When I read the news in last night’s Messenger, the cast of characters seemed to step right out of the past for me.

Governor Shumlin has appointed St. Albans City Manager, Dominic Cloud to serve on the Natural Resources Board, which oversees Act 250 environmental regulations in Vermont.

As an alternate to the Board, he appointed former director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC), and environmental champion, Elizabeth Courtney.

“I’m proud to appoint Dom to the NRB, and I am thrilled that Elizabeth will lend her expertise as an alternate member,” Shumlin said. “Both come to the Board with unique experiences and backgrounds but share a love for Vermont and a commitment to our land use goals.”

The appointment of Cloud as the full member and Courtney as only an alternate, couldn’t help but set my mental wheels in motion.

The Messenger story doesn’t even mention Jon Groveman, who now chairs the Natural Resources Board, but served for years as the tireless lawyer/advocate for the VNRC when Elizabeth was the director.

We who fought the battle to limit Walmart’s incursion into our little community feel a special affection for Jon, who even sacrificed his health to the long hours necessary for a single attorney to go up against the phalanx of lawyers the developer and Walmart brought to the table.

Cloud, on the other hand, was an old acquaintance of Jon’s from Dom’s time with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns.

When, in mid-appeal, while the City of St. Albans was still a party to Act 250 in opposition to the Walmart project, Dominic came on board as City Manager, Jon expressed optimism that Dominic would be good to work with.

I think no one was more shocked and disappointed than Jon when Dominic quickly negotiated a settlement with the developer and Walmart without even discussing it with us.  

Though we are no longer in touch, I have every confidence that Jon is still the same stalwart of environmental protection that he always has been and I suspect that he and our esteemed Governor have not always seen eye to eye over the fine points.

Dominic Cloud is a natural ally for Shumlin.  Both are ambitious, grandstanding machiavellians who, in their heart of hearts, probably consider Act 250 more of a hinderance than a help.  That they are acting out their respective careers in a state where environmental values still hold considerable sway is inconvenient, but not without its unique opportunities for exploitation.

When he assumed office as governor, Shumlin appointed more than a few people who could have potentially given him problems, to positions in his administration where they would be loathe to make waves.  

Exhausted by his years with the VNRC and optimistic about the new era of environmental engagement promised by the Governor, Jon Groveman understandably accepted a position with Natural Resources.

When, much more recently, a seat opened up on the Natural Resources Board, the Governor, having stumped for Walmart and repeatedly demonstrated his bias in favor of big development, would have opted for an ally to serve those interests.

I can just imagine Jon proposing the eminently qualified Courtney to fill the open seat on the Board, and Shumlin countering with an offer to make her an alternate, but only if Jon would accept Cloud as the full member.

Forgive my hard-earned cynicism; but that’s just the way it looks to me.

Bill Sorrell has sued Dean Corren and settled a complaint against the Vermont Democratic Party for allegedly violating the private contribution prohibition of our public campaign finance system.

 In case you've missed it, the state is suing Dean Corren personally for coordinating an e-mail blast with the Vermont Dems to the Dems' e-mail list in support of Corren's unsuccessful Lite Gov campaign last year. He's asking the court to fine Corren $72,000.00: $10,000 statutory damages for each of two counts of violating Vermont's campaign finance laws, plus forfeiture of $52,000, the amount Corren had unspent in campaign funds at the time of the alleged violation. Oh yeah, the value of the e-mail was estimated at about $255.00.

 Now comes John Franco on behalf of Dean Corren, suing the Attorney General in federal court to block enforcement of the law and the whopper of a penalty Sorrell wants to exact.

 I heard about this and I did what any lawyer would do: I read the complaint and I read the law. $72,000 sounded like a lot of money, but from the language of the statute it appears that the $52,000 forfeiture, or “refund” is mandatory, so Dean's probably going to have to cough it up.

It turns out it's not that clear. Corren's complaint and preliminary injunction memorandum raise some very good questions, and I'm going to be interested in seeing how Sorrell answers them. 

