Tag Archives: Victoria Toensing

Something Stupid This Way Comes

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Yep, it’s time again for another round of The Veepies, our awards for stupidity and/or obtuseness in the public sphere. Got a lovely crop of stupid on offer.

First, we have the It Worked So Splendidly Last Time, Let’s Run It Back Again Award, which goes to the folks responsible for exhuming the cold, rotting carcass of the Sanders Institute. Yep, the Sanders clan’s vanity project think tank is once again open for business, thanks to a big fat chunk o’change from… wait for it… the Bernie Sanders campaign! Gotta do something with all those $27 gifts they couldn’t manage to spend during the actual election season.

For those just joining us, the Sanders Institute was founded in 2016 by Jane Sanders and her son David Driscoll, who — mirabile dictu — emerged from what I’m sure was an exhaustive nationwide search to become SI’s executive director. Well, the Institute posted a bunch of essays (mostly recycled from other media) on its website and had one big conference in 2018, but was shut down in May 2019, sez the AP, “amid criticism that the nonprofit has blurred the lines between family, fundraising and campaigning.” Ya think?

There are a few differences between the original and SI 2.0. Sanders comms guy Mike Cesca told VPR that none of the campaign’s money would go toward pay or bennies for Sanders family members. Which is kind of an admission that they screwed up the first time.

Also, two different spokespeople made reference to “the transition” from winning votes to educating people, which makes you think he’s not running for president again, and makes you wonder whether he’ll run for another Senate term in 2024. The new Institute will also include an archive of Sanders and his family… hmm, sounds like a think tank vanity project.

After the jump: A daycare misfire, a self-inflicted social media disappearance, and incompetent fiber installers.

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Hey, let’s catch up with the VTGOP!

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Two weeks ago, the troubled relationship between the Vermont Republican Party and its most successful politician — Gov. Phil Scott — was, for all intents and purposes, formally terminated. At its biannual reorganization, party delegates re-elected chair Deb Billado to a second two-year term. Billado is an earnest soul, but a staunch conservative and devout Donald Trump fan. And she has had zero success with the admittedly tough task of pulling the party out of the doldrums.

She ran without opposition, which is the real point. Two years ago, Scott came up with a nominee of his own: Michael Donohue (not that guy), a very conservative fellow but a realist with a respectable track record of political organizing in other states. Donohue lost narrowly to Billado, in a result that reflected the party’s Trumpward orientation.

This time, Scott didn’t bother. He didn’t even attend the meeting. (He had a good excuse; Vermont was reeling from a weather disaster, and he was visiting affected areas. But I have a feeling he would have found an excuse to stay away. “Had to walk the dog” or somesuch.)

Delegates elected a slate of far-right Trumpers to top posts. Former attorney general candidate Deb Bucknam is the new vice chair; she replaces Brady Toensing, who resigned last spring to take a position in the Trump Justice Department. (He’s the son of Victoria Toensing, frequent promoter of right-wing conspiracy theories on Fox News along with her husband Joe DiGenova. Brady was a longtime member of the family law firm.)

Other officers include Deb Bucknam’s hubby Charlie as party treasurer and Deb Ricker, re-elected as secretary. Two at-large spots on the executive committee went to onetime state representative Paul Dame, who periodically shows up in my mailbox touting “retirement seminars” with a free dinner at the Steakhouse in Berlin*, and Zachary Hampl (not that guy), a Castleton University student and founder of the local chapter of the Young Americans for Liberty. (Young Zach also endorsed Bruce Lisman over Scott in the 2016 primary battle.)

*If that doesn’t work out for him, maybe he can try hawking timeshares.

None of those worthies is on the same ideological continent as Our Governor. Who, again, didn’t even try to offer alternative candidates more suited to his politics and style.

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Something you should know about that Bernie allegation

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The Burlington College closure has a chance of causing trouble for the Bernie Sanders campaign, since his wife Jane played a key role in sinking the college under a mountain of debt. There are whispers of a federal probe, and now Seven Days’ Terri Hallenbeck reports that VTGOP Vice Chair Brady Toensing claims to have “new information” linking Senator Sanders to the case.

“I was recently approached and informed that Senator Bernie Sanders’ office improperly pressured People’s United Bank to approve the loan application,” Toensing said in letters to U.S. Attorney Eric Miller and to Fred Gibson Jr., the acting inspector general of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

There is cause for skepticism aplenty; Toensing is a Republican official, and he refuses to say anything more about his sources or his new information.

But there’s one more thing you should know, and Hallenbeck didn’t catch it.

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The (rotten) apple doesn’t fall far from the (poisoned) tree

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Hey, good morning, everybody! What say we get the blood circulating with a brisk round of dumpster diving, led by Your Vermont Republican Party Vice Chair Brady Toensing?

We’re talking about the Jane Sanders brouhaha, which re-entered our attention yesterday with the release of Skip Vallee’s attack ad against Jane and Bernie. Skippy’s ad focuses on Jane Sanders’ severance deal with Burlington College: after her departure as President, she received about $200,000 in salary and benefits. Which The Gas Man characterized as a “golden parachute.”

Well, apparently Mr. Vallee didn’t come up with this idea on his own.

The Sanders Severance (by Robert Ludlum?) was reported by the media at the time of her departure, but it’s come back amidst the ollege’s latest troubles, including the sudden resignation of Sanders’ successor, Christine Plunkett. And, as VTDigger reports:

[Burlington College’s] financial struggles surfaced in the media last month when Brady Toensing, the vice chairman of the Vermont GOP, passed financial audits of the college to local media.

Oh Brady, you little scamp you.

Toensing’s backdoor mudslinging, I hear, included references to Jane Sanders’ “golden parachute.” In sharing the BC audits, he was clearly trying to highlight Sanders’ alleged role in the college’s current difficulties. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the bang he was expecting for his buck:

The severance pay of $200,000 was a year’s worth of earned but unused sabbatical, she said Wednesday. That pay and her title of president emeritus were announced when she resigned, and were covered in media accounts at the time.

Yeah, sorry, Brady. No scandal here.

Okay, this is pretty standard political hardball — conducting opposition research and slipping tidbits to the media in hopes of generating negative press for your opponents. I’ve gotten my share of tips from both sides of the metaphorical aisle; some have panned out, some have not. However, there’s a difference between sliming a politician and going after a spouse.

And it’s worth pointing out that Toensing’s activities are of a piece with his parents’ notorious scandalmongering on the national scale. Mom and Pop — Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova by name — are frequent guests on Fox News, flogging various Obama conspiracy theories. Vic and Joe are D.C. lawyers, and Brady is a partner in their well-connected (in conservative circles) law firm.  (Details in this Golden Oldie post from Green Mountain Daily, which also details Brady’s political relationship with putative good guy Brian Dubie.)

Apparently he learned his stuff rom Mom and Pop. We look forward to more of Mr. Toensing’s political statesmanship. And maybe putative nice guy Phil Scott can explain why he thinks the junior Toensing is a proper representation of Vermont Republican values. Seems like not quite The Vermont Way, eh?