“Vermont” on The Daily Caller

It’s Super Tuesday, which means today is the busiest day yet of the 2012 Republican race for president with 419 delegates up for grabs in 10 states across the country. (more)

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A prison inmate who makes stationery and license plates pulled a fast one on state police by adding the image of a pig to the state decal on their cruisers. (more)

The taxman got an early Christmas present from the Obama administration this week with the approval of a new fee on all fresh Christmas trees. (more)

Barring unforeseen circumstances, Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders appears likely to cruise to re-election in 2012. (more)

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Vermont still has “a few challenges” ahead to meet its goal of a universal health care system this decade, Gov. Peter Shumlin said Thursday as he signed into law the bill designed to make the state the nation’s first with fully publicly funded health care. (more)

Faced with rising costs and residents still without health insurance, Vermont lawmakers are poised to pass a single-payer healthcare plan, which would reshape how the state’s doctors are paid and become the first of its type in the US. (more)

1.) Joe Biden refuses to criticize totalitarian Egyptian president, admits liking The Onion — Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak has not truly “won” an election in the 30 years that he has been president of Egypt. Instead, he’s used secret police and state-controlled media to intimidate and incarcerate his critics and political opponents, including the runner-up in the first presidential election where someone other than Mubarak was allowed on the ballot. On January 25, Egyptians rose up against Mubarak, and the Egyptian president responded by shutting down the country’s Internet and sending armed thugs into the streets to do violence against his own people. By definition, Mubarak is a dictator. Unless, of course, your dictionary was penned by Vice Pres. Joe Biden, in which case geopolitical interests supersede honesty and/or human rights. “Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things,” Biden told PBS’ Jim Lehrer last night. “I would not refer to him as a dictator.” In other Biden news, the vice president likes the Onion’s made-up coverage of him. “I think it’s hilarious, the stuff they do on me,” Biden told Yahoo! News Thursday. “I saw the one of me washing a Trans-Am automobile in the driveway shirtless with tattoos all over myself and out there,” he added. “By the way, I have a Corvette– a ’67 Corvette– not a Trans-Am.” (more)

Newly-elected Vermont Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin wants to put a state-based single payer system in place by 2014. In an interview with Democracy Now! Shumlin said that the system may, if enacted, use one insurance company to insure all citizens. (more)

A Vermont teenager is dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound he suffered inside a school building. (more)

This piece originally ran in the Greenfield Recorder (MA). (more)

1.) It’s official: Everybody hates Genachowski’s plan to regulate the Internet — And yes, we do mean everybody: The lefty nutters at Free Press, former comic Al Franken, Republican FCC Commissioner Robert M. McDowell, and now, a group of Senate Republicans. The beef from the left–Franken, Free Press, and the supposed two million Americans who accidentally signed petitions thinking they were entering a contest for free Krispy Kreme–is that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s proposed framework does not do enough to control the Internet. For instance, liberals are unhappy that cable companies would still have incentives under Genachowski’s policy to invest in creating faster, stronger, and better services, access to which could be priced at a higher rate than existing Internet services. Meanwhile, Republicans and McDowell are concerned about what the regulations would do–namely, establish “an unjustified and unnecessary expansion of government control over private enterprise.” In the middle of it all is Genachowski, a bureaucrat with the heart of a Marxist and the vertebral integrity of a plane-crash survivor. The FCC votes on Dec. 21. Don’t miss it. (more)

It’s an unlucky strike for congressional smokers. (more)

When reading Mark McKinnon’s piece on Sarah Palin, I noticed that he mentioned her 2.5 million Facebook fans as a public staple of her political success. Mark is correct that Palin’s massive following on Facebook is unmatched in sheer volume on the Republican side, and surpassed only by Mr. Tech President himself, Barack Obama. But are her fans responding to her message? I spent some time comparing Sarah Palin’s fan base to four other Facebook pages to examine the response rate among her base. (more)

They had a whirlwind courtship and an engagement lasting only weeks, but Crystal Bowersox and Brian Walker were hardly strangers in love. (more)

The Tea Party effect may have hit Maine’s sometimes-liberal Republican Senator Olympia Snowe on Friday as a new Public Policy Polling poll suggested she might have to consider running as a Democrat in 2012 if she wants to keep her job – something that conservative Scott D’Amboise, who announced his candidacy back in February, is jumping at. (more)

Washington (CNN) — Senators are expected to continue floor debate Wednesday on the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. (more)

Here’s a pop quiz for anyone who’s miserable at work. Which action has the biggest chance of improving your happiness? (A) Getting a promotion, (B) seeing your professional nemesis move to the Mongolia office, (C) focusing on the positive aspects of your job and trying to ignore the negative or (D) quitting in a fit of anger and landing your dream job elsewhere? (more)

Liberal and environmental activists say that Democrats will not suffer in November because of their failure to pass Senate climate change legislation. (more)

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said he asked Google Inc. whether it tested its Street View software before using it, which he said should have revealed the unauthorized collection of personal data from wireless computer networks. (more)

BURLINGTON, Vt. — It’s hard to find anyone here who believes that Joyce Irvine should have been removed as principal of Wheeler Elementary School. (more)