3 stories credited to VTDigger
Latest story Apr 22, 2026 · on ChamberLight since Apr 2026
A story can appear as several articles (copies of the same piece), so counts of stories and of articles differ.
Scores for VTDigger
Writing quality not enough rated stories yet: 3 of 10. How it is measured
Scores last checked Sep 25, 2026.
Stories ChamberLight collected, by month
Stories credited to VTDigger, by publication date. ChamberLight collects articles that mention the officials it tracks, so this shows its own coverage of this source, not how much the source publishes.
- Stories from VTDigger
- Shaded: ChamberLight collected no stories, or almost none, from any outlet (a gap in its collection, not in the outlet’s publishing)
Show as a table
| Month | Stories | All outlets |
|---|---|---|
| April 2026 | 3 | 4,160 |
| May 2026 | 0 | none collected |
| June 2026 | 0 | none collected |
| July 2026 | 0 | none collected |
| August 2026 | 0 | 1 (collection gap) |
| September 2026 | 0 | 598 |
Top topics
Share of this source’s stories tagged with each topic. A story can carry several topics, so the shares do not add up to 100%.
- Budget/Spending2
67% of 3 stories · 30% across all outlets
- Ethics/Corruption2
67% of 3 stories · 56% across all outlets
- Economy1
33% of 3 stories · 24% across all outlets
- Environment/Climate1
33% of 3 stories · 4% across all outlets
- Foreign Policy1
33% of 3 stories · 28% across all outlets
- Housing1
33% of 3 stories · 1% across all outlets
- Technology/Privacy1
33% of 3 stories · 9% across all outlets
The thin mark on each bar is the topic’s share across all outlets.
Who they cover
Party of the officials these stories are mainly about, across all 4 officials named. A story counts once for each official it is mainly about, so the split is over 5 story–official pairs, from 3 stories.
- Independent40% · 2 pairs
- Republican40% · 2 pairs
- Democrat20% · 1 pair
Most covered
Stories mainly about each official, and their share of the source’s 3 stories.
Article tone
ChamberLight’s article analysis assigns each story a tone toward the official it covers. It describes the coverage of that official, not VTDigger’s stance, and reader votes do not change it. 3 stories.
- Good Look
- 1 (33%)
- Mixed
- 0 (0%)
- Informational
- 0 (0%)
- Bad Look
- 2 (67%)
Challenges to these scores
No one has challenged a score on this page yet. Anyone can; editors publish every outcome here.
Articles served from vtdigger.org
5
Vermont Conversation: Who made the president a king?
The Vermont Conversation with David Goodman is a VTDigger podcast that features in-depth interviews on local and national issues. Listen below and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get podcasts. Millions of Americans have attended “No Kings” protests, voicing outrage that President Donald Trump has turned the presidency into an imperial platform from which to launch wars of choice, levy illegal tariffs, and unleash armed agents against his political adversaries. Isn’t the American system of checks and balances supposed to prevent this? “The Kingmakers” is a new podcast hosted by journalist David Sirota that looks at how those checks have been steadily undermined. The podcast explores how the unitary executive theory, once a fringe idea that grants kinglike powers to the American president, was germinated in the Nixon administration, flowered in the Reagan administration, and is now the blueprint for Trump’s power grab. “The Watergate scandal, where the president is using the various pieces of the political machine and apparatus of the presidency to target his political opponents … is seen as the zenith of the imperial presidency,” said Sirota. After Nixon’s resignation, Congress tried to rein in executive powers. President Reagan responded by “making a much grander argument that any statutes that come from Congress that constrain the executive’s authority to control the federal government is itself not just illegal, but unconstitutional.” Reagan’s aggressive assertion of executive power led to the Iran-Contra scandal, when White House officials brazenly flouted and misled Congress. “The ideology (is) that we are above the law, the law does not apply to us. The president is essentially not a co-equal branch of government, but an elected king,” Sirota said. Sirota is founder and editor-in-chief of The Lever, an independent investigative news outlet. He was the screenwriter for the Oscar-nominated film “Don’t Look Up.” His new podcast is the second season of his award-winning series “Master Plan,” which examines how corruption became legal in American politics. Sirota has also worked for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, most recently as speechwriter and senior adviser in his 2020 presidential campaign. He credits Sanders as a mentor, teaching that “it’s not really the two parties. It’s really money versus everybody else.” READ MORE “If you’re an oligarch you try to turn the one-person, one-vote democracy into a $1, one-vote oligarchy … turning elections into auctions. That’s one way you deal with the democracy problem,” said Sirota. His podcasts trace the origins of the “master plan” hatched in the 1970s “to consolidate as much power as you can in the hands of one person so that when you get into power and you use the legalized corruption system to buy that office, then you can do whatever you want,” as he described it. Sirota believes that “people are disgusted with the endemic corruption that’s out there.” He cites as evidence the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who relied on public financing in his campaign. “The pendulum swings here,” said Sirota. “We are now at a moment where anti-corruption can be a central theme with a real policy objective. We must give people a way to run for office where they can run a robust, competitive and competitively financed campaign without having to rely on oligarch money. That is possible. That is realistic.” Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont Conversation: Who made the president a king?.
