third, and a seventh third. And there are population centers in each one of those thirds where I think fairly easily you could create equal districts for equal representation. Equal districts beating population wise. Yes. Equal population wise districts so that it's entirely workable. Had that been already in place?

then southern Windsor County would have had their which they probably at least one republican senator if not to possibly well well no way if we divide it up into its individual districts yes they would have their choice they would be led they would be represented by a republican senator now the north if you look at the towns up across the north there they all voted democratic

So if it were divided in thirds, that northern part of Windsor County would absolutely be represented by a Democratic senator. But through the central, it was kind of mixed. Bridgewater is in that mix. And I think

They voted for one, two, two of the Republicans, one in Bridgewater, but Pittsfield, Plymouth, and Stockbridge, again, kind of centrally located.

uh, one of the Republicans was a top vote getter there. So, you know, the, it was pretty obvious had it been in three districts. We'd have a Republican center in the South Democratic center in the North and the center could go either way.

How I'm curious, you were talking about the Senate and the election results that way. What did the House races look like? Did they reflect what you're talking about, especially for the midsection of the county?

I would have to go back and look off the top of my head. I can tell you two things, for sure. Prior to this November's election, there wasn't a single Republican representative or senator from all of Windsor County, not one. But that changed this cycle. There was, I think, two House members, and I think they're predominant. I know one was in Chester.

And the other one was maybe on the top part of that bottom third. So again, it is the choice or the preference for that bottom third of Windsor County to be represented by some Republicans. And right, you know, they this time around, they they will be represented by a couple of

House Republicans, but because that Senate district runs as a block, no, they're going to be represented by a Democrat. And that's that's not Democratic. It's not fair. It's not Democratic. And we really need to do something about that. Okay. So if you're if you're from Windsor County, don't think that you need to wait until the next reapportionment because that's not how this works. The population isn't going to change. Right. What needs to be done. And there's a

Oh yeah, well, it's been done before, and there's a word for it, escapes my mind. It'll come to me. But they did it in Chittenden County. Chittenden County was always a block of six senators. And it was the same thing. You know, you could have an individual town or two in there that would vote for Republicans, but because they ran as a block, it was always six Democratic senators. So all that needs to be done is a bill introduced.

get it off the wall and get it into the legislature and get it voted on. And Windsor County could be divided up in the three separate sections where Senator would represent, you know, one Senator for one section of the count. Right. And that that's what needs to be done. So with the change in the makeup in the legislature, that's that's actually a possibility this time.

It's a possibility if somebody from Windsor County jumps on this. Okay. It gets a hold of probably a Republican Senator, either Franklin County or Rutland County, more than likely have them write a bill and should be one in the house too. So one of those two guys in the house, they're newbies and it's tough for newbies to get bills introduced, but be the same thing. Yeah, they should introduce bills that would do that as well.

And then at least have the discussion because clearly this is not democratic. Those people had a clear choice to be represented by a Republican senator and they're not going to get it.

Okay. Well, a good argument for a little bit of change there. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Another thing while we're talking about Vermont senators, real quick, before we run out of time, I just found this interesting. We've mentioned before, 17 Democrats now in the Senate, 13 Republicans, you know, I made some significant gains. So everybody thinks, well, that's a difference of two.

Yeah, it's really not it's the Democrats And this must be new math. I guess

The Democrats really only have a one vote advantage. Well, that's because the lieutenant governor is the president of the Senate. Yes. Correct? Yes. So he could turn out to be the deciding vote. Right. If on any particular bill, two Democratic senators swung to the Republican vote with the Republicans, it becomes a 15-15 tie.

Right. And John Rogers will be the new head of the Senate is the tie-breaking vote. So Bill, that would reflect the balance that we've seen that apparently Vermont voters were all in on in the election cycle. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I just found it kind of interesting when you do the new math, the Democrats really only have one vote advantage. If they lose two votes in the Senate,

It'll be divided by John Rogers. This is where good debate comes in. That's how you change people's minds. We'll finally have a debate. And we're going to have more discussion in just a few minutes with more right-side up to come. Don't go away.

You messed with her, you're still mad yet. You'll be that I'm a little, little, little boy. Yeah, I love my baby, my heart and soul. Worked like I was a woman who never grows. You must lead a little by.

