Opinion

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Brattleboro Consent of Candidate Forms for March Elections Now Available

by Not Signed In | Politics

Consent of Candidate forms for Brattleboro Town Officers, Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) Board Members, and Town Meeting Members are now available at the Town Clerk’s office.  Please call or email our office to request the form. Due to the pandemic, petition requirements have been waived for candidates to have their names placed on the ballots for this election. Town elections will be Tuesday, March 2 at the American Legion, and the Annual Representative Town Meeting, Saturday, March 20, likely via Zoom. Consent of Candidate forms must be filed in the clerk’s office no later than 5:00 P.M. on Monday, January 25 in order to have their name placed on the ballot.

Too Much and Never Enough

by tomaidh | Politics

Clinical psychologist Mary Trump, (Donald Trump’s niece) has publicly predicted Trump’s increasingly dangerous, aberrant and delusional behavior. Her bestselling book “Too Much and Never Enough” chronicles how her uncle came to be the man he is today, and the dire, almost existential threat that he represents to the United States and the world.
Ms Trump warns that Donald Trump will only become more dangerous as Inauguration Day approaches and he faces the last days of his presidency.

“It Was a Stupid War Anyone Who Went Was a Sucker” A US President Reportedly Enlightened Americans

by jay janson | Op/Ed

DESCRIPTION: Apparently, the highest official of the US government owned by wealthy investors in war inadvertently let himself be overheard making an off-hand truthful remark that contradicts what the CIA overseen criminal media tells the world in excusing America’s genocidal crimes against humanity in Vietnam. Important is how criminal media seeks to ridicule someone saying something truthful about the the war it lied about and promoted

Making Sense of 2020

by Lise | Op/Ed, Opinion

As 2020 coasts to a close, it feels unusually difficult to write a year-end essay that encapsulates all the things that happened to us this year. Even a personal essay would be too long to write, let alone read. But this sort of thing hasn’t stopped me before, so what follows are the highlights, by which I mean most memorable and important happenings of 2020 from my own perspective. Even this isn’t easy because processing experience takes time and a lot of this stuff just happened or is still going on. But here we go: Pause, rewind, and….

“I Keep My Promises”

by tomaidh | Politics

Trump Said. ‘I Keep My Promises.’  In 2016, he made more than 280 campaign promises. Let’s see how he did:

1. “I will build a great, great wall on our southern border …” (speech, June 16, 2015)
Trump has built 307 miles of walls along the 1,984-mile border. (≈15%)

2. “… and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”
Mexico is not paying for it.

Life With Biden

by RDavis | Op/Ed

The four year American nightmare will be over soon. The mainstream media have already moved on and are giving Biden the attention of a sitting president. They really have no choice because Trump is still acting like a three year old in a sandbox who had his toy truck taken from him by a stronger kid.

The mainstream media will be able to move away from being the PR tool of a would-be dictator-pathological liar to reporting on the administration of a new president who has respect for others and who does not have an ego that is as needy as the plant Audrey in The Little Shop of Horrors movie that constantly says, “Feed me.”

The Governor’s Madness, Uh, I Mean Mandates!

by CrisEricson2016 | Op/Ed

Vermonters are very quietly passing around on the internet various versions of how they might file a lawsuit against Governor Phil Scott for exceeding his authority with his orders and mandates, making them lose jobs, businesses, income, and warm association with family and friends.

There are various proposed legal Briefs coming to a federal court in Vermont soon:

Anniversary UN Partition Plan Torching of Palestine – Albert Einstein Running Commentary

by jay janson | Op/Ed

An Archetypical Anglo-American Colonial Crime Against Humanity!

In order to militarily penetrate the oil rich Middle East, a courageous and noble socialist Zionism and despised Holocaust survivors, denied refugee status, were used by an Anglo-American colonial business elite that was anti-Semitic in outlook, coldly indifferent and even complicit, during the Holocaust its investments in rearming Germany made possible.

Do Vermonters Also Have A Right To Investigate “Dominion Voting Systems”?

by CrisEricson2016 | Op/Ed

I have been a perennial losing political candidate in Vermont for many years. One year I really thought I saw election fraud. I was watching the votes coming in, and thousands of votes for me were suddenly cut in half. I wrote a blog post about it at the time which may still be wandering the internet somewhere.

I began to think that Vermont was the testing ground for vote fraud. Vermont has a very small population and if you are a losing candidate, and you are not within a certain tiny percent of the winner, then you have no grounds, no legal cause of action to complain, if for example, you came in 4th and should
have come in 3rd.

To The Community Safety Review Committee- An Apology From Me

by Brandie Starr | Op/Ed

Today I am writing to offer an apology to The Community Safety Review Committee, and all who have been involved in their work at any level.