Vermont shut down its power. Here’s how to turn it back on.
This commentary is by Justin Neuman, a professor of literary studies at Eugene Lang College, The New School. I grew up in Wilmington, a ski town not far from two nuclear power plants. In southern Vermont, everything is just over the next hill and down another valley. You could drive past both plants your whole life and never know they were there. Background infrastructure for a region that worked. Both are gone now. Vermont Yankee went dark on Dec. 29, 2014. At its peak, it generated 620 megawatts and provided roughly 35% of the state’s electricity. Today, the reactor building has been cracked apart by heavy machinery, and the rubble has been shipped to Texas in railcars. What remains in Vernon is a cleared lot, 58 casks of spent fuel with nowhere to go and a small town waiting to find out what happens next. I have a proposal: Build a next-generation small modular reactor on that site. Co-locate a data center. Bring the jobs, the tax base and the clean energy back to a region that’s been bleeding all three for a decade. Vernon still has grid interconnection, transmission corridors, cooling water from the Connecticut River and a Nuclear Regulatory Commission file going back 40 years. Every hyperscaler in America — Microsoft, Amazon and Elon Musk’s xAI — is hunting for exactly this kind of site. Vermont shut down its largest power source and mandated 100% renewable electricity by 2035. We don’t need to wait that long to see the results. Vermonters pay roughly 22 cents per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity, nearly 33% above the national average and among the highest rates in the country, and according to the Vermont Department of Public Service, rates are projected to climb another 25% by 2030. The consequences cascade. Skiing is a $1.6 billion annual industry in Vermont, and electricity is one of its highest operating costs. Air compression for snowmaking alone accounts for more than half of a typical resort’s electricity consumption. Cheap, reliable, carbon-free power isn’t an abstraction here. It’s the difference between a ski season that works and one that doesn’t. Gov. Phil Scott understands this. He was one of only four state senators who voted for Vermont Yankee’s relicensing back in 2010. In January, he threw his weight behind H.601, a bill that would repeal the legislature’s veto power over new nuclear construction and open the renewable energy standard to include nuclear. READ MORE Meanwhile, something extraordinary is happening in American energy. The boom in artificial intelligence has created a power crisis that looks, from Vernon’s perspective, like an enormous opportunity. Data centers require massive, uninterrupted, carbon-free electricity. Every hyperscaler in the country is hunting for sites with grid interconnection, cooling water, transmission corridors and communities that understand what it means to live near a reactor. Vernon has all of it. The town is about to inherit the cleared Vermont Yankee site for redevelopment. The Connecticut River provides cooling water. The transmission infrastructure is in place. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has decades of institutional knowledge of the location. And the people of Windham County already lived alongside a reactor for 40 years. If this sounds like fantasy, look at Virginia. In Loudoun County, data centers bring in an estimated $890 million a year in tax revenue, nearly matching the county’s entire operating budget. It has allowed Loudoun to lower its real property tax rate every year for a decade. Nobody in Vermont can say that about anything. Vermont doesn’t need to become Loudoun County. But even a fraction of that engine would be transformational for Windham County. A data center campus means thousands of construction jobs over multiple years, followed by hundreds of permanent positions in operations, information technology, facility management and security, many of which don’t require a four-year degree. This isn’t a fulfillment warehouse. It’s the kind of skilled, well-paying work Vermont used to be known for, back when Vermont Yankee employed 600 people in Vernon. Sen. Bernie Sanders has introduced legislation calling for a federal moratorium on data center construction. But a moratorium is not a policy. It’s a confession that you don’t have one. The man who built a career championing the working class wants to prohibit the construction of facilities that would bring thousands of jobs to a region that has never replaced the jobs and tax base lost when Vermont Yankee closed. I grew up next to a nuclear plant, but I’d rather my kids grow up next to a data center. Let’s build it in Vermont so more of the money stays in Vermont. Let’s build it in Bernie’s backyard — and mine. Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont shut down its power. Here’s how to turn it back on..
