The Poppin’ Fresh of Vermont’s far right, Gregory Thayer, is at it again. He’s hitting the road with a clown car’s worth of extremists ready to yammer about the conspiracy theory du jour.

For the record, the grammatically-challenged (“Townhall” one word? Two “opportunity”?) twice-failed candidate for lieutenant governor is the mastermind who gave us a dismally under-attended series of pro-Trump rallies in 2025, He was also a featured speaker at a 2025 “Parent’s (sic) Rights in Education” (read: anti-trans and DEI) event in the Statehouse. And he spoke at a 2022 anti-critical race theory bitchfest in Montpelier.

Oh, and how could we forget the Klar Klan Kruiser, the Thayer-organized anti-critical race theory traveling circus of 2021? And of course, Thayer’s masterstroke: the CovidCruiser that took a busload of mask-free Trump defeat denialists to Washington, D.C. for the January 6 insurrection.

The guy gets around. And here he comes again, with a pair of “Townhalls” (sic) next week in Chester and Montpelier on the subject of ELECTION INTEGRITY, a.k.a. them damn Democrats are tryin’ to steal the vote!!! And just look at this Murderers’ Row of participants.

Thayer’s bumpf describes these get-togethers as “two great opportunities for you to come learn the truths about Election Integrity with all the fraud and corruption people have put on us, the American voters.”

Yeah, kinda almost grammatical but not. We’ll note here that “all the fraud and corruption” amounts to a tiny handful of questionable votes cast nationwide over the last several election cycles. Including several proven cases of vote fraud perpetrated by, um, conservative Republicans.

So who are these proud statesfolk who will grace us with their chemtrail-adjacent pearls of wisdom?

Well, Thayer, of course, credentials established above. And Rob Roper, former head of the now-moribund Ethan Allen Institute, whose increasingly unhinged opinion essays can be found these days on the Vermont Daily Chronicle. Plus three Republican backbenchers who definitely merit further exploration: state Sen. Terry Williams (who cast one of only TWO “No” votes in the Senate on a pair of very mild anti-ICE bills that passed on 27-2 margins), Rep. MIke Tagliavia (one of only NINE representatives to vote against H.545, which would allow Vermont to create its own vaccine regimen in case RFK, Jr. gets his way and destroys the federal one), and Rep. VL Coffin, a first-term lawmaker who kept a very low profile during his campaign but is definitely on my Stealth Conservative Watch List.

(Williams and Tagliavia, by the way, were also on the dais for Thayer’s 2025 “Parent’s Rights in Education” event.)

So that’s the legislative contingent. Who are those other three people? Glad you asked.

Nancy Gassett (whose name gets misspelled “Gasset” in Thayer’s bumpf) is a two-time losing candidate for state rep from Vernon. I haven’t delved into her background, but considering that the Windham County Republicans have chosen the despicable “Planet Hank” Poitras as their chair, I think we can form some interim conclusions.

The other two are activists in the Election Integrity Network, a fringey vote-fraud conspiracy factory that grew out of Trump’s fruitless efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat. EIN’s leader is Cleta Mitchell, a member of Trump’s 2020 post-election “legal team.” Sadly, she won’t be making the trip to Vermont.

In her stead we have EIN President Sharon Bemis, former town clerk of Embden, Maine (population 902) and a member of Trump’s 2020 Maine campaign team, and EIN “Coalitions Director” Sara Vieira, an election conspiratorialist from Rhode Island.

So yeah, I think “clown car” is an apt descriptor. Too bad I’ll be out of town next Thursday and Friday. These things ought to be worth a chuckle or two.

In closing, I’d like to pose a question about Thayer’s series of road trips.

Who’s paying for all this stuff?

Vermonters for Vermont seems to operate as a political action committee, but does not appear in the campaign finance databases of the Federal Elections Commission or the Vermont Secretary of State. VfV has been holding public events promoting political causes for more than six years, but as far as I can tell has never reported its fundraising or expenditures. As would seem to be required by law, if his group has raised or spent more than $500, right?

Maybe deeper-pocketed groups like EIN are paying the freight for Thayer’s medicine shows. But if they are, wouldn’t he have to report their largesse as in-kind donations to VfV?

Gergory Thayer is an accountant by trade. He ought to know better. And if our campaign finance laws weren’t so absolutely toothless, he might actually be in trouble with the law.

Then again, we are talking about Mr. “Two Opportunity” here.