I would like to do so by speaking about the first Municipal Diversity and Inclusion class I participated in early on in my time on the board. Within about the first five minutes of the class, we were told by the instructor, that we were about to learn that “being fair” doesn’t mean “treating the same” and that “equal” does not mean “equitable. The rest of the session discussed the importance of raising up voices who have less power within our systems and structures to level the playing field.

Unfortunately, we forgot that training when setting the date for the topic of Police Policies and Procedures. We missed an opportunity to change the game.

Vermont AFL-CIO Members/Delegates Authorize Executive Board To Call For General Strike!

by David Van Deusen | Politics

Vermont AFL-CIO Empowered To Call For General Strike If Trump Seeks To Carry Out Political Coup – Vote Overwhelmingly In Support!

At today’s Vermont AFL-CIO Convention (held over zoom due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Non 21), aprx 100 Delegates, rank & File union members, and select allies converged to consider the defense of democracy should there be a Trump coup. After much discussion, the assembled delegates overwhelmingly voted to authorize their elected Executive Board to call for a Vermont General Strike if democracy comes into crisis.
This historic authorization vote makes the Vermont AFL-CIO the first State Federation in the country to be on record ready to carry out a General Strike to defend democracy if Trump refuses to leave office.

Brattleboro Selectboard Meetings Have Become Too Long

by cgrotke | Op/Ed

Brattleboro Selectboard meetings have become very long. Too long, really.

It isn’t the number of items on the agenda. Even a short agenda can lead to a very long meeting.

Holding the meetings online might be part of the problem. 

First, it adds time to each meeting to explain how to participate. It adds time to invite people to speak and wait for them to work out technical issues. Almost every virtual meeting has delays due to the meeting being virtual. Sometimes they are short delays, but they add up.

It’s Not Over til the Fat Lady Sings, Pt 2

by tomaidh | Politics

The legendary “Fat Lady” was Kate Smith who had a wonderful contralto voice.

She sang “God Bless America” at the end of NY Yankee games for years.

Yankee catcher Yogi Berra changed the saying to “It’s not over till it’s over”, which is the situation we’re in right now with the presidential election.

Dealing with High Rental Costs in Brattleboro

by Lise | Op/Ed, Opinion

I’ve been following the rental debate involving the Brattleboro Selectboard and the Brattleboro Tenants Union, and finding aspects of it perplexing. Brattleboro is gentrifying — it’s a hip little town in an attractive part of the country and the trend in rents has been up in recent years. That won’t get better now that people with more money than we have are moving here to get away from Covid. The solution to the problem of rising rents for lower income people has typically been to move away to someplace more affordable. It seems weird to me that you would be expected to get a loan, subsidy, or grant to rent in Brattleboro. If the rents are too high, then many moderate income people won’t be able to live here.  Simple as that.

I Am Feeling Hopeful

by SK-B | Politics

Written at 9:29 pm, Wednesday

https://www.foxnews.com/

I feel that Fox has been preparing it’s audience to recognize a Biden win by letting straight-up reporting of the results speak for itself, without no hint of inflaming passions over the idea that the election is being stolen. Apparently Fox does not want to incite conflict. They are reporting what Trump says, matter-of-factly, and reporting that: Biden predicts victory, says he will govern as an ‘American president’

Unofficial Brattleboro General Election Results 2020

by Not Signed In | Politics

Good evening,

Please see attached for the “unofficial results” for Brattleboro’s General election. These are the results from the ballot tallies, not including write-in votes, and not including other towns’ results for the races.

Thanks to the amazing poll workers and the American Legion who made today possible! Considering our number of absentee voters, we had a lot of voters coming through the doors. The day was smooth and safe!

Thank you,

Hilary

Criminally Responsible Americans Vote for Commander of Their Worldwide Genocidal Killing Machine

by jay janson | Op/Ed

Good people of the 3rd World should not let themselves be taken in by worldwide satellite beamed CIA-fed media prattling on continuously about American democracy during ongoing presidential elections. Sadly, Americans are duped into participating in elections that back crimes against humanity ordered by the ruling genocidal Wall St. plutocracy which militarily and financially plunders 3rd World humanity.

We Need A New COVID World View

by RDavis | Op/Ed

One of the consequences of this lingering pandemic is a lack of perspective by too many people. Forget about the 30 percent of American sycophants of Trump because they never had a healthy perspective to lose.

What I am talking about is the ability of caring human beings to forget about how they fit into the overall scheme of things when it comes to daily life. As we temporarily lose some of the freedoms we once enjoyed we tend to forget that most of us really do not have it that bad compared to many other people in this country and around the world.