A personal plea to Bernie supporters: Please, PLEASE, do not make the same mistake some of you made in 2016 of not voting, that put Trump in the White House. Please VOTE.
SUMMARY: One of the goals of this year’s Democratic National Convention is to unite a divided party. VermontSen. Bernie Sanders was former Vice President Joe Biden’s biggest challenger during the Democratic primaries, and some of his supporters have vowed not to support Biden. Sanders joins Judy Woodruff to discuss working with Biden on policy proposals and progressive representation at the DNC.
SUMMARY: Several states have tightened their immunization requirements, requiring children who attend school get vaccinated against preventable illnesses. But some parents who believe vaccines should be a personal choice are pushing back. Special correspondent Lisa Stark of Education Week reports from Vermont on a fight over immunization there.
SUMMARY: In northeastern Vermont, a half-billion dollar development is helping to transform a lagging economy into the state's job-creation leader. It seems like a win for tourists and for foreign investors, who put up the money in return for green cards for themselves and their families on the EB-5 visa program. Are these investors getting what they paid for? Economics correspondent Paul Solman reports.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Earlier this week, we looked at how a little known immigration program originally intended to benefit poor and rural communities is being used, and some say abused, by wealthy urban developers. Congress must decide whether to renew the 25-year-old program next week.
Tonight, economics correspondent Paul Solman has a report about how the program is helping a poor rural area, but still stirring up controversy.
It’s part of our series Making Sen$e, which airs every Thursday on the “NewsHour.”
Just four miles from the Canadian border, surf’s up, however improbably, at the Jay Peak Resort, part of the half-billion-dollar development project to transform the economically depressed Northeast Kingdom, as this corner of Vermont is called, with foreign investment. The developer is Bill Stenger.
BILL STENGER, CEO, Jay Peak Resort: In the last seven years, we have constructed three different hotels, a beautiful indoor water park, ice arena, conference center, wedding facility. And we have had a tremendous impact on our local economy regionally as well.
PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour): A local economy that, for most of Vermont’s history, has been at the very bottom, but now leads the state in job creation.
So, the Northeast Kingdom wins, tourists win, and so do the foreign investors, not only with a promised return on their investment, but — and here’s the novel incentive of the so-called EB-5 program — with green cards, permanent resident visas for them and their families, in exchange for forking over $500,000 to private companies to create at least 10 jobs in areas of deep unemployment.
BILL STENGER: Well, you don’t have to live in Vermont. There are a number of people from around the world who love Florida, Arizona, California, warmer weather.
PAUL SOLMAN: But besides the lure of sunny climes, says Stenger:
BILL STENGER: Parents oftentimes will gift their son or daughter an investment. They can complete their studies here. And if they can find a job in the United States, the green card will allow them to accept the job, and within five years they will be able to apply for citizenship, and it will be granted.
JUDY WOODRUFF: A governor broke with tradition yesterday and devoted his entire state of the state address to drug addiction.
Peter Shumlin, the governor of Vermont, urged residents to open their eyes to the growing problem in their front yards, rather than leaving it only to law enforcement, medical personnel and addiction treatment providers. Shumlin argued the facts speak for themselves.
In Vermont, since 2000, there has been a 770 percent increase in treatment for all opiates. He stated: "What started as an OxyContin and prescription drug addiction problem in this state has now grown into a full-blown heroin crisis" and -- quote -- "Last year, we had nearly double the number of deaths in Vermont from heroin overdose as the previous year."
It turns out Vermont is not the only state facing this crisis. According to the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy, the number of deaths involving heroin surged 45 percent between 1999 and 2010.
For more on this, I'm joined by Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin and Huffington Post Washington bureau chief Ryan Grim. He's also the author of the book "This Is Your Country on Drugs." ---- GOV. PETER SHUMLIN, D-Vt.: And, listen, here's the challenge. We have lost the war on drugs. The notion that we can arrest our way out of this problem is yesterday's theory.
And, you know, the one thing Vermonters cherish is our quality of life, our safety, the fact that we're a state where we take care of each other, and that we know that our communities are safe and that we have a good quality of life.
And this compromises it. So, as far as I'm concerned, this is one of the real battles that we're facing that we have got to win. And we have got to do that by changing the discussion and changing the policy, so that we say that what heroin addicts and folks that are addicted to opiates are facing is a public health issue, not a crime issue. And we have got to be willing to fight it from that vantage point.
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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