I hate to give this douchebag the slightest bit of publicity, because it’s what he thrives on. But “Planet Hank” Poitras is someone who needs to be taken seriously. He cannot be ignored. Because he could very well be a rising star in Republican circles. (Governor, any comment?)
Poitras is