Federal anti-poverty grant delay draws rebuke from Vermont’s congressional delegation
Paul Dragon, executive director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, speaks in Burlington in Feb. 2023. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger. Funds from an anti-poverty grant program targeted by the Trump administration have been unusually delayed, drawing sharp criticism from Vermont’s congressional delegation. The monthslong wait for this year’s federal Community Service Block Grant funds comes amid a push from the White House to eliminate the program entirely from the federal budget. Service providers in Vermont say federal grants have become increasingly unreliable, and that losing this funding stream would be a deep blow to the housing, food and fuel assistance programs the money helps support. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., demanded in a letter last week to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the Trump administration release the funds immediately. “We write to express our strong opposition to the illegal and unconstitutional decision by the Trump Administration to delay over $810 million in funding for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program,” read the joint letter. In Vermont, the program delivers roughly $4 million in annual support to the state’s Community Action agencies. That amount is broken into multiple payments each year — but the state is still waiting for more than $3 million in funds for the fiscal year ending in September. “We see it as a critical piece of the infrastructure in Vermont to respond to community needs,” said Lily Sojourner, who heads the state Office of Economic Opportunity. Though it’s normal for grants like these to have somewhat unpredictable timelines, Sojourner said in an interview Monday her office had expected the remaining funds to arrive earlier. Federal officials have told her the funds will arrive eventually but have not provided an estimated timeline, she said. The federal Office of Community Services, which administers the grant, also experienced staffing cuts recently, Sojourner noted. In the meantime, she said, her office has floated the money providers need to run their programs. But at a certain point, Sojourner said, the state would have to decrease or freeze the available grant money until her team has the grant funding in hand. “Hopefully it won’t come to that,” she said. The block grant helps support shelters, food assistance and emergency fuel help, among other programs, according to Paul Dragon, who leads the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. Nearly all federal grants come with strict rules for appropriate use, Dragon said. The $1.1 million his organization receives through the block grant is a rare flexible funding source — though reporting requirements are extensive — and has become an “operational lifeblood” for Dragon’s team. He can shore up staff costs when necessary using these resources, he said, and generally prepare for the unexpected. In the last year, the unexpected has become routine. Dragon’s organization lost a federal grant overnight in March 2025 that would have funded health checks for refugees in cooperation with the Vermont Department of Health. Other federal funds to help especially vulnerable people access housing also dried up temporarily last year, he said. A freeze or cancellation of the Community Services Block Grant would be “disruptive” in the short term and “a big step backwards” in the long term for his organization’s mission, according to Dragon. “We’ve built our budgets on this,” he said. In its joint letter, Vermont’s congressional delegation pointed to the Trump administration’s last budget proposal, which sought to eliminate the Community Services Block Grant altogether. The program, the White House said, has been “hijacked from true poverty reduction to things such as equity-building and green energy initiatives.” In recommendations for next year’s federal budget released last week, Trump again asked lawmakers to end the program. Sanders, Welch and Balint reiterated that current funding must be released. “These programs are literally a matter of life and death for some of the most vulnerable people in America,” they said in the letter. “Under our Constitution, you do not have the right to determine which laws you will follow and which laws you will ignore.” Read the story on VTDigger here: Federal anti-poverty grant delay draws rebuke from Vermont’s congressional delegation.
Federal anti-poverty grant delay draws rebuke from Vermont’s congressional delegation
Paul Dragon, executive director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, speaks in Burlington in Feb. 2023. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger. Funds from an anti-poverty grant program targeted by the Trump administration have been unusually delayed, drawing sharp criticism from Vermont’s congressional delegation. The monthslong wait for this year’s federal Community Service Block Grant funds comes amid a push from the White House to eliminate the program entirely from the federal budget. Service providers in Vermont say federal grants have become increasingly unreliable, and that losing this funding stream would be a deep blow to the housing, food and fuel assistance programs the money helps support. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., demanded in a letter last week to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the Trump administration release the funds immediately. “We write to express our strong opposition to the illegal and unconstitutional decision by the Trump Administration to delay over $810 million in funding for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program,” read the joint letter. In Vermont, the program delivers roughly $4 million in annual support to the state’s Community Action agencies. That amount is broken into multiple payments each year — but the state is still waiting for more than $3 million in funds for the fiscal year ending in September. “We see it as a critical piece of the infrastructure in Vermont to respond to community needs,” said Lily Sojourner, who heads the state Office of Economic Opportunity. Though it’s normal for grants like these to have somewhat unpredictable timelines, Sojourner said in an interview Monday her office had expected the remaining funds to arrive earlier. Federal officials have told her the funds will arrive eventually but have not provided an estimated timeline, she said. The federal Office of Community Services, which administers the grant, also experienced staffing cuts recently, Sojourner noted. In the meantime, she said, her office has floated the money providers need to run their programs. But at a certain point, Sojourner