For opinion pieces on any topic.
My name is Oscar Heller, and I’m running for the Selectboard.
I will bring six years of Finance Committee experience to the Selectboard. Creating the town’s budget is the Selectboard’s single most important job every year, and I think we’ve gotten off-track. I have a plan to get our budget back on solid footing, and my goal is to guide us through the challenges that I foresee this year.
Noting a Coincidence
As it turned out, Trump’s 2nd Inauguration as President of the United States of America falls on Martin Luther King’s birthday, a federal holiday (King being the only American to be presently so honoured). Interestingly, both had spoken against U.S. regime change wars, but whereas King paid for his outspoken condemnation of America’s atrocity wars with his life, Trump, though initially denouncing the regime change wars as money better spent at home, once in office, seemed to have dutifully served the deep state industrial military complex in its wars and violent foreign policies just as every other U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt.
Song for the 2nd Inaugeration of President Donald Trump by Cris Ericson (C) 2025
“He’s an elevator man, he’s got fantasies,
he takes a lady for a long ride to the top, it never stops,
he takes a lady for a long ride.”
The answer to the question of whether or not you get fair representation from the people you elect may seem elusive. Every individual has their own political agenda, so when it comes to representation the best we can hope for is that the person we elect closely holds our values.
Vermonters are extremely lucky on this account on the national level. At least Vermonters who tend to be more liberal and vote Democratic or Progressive.
Our federal delegation reflects the ideals of a majority of us and they have the courage of their convictions to work to uphold those principles.
People in many other states may feel the same way, but we all know that once people get a taste of the power they can wield in Washington they often become co-opted by a corrupt system. Especially those who stay in office for a long time. They become beholden to those with money and they eventually want to hold onto power at all costs. Once they cross that line they no longer represent the people who elected them.
Recently, the legal argument of a person being charged with one thing, and then another penalty is tacked on because they own a personal home protection gun, which was entirely unrelated to what they were charged with, has come to my attention.
I wanted to do a show on Twitch.com but I was kicked out after I posted that I wanted to discuss various state medical cannabis, marijuana and marijuana laws, because if you are charged with wrongful possession of cannabis marijuana under various state laws, and you happen to own a gun, the charges are increased.
Interesting story at The American Prospect – they are disclosing all of the names of the members of the Democratic National Committee:
Opening the DNC’s Black Box
Why we’re publishing a previously undisclosed list of all 448 members of the Democratic National Committee
The story says that members of the DNC generally don’t have contact information for other members, intentionally, so that they can’t organize:
On Wednesday, Isaac Evans-Frantz submitted to the Brattleboro Town Clerk 120 petition signatures to appear on the ballot for Brattleboro Selectboard. That is 4 times the amount needed by law to get on the ballot. By the end of the day the town clerk had confirmed that Isaac will in fact appear on the ballot for a one-year position. The election is March 4 at the American Legion.
“Brattleboro faces major nationwide challenges – an opioid crisis, a housing shortage, a growing gap between the wealthiest and poorest people, and a climate emergency,” Isaac said. “Brattleboro needs a new leader who will help make our town safe, affordable, and welcoming for all.”
Advocates and social service agencies that support homeless people are preparing for funding battles over the next four years that they know they are very likely to lose. With Republicans in control of the federal government, we can expect to see cuts to programs and a general stigmatization of homeless people as mentally ill substance abusers who should be herded into programs that should help them.
It is a false construct. Most people have come to realize that when Republicans say that homeless people need to seek out mental health support first, that the power brokers really don’t care what happens to them. The power brokers know that there are never enough people or programs to support homeless people with mental health and substance abuse issues.
We’ve had Holocaust Denial. Now we have the phenomenon of Genocide Denial in spite of the plethora of photographs and videos of the obliterated cites of the Gaza Strip, of the deliberate demolition of neighbourhoods, cultural sites, and essential facilities” in violation of international law.
President-elect Donald Trump has been impressive in his statements and comments since his overwhelming election. He speaks with authority and determination in his voice promising to resolve the nations problems and take the high road morally on all issues.
All the more perplexing is Trump’s maintaining silence at best, and at worse contradicting reality regarding the genocide in Gaza by saying the judges of the International Court of Justice must be sanctioned for issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his minister of defense.
While hotel owners reap abusive profits, Vermonters are suffering extreme tax hikes, and the housing crisis threatens to bankrupt the state, and homeless people are dying in the streets, we must take emergency measures.
Quoting Karl Grossman on Counterpunch, “The application of the state’s power of “eminent domain” to nuclear power was pioneered in New York State in the 1980s – and was how the completed Shoreham nuclear plant was stopped from opening. That ended the scheme of nuclear promoters to turn Long Island into a “nuclear park” with seven to 11 nuclear plants.
BRATTLEBORO – On a blustery cold Saturday, December 14, standing with supporters in front of the Brattleboro Post Office on Main Street, Isaac Evans-Frantz announced his campaign for a one-year seat on the Brattleboro Selectboard. The election will be on March 4, 2025. Seeing the other side of the street bathed in warm sunshine, while he and his supporters shivered in the shade, Evans-Frantz invited everyone to move toward the light and quickly regroup across Main Street for speeches, songs, and distribution of campaign materials.
