Vermont Progressive Party's director to step down

MONTPELIER, Vt. (ABC22/FOX44) – Vermont's Progressives will be looking for someone new to guide them for the first time in eight years.
Josh Wronski, who became the party's executive director in January of 2017, announced Monday that he will be stepping down on July 4 to take a position with the Vermont State Employees Association. The party's executive director is its only paid position.
Wronski wrote, 'I came into this role from the labor movement, and am excited to now be joining the staff of the VSEA – one of the most impactful unions in our state. Working people are under attack like never before, and the need for a powerful labor movement is clearer than ever.'
Opioid overdose deaths in Vermont dropped significantly last year
The Vermont Progressive Party, the third largest political party in the state after the Democrats and the Republicans, is known for its platform of 'economic, social, and environmental justice'. It currently counts among its members five members of the Vermont State Legislature and five of the twelve members of the Burlington City Council. It is frequently associated with independent Senator Bernie Sanders, from whose campaign for Burlington mayor it originated; Sanders has been an 'affiliated non-member' since 1981.
Progressive candidate David Zuckerman narrowly lost the election for lieutenant governor in the state last year to Republican John Rodgers, by less than 6,000 votes out of over 330,000 cast.
Anthony Pollina, who served in the Vermont State Senate from 2011 to 2023, remains as the party's chair. He thanked Wronski for his time as director, saying, 'Josh has been an incredible asset to the Progressive Party and the progressive movement in Vermont, providing leadership and working tirelessly behind the scenes. Thanks to Josh we are a stronger, more resilient party. He will be missed.'
The party's leadership will meet next week to discuss next steps.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Hill

an hour ago

• The Hill

Trump ropes Fed into debt fight as GOP faces fiscal mess

President Trump is pushing the Federal Reserve to go beyond its legal mandate and help him manage the national debt as Republicans face growing pressure over the nation's finances. In a series of remarks and social media posts, Trump has ripped Fed Chair Jerome Powell for refusing to lower interest rates, insisting he should help the White House manage the costs of servicing more than $36 trillion in national debt. ''Too Late' Jerome Powell is costing our Country Hundreds of Billions of Dollars. He is truly one of the dumbest, and most destructive, people in Government, and the Fed Board is complicit,' Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social, a day after the Fed held rates steady. While Trump has spent most of his two White House stints berating Powell to cut rates, only recently has he tied those demands to the country's deteriorating fiscal health. 'We're beginning to see what I think are the early warning signs that the Fed is going to be increasingly called upon to keep the government solvent,' said David Beckworth, senior research fellow and monetary policy director at the Mercatus Center, a libertarian-leaning think tank at George Mason University. 'When you begin to see this type of rhetoric, it's a clear sign that people are beginning to get nervous,' Beckworth explained. 'And how else can we save money? Well, let's turn into the Fed and put pressure on them.' Trump's escalating pressure on Powell over the national debt comes as he and Republicans stand to add trillions of dollars to it through a major tax-cut bill. Republican lawmakers are attempting to find common ground on what Trump has called his 'big, beautiful bill.' The legislation features an extension of his 2017 tax cuts, additional cuts the president proposed during the 2024 campaign, and steep cuts to social safety net programs. While GOP lawmakers claim the bill would help solve the country's fiscal woes, a range of ideologically diverse analysts forecast the bill to add anywhere between $2 trillion to nearly $4 trillion to the national debt. At the same time, Trump is attempting to secure GOP support to raise the debt ceiling before the Treasury Department runs out of ways to avoid a default — a deadline that could come as soon as August. Trump is 'kind of speaking out of both sides of his mouth,' said Dan Alpert, managing partner at investment firm Westwood Capital 'He's got this enormous, $3.5 trillion dollar continuation of a tax cut from his first term that he wants to get across the line,' Alpert added. Republican lawmakers have argued that such estimates don't take into account the economic growth unlocked by lower tax rates, which they say would help narrow deficits over time. But the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that even when accounting for growth impacts, the bill would still add $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next ten years — more than the CBO projected without considering the preferred GOP scoring. 