We're back here right side up. Mike and I have been talking about the results of the last election here a couple weeks ago, in particular the Vermont Senate. And there's more going on with the Vermont Senate. There's more. I didn't see some of this. I never saw. Well, I had to dig here a little. Yeah. But the Senate, the Democratic winners in the Senate,

had a caucus here just recently to re-elect or to elect their leaders for the next current session. Okay. Yeah, and actually Digger did an article about it. Sarah Meyerhoff, I think she does a lot of their political stuff just a couple days ago on the 16th. The headline is, after tragic election losses, Democrats and Vermont Senate outs their majority leader.

So tragic? Well, tragic is in quotes and I think that's the way Senator White, back on White, framed it as tragic. Oh, okay. So she's quoting someone else, okay.

But anyway, so they met and they did. Allison Clarkson, one of those Windsor County senators we were just talking about, had been the majority leader, I think for four years. And so she was let go and replaced with Keisha Ram Hinesdale, a progressive or Democratic D slash P from from Chittenden. Very outspoken, but even farther left than I think the rest of them.

is going to be their majority leader. So sort of kind of changed, just a different voice, but kind of the same mantra. Well, if you read the whole article and really get into some of the details, one of the reasons they did this was they think they didn't or they lacked the messaging this last election. That's why they lost.

It's not because they stabbed half of the Vermont population in the back with higher taxes and fees and lies and everything else. It's because they couldn't message good enough to convince people that the knife in their back was a mosquito bite.

Well, some people describe that as lipstick on a pig, right? You take a bad, bad policy and try to shine it up with something. So it's going to be interesting because it sounds like, and I guess I'm going to need to do a little bit of research, but it sounds like they just

It's the same, same song, just a different voice. Oh, yeah. But like I said, I think Hindsdale is quite a bit farther left than even Clarkson. Very vocal, very active. And you're talking about active. As soon as she was elected, she tried to

She tried to undo a longstanding tradition in the Vermont Senate in order to maintain or keep or get more power. That was the first thing that she did as the new majority leader in the Democratic Senate. So as it sits right now, she's the chair of the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing and General Affairs.

But like I said, there's a long-standing tradition in the Senate dates back to 1997 of caucus leaders not chairing policy committees to prevent them from accumulating too much power. Well, I guess she needs to read whatever the president's setting thing, but 1997 really was all about. Well, it's interesting. She said it's all about math.

Uh, well, and in her head, they've got 17 Democratic senators. I think three of which are new. So you can't put them in a chairmanship of many. Now, is that by, um, just precedent or is there any, you're never going to have a newbie sitting in the, in the chair. You know, those are power positions. Okay.

Yeah. And you want somebody that's in a chair with, you know, some institutional knowledge. Okay. How to run things for sure. So yeah, unless there's no other way to do it, a newbie's never going to get a chairmanship. So they eliminated three to start with. There are three more that are in positions that traditionally you couldn't hold with a chairmanship. So that reduced it down to 11.

Okay. And there are 11 Senate committees. So she didn't want to give up. She doesn't want to give up her not a single one. Yeah, she wants. She wants them all. She wants the Democrats to be able to have every Senate committee chair. She doesn't want to give her's up. I don't hold on.

Hold on. Now, she obviously has both internet and, I guess, cable or satellite TV. So she does have a way to find out the results of the last election, right? So I guess the message falls on deaf ears.

Well, nobody told her that elections have consequences. Well, it's just if the whole theme was about getting balanced and apparently the voters said that's what they want, then I guess there's at least one person in the Senate who didn't get that message. Well, something had better change here. There's 11 Senate committees

uh, as it stands right now, Russ Ingles is the only Republican committee chair of those, those 11. Okay. Now that we've just had this election is 17 to 13. Right. So, and we have, you would, you would think we have incumbent senators who are more than qualified to sit on sit as chairs on committee. Absolutely. Well, I would be interesting to see how this plays out.

Well, like you said, it really was an election. It was about affordability, I think number one, but it was about balance. Well, I would say the imbalance is what sparked all of the runaway legislation. It made people so upset that they got out in record numbers and said, whoa, stop.

Yeah, don't do this. And I think you're spot on. It was about the ability to sustain a gubernatorial veto. It was about balance. Yeah. So it's going to be interesting to see now how these Senate committee chairs are done. In a 1713 Senate, you would think with 11 chairs that, you know, it would be six and five.

That would be nice. Or at least at least seven four.

But to extend that proverbial olive branch, maybe? Well, to say, hey, we're willing to listen. So in the past, there are three people that get to choose who those chairmen ships go to. And one, it was elected in this caucus from the Democratic side. And another is

the lieutenant governor. That's one of the big roles that the lieutenant governor has. Okay. So, and I forget now what, what the, who the third person is, uh, you know, might be somebody, uh, from the Republican caucus. I'm not, I don't remember. Okay. But in the past, without having that lieutenant governor's position, Republicans never get committee chairs. And now with John Rogers there, it's going to be really interesting to see if we have balance in those committees.