said, the state would have to decrease or freeze the available grant money until her team has the grant funding in hand. “Hopefully it won’t come to that,” she said. The block grant helps support shelters, food assistance and emergency fuel help, among other programs, according to Paul Dragon, who leads the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. Nearly all federal grants come with strict rules for appropriate use, Dragon said. The $1.1 million his organization receives through the block grant is a rare flexible funding source — though reporting requirements are extensive — and has become an “operational lifeblood” for Dragon’s team. He can shore up staff costs when necessary using these resources, he said, and generally prepare for the unexpected. In the last year, the unexpected has become routine. Dragon’s organization lost a federal grant overnight in March 2025 that would have funded health checks for refugees in cooperation with the Vermont Department of Health. Other federal funds to help especially vulnerable people access housing also dried up temporarily last year, he said. A freeze or cancellation of the Community Services Block Grant would be “disruptive” in the short term and “a big step backwards” in the long term for his organization’s mission, according to Dragon. “We’ve built our budgets on this,” he said. In its joint letter, Vermont’s congressional delegation pointed to the Trump administration’s last budget proposal, which sought to eliminate the Community Services Block Grant altogether. The program, the White House said, has been “hijacked from true poverty reduction to things such as equity-building and green energy initiatives.” In recommendations for next year’s federal budget released last week, Trump again asked lawmakers to end the program. Sanders, Welch and Balint reiterated that current funding must be released. “These programs are literally a matter of life and death for some of the most vulnerable people in America,” they said in the letter. “Under our Constitution, you do not have the right to determine which laws you will follow and which laws you will ignore.” Read the story on VTDigger here: Federal anti-poverty grant delay draws rebuke from Vermont’s congressional delegation.
Federal anti-poverty grant delay draws rebuke from Vermont’s congressional delegation
Paul Dragon, executive director of the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity, speaks in Burlington in Feb. 2023. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger. Funds from an anti-poverty grant program targeted by the Trump administration have been unusually delayed, drawing sharp criticism from Vermont’s congressional delegation. The monthslong wait for this year’s federal Community Service Block Grant funds comes amid a push from the White House to eliminate the program entirely from the federal budget. Service providers in Vermont say federal grants have become increasingly unreliable, and that losing this funding stream would be a deep blow to the housing, food and fuel assistance programs the money helps support. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint, D-Vt., demanded in a letter last week to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that the Trump administration release the funds immediately. “We write to express our strong opposition to the illegal and unconstitutional decision by the Trump Administration to delay over $810 million in funding for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program,” read the joint letter. In Vermont, the program delivers roughly $4 million in annual support to the state’s Community Action agencies. That amount is broken into multiple payments each year — but the state is still waiting for more than $3 million in funds for the fiscal year ending in September. “We see it as a critical piece of the infrastructure in Vermont to respond to community needs,” said Lily Sojourner, who heads the state Office of Economic Opportunity. Though it’s normal for grants like these to have somewhat unpredictable timelines, Sojourner said in an interview Monday her office had expected the remaining funds to arrive earlier. Federal officials have told her the funds will arrive eventually but have not provided an estimated timeline, she said. The federal Office of Community Services, which administers the grant, also experienced staffing cuts recently, Sojourner noted. In the meantime, she said, her office has floated the money providers need to run their programs. But at a certain point, Sojourner said, the state would have to decrease or freeze the available grant money until her team has the grant funding in hand. “Hopefully it won’t come to that,” she said. The block grant helps support shelters, food assistance and emergency fuel help, among other programs, according to Paul Dragon, who leads the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. Nearly all federal grants come with strict rules for appropriate use, Dragon said. The $1.1 million his organization receives through the block grant is a rare flexible funding source — though reporting requirements are extensive — and has become an “operational lifeblood” for Dragon’s team. He can shore up staff costs when necessary using these resources, he said, and generally prepare for the unexpected. In the last year, the unexpected has become routine. Dragon’s organization lost a federal grant overnight in March 2025 that would have funded health checks for refugees in cooperation with the Vermont Department of Health. Other federal funds to help especially vulnerable people access housing also dried up temporarily last year, he said. A freeze or cancellation of the Community Services Block Grant would be “disruptive” in the short term and “a big step backwards” in the long term for his organization’s mission, according to Dragon. “We’ve built our budgets on this,” he said. In its joint letter, Vermont’s congressional delegation pointed to the Trump administration’s last budget proposal, which sought to eliminate the Community Services Block Grant altogether. The program, the White House said, has been “hijacked from true poverty reduction to things such as equity-building and green energy initiatives.” In recommendations for next year’s federal budget released last week, Trump again asked lawmakers to end the program. Sanders, Welch and Balint reiterated that current funding must be released. “These programs are literally a matter of life and death for some of the most vulnerable people in America,” they said in the letter. “Under our Constitution, you do not have the right to determine which laws you will follow and which laws you will ignore.” Read the story on VTDigger here: Federal anti-poverty grant delay draws rebuke from Vermont’s congressional delegation.