“During the coming difficult years,” Evans-Frantz, who was born and raised in Brattleboro, said, “Brattleboro needs a new leader who will stand up for all of us. The current selectboard has made decisions contributing to a potential 22% increase in property taxes. Most of our incomes are not increasing by anywhere near this amount. In a year where calls to the police for serious crime increased by 16%, the selectboard passed an ordinance that would fine building owners when some residents report crimes. The current selectboard, left unchecked, risks making life harder — and less safe – for people in Brattleboro.”
There are a lot of evil, power-intoxicated people ruling countries all over the world. With the imminent ascension of a new evil person in our own country I was prompted to do some research to see if my fears of a world dominated by dictators and oligarchs might be closer to reality than most people realize.
Consider this. According to the United States Institute of Leadership and Diplomacy, “There are currently 49 dictatorships and authoritarian regimes in the world (21 in Africa, 18 in Asia, 7 in the Middle East, 1 in Europe and 2 in Americas). We define a dictator as the ruler of a land rated “Not Free” by the Freedom House in their annual survey of freedom.” That number was reduced to 48 with the fall of Assad in Syria, but who knows what kind of government will replace him?
Joe Biden should be tried and convicted of illegally providing American bombs and planes for genocide, but not before being forced to watch videos of some of the thousands of adorable Palestinian kids murdered or maimed by Biden’s bombs and warplanes. Let Biden see the blank look of horror of a temporarily surviving Palestinian child alongside the bloodied dead body of its mother, father, brother, sister, playmate, auntie, uncle, grandad, grandma, or as often enough all of them killed by the same blockbuster bomb.
Let the condemnable President of the United States of American brutality be seen on the cover of Time Magazine as ‘Man of the Year.’ Let Americans become aware of the reality of their government’s horrific most monstrous ever crime against humanity. Though there is currently an international arrest warrant for Biden’s partner in the crime of genocide, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the International Criminal Court lets Biden off the hook.
Petitions for Brattleboro Town Officers, Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) Board Members, and Town Meeting Members are now available at the Town Clerk’s office. Town elections will be Tuesday, March 4 at the American Legion, located at 32 Linden St., Brattleboro, VT 05301.
Annual Representative Town Meeting will begin on Saturday, March 22, 2025 at 8:30 a.m. in the BUHS Gymnasium.
United States Senator Bernie Sanders and U.S. Senator Peter Welch and Congressperson Becca Balint are showing total disrespect for Rockingham, Vermont people in Windham County including the village of Bellows Falls, most of whom are just regular hard working Vermonters living in a typical small town in southeastern Vermont along the Connecticut River who definitely need a local health care clinic!
Does Equal Protection Under The Law Require All People With Similar Federal Criminal Convictions To Be Pardoned, Just Like President Biden Pardoned His Son, Hunter Biden?
President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for alleged federal tax and federal gun related crimes. Now, shouldn’t President Joe Biden pardon ALL people in prisons in the United States of America for the same or very similar Federal crimes?
Are you a Vermonter who winters in Florida? Wanna have some fun? Remember many years ago in 2000 when Hillary Clinton was a carpet bagger from Arkansas to New York, and she ran for office in NY and won? Are you a Democrat who lost the Nov. 5th, 2024 election in Vermont and you’ve been thinking of hiding your head in the sand? How about Florida?
It’s quite clear that the incoming president intends to dismantle as many established institutions as he can. When you consider the people he has nominated for his cabinet it is impossible to find anyone who is even remotely qualified for the job. My first reaction was laughter, but when I gave it more thought I realized that we are witnessing the creation of a puppet government.
If you want to destroy existing government the best thing to do is to hire incompetent people to help run it. These people are so weak, in terms of character as well as qualification, that Trump will be able to have complete control over them. They are all sycophants and they have made it clear that they will do whatever their master requires of them. They all owe him big time.
Of all of the nominations, a few stand out as particularly dangerous. Matt Gaetz has been accused of inappropriate relationships with minors and of having a habit of drug abuse. The House Ethics Committee was investigating him but once Trump nominated him for Attorney General he quit the House and that ended the investigation.
Anti-Semitism has a long and tragic history, rooted in various cultural, economic, religious, and political factors, yet at the same time, anyone with half an education can reel off names of the inordinate number of renowned Jewish thinkers, philosophers, inventors, composers, physicians, artists, singers, musicians, educators, actors, movie producing moguls and comedians revered as seminal contributors to Western civilisation from Maimonides and Spinoza through Einstein and beyond. A student of human history cannot but be amazed at this impressively high proportion of beloved and respected household names being of Jewish descent. Sociologists tend to attribute this disproportionately high number of geniuses and great achieving stars in the firmament of human development in the West to the emphasis given to study and learning in Jewish religious observance, stressed as an obligatory search for moral intelligence.
As a person whose political views center around ways to foster peace, harmony, fairness, and nature, I’ve been struggling lately with all the things there are to feel terrible about in our difficult and unpeaceful world. I disapprove of so many things. I deplore, dislike, even despise a growing number of things, all of which fill me with dismay. In short, I’m mired in the D words.
As I was thinking this morning about yet another thing that makes me feel lousy, there came, out of the blue, this thought: I’m not required to have opinions. And I thought about this, because on the one hand, it’s true and I would probably be calmer if I didn’t; on the other hand, I would feel like an unfeeling creep not to have them. Shouldn’t I care? Shouldn’t I show that I care by forming opinions and stating them?