Right. Well, and it would be nice to see that. Like you said, if it was at least seven four, we get Republican committee chairs. The, those particular chairs are, it'd be interesting to see the difference in bills that are brought because of the different chairmen ships.

chairs, chairs determine what what comes off the wall. So it would be huge. And if this election was about balance, and I think you're right.

and if look the voters want relief from what's been going on these past two two-and-a-half years so uh... that would be i think a great step in the right direction uh... you know here we go again with we need to be if we if we don't have

What were we talking about last show? Oh, now it's slipping my mind here. Diversity of thought. If we don't have that in these committees, how are we going to get the change that the voters apparently voted for this last election? We never would. That's why I find it particularly disturbing that Keisha Graham Hinesdale's first thing that she does.

to set a new precedent. As a new Senate majority leader is to try to break tradition and maintain power. It's unbelievable. They don't care about anybody. It's about power. Well, isn't that one of the reasons why you and I said, this is why we want to be doing this, to let people know, because how many people, if we didn't somehow find this out and digging, how many people would not?

Well, you wouldn't know it at all. You wouldn't have a clue. Now I will say they did hold a vote and she didn't win. It was nine to six and one abstention. So there's... She didn't win with regard to that. Yes, to that. Okay, well that's good. Trying to break the tradition. So that tells me, at least for now, that supposedly they will stick with tradition.

but there were six members that didn't want to. They sided with Kesha and wanted to maintain the power. Well, somebody's gonna give them the message, hey, we had an election and things need to change. Well, there's a lot of time between now and what the first week of January when the session begins. So I'm sure there's gonna be a lot of emailing and lobbying amongst senators to try to

You both get balance and keep the balance of power. Yeah, a lot of horse trading maybe. I don't know. Yeah, we'll see. But hey, along those same lines, you know, we've, I don't remember, do we talk about, I don't think we have talked about any of Trump's cabinet picks.

on the show. We try to keep it local. Right. No, I don't think we have, although they've been getting a lot of buzz. Oh my God. In the media, on social media, all over, all over the place. Huns of buzz. Yeah. Well, the same thing is going on here locally. Lieutenant Governor-in-Lack, John Rogers. Okay.

has appointed some staff, and this is not a national level, so his staff is one. But he did make the appointment. But he does have staff. He appointed Elizabeth Brown.

I've met Elizabeth. I've talked with Elizabeth. She's a great pick. Just an intelligent, articulate lady. She'll do John very well in that position.

And she's kind of like John. She actually ran in the Democratic primary for a house seat up in Waterbury this spring. And she couldn't break through the two Democrats up there, I think are pretty well known. But there was a time there that I and several other people had encouraged her to run on the Republican ticket. And it's just like John Rogers, I think.

I think she thought her chances were better on the Democratic side. But her thoughts, her vision, I think, aligned a lot with the Get Real platform. She understood what that was all about and was kind of on board with it. She just thought she could probably do it or get elected into that position easier as a Democrat than a Republican. But she aligns, I think, a lot of the ideals with John Rogers, so I think she's going to be a great pick.

Okay. Now, John did make a second pick and I guess it's in an advisory role. John actually called it a special advisor. But that's James Ellers. And James is no stranger to the political arena. He actually ran for governor here a few years ago. He was the chair of it. It's the Lake Champlain water basin protection, something or other. He's a big clean water guy.

And oddly enough, it was James Ellers and John Rogers who twice this last summer held protests at the State House protesting the super majority and all of the stuff that was getting shoved down our throat.

And Ellers is a Democrat, as was John in the beginning. And here we are, you know, John winning as a Republican, and now John bringing James Ellers on as a special advisor. Well, see, that's kind of aligning with what happened on the national level. There are a lot of Democrats that got fed up with a lot of the law fair and some of the

persecution, not prosecution, it was going on. So on a much smaller scale, but it's kind of similar. Well, I know James well enough to know that he's concerned about the health of the environmental health here in Vermont. And I think he's going to be a great advisor to John Rogers. More right sign up to come.

You're listening right side up. My name is Mike Tagglevia. My cohost is Bill Huff. You can find us if you miss one of our radio shows during the week on WNTK FM. You can find us on WNTK.com, click on podcasts, scroll down to right side up, and you can click on any number of our shows. If you'd like to drop us an email, right side of radio at gmail.com.