'The fundamental issue is we have a Congress and a president who cannot bring the budget deficit under control,' Beckworth said. While both Republicans and Democrats are to blame, he added, 'for a party that has claimed historically it is concerned about their debt burden, it is going to blow things up even more.' Trump's efforts to push the Fed into managing the debt mark a significant break from more than 70 years of federal economic policy. During World War I and II, the Fed yielded to pressure from presidential administrations to keep interest rates low and ease the burden of the rising debt. While that practice extended for nearly a decade after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Fed and Treasury eventually reached an agreement in 1951, setting the stage for the next seven decades of economic management. 'The purpose of the 'accord' was to make Treasury manage its debt, rather than expecting the Fed to 'monetize' it. In turn, the Fed asserted its control of monetary policy via the setting of interest rates to meet congressional mandates for price stability and maximizing employment,' said Sarah Binder, political science professor at George Washington University and co-author of 'The Myth of Independence: How Congress Governs the Federal Reserve.' The Fed has since avoided anything that could be considered financing the federal debt while sticking to its 'dual mandate' of balancing unemployment and inflation. And while several presidents have verbally pressured the Fed to keep rates low since 1951, none has made a formal move to limit its legal authority over monetary policy. 'Based on most concepts of 'independent' monetary policy, the central bank shouldn't be monetizing the debt. That is, it shouldn't be taking the administration's financing needs into account when it aims to meet its mandates,' Binder said. 'Those mandates are price stability and strong labor markets,' she added. 'Congress has not given the Fed an additional mandate to make it easier for the Treasury to finance its debt.' But Trump could be laying the groundwork for a shift toward a 'fiscal dominance' regime, Beckworth warned, in which the Fed would be forced to clean up the government's fiscal mess and abandon the bank's legal obligation to keep prices stable and unemployment low. 'Maybe we're not there yet, but we're getting close,' Beckworth said. 'If they push, push, push, and then at some point, the Fed loses independence … and it's no longer able to control inflation.' Trump griped Wednesday, hours before the Fed's latest hold, that he was unable to sway Powell into making major interest rate reductions. 'He's not a smart person,' Trump said of Powell. 'I think he hates me, but that's OK, you know, he should. He should. I call him every name in the book to get him to do something.' Powell brushed off several questions Wednesday about Trump's attacks and the potential debt impact of the president's agenda, but has implored the White House and Congress throughout his time as Fed chief to get the nation's finances on a sustainable track. Trump will be able to add 'former Chair' to his list of names for Powell come 2026, when his four-year term leading the Fed board lapses. Whomever Trump nominates to succeed Powell will almost certainly be more aligned with the president's thinking and face an easy path to confirmation in a GOP-controlled Senate. Even so, Powell is but one of 12 Fed officials on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) who vote to set interest rates — all of whom voted to keep borrowing costs steady Wednesday. 'Even if you got rid of Powell, you'd have to remake the FOMC with yes-men,' Beckworth said. Powell could also choose to stay on as a member of the Fed board through 2028. That would be an usual move for a former Fed chair, but Powell has not ruled it out. 'Powell has not budged, and the FOMC has not budged despite Trump's incessant ranting and pressure and whatever else he can throw at them,' Beckworth said. 'They're still sticking to their guns.'