First, apparently it's not at all clear that this was even a violation. According to Corren, when the Legislature amended the law in 2014 it explicitly excluded this kind of help from being counted as a contribution. The Legislature made findings as part of the law, Act 90, that:

 (10) Exempting certain activities of political parties from the definition of what constitutes a contribution is important so as to not overly burden collective political activity. These activities, such as using the assistance of volunteers, preparing party candidate listings, and hosting certain campaign events, are part of a party’s traditional role in assisting candidates to run for office. Moreover, these exemptions help protect the right to associate in a political party.

And the Legislature also expressly excluded this specific activity:

 As used in this chapter, “contribution” shall not include any of the following:

“I always think there's a band, kid.” Harold Hill The Music Man

Bill Stenger had a press event the other day for his Newport AnC/Bio project. In an effort to boost confidence (and continued foreign investment) in the fledgling EB-5 financed biotech project, he was accompanied by Dr. Ike Lee, CEO of AnC/Bio of Vermont. Dr. Lee sounded a hopeful note about the future success of his biotech firm and also explained that unlike the failed AnC/ Bio business in South Korea, he’ll get it right this time.

“We established a beautiful facility in Korea expecting that we would have the products to produce for the global market. That didn't happen.”

AnC/Bio South Korea failed to meet payments on their building and it was sold out from under them. This shouldn’t happen here as the Newport property is owned by GSI Dade Miami, a Stenger/Quiros company. Interestingly GSI Dade is currently listed as commercial cooking and restaurant equipment wholesaler by one online business service listing.

He [Dr. Lee] says federal Food and Drug Administration review of these new biotechnologies has been slow, but now the timing is perfect for a facility that provides production space, marketing and research for fledgling companies near the end of the approval process. “And now as we are getting many green lights from the government we are really excited to push it forward,” Lee said.

According to Stenger roughly three quarters of the debt free (in his view) EB-5 financing is now in hand for the Newport plant. However final FDA permitting for their products is still pending, and meanwhile, investment analysts speculate about a biotech industry bubble. Their concern is a speculative bubble driven, they say, by multibillion-dollar market valuations for biotech companies that don’t yet have a single product for sale.

But hope springs easily to Stenger and Quiros Vermont’s EB-5 supported entrepreneurs — there’s always a band.

It’s almost routine now.

Escalating from a simple traffic stop, another unarmed black man was gunned-down today by a South Carolina cop who said that he ‘feared for his life.’

The people who insist that gun control is unnecessary because we don’t have a “gun problem” might want to consider the possibility that all of those police shootings of unarmed black men have as much to do with the assumption that everyone is “carrying” now as they have to do with the more obvious issue of racial profiling.

Even though, statistically, far more guns are in the hands of caucasians than black men,  somehow these (mostly southern) officers of the law simply assume that every black man who is reluctant to surrender to the tender mercies of Officer Friendly is getting ready to pull out a cannon and open fire.  

That they are reluctant precisely because Officer Friendly isn’t so friendly anymore, seems to evade the constables in question, over and over again.

However, in concentrating solely on the appalling truth that un-evolved attitudes toward race seem to persist in pockets all over the country, we may be overlooking an opportunity to make everyone, and especially young black men, much safer from these “accidental” shootings through a well-regulated system of gun control.

As things now stand, all Americans are well advised to bear in mind that there are 90 guns for every 100 people, so all of the strangers they encounter in a given day seem far more likely to be carrying than not.  

Of course the statistics do not take into consideration how many people own multiple weapons, and that the number of individual owners has been gradually declining over the past few decades.

But such subtleties are generally wasted on the police, who run a far greater risk than we do as civilians, of having a deadly encounter with a gun.

The anxiety this reality has produced in already poorly trained police is a recipe for disaster.

When combined with the bald racial prejudice that apparently remains pervasive in too many law enforcement bodies, it is enough to make being in the wrong place at the wrong time a deadly offense for far too many black men.

Here then, is another way in which the American cult of firearms has made an entire sector of society selectively even more unsafe.

Until American leaders have the courage to face down the NRA and insist on a reframing of the much abused Second Amendment that recognizes unregulated firearms as the threat to our freedom that they actually represent today, we will continue to have a hugely disproportionate number of senseless gun deaths when compared to Canada, Europe and nearly everywhere else in the civilized world.

Perhaps a little mud season break from politics will be welcome. Vermont may be called the King of Maple Syrup with an output of 3 million gallons of syrup produced in 2014. But according to the Washington Post more people prefer fake to the real thing.

