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That's what happened this week when Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) drew Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in the second annual Senate Secret Santa. They were two of sixty U.S. senators — 40 Democrats and 20 Republicans — who took part in this year's gift exchange, which was organized by funny-man Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.).

Lee's gift to Leahy? (Keep in mind: There's a $10 limit.)

A Batman Snuggie.

"He just thought it was an appropriate gift, given the fact that Sen. Leahy made a cameo in the recent Dark Knight film," says Lee spokeswoman Emily Bennion. "And it's cold up in Vermont, so he thought that would be the perfect gift for Sen. Leahy."

Leahy (not pictured in Snuggie at right) has made appearances in four Batman films over the years.

If you think that's cute — and it is — wait 'til you get a load of the poem Lee wrote and sent along with the Snuggie:

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With the panel's current chairwoman, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), set to move over to the Senate Budget Committee, the second-term independent is poised to assume the top spot on the Veterans Affairs Committee.

Writes Gaskell:

Sanders, 71, did not serve in the military and protested against the Vietnam War, but he’s had a seat on the committee since he came to the Senate in 2007 and gets high marks from veterans groups.

"Sen. Sanders has been a strong advocate for veterans issues,” said Tom Tarantino, legislative director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “He has pushed to expand veterans health care, opposed budget cuts that would trim military retirement and veterans disability cost-of-living allowances and co-sponsored the new Post-9/11 GI Bill, which dramatically expanded educational benefits for new veterans."

In addition to the Veterans Affairs Committee, Sanders currently serves on four Senate committees: Budget; Energy; Environment; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). Though he chairs a subcommittee on green jobs, Sanders has never chaired a full committee during his six years in the Senate or 16 years in the House.

Sanders spokesman Jeff Frank said Tuesday that his office had nothing to announce, pending decisions by Senate leaders.

"Leadership has not made any announcements about chairmanships yet," Frank said. "Seniority says he's next in line. He's said he'd be interested in the chairmanship, but as of yet there hasn't been anything official."

A long-vacant house in Burlington's South End that was destroyed by fire was finally demolished on Tuesday following a three-year battle between its owner and the city. Burlington's planning and zoning office had asserted that the house, at 189 South Champlain St., was once part of the city's historic waterfront district and refused to allow it to be torn down.

Developer Anne Rothwell, who purchased the house four year ago, claims it was already in "tear-down" condition when she acquired it. Rothwell had initially planned to renovate the space and tack on an addition, when squatters ripped plywood and polycarbonate off the windows and doors, littered the inside with beer cans, and used condoms and drug paraphernalia. One even ran an extension cord from the house to a shed and set up camp. In December 2009, someone finally broke in and started a fire for cooking or warmth, which gutted the house and rendered it uninhabitable.

In his escalating feud with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), gasoline magnate Skip Vallee is preparing to go nuclear.

The owner of nearly 40 Vermont Mobil stations has produced a 30-second political attack ad accusing Sanders of siding with "big business" to damage the state's environment. And he's threatening to plunk down a chunk of cash to put his ad on-air.

Sanders and Vallee have been duking it out since July, when the senator launched a campaign against fuel dealers he believes are overcharging for gasoline in northwestern Vermont. Sanders has singled out Vallee for attempting to block Costco's plan to build a self-serve gas station at its Colchester warehouse — just a stone's throw away from one of Vallee's own Maplefields gas stations.

"You ask, why does [the ad] seem like a political campaign?" Vallee says. "Because I think Bernie's undertaking a political campaign to take a very public position on the Costco process. And this is meant to counteract his advocacy for the project."

In the ad — which Vallee provided to Seven Days, but which has not yet aired on television — a narrator ruminates over Vermont's "treasured history of protecting our natural environment." In the background, a waterfall kicks up spray and a kayaker paddles Lake Champlain.

"Leaders like Sen. Patrick Leahy have fought to provide resources to make Vermont a cleaner place. That's why we are so disappointed with Sen. Bernie Sanders," the narrator says as the soundtrack turns darker. "Bernie sided with a multinational, billion-dollar corporation over Vermonters — supporting development that will increase traffic and idling emissions and phosphorous runoff in Lake Champlain, leading to more algae blooms."

The ad concludes by asking viewers to "take action and tell Bernie he's wrong to side with big business."

Here it is:

Here's what's happening in Vermont news and politics this week. Got a newsworthy event for next week's calendar? Email by Friday to submit.

Monday, December 10

• At 10:15 a.m., U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders holds a press conference in his Burlington office to discuss fiscal cliff negotiations and — what else? — gas prices. Stay tuned for Off Message updates.
• At noon, homelessness is the topic on Vermont Public Radio's "Vermont Edition," and the guests are COTS director Rita Markley and Angus Chaney, director of housing at the Vermont Agency of Human Services. Read Kathryn Flagg's story on the record number of homeless Vermonters living in motels.
• At 1 p.m., Campaign for Vermont — retired Wall Street exec Bruce Lisman's self-funded "policy campaign" — will release a set of proposed education reforms at the offices of Capital Connections, CFV's lobbyists.
• At 3:30 p.m., activists from Action.org say they'll be "connecting with" U.S. Rep. Peter Welch's staff at the congressman's Burlington office to "thank him for his support of a balanced approach to the fiscal cliff debate." Uh, don't you want to save that until he's actually voted?
• Today is International Human Rights Day and the Vermont Workers' Center is celebrating by unveiling its own financing proposal for Shumlicare. More info here.

