Warning: This post contains quite a lot of bad, offensive language. It all comes from the subject of the post. I feel that it must be presented in unexpurgated form because it illustrates the mindset of the subject. The worst of the language will be in quote boxes and preceded by trigger warnings.
Hey everybody, get a load of Hank Poitras, d/b/a Planet Hank, video artiste and right-wing provocateur who is scheduled to share a platform on Friday with state Rep. Michael Boutin of Barre and Vermont Republican Party chair Paul Dame.
Poitras is also, apparently, chair of the Brattleboro Republican Committee.
And I’m here to tell you that Vermont Republicans would be well advised to sever all ties with Poitras because he is provably a “misogynistic, narcissistic sociopath,” in the words of New Hampshire progressive videographer “Kyle from the Shire.” That characterization is fully warranted, given the flood of online content produced by Poitras himself. It includes plenty of racist, misogynistic, and hateful material, the kind of stuff that makes disgraced former senator Sam Douglass look like Mr. Rogers by comparison.
Oh, and he also has a criminal record from his time living in New Hampshire.
Best strap yourselves in, folks, because this is going to be a bumpy ride. Complete with trigger warnings.
Where do I start? Well, how about the image above? Planet Hank flying the double bird as he lets loose with an unhinged rant apparently aimed at his ex-wife. Here’s the first trigger warning.
Baby moms can fuckin’ eat a dick, yo, all you independent liberal women with your child support and WIC and — y’all are nasty. Y’all are nasty. Y’all fuckin’ goddamn have a bunch of kids and divorce the fuckin’ parents and ruined all the kids’ lives. That’s why the kids hate you and shit.
He then complained about having to pay child support. Real Father of the Year material there.
The above excerpt was taken by Kyle from a Planet Hank video. As was this bit of — well, either barely contained rage or performative misogyny. Trigger warning #2, and this one is worse than the first:
Fuck that womb, bitch. Fuck that womb. Not only are you aborting the baby, we’re taking your organs out too, bitch. We’re takin’ all that shit out. We’re takin’ every single part except the fuckin’ pussy walls, right? All you need’s the pussy. Then we’re gonna cauterize the top of it so it’s just a tube that leads to a dead end.
Okay, trigger warning over. Any comment, Rep. Boutin or Mr. Dame?
Governor?
Planet Hank’s main stock in trade is on-the-street video of Brattleboro police confronting people who’ve allegedly broken the law. Many residents believe the police department is on Hank’s side — or at least it was until February 2025, when several dozen distasteful social media comments by Poitras were screengrabbed and posted on Facebook. (The entire archive has been preserved in a Google Drive folder.) Some of the more colorful entries, again with trigger warning:
Black people hate all white people, this is why we carry weapons… We see you people, remember that next time you’re targeted.
Liberals want to fuck little kids, they are all in on it. Liberal = pedophile.
[In reference to a photo of E. Jean Carroll, who has accused Donald Trump of sexual assault] Why would anyone rape this ugly woman?
Liberal women are ugly.
Make sure to flush condoms after fucking, these 2023 women might squirt that shit in they coochie after you leave.
He also accused drag queens of pedophilia, said that Rev. Al Sharpton should be “banished from public representation” (whatever that means), used the offensive word “retard” more than once, condemned a stage production of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” for casting a Black child, approvingly retweeted an anti-trans post by Elon Musk, called Black Lives Matter a “terrorist group,” referred to the Covid vaccine as “lizard blood,” and called Tom Hanks a “pedophile.”
Okay, trigger warnings have now expired.
When asked about the posts by The Keene Sentinel, Poitras did not deny authorship but claimed they’d been taken out of context. Which is nonsense, because his posts are brief and self-contained. Each screenshot includes an entire post. There is no context.
After the archive became public, the Brattleboro Police Department issued a statement distancing itself from Poitras. Which hasn’t convinced some local residents, who still see signs of close cooperation between the BPD and Planet Hank.
The police might have saved themselves some public embarrassment it they’d checked into Poitras’ record in New Hampshire. In 2010 he was charged with possession of child sexual abuse images, and in 2013 he was convicted of assaulting a bar owner with a baseball bat and sentenced to serve 15 days in jail.
I suppose you could argue that was a long time ago and everyone deserves a second (or third) chance. But then you get to the downright obnoxiousness of his presence on social media and self-produced video content. That’s recent, and it’s far too big and comprehensive to ignore.
Which leads me to ask again if Paul Dame or Michael Boutin has commented on their joint appearance with this douchecanoe? Does Gov. Phil Scott have anything to say about a fellow Republican officeholder and the actual head of the state Republican Party making common cause with Planet Hank? Does he endorse Poitras’ role in the party’s official hierarchy?
If Vermont Republicans are serious about distancing themselves from the know-nothings of the conservative movement, then Dame and Boutin need to withdraw from the Friday eventy unless Poitras is removed from the bill. And Poitras must be banished from all roles in the party. If they dropped Sam Douglass like he was a live grenade, they should be running as fast as they can as far away from Planet Hank as possible.
In case anyone out there is going to cry “First Amendment,” let me be clear: Poitras has the absolute right to spout whatever hateful shit he wants. And he has to face the consequences, including a well-deserved pariah status among responsible conservatives. At minimum. This isn’t cancel culture at work; this is maintaining basic standars of human decency.
And if any members of the Brattleboro Police Department are still cooperating with Planet Hank, they should stop immediately.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
I trust you’ve already seen this article in your research?