Fake maple syrup resembles real maple syrup about as much as Velveeta resembles a good Camembert. But when I asked 1,000 Americans which they preferred on their pancakes, the artificial brands won out big time.

Just over 25 percent of respondents to an online Google Consumer Survey panel said that real maple syrup was their pancake topper of choice. Seventy percent chose either Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Butterworth's, Log Cabin or Hungry Jack, while another three percent chose something else.

They speculate the preference for fake probably has to do with high cost — hopefully not flavor. Mostly it is that a gallon of fake syrup goes for about eight dollars (at WalMart), a far cry from the forty to sixty dollars a gallon the labor-intensive genuine maple syrup costs.

So it is mostly about price and availability, although marketing, accessibility, and culture may be additional factors. So there you have it: Not everything boils down to politics.

( – promoted by Sue Prent)

The good news is that the economy today is much better than it was six years ago when George W. Bush left office. The bad news is that, despite these improvements, the 40-year decline of the American middle class continues. Real unemployment is much too high, 35 million Americans continue to have no health insurance and more of our friends and neighbors are living in poverty than at almost any time in the modern history of our country.

Meanwhile, as the rich become much richer, the level of income and wealth inequality has reached obscene and unimaginable levels. In the United States, we have the most unequal level of wealth and income distribution of any major country on earth, and worse now then at any other time since the 1920s. Today, the top one-tenth of 1 percent of our nation owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and one family owns more wealth than the bottom 42 percent. In terms of income, 99 percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent.

This is what a rigged economic system looks like. At a time when millions of American workers have seen declines in their incomes and are working longer hours for lower wages, the wealth of the billionaire class is soaring in a way that few can imagine. If you can believe it, between 2013 and 2015, the 14 wealthiest individuals in the country saw their net worth increase by over $157 billion dollars. Children go hungry, veterans sleep out on the streets, senior citizens cannot afford their prescription drugs — and 14 individuals saw a $157 billion dollar increase in their wealth over a two-year period.

The grotesque level of income and wealth inequality we are experiencing is not just a moral and economic issue, it is a political issue as well. As a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, billionaires are now able to spend unlimited sums of money to buy the candidates they want. The Koch brothers, an extreme right-wing family, recently announced that they were prepared to spend some $900 million in the next election cycle. This is likely more money than either the Democratic or Republican parties will spend. If you think that it is an accident that the Republican Party has become a far-right party, think again. The Koch brothers’ agenda — ending Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the U.S. Postal Service, the Environmental Protection Agency and all campaign finance limitations — has become the agenda of the Republican candidates they fund.

And, by the way, if you think that the Republican Party’s refusal to acknowledge that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is a severe threat to our planet, is not related to how we finance campaigns, you would be sorely mistaken. With the Koch brothers (who make much of their money in the fossil fuel industry) and big energy companies strongly supporting Republican candidates, it should not surprise anyone that my Republican colleagues reject the views of the overwhelming majority of scientists who study climate issues.

With Republicans now controlling both houses of Congress, let me briefly touch on some of the battles that I will be helping to lead in this extreme right-wing environment. In my view, with so many of our fellow citizens demoralized about the political process, it is absolutely imperative that we establish a strong progressive agenda that Americans can rally around. It must be an agenda that reflects the real needs of the working families of our country. It must be an agenda that engages people in a political struggle that they are prepared to fight for.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs: The truth is that real unemployment in our country is not the “official” and widely-reported 5.5 percent. Counting those who are under-employed and those who have given up looking for work, real unemployment is 11 percent. Even more disturbingly, youth unemployment is close to 17 percent and African-American youth unemployment is much higher than that.

If we are truly serious about reversing the decline of the middle class and putting millions of people back to work, we need a major federal jobs program. There are a number of approaches which can be taken, but the fastest way to create jobs is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure — roads, bridges, dams, levees, airports, rail, water systems and wastewater plants.

In that regard, I have introduced legislation which would invest $1 trillion over 5 years to modernize our country’s physical infrastructure. This legislation would create and maintain at least 13 million good-paying jobs. It would also make our country more productive, efficient and safe.