You can also find us at granitegroc.com. Thanks to Steve McDonald, where you have an outlet there. You can click on our podcast and as Bill pointed out, if you have an Alexa or similar gadget in your home, you can just tell that little I call them spy machine to bring up the right side up. I don't think she'll respond to a spy machine. I think you've got to say, hey, Alexa, play right side up.

Yeah. I don't know, maybe you can train it to do that. Well, I guess you could. Probably go to settings, Mike. But anyway, I saw an interesting article on Granite Grok. It is by Andrew Klein. It's titled, freedom's just another word for everything to lose.

And we were kind of, there were a lot of us who were kind of feeling that way this election. It was like, there was a lot to lose this election. So this kind of, it kind of caught my eye. There was a lot on the line of elections. Yeah, a lot of people believe that and I believe that.

So that's a parody of what's your name song, right? Yeah. Yeah. Janice Joplin. Yeah. Apparently. I don't know. I didn't realize this, but it starts off among as many memorable contributions to American arts. The great singer-songwriter Chris Kristofferson, who passed away in September, wrote one of the most quotable lines in rock history. Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. It's a fabulous drifter anthem. It's also entirely wrong.

Part of the American political left at the time was infused with a hippie ethos that disdain possessions and social connections. Freedom to them meant getting back to the garden to quote another anthem of the era. They should have read fewer radical poets and more enlightenment philosophers. Ancient humans had nothing left to lose in the sense that they had few possessions.

Life was a pretty big thing to lose, though. And life in a state of nature was not exactly full of lattes and free healthcare. If you were lucky enough to survive childhood, you still had to escape war, pestilence, famine, all the Old Testament stuff. You were only free until someone more powerful came along and subjugated you. And then there were no US Marines to come to the rescue.

But this is why I love going to Granite Grot. I love the way these writers. Yeah, I'm not a writer, but the talented people have a way of putting things that, you know, yeah, it makes me wish I could do this. For most of human history, either chaos or subjugation was the rule for most of humanity. Humans spent millennia poor and unfree.

The development of democratic governments along with institutions that decentralized power and incentivized innovation and upward mobility changed everything. I think that's one of the reasons why this beautiful USA, we call it America, shines so much and so brightly.

in the world, right? And it's all about freedom. Yeah. And that's one of the things in almost 250 years since we have had our freedom as a country that it's been so hard to take it. And why do so many people come and go through so much hardship to get here?

It's for freedom. Absolutely. But doesn't it make you wonder, you know, about half the population that apparently doesn't cherish that? Or they think that government, more and more governments, the answer? Well, because there are people who are thirsty for more power. They do cherish the freedom, but they want to have the freedom for themselves.

Freedom to actually like this author says to subjugate people because that's what you know Overregulation is it's subjugation, right? That's what I think it is. Oh, yeah Yeah for sure and that's you know why we had the the results of this election that we had yeah People started to wake up losing freedoms

I mean, you know, we can't decide how we want to heat our homes or what we want to drive or... Right. And can we go anywhere? Look at how expensive it became to fill up the tank to go on vacation.

Right? So it's mobility. Freedom is mobility too. Freedom is everything for sure. So some America up in one word and that would be it. Absolutely. Absolutely. So the author goes on, when humans replaced extractive institutions dominated by elites for inclusive institutions that empowered outsiders,

As MIT economist Darren Assamoglu, I think I pronounced that correctly, concisely frames it, an unprecedented era of human flourishing began. Well, I mean, that's, look at, we had what the industrial revolution. And here we go. I'm going to probably start people bouncing off the walls.

petroleum products, the gas powered or diesel powered vehicle, what did that do for freedom of mobility in this country? And inexpensive energy, how many people have come out of poverty just because of that?

We wouldn't be anywhere near the country we are without energy. In expensive energy. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it has to be affordable. It's not just powering the cars and whatnot. It's everything else. Look at the steel industry.

Yeah. Why? How that blossomed the way it did in this country? And look at the growth that it gave this country. It's amazing. So this is an incredible statistic. In 1820, 75% of the world's population lived in extreme poverty.

as the chart from our world and data shows. So you're going to have to go to the website and pull up this article. It's Granite Groc. But by 2018, only 11% lived in extreme poverty. So it's incredible when you have countries that

They don't give people freedom, they acknowledge that people have rights and freedom, that they're born with it, that like our country acknowledges. Look at the prosperity you have.

