Tag Archives: Deb Billado

Top VTGOP Official Accuses… VTGOP? … of Deploying a “Dishonest Mechanism”

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Former Vermont Republican Party chair — and current Vermont Republican Party Treasurer — Deb Billado has a beef with, um, the Vermont Republican Party. Billado is reportedly “the head of the Donald Trump campaign team in Vermont.” She claims that state party leaders fixed the presidential primary in Nikki Haley’s favor, presumably when she wasn’t in the room. From the Vermont Daily Chronicle:

“Republican leadership invited that very dishonest mechanism to get someone elected and nominated, only to have them drop out the next morning,” Billado said in a phone call to VDC Wednesday morning.

The irony is so thick you couldn’t cut it with a machete. Billado’s beau idéal is the all-time champion of election skulduggery, having (1) sought Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, (2) tried to blackmail Ukraine into providing bogus evidence against Hunter Biden, (3) sought foreign interference in the 2020 election, (4) fought to overturn the results of that vote after being told over and over again, by aides, lawyers, and the courts that there was no evidence of fraud, and (5) sparked an attempted insurrection on January 6, 2021.

Billado is fine with ignoring all of that. What she sees as a “dishonest mechanism” is Vermont’s long-established open primary system in which any registered voter can participate in the party primary of their choosing. She whines that only Republicans should be allowed to vote in the primary. Which would be a neat trick, since Vermont law does not allow voters to register a party preference. Perhaps she’d administer a loyalty oath at the polling place.

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Nikki Haley Organizes Vermont Team

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A few days ago, the Nikki Haley campaign announced the formation of a Vermont State Leadership Team. I didn’t take much notice at the time because it’s not going to make the least bit of difference. Donald Trump is going to steamroll his way to probably all of Vermont’s 17 delegates as he grinds along to his inevitable nomination.

The only things that can stop him are (a) a quick and decisive criminal conviction or (b) a clear and obvious slide into dementia. Haley’s not going to do it, and her newly formed Vermont committee doesn’t have a prayer of carrying her to a primary win.

I wasn’t going to bother covering it at all until a Haley supporter took to The Formerly Robust Platform Formerly Known as Twitter to complain that there had been no coverage of the Vermont announcement. “Shameful that press has not covered this news in Vermont — it’s a big deal,” wrote Court Mattison. “Haley would help win down ballot and bring balance to #montp.”

Well, okay, your wish is my command. But be careful what you wish for.

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Former VTGOP Chair Picks a Fight with Front Porch Forum

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For all their fetishizing of the Constitution, conservatives sure have a funny notion of what the First Amendment means. Take Deb Billado. [Cue Henny Youngman voice] Please, take her!

Billado, the ex-chair of the Vermont Republican Party, is now the CEO of the Vermont Institute for Human Flourishing, a conservative religion-oriented nonprofit that promises to “work to restore the traditional family to its central, pivotal, and honored place in civil society.” The VIHF gets the bulk of its funding from none other than Lenore Broughton, devoted backer of ultraconservative lost causes like the defunct True North Reports and, well, the VTGOP itself.

This fall, the Institute plans to hold its second annual “Restoring Our Faith” summit, which was born out of the notion that the Covid pandemic enabled the secular takeover of society. This year’s Summit will feature discussions on these troubling cultural trends and the critical role of faith, marriage, and the importance of protecting children in a flourishing society. featuring a motley crew of D-list conservative ranters. The announced lineup is a decided step down from last year, when the keynote speaker was the somewhat unobscure Dennis Prager, panjandrum of Prager University, last seen getting approval from the Florida Board of Education for its curriculum materials that, among other things, teaches that slavery wasn’t such a bad thing because slaves learned potentially useful skills and never mind the whipping, sexual assaults, forced separation of families, and, well, that whole being enslaved thing.

More on this year’s “featured” speakers later. The issue before us now is that Billado is in a frenzy because Front Porch Forum apparently rejected an inquiry about advertising the summit to FPF subscribers throughout Vermont.

According to The Williston Observer, FPF rejected the inquiry based on its rigorously enforced Terms of Service, which are designed to keep the forums civil and community-focused. And this, sez Billado, is A VIOLATION OF HER CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, waah waah waah.