Are Brattleboro Police Hiding their Relationship with a Right-wing Video Blogger?
https://www.rakevt.org/2025/02/28/are-brattleboro-police-hiding-their-relationship-with-a-right-wing-video-blogger/
Yes they are
He seems perfect for today’s Republican party.
You really need to open a window when you air the disgusting ravings of morons like Poitras.
Meanwhile, Phil Scott continues his on-again off-again attention to the sensibilities of his fellow Vermonters as he rethinks, on a daily basis, attending Trump’s Terrible Awful Lousy Luncheon, depending on whether or not all governors are invited to the feed. You got to be grateful for small things, I guess…
Another couple of faithful handmaidens to Trump’s nouveau-fascism joined the Ingalls/Wilson anti-S. 208/S. 209 club, Reps. Thomas Oliver, R-Sheldon, Kenneth Goslant, R-Northfield. While “grilling” ACLU director Falko Schilling on why it might be okay for civilians but not law enforcement to wear masks at public gatherings and being informed by him that “…folks…might happen to be on the streets exercising their first amendment rights,” Oliver responded, “Even though they’re [LEO’s] doing it for the same reasons?” Which surely qualifies as this week’s most egregious clarification of what ICE is doing on streets.
Tom Burditt also made objections in committee, IIRC. AND I wonder about House Democratic leadership deciding on a 6-5 partisan split on House Judiciary, including one Democrat who’s known to be in poor health.
First off let me say that I consider myself a liberal. Second I also agree that Hank seems to be a particularly noxious man and all the things said about him appear to be true. All that aside, I have some thoughts that probably run counter to a lot of progressive/ liberals in VT and Brattleboro. The first is simply no matter how loathsome you find Hank he has the right to film interactions in public spaces. Trying to create laws to stop that I believe are unconstitutional and will go nowhere. Second, his rise to local prominence is because there was a real and serious issue in Brattleboro that the people in charge of governing were not addressing in a meaningful way. What Hank did initially is just hold a light up to the problem. Hey look what’s going on here. This gave way to his notoriety, but it also raised a lot of questions about why are all these drug addicts roaming our town, and who are these people. Why are they allowed to make our town unsafe or at very least appear unsafe. Lots of petty crime, I know we started avoiding going downtown, my wife wouldn’t use the parking garage anymore. Main street merchants were upset this was all allowed to go on and no one seemed to do anything about it. Enter Hank and all of a sudden there was a lot of conversation about how we address the situation. Also, and I am not denying maybe the police were chummy with Hank, but we did get to see how they interacted with these people. Frankly they were impressive in my mind, Not ICE agents. Just trying to do the job correctly. So that is my point. Hanks an idiot. I won’t give him the time of day , but he did bring forth a very serious issue that others were, till then, just ignoring and hoping it would go away.
Ah, the old “I’m a liberal, but.” I didn’t say he had no right to film in public places. But given his body of work and obvious personal opinions, it’s hard to see him as a force for good in any regard whatsoever. You can have him if you want him.
crime def went up during covid, while state support for local municipalities went down under phil. wondering how many in our state knew or know that during our covid crime rise, phony phil’s admin quietly put the word out to public safety network to not pursue “low level” non violent crime? criminals seemed to learn much quicker than the public about his statewide covid policy to deal with the already crazy pre covid court back up. instead of phil admin expanding our overloaded backlogged court system, he only approved one judge & a couple of support admins despite judiciary pushing for more back then. he finally approved three more superior judges in 2024 with more admin support. a little late on the public safety response given his bullshitty tough on crime stance branding. one reason i’m not a fan of tough on crime repubs, is they don’t believe in government when it comes to funding proactive root cause fixes but seem to have plenty of money to spend when it comes to building big new crime reactive prisons like women’s recently proposed for essex (have often wondered who was promised that big new build contract and if they are good friends with phony phil). seems a pattern, let crime run rampant, gin up the base’s fears, locals then blame local leaders for crime fears, while also succeeding in driving down property values, a win win for the “tough on crime” repubs. meanwhile developer phil (& miro weinberger) buddies can start snatching up real estate as local businesses fail due to customer base safety fears, on top of trump driving away canadian neighbors. i cant understand why dems or liberals continue to elect phil & his kind to lead in our state. they’re terrible on social issues/education & quite skilled at lining their own pockets. would love to see phil’s tax returns some day but doubt that will ever see the light of day. would also love our state to stop electing/appointing developers to leadership positions. i continue to see our state catering more & more to the well to do for their backyard playground. not a great way to build a resilient economy for year round vermonters. i hope us dems/progs/liberals to continue to improv our messaging & civic education. i also hope we work to be more open in acknowledging our failings in order to open up a wider range of experiential dialogue to find best models that benefit the majority, not the elite few who know how to capitalize on our rigged system. poverty is expensive and such a waste for humanity.
nice work mr. walters!
good to see a solid win from time to time!
You should also look into his current abuse, assault, harassment and stalking that he does to women in our community, including myself. He has bragged about installing hidden cameras to surveil women without their knowledge or consent. He has threatened to use footage to create episodes about people he doesn’t like – to be able to control them. He uses his personal connections with certain police officers to harass and abuse women that he has been in romantic and sexual relationships with. People on the street talk about how he has raped unhoused women who are suffering from being dope-sick in exchange for drugs, money, or just to be told that they won’t have to risk being arrested – or exposed with the videos that he has taken of them. Not only is there video, audio and testimonial evidence of this but it has also already been brought to the attention of our town government and police department and they have chosen not to take any action towards it. Corruption and lies abound around him and he is a cancer that has destroyed the image and integrity of our small town, and he is now threatening to take it to Rutland and Montpelier.
PLEASE send him to Rutland