Rest of the week after the break...

The Shumlin administration has hand-picked two Vermont reporters to tag along: Vermont Public Radio's Kirk Carapezza and the Burlington Free Press' Terri Hallenbeck.

Both news outlets say their participation in the trip is tentative, pending confirmation of financial arrangements with the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation — a business group that favors basing the F-35 in South Burlington and which is sponsoring the trip to Eglin Air Force Base.

"I will be curious to see and hear them," Hallenbeck says. "But I go into it knowing that I won't necessarily be able to discern which one was louder and whether that means they'll be louder every day in the same place. I go conscious that [Shumlin] is being taken by people who are for this and really, really want it — and really want to convince people that this is a good thing."

VPR news director Ross Sneyd says he believes there's news value in sending Carapezza to record the takeoff and landing of the planes — but also to provide context about what the politicians experience during the trip.

"It's like any other story we'd report. We have to have a reporter there who can give context," he says.

In their latest love-fest — I mean interview —PBS' Bill Moyers and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) take on new rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission which they fear would lead to further media consolidation.

Both men are up in arms about a draft proposal being circulated by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski that would loosen restrictions preventing a single company from owning newspapers and broadcasting outlets in the same media market. Just yesterday, Sanders and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) held a Capitol Hill press conference to blast the proposed changes.

In their conversation, which will air this weekend on Moyers & Company, Sanders and Moyers talk about how media consolidation has already impacted Vermont journalism. Reading from a May 28 New York Times story, Moyers notes that Burlington's Fox44 and ABC22 are technically owned by separate companies, but are essentially a single entity. (Yet another company is currently in the process of buying both stations, as we reported last month.)

"That's exactly what I'm talking about," Sanders says in the interview. "I can tell you that when I was mayor of that same city, Burlington, Vt., and we used to hold press conferences, you would have four or five or six different radio stations showing up. And, you know, we'd be talking about the school board or the city council — local issues. Now if we're lucky we'll have one radio station showing up, and that's true all over the United States of America."

Here's a preview of the Moyers show:

The city of Barre will pay a renter $10,000 — and pay her lawyers considerably more — for shutting off her water supply over her landlord's failure to pay the bill. The payments settle a federal class-action lawsuit brought by Brenda Brown and another Barre renter in 2011.

According to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Burlington this week, Brown will receive $10,000 within 30 days, pending approval of the settlement by the Barre City Council next Tuesday.

The city will pay Brown's lawyers at Vermont Legal Aid $59,862 in fees and costs. The Granite City will pay a second Barre renter, Earl Brooks, $500. He received an improper shut-off notice — but his taps were not actually turned off — because his landlord didn't pay the water bill.

Barre Mayor Thom Lauzon said he expects the council to approve the settlement when it meets next Tuesday. All but $500 of the payments will be covered by the city's insurer, the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, Lauzon said.

In July, U.S. District Judge Christina Reiss struck down Barre's five-year-old water shut-off policy as unconstitutional because it doesn't give renters an opportunity to appeal a shut-off notice.

Who won and lost the week in Vermont news and politics?

Behold The Scoreboard for the week of Friday, Dec. 7:

Winners:

Vermont environmentalists — The news that Gov. Peter Shumlin has tapped former Conservation Law Foundation "Lakekeeper" and Vermont Press Bureau alum Louis Porter to be his top legislative lobbyist is a win for the CLF and the rest of Vermont's environmental community. After Tropical Storm Irene, Porter and the CLF pounced on the Shumlin administration for failing to enforce rules restricting the use of heavy machinery in the state's rivers. Now they've got a man on the inside. Runner-up loser: Porter, for swapping Vermont's sweetest job title for its second sweetest title.

Freedom of the press — Barton Chronicle publisher Chris Braithwaite was simply doing his job when he was arrested a year ago this week covering a wind power protest on Lowell Mountain. On Wednesday, after reviewing internal Green Mountain Power documents, the Orleans County state's attorney finally dropped the charges. We hope law enforcement officials think twice next time they consider arresting someone seeking only to shine a light on a consequential state conflict.

Gov. Peter Shumlin — The Democratic Governors Association's unanimous election of Shumlin as its next chairman on Tuesday was probably the least surprising election result since, um, Shumlin's victory over Randy Brock last month. Now we know that it comes with some pretty sweet perks: Shumlin announced at his weekly press conference Thursday that the group is flying him to Rome late next week to deliver a keynote speech to the European Democratic Party. Nice work if you can get it! 

But the head of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, the group that's sponsoring the trip, says nobody from South Burlington, where the planes would be based, will be joining them.

"Basically everyone on the South Burlington City Council has their mind made up one way or the other," says GBIC president Frank Cioffi. "I didn't invite them because their minds are made up already. They've already staked out their position and their position is their position."

When Seven Days pointed out that Shumlin, too, has staked out a position on the matter — he's in favor of bringing the planes to Vermont — Cioffi said, "Yes he has. But he's the governor. I would say if the governor wants to go down and view them, I think it's a great opportunity for Vermont to have him go down there."

One woman who definitely didn't get an invite is South Burlington City Council Chairwoman Rosanne Greco, a retired Air Force colonel who has become a leading opponent of the Vermont Air National Guard's effort to woo the next-generation planes. Asked if she'd like to join Shumlin and the mayors, Greco said yes — but not to listen to the planes.