Hello Indivisibles,
Attachments: VT indivisible digest 2026-03-28 to 2026-04-03
I hope you all had a lovely Sunday. And for those who celebrated Easter, I hope you found a sense of hope and renewal.
ALERT!! WE HAVE TO MOVE THE LOCATION OF THE FRIDAY “DEFEND DEMOCRACY” HONK & WAVES !! We are no longer able to use the location at the intersection of Ferry Rd and Rt 314. This Friday’s Honk & Wave will be on the sidewalk between Worthen Library and Two Heroes in South Hero from 4:00 to 5::00 pm. The Library and Wally’s will both be closed at that time, but the Health Center is still open. Please do not park in the Health Center spaces!! Also, do not park at Two Heroes. See you FRIDAY!
Below, you can find the latest edition of Vermont Indivisible Digest newsletter. Things are coming down to the wire in our state legislature. There are several bills designed to thwart some of the actions of ICE and hold them accountable. I encourage you to check in on them and call your state legislators about the ones you should pass.
REMINDER: To Celebrate the One Year Anniversary of the founding of Indivisible Champlain Islands, the Leadership Team will be gathering at Snow Farm Vineyard on this Sunday, April 12th, from 3:00 to 5:00 for an informal social event. Please join us and raise a toast to all the hard work, and all the volunteers, and all the successes of the past year. (Cash bar).
QUESTION: Recently one of our members asked me where I get the information about this Administration and how I know it is factual. It is a really important question, so I thought I should try to answer it here.
I try to keep some rules in mind. Get information from multiple sources and check to see if they match. Only use information from trusted sources; sources that hold to high journalism standards and do fact checking. Try to include at least one source from outside of the US for an unbiased view. And when quoting the Administration or MOC or other players, always watch what they DO, not what they SAY.
There are some sources that I read or listen to almost every day:
The New York Times, NPR, BBC, MS NOW, CNN, NBC and at least one financial “Headlines” source, such as CNBC or Apple. (note: I find that CNN has some very biased opinion segments)
Sources that I often read articles from: The Atlantic, TWSJ, Politico, and others.
I also read lots of opinion pieces (mostly on Substack) from the likes of Timothy Snyder, Robert Reich, Rachel Maddow, The Meidas Touch, Heather Cox Richardson, Amanda Nelson and many others. They often mention something that I then check elsewhere.
I love numbers, charts and data. I follow polls. I find that information to be very grounding and keeps things in perspective. Especially when using the “watch what they do, not what they say” rule. (ie “this is the greatest economy ever”, etc)
I often have friends or members send me articles that they find important. I don’t always have time to read them or listen to hour long podcasts, but I try to ingest the information and if it is something I have not known about before, I will search for it elsewhere, too.
One example of something that I did not know about until this week when I first heard it on NPR:
More than 10,000 Veterans have lost their homes to foreclosure since the VA ended a program in May 2025 that was designed to help them. And there are 90,000 more currently in default and likely to lose their homes soon. It seems that the VA essentially set up a trap that they could not avoid (think Catch-22). During the Covid pandemic millions of people (not just veterans) were unable to work and thus unable to pay their mortgages. Many lenders, including the VA, set up “forbearance” programs: the borrower could postpone the mortgage payments to a later date without penalty and thus avoid losing their homes. What many programs did was basically extend the length of the loan, ie, tack the payments on at the end. But not all. Some, including the VA, said that at the end of the forbearance period, the ENTIRE amount of missed payments was due immediately. Tens of thousands of dollars usually. Right after people had had no work income for months and had been living on their savings. Obviously a lot of people could not make these huge payments.
The VA set up a program to help Veterans with this problem in 2024 (The Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase Program). In May, the Trump Administration said it was too expensive and they were going to set up a “better” program. So in May, 2025 they terminated VASP. But they still have not set up a new replacement. And here is the real kicker. Even if a Veteran has been making all of their regular mortgage payments, these payments are applied to the large lump sum left from Covid, not to that month’s mortgage payment, so it shows up as a MISSED payment. And after six months of “missed payments”, the loan goes into default. and six months later, foreclosure and the Veteran is kicked out of their home, even after making regular mortgage payments. Nasty, right? There seems no end to the cruelty, shortsightedness, and greed of this Administration.
If you have other questions, send them along and I will try to answer them. Or better yet, stop by Snow Farm on Sunday (3:00-5:00) and we can have a chat.
Cheers,
Marilyn Lagrow
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