I will also continue my opposition to our current trade policies and vote against fast tracking the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Simply put, our trade policies have failed. Permanent normal trade relations with China have led to the loss of more than 3.2 million American jobs. The North American Free Trade Agreement has led to the loss of nearly 1 million jobs. The Korean Free Trade Agreement has led to the loss of some 60,000 jobs.

We have got to fundamentally rewrite our trade rules so that American jobs are no longer our No.1 export. Corporate America must start investing in this country, not China.

As we struggle for decent-paying jobs, we must also rebuild the trade union movement. Throughout the country, millions of workers want to join unions but are meeting fierce opposition from their employers. We need legislation that makes it easier, not harder, for unions to flourish.

Raising Wages: Today, millions of Americans are working for starvation wages. The current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is totally inadequate. In fact, the real value of today’s minimum wage has declined by one-third since 1968. By raising the minimum wage to a living wage we can provide an increase in income for those people who need it the most. Our goal must be that no full-time worker in this country lives in poverty.

We must also bring about pay equity. There is no rational reason why women should be earning 78 cents on the dollar compared to men who perform the same work.

Further, we have got to expand overtime protections for millions of workers. It is absurd that “supervisors” who earn $25,000 a year are currently forced to work 50 or 60 hours a week with no overtime pay. Raising the income threshold to at least $56,680 from the absurdly low level of $23,660 a year for overtime will mean increased income for many millions of salaried workers.

Addressing Wealth and Income Inequality: Today the richest 400 Americans own more than $2.3 trillion in wealth, more than the bottom 150 million Americans combined. Meanwhile, nearly half of Americans have less than $10,000 in savings and have no idea how they will be able to retire with dignity.

We need real tax reform which makes the rich and profitable corporations begin to pay their fair share of taxes. It is absurd that in 1952 corporate income taxes provided 32 percent of federal revenue while in 2014 they provided 11 percent. It is scandalous that major profitable corporations like General Electric, Verizon, Citigroup and JP Morgan have, in a given recent year, paid nothing in federal income taxes. It is fiscally irresponsible that the U.S. Treasury loses about $100 billion a year because corporations and the rich stash their profits in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and other tax havens.

Warren Buffett is honest. He has pointed out the unfairness of him, a multi-billionaire, paying a lower effective tax rate than his secretary. It is disgraceful that millionaire hedge fund managers are able to pay lower tax effective tax rates than truck drivers or nurses because they take advantage of a variety of loopholes that their lobbyists wrote.

This must end. We need a tax system which is fair and progressive. Children should not go hungry in this country while profitable corporations and the wealthy avoid their tax responsibilities.

Reversing Climate Change: The United States must lead the world in reversing climate change and make certain that this planet is habitable for our children and grandchildren. We must transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energies. Millions of homes and buildings need to be weatherized, our transportation system needs to be energy efficient and we need to greatly accelerate the progress we are already seeing in wind, solar, geothermal and other forms of sustainable energy. Transforming our energy system will not only protect the environment, it will create good-paying jobs.

Health Care for All: The United States remains the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care for all as a right. Despite the modest gains of the Affordable Care Act, 35 million Americans continue to lack health insurance and many more are under-insured. Yet, we continue paying far more per capita for health care than any other nation. The United States must move toward a Medicare-for-All single-payer system.

Protecting Our Most Vulnerable: Today the United States has more people living in poverty than at almost any time in the modern history of our country. We have the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major nation, 35 million Americans still lack health insurance and millions of seniors and disabled people struggle to put food on the table because of insufficient Social Security benefits.

The Republican response to the economic pain of so many of our people was to make a bad situation much worse. The recently-passed Republican budget throws 27 million Americans off of health insurance, cuts Medicare, makes huge cuts to nutrition and makes it harder for working class families to afford college or put their kids in the Head Start program.

In my view, we have a moral responsibility to make certain that no American goes hungry or sleeps out on the streets. We must also make certain that seniors and people with disabilities can live in dignity. Not only must we vigorously oppose Republican attacks on the social safety net, we must expand benefits for those in need. That is why I have recently introduced legislation which would increase the solvency of Social Security until 2065, while expanding benefits for those who need them the most.

Making College Affordable for All: We live in a highly competitive global economy. If this country is to do well economically, we need to have the best-educated workforce in the world. Yet today many Americans cannot get a higher education, not because they are unqualified, but because they simply cannot afford it. Millions of others who do graduate from college or graduate school are drowning in debt. According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the total amount of outstanding student loan debt in the United States has tripled in the last 10 years, and has now reached $1.2 trillion.