For most commune of human history, life expectancy has been short. This is incredible. These perhaps 25 years for our hunter-gatherer ancestors and only 37 years for residents of England in 1700.

uh... a paper by harvard princeton and ucl researchers in twenty eleven determined dramatic changes began in the eighteen century with life expectancy in england rising to forty one years by eighteen twenty fifty years by early twentieth century and seventy seven years today that's that's quite a leap that's quite a leap you know and this beautiful state of vermont that we live in it's not hard to come across people who are living into their nineties

I don't know if it's the air. I don't know what it is, but people are determined to keep living in this state. Well, someday when we've got more time, I've got a whole story about the jump in life expectancy that we experienced here and how it impacted actually social security. Interesting story, but for another day. Okay. In the past 13 years, life expectancy in England has risen to 80.

economic growth more than tripled human life expectancy and has nearly eradicated extreme poverty.

Economic growth made it possible to leave the widespread extreme poverty for the past behind. Oxford University professor Max Roser writes, it made the difference between a society in which the majority were lacking even the most basic goods and services, food, decent housing, and clothes, health care, public infrastructure, and transport.

and a society in which these products are widely available. Think about just being able to walk into a pharmacy or a grocery store these days and the variety of stuff that's available. It's just incredible. Think about it 100 years ago. I drive through some of these old towns and I think what was it like 100 years ago?

You want to know what it was like, you know, 100 years ago, take the trip that I just did. Yeah. Yeah, I'm serious. You know, you go to Egypt. Okay. The average Egyptian makes about $150 a month. A month. A month, 150 bucks a month. And interestingly enough,

the Sudanese are streaming across the borders to get into Egypt for a better life. How's that for a comparison? Well, you know, I was talking with our tour guide and, you know, we had this discussion, but how bad must things be in Sudan? Yeah, to want to get make 150 a month. No, the life's much better at 150 bucks a month.

And I think I told you this story, I'm not sure if I told it on there, but I have a relative who met two guys from, they were former communist block countries, came to the U.S. where living in a town I used to live in on Eastern Long Island. And he said that they told me, they could not understand why Americans work so hard.

until they came to the one relay realization. The harder you work, the more money you make in the old communist country they lived in didn't matter. That was not the way. They pretended to work and people who were their supposed employers pretended to pay them. The pay was horrible. So jobs never got done. They took forever because the pay was so horrible and it wasn't based on how hard you worked.

He said, once they realized and they told them once they realized that they started working as hard as the Americans. He said, then they're, they're self-employed. They were, they were living the American dream. So, you know, the light is shining. This, this beautiful country is shining for the world to see, you know, and those, those Sudanese are finally one day when they, when they can communicate and they can see what it's like on this side of the pond. I think they're going to try to come here.

Well, and people are for sure. Yeah, but you know, you're talking about the communism is compared to communism and socialism compared to our system. That reminds me another story. Remind me some time to talk about Jamestown, the first settlement here, you know, the first colony civilization here. Interesting story. But again, we don't have time for that today.

I'm going to skip ahead here. The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy advocates for expanding free markets and limiting government coercion because these are proven methods of maximizing freedom, opportunity, and prosperity for all granite stators. Now, this is obviously written by a granite stator on a

on a mostly granite state website, but these guys, they're great and this applies all over. It applies across the Connecticut River here in Vermont. Government maximizes freedom not by redistributing wealth after its creation, but by supporting institutions and policies that lift restraints on individual economic autonomy.

Thus empowering all citizens regardless of social, political or economic status to pursue happiness on their own terms, providing they don't harm others. That's the only condition. So, you know, this article just stood out to me as something that, you know, it related to the last election, how people finally woke up to see how oppressive things were becoming and why they were becoming that oppressive.

So I just felt like this would be something. And there's more in the article. It's a great read, and it's not a very long read. Well, that's a great way to frame it, I think, Mike, is the fact that that super majority here in Vermont

were oppressing the electorate. And they were aggregating power in Montpelier forced on us, shoved on our throats. Yes. You know, taking enough money so that we couldn't support families, couldn't live. Yeah. Pay rent, pay, you know, for our cars, our medical bills,

You name it. But fortunately, we came up with the results of this last election. We're still getting some of the details here. Yeah. Well, we've got a little more than a month to get them worked out. But I think we're on the right track or on a better track, I should say. Yes, we are. And last week, I said something about moving right. You corrected me. It was more to the center. And I think, again, that was a good way to put it. Yes. As always, though, stay safe, stay informed, listen to the right side up.

Love like eyes, a woman never goes She must lead a little man