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Masking Is Becoming a Rarity, But Mask Panic Is Still a Thing

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Oh boy. Mark your calendars and get your popcorn ready. The anti-maskers are coming to Burlington!

Yeah, not sure what they’re so upset about. The city’s indoor mask mandate expired more than a year ago, and masking is rapidly becoming a fringe activity. I’m still being cautious, but I recently attended an indoor event and was the only person to wear a mask in an crowd of about 30.

But anyway, here it comes, “The Vermont Emergency Forum to Assess the Respiratory Hazards of Masks” on Friday, May 12 in the Contois Auditorium. You could probably guess who’s behind it, but I won’t keep you in suspense. The sponsors are the Vermont Institute for Human Flourishing, the nonprofit plaything of conservative megadonor Lenore Broughton and her new bestie, former VTGOP chair Deb Billado, and Vermont Stands Up, a wannabe statewide organization of the anti-mask, anti-vax crowd.

And then there’s the “facilitator” of the all-day event: “Dr.” Rob WIlliams, once best known for the Second Vermont Republic organization that was once kinda respectable on the left but turned out to be Confederate-adjacent at the very least, and now host of “V-TV,’ an online interview show that’s been booted from YouTube but can still be seen on Vimeo if you must.

Oh, and you’ll also get the chance to bump elbows with the Desautels Family, who’ll be getting a “BREATHING CHAMPIONS AWARD” (caps theirs). Paterfamilias Mike Desautels, you may recall, was stripped of his UPS Store franchise in 2021 for refusing to abide by the state’s indoor mask mandate.

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Stealth Conservatives: Election Truther Gets a Leg Up From Phil Scott

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Say hello to Seth Adam Manley, Republican candidate for House in the Chittenden-22 district. Mr. Manley believes the oft-debunked claim that voting machines can be hacked, says global warming is just part of the natural cycles of the planet’s climate, thinks Ron Santis’ transport of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard was an act of compassion, believes that crime has skyrocketed because we defunded the police, opposes abortion rights and whatever he thinks critical race theory is, and refers to transgender women as “biological males who identify as female.”

Oh, and he was appointed by Gov. Phil Scott to the Essex Junction Board of Civil Authority, which oversees elections.

Yep. Mr. Moderate picked an election truther to a body responsible for elections.

Scott also appointed former VTGOP chair Deb Billado, a hardcore Trumper, and election truther Brian Christie to the same board.

This summer, Scott had to appoint justices of the peace for Essex Junction after it became a city this year. His nominees will serve until city voters elect Justices of the Peace in November. But they’ve already kicked up a fuss or two at BCA meetings.

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Hey, Lenore Broughton Has Found Another Rathole to Throw Her Money Into

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Well, doesn’t that look impressive. A new “Institute” focused on the idea of Human Flourishing, a well-established principle in the humanities — and also in evangelical Christianity. Classically restrained logo and font. You might assume this is a broad-based serious enterprise… until you explore its website further.

Upon which you discover that (a) there’s not a heck of a lot of substance, just a few minimal pages with big pictures and not much text, and (b) the Institute’s two top officers are former VTGOP chair Deb Billado and Vermont’s Favorite Archconservative Moneybags, Lenore Broughton.

I’ll give you one guess who’s writing the checks for this outfit.

The Vermont Institute for Human Flourishing joins the likes of True North Reports and the late unlamented Vermonters First on the roster of no-hope organizations Broughton has funded in lieu of doing anything that might actually have an impact.

Well, to be fair, it’s too early to make that call on VIHF. It hasn’t had time to fail. Yet.

A brief explanation of “human flourishing.” In the social sciences slash humanities, it’s an interdisciplinary study of how best to help people reach their full potential. (Harvard has a Human Flourishing Program.) In evangelical Christian circles, it means channelling sexuality into traditional male/female marriage and battling deviant practices like homosexuality, extramarital sex, and pornography.

I think we know which camp the Vermont Institute is a member of.

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Into a Conservative Cul-de-Sac and Out Again

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We all know that the world of Vermont conservative politics is a small one. Recently, I was doing some campaign finance research when I came across an example of exactly how small a world it really is.

The object of my research was far-right megadonor Lenore Broughton. I’m tracking her state and federal campaign contributions for an upcoming post.

Most of Broughton’s activity is on the federal level, and she supports exactly the kind of politicians you’d expect: Donald Trump, Lauren Boebert, Josh Hawley, Jim Jordan, Ron Johnson, etc. But that’s a tale for another day. On the state level in the 2020 election cycle and the 2022 cycle (so far), she’s made four separate donations.

She gave $5,000 to the Vermont Republican State Committee. She gave $500 to the Rutland County Republican Committee. And she cut two checks totaling $8,050 to something called Right for Vermont.

This is where we turn into the cul-de-sac. It’ll be a short but entertaining ride.

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Still a Dumpster Fire

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Just in case you thought a new party chair meant significant change in the Vermont Republican Party… just in case you bought those media references to the “moderate” incoming chair… Here’s the first initiative birthed by said chair.

Now, that’s just about the loudest dog whistle ever blown.

“Let’s Go Brandon” is, of course, the juvenile chant adopted by rabid right-wingers as a stand-in for “Fuck Joe Biden.” (Insert Beavis and Butthead laugh here.)

The VTGOP can claim the barest hint of a fig leaf for this nonsense in that (1) Brandon is an actual town, and (2) it’s the hometown of new chair Paul Dame. But we know what’s going on here. We know why the first rally is not in Montpelier or Burlington or St. Albans or Rutland.

It’s in Brandon because Dame’s first instinct — and/or his only option — is to appeal to the base. (The party is selling a wide array of “Let’s Go Brandon” merchandise, too. Cashing in on far-right hatred is such a good look.)

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

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Hey Hey, We’re the Veepies!

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This being midsummer in a non-election year, things are a little bit show in #vtpoliland. Or maybe there’s stuff going on, but since there are practically no reporters on the #vtpoli beat right now, we’d never find out about it.

As a result of this lack of news, this edition of the Veepies (our awards for stupidity and/or obtuseness in the public sphere) roams far afield into the realms of journalistic conflicts of interest, conservatives panicking over nothing, and even sports talk radio.

That’s where we begin. The Please Stop Talking About Something You Know Nothing About Award goes to Rich and Arnie, co-hosts of the afternoon talk show on Burlington’s 101.3 The Game. On Tuesday afternoon, the day Simone Biles withdrew from the team gymnastics competition, the boys pulled down their pants and showed their asses for all to see. (The show is archived on the station’s website and podcast.)

Arnie repeatedly referred to BIles’ mental health crisis as “having a bad day,” and accused Biles of costing her team the gold medal. Rich questioned “the timing” of her withdrawal, and asked, “Was she having a bad day first, or was she having a bad day after she messed up the vault?” (She withdrew after a subpar performance on the vault.)

This happens every time a societal or political issue intrudes on the Toy Department of Life. Sports talk radio is suddenly, horribly out of its depth.

Look, guys. You can’t schedule a mental health crisis. You don’t know what’s going to set it off. When it happens, it can be like a tsunami dragging you down. We know that Biles felt unable to compete safely, so withdrawing was the responsible thing — for her well-being and for the team’s prospects in the competition. So just shut up about issues that you can’t be bothered to learn about, and stop making fools of yourselves.

After the jump: Two cases of conservative hysteria, and a veteran reporter steps in it.

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Today I Learned Something on True North Reports

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I don’t make a habit of reading “True North Reports,” the right-wing “news” site bankrolled by the famously reclusive Lenore Broughton. But I do dip my toe in its clouded waters from time to time, just because you gotta keep an eye on those Fockers.

I just did so, and mirabile dictu, I found a nugget of news!

NEWS!

On True North Reports!

What is this nugget? Well, at a VTGOP meeting over the weekend, party chair Deb Billado announced that the party would file lawsuits against the cities of Montpelier and Winooski over their Legislature-approved charter changes allowing resident noncitizens to vote. “We’re not sitting still on that particular issue,” she told the assembled. “We believe that it goes directly against the Vermont State Constitution section 42 and we are moving forward with legal action.”

Yeah, that qualifies as news. Congrats to Mike Bielawski for being the first, and so far only, person to report that fact.

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