The United States must join many other countries in understanding that investing in our young people’s education is investing in the future of our nation. I will soon be introducing legislation to make tuition in public colleges and universities free, as well as substantially lower interest rates on student loans.

And these are just SOME of the issues we are dealing with.

Let me conclude this letter by stating the obvious. This country is in serious trouble. Our economic system benefits the rich and large corporations and leaves working families behind. Our political system is dominated by billionaire campaign contributors and their lobbyists and is moving us in the direction of oligarchy. Our media system, owned by the corporate world, spends enormous time and energy diverting our attention away from the most important issues facing us. Climate change threatens the planet and we have a major political party denying its reality.

Clearly, the struggle to create a nation and world of economic and social justice and environmental sanity is not an easy one. But this I know: despair is not an option if we care about our kids and grandchildren. Giving up is not an option if we want to prevent irreparable harm to our planet.

We must stand up and fight back. We must launch a political revolution which engages millions of Americans from all walks of life in the struggle for real change. This country belongs to all of us, not just the billionaire class.

Please join the grass-roots revolution that we desperately need.

Yes, not content with wasting time and money on Dean Corren’s campaign contributions mis-step, our crusading crime fighting AG is now looking into ‘money laundering’ and campaign signs at  Vermont Yard Sales across the state.

Sorrell feels that, during election years, people with campaign signs up on their lawns while holding a Yard Sale may be secretly taking campaign contributions for their candidates amounting to tens of thousands of dollars, by doubling the prices of books, plates, lamps, litter boxes and other junk.

“A book or a litter box at a Yard Sale shouldn’t cost 50 cents,” said Sorrell.  “25 cents for a book or a litter box.  Where’s the other 25 cents going?  Well, I’m going to find out, no matter how much money and resources this office has to expend.”

When asked how he could justify this investigation on the heels of his ridiculous investigation of Dean Corren’s alleged campaign contributions mis-steps, what with the state bankrupt and Governor Shumlin and the legislature ripping off the poor and the working class, Sorrell replied:  

“This is crime, I’m talking about.  If I let this go, people will be holding Yard Sales to donate to the VSEA, and I think there’s a rule against that, though don’t ask me to cite it, because I have a staff for those questions.  And what about all the sugary sweet drinks I see people at Yard Sales sipping?  That encourages heroin use.  So you see, this investigation of Yard Sales may also lead us to the heart of the drug syndicate in Vermont.  No more questions.  I’ve got to get back to work.”

Yes.  And God knows what that work will reap next.  By the way, Bill, –2015 is not an election year.

WHAT A DOUCHE-BAG!

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.

(How’s come none of you Little Dems covered this last week?)

First off it is a curious thing to me how Bruce Lisman, former top executive at Bear Stearns investment bank has been so readily accepted as Vermont’s premiere fiscal scold.

At the time it crashed in flames, Bear Stearns had a leverage ratio of 33 to 1 (for every dollar in equity, it had $33 of debt). Should he really be lecturing anyone on fiscal restraint?

Be that as it may, Bruce Lisman took four years, one million of his many millions of dollars and built his very own non-partisan “political outfit,” the Campaign for Vermont. Add to this exploit one recent key component: Governor Shumlin has managed to shoot himself in the foot just about every other day for several months and has transformed into a seemingly vulnerable opponent. And … Viola! Bruce has “found” his political voice according to VPR

It’s been almost four years since former Wall Street executive Bruce Lisman founded his public policy outfit, Campaign for Vermont. But only recently has he begun using his public platform to castigate the Shumlin administration directly. And his pointed criticism suggests Lisman might be setting the stage for what could be a wide-open race for governor in 2016.

Others have traveled here before. Rich Tarrant and Jack McMullen were both rich Republican types who, like Lisman, after successful lives in business decided Vermont politics might be a nice ‘closer’ for their careers  — a plutocrat’s nightcap.

Tarrant waged an attack-ad driven campaign against Bernie Sanders to be Vermont’s US Senator, spent $ 7 million, and lost. And of course businessman McMullen moved to Vermont and year later wanted to be a senator but never made it far — losing the Republican primary to farmer Fred Tuttle.

For now Lisman is still keeping his “market price low” regarding a run for governor

So is he gunning to be that guy [to run]? Since the founding of Campaign for Vermont in 2011, Lisman has deflected inquires about his ambition. He continues to do so today.  “I don't give it a lot of thought” Lisman says.”I guess i'm in the same place I've been. I don't give it a ton of thought….” [added emphasis]

It's as if he bought a prime piece of land, took out a building permit and then expects people to believe he hasn’t given building a house or a mega mall  “… a lot [or a ton] of thought”.

Ultimately if he runs for office he must sell a commodity — himself — to Vermonters. In that regard he appears to have charisma only equal to Tarrant and McMullen’s, i.e., none.

Lisman for governor would be just another bad Wall Streeter commodity swap — by Shumlin’s default.

No joke!

I want to particularly direct attention to an article in Seven Days that discusses the obstacles that stubbornly persist in Vermont’s quest to clean-up our #1 water resource.

It represents a long and challenging battle to bring about some measure of progress while respecting the fact that meaningful improvements will depend on a change in our farming culture.  That will take time and a “buy in” from the farmers themselves.  

________________________________________________________________________

The headline this morning in the NY Times was no April Fool joke, much as we might wish that it were.

For the first time in it’s history, the state of California is imposing mandatory water restrictions, slashing local water supply agencies’ alottments by 25%. The agencies serve 90% of households throughout the state.

It will be up to the individual agencies to determine how this reduced volume will be rationed to consumers, but ration they must.

Farmers, who rely on sources outside of those agencies, will not be subject to the 25% reduction, but new rules requiring their accountability for usage have been imposed.

As the drought worsened, Governor Jerry Brown asked consumers for a voluntary reduction of 20% in January, but without the fines that a mandate imposes, strictly voluntary measures were insufficient to reach that goal.

This should be a wake-up call even to people as far away as we are here in Vermont.

As populations and standards of living grow in new places across the globe, energy costs and shortages will not be the worst resource problem we will have to face; and climate change pressures will only serve to make water more difficult to manage.

We’ve been fighting proxy wars over oil for decades now; water wars lie ahead.

It’s time to think about protecting Vermont’s groundwater for future generations.  It should be clearly established that water is a public resource and not for private exploitation.

If we don’t do that soon, we may live to regret it.

A video that appeared just after midnight today on the Campaign for Vermont website has sent shock waves across the Vermont political landscape.

In a clip allegedly recorded in an unnamed tax haven, former Wall Street plutocrat Bruce Lisman announced that his last three years of dabbling in state politics was all an elaborate prank.

“I can’t believe you rubes took me seriously!” he said, lounging on a plush sofa with his trophy wife, as they clinked their champagne glasses together. “Me — Bruce Lisman, super-rich Master Of The Universe — waste my time and energy on Vermont? Bwahahahahaha!

“It was all a joke, and you fell for it!”

Lisman went on to explain the origin of his caper.

“We were driving our Bentley — well, Manfred was driving, we were in the back, of course — and we saw this old schmo by the side of the road with a ‘WILL WORK FOR FOOD’ sign. And you [he points to his wife] said, ‘Gee, honey, he looks just like you after a long weekend!’

“I realized she was right. And the idea came to me just like that!”

Lisman hired the man on the spot. And while Lisman lived it up in his luxurious hideaway, his doppelgänger moved into the Lisman manse in Shelburne and began appearing in public as “Bruce Lisman” offering his insights into the Vermont economy. The real Lisman thought it would just be a brief escapade, a little something to chuckle about at the country club, but it turned into much more.

“I couldn’t believe you bought the swill he was peddling! So we just rolled with it. Pretty soon, a bunch of those gullible Vermont ‘elites’ had signed on board. Boy, were they easy to fool! Especially that Pelham guy — what a maroon!”

He also mocked the reporters and pundits who constantly speculated about him running for Governor. “Why the hell would I waste my time being Governor?” he said. “I could buy and sell the entire misbegotten state if I wanted to. But it’s not worth the bother.”

Lisman ended the video by announcing he’d fired his double and stopped writing checks to Campaign for Vermont.

“It’s been a blast, but it’s all over now. So long, suckers!”