Part one of a CT News Series By VT Economist Doug Hoffer

I don’t pretend to know what’s happening on Wall Street (who does?). But I do know something about what’s happening in Vermont and I would like to share some information with you. Some of it is a little wonky but almost everything seems complicated compared to the superficial coverage we get in the mainstream media. Stay with me.

Montpelier, VT, November 10th, 2008- If there were ever a year for an incumbent Republican Governor to be shown the door it was 2008. With President George W. Bush’s Vermont approval rating hovering in the mid 20s, with two on-going, unpopular wars afoot, with the economy crashing harder than the US has seen since the Great Depression, and with droves of Vermonters going to the polls to enthusiastically place their bet with the now Democratic President-elect Barack Obama (who received 67% of the VT vote), this was the year that the left hoped to demonstrate definitively that Jim does not equal jobs and that Jim represents the same failed policies that have doomed us from DC on down.

This year's graduating class of the Individualized Master of Arts program at Goddard College, VT, proudly invited Mumia Abu-Jamal to be the keynote speaker of their commencement this past Sunday, August 10th 2008. It was a unanimous decision made by all of the graduates to invite Abu-Jamal, alumni of the college, to shed his wisdom and insight as a renowned journalist, freedom-fighter, and scholar. Watch video of introduction / Listen to full speech

On April 28th, 2008 there were many AFL-CIO members amongst the 200+ people at the Vermont Workers' Center (VWC) 10th Anniversary Celebration in the Old Labor Hall in Barre, where the Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign was officially launched.

NEK Fest, August 1st and 2nd!

IPS reports award winning journalist Mohammed Omer, Rafah, was assaulted and abused by Israeli security forces at the Jordan-West Bank checkpoint Thursday. Omer was on his way home from a Netherlands trip sponsored by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and the Dutch Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Winter Soldier on the Hill: Veterans testify before Congress while House debates funding for Iraq occupation

On May 1st, International Workers’ Day, ten peace activists in Burlington, Vermont entered General Dynamics and locked themselves together in the main lobby of the building in protest against the company’s weapons manufacturing and war profiteering.