Atlantic

2 hours ago

• Atlantic

Trump Got This One Right

'Why are the wrong people doing the right thing?' Henry Kissinger is supposed to have once asked, in a moment of statesman-like perplexity. That question recurred as Donald Trump, backed by a visibly perturbed vice president and two uneasy Cabinet secretaries, announced that the United States had just bombed three Iranian nuclear sites. It is a matter of consternation for all the right people, who, as Kissinger well knew, are often enough dead wrong. The brute fact is that Trump, more than any other president, Republican or Democrat, has taken decisive action against one of the two most dangerous nuclear programs in the world (the other being North Korea's). The Iranian government has for a generation not only spewed hatred at the United States and Israel, and at the West generally, but committed and abetted terrorism throughout the Middle East and as far as Europe and Latin America. Every day, its drones deliver death to Ukrainian cities. The Iranian government is a deeply hostile regime that has brought misery to many. A nuclear-armed Iran might very well have used a nuclear weapon against Israel, which is, as one former Iranian president repeatedly declared, 'a one-bomb country.' Because Israel might well have attempted to forestall such a blow with a preemptive nuclear strike of its own, the question is more likely when an Iranian bomb would have triggered the use of nuclear weapons, not whether it would have done so. But even without that apocalyptic possibility, a nuclear-armed Iran would have its own umbrella of deterrence to continue the terror and subversion with which it has persecuted its neighbors. There is no reason to think the regime has any desire to moderate those tendencies. In his address to the nation on Saturday night, Trump was right to speak—and to speak with what sounded like unfeigned fury—about the American servicemen and servicewomen maimed and killed by Iranian IEDs in Iraq. It was no less than the truth. Shame on his predecessors for not being willing to say so publicly. When someone is killing your men and women, a commander in chief is supposed to say—and, more important, do—something about it. Trump was also right in making this a precise, limited use of force while holding more in reserve. Israel has done the heavy lifting here, but he has contributed an essential element—and no more. He was right as well (for the strikes were indeed an act of war) to threaten far worse punishment if Iran attempts to retaliate. The rush in many quarters—including right-wing isolationists and anguished progressives—to conjure up prospects of a war that will engulf the Middle East reflected their emotions rather than any analytic judgment. Iran, it cannot be said often enough, is a weak state. Its air defenses no longer exist. Its security apparatus has been thoroughly penetrated by Israeli, American, and other intelligence agencies. Its finances are a wreck and its people are hostile to their rulers. For that matter, anyone who has served in uniform in the Middle East during the past few decades knows that Iran has consistently conducted low-level war against the United States through its proxies. Could Iran attempt to attack shipping in the Persian Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz? Yes—and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy would die in large numbers in their speedboats or in their bases as they prepared to do so. The United States and its allies have prepared for that scenario for a long time, and Iranian sailors' desire for martyrdom has been overstated. Could Iran try to launch terror attacks abroad? Yes, but the idea that there is a broad silent network of Iranian terrorists just waiting for the signal to strike is chimerical. And remember, Iran's nuclear fangs have been pulled. True enough, not permanently, as many of the president's critics have already earnestly pointed out on television. But so much of that kind of commentary is pseudo-sophistication: Almost no strategic problem gets solved permanently, unless you are Rome dealing with Carthage in the Third Punic War, destroying the city, slaughtering its inhabitants, and sowing the furrows with salt. For some period—five years, maybe 10—Iran will not have a nuclear option. Its key facilities are smashed and its key scientists dead or living in fear of their lives. Similar complaints were made about the Israeli strike on the Iraqi Osirak reactor in 1981. The Israelis expected to delay the Iraqi program by no more than a year or two—but instead, the program was deferred indefinitely. As things go, crushing the facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan, following a sustained Israeli campaign against similar targets, was a major achievement, and a problem deferred for five years may be deferred forever. As for Iran, in 1988 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini agreed to 'drink from the poisoned chalice' and accept a cease-fire with Iraq. He did so because the Iraq war was going badly, but also because he believed that the United States was willing to fight Iran: Operation Praying Mantis in 1988, following a mine explosion that damaged an American warship, involved the U.S. Navy sinking Iranian warships and destroying Iran's military installations. In 2003, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran reportedly paused its nuclear program. When American forces in Iraq finally picked up five elite Quds Force members in 2007, the Iranians pulled back from their activities in Iraq as well. The killing of Qassem Soleimani in 2020 elicited only one feeble spasm of violence. The bottom line is that Iran's leaders do not relish the idea of tackling the United States directly, and that is because they are not fools. The president is an easy man to hate. He has done many bad things: undermining the rule of law, sabotaging American universities, inflicting wanton cruelty on illegal immigrants, lying, and engaging in corruption. With his fractured syntax and diction (including the peculiar signature 'Thank you for your attention to this matter' at the end of his more bombastic posts on Truth Social) he is easy to dismiss as a huckster. The sycophancy and boastfulness of his subordinates, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth when briefing the attack, are distasteful. But contempt and animosity, justified in some cases, are bad ways of getting into his mind and assessing his actions. Trump has surprised both friends and critics here. The isolationist wing of the MAGA movement was smacked down, although its members probably include the vice president and top media figures such as Tucker Carlson. Trump has confounded the posters of TACO ('Trump always chickens out') memes. He has disproved the notion that he takes his marching orders directly from the Kremlin, for the strikes were not in Russia's interest. He has left prominent progressives, including a dwindling band of Israel supporters, confused, bleating about war-powers resolutions that were deemed unnecessary when the Obama administration began bombing Libya. We live in a dangerous world, and one that is going to get more so—and indeed, in other respects worsened by the president's policies. But Trump got this one right, doing what his predecessors lacked the intestinal fortitude (or, to be fair, the promising opportunity) to do. He spoke with the brutal clarity needed in dealing with a cruel and dangerous regime. The world is a better place for this action and I, for one, applaud him for it.

Buzz Feed

2 hours ago

• Buzz Feed

US Bombs Iran And MAGA Weighs In

Last night, President Donald Trump announced that the US military had bombed three nuclear sites in Iran in a planned attack. Trump also took to Truth Social to congratulate the US military on the strike and announced that "now is the time for peace." Well, MAGA supporters are not holding back their frustrations and voting regrets about Trump's decision to involve the US in another war in the Middle East. Here's what they're saying over on the r/LeopardsAteMyFace subreddit. Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene posted on X, stating, "This is not our fight." "I trusted you. I'm done with MAGA and all your bullshit." "I fully regret voting for this shit." "You betrayed us, your MAGA base. I voted for you THREE TIMES." "Trump needs to be impeached." "Donald Trump has completely failed us." "NO MORE WARS!!!" "I regret my vote and I couldn't apologize more for voting for this." "More than disappointed with this action." "He's betrayed the vast majority of his voter base." Latino for Trump voter: "You promised us NO War, and you just started one!!!" "If the United States enters war with Iran, as appears to be the case, I will regret my vote." "Very disappointed in President Trump." "I wish I never voted for @realDonaldTrump." And finally, "I trusted Trump to put America first... We have been betrayed." What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.