Apologies for the unannounced two-week absence of this feature. I’ve been out of town a lot lately. Had time to crank out the occasional blog, but not to do a survey of News Content from our state. But, just when you thought it was safe… I’m baaaaaack.

Most of our honorees this week hail from the Vermont Community News Group, which includes several weeklies in Chittenden and Lamoille Counties. Its newspapers routinely punch above their own weight in creating solid content on a shoestring budget.

It can’t happen here. Oh wait, it just did. The good folk of Manchester just discovered that Donald Trump’s unconstitutional ICE crackdown is no respecter of affluence. As the Manchester Journal‘s Michael Albans and Cherise Forbes report, ICE swooped down on a notorious den of iniquity, oh wait, “a small housing development in Manchester” and arrested two unrepentant criminals, oh wait, “Jamaican mothers of school-age children who worked as Home Health aides, as their families looked on.”

Right, a small housing development in frickin’ Manchester, the front line of America’s war on brown people. You know, the thing about the ICE crackdown — well, one of many things about the ICE crackdown — is that they’re not targeting the real criminals or gang members. Those people are too hard to find. ICE is going after people with jobs and responsibilities, people who keep a schedule and have a routine, people who may not have their papers in order but who are assets to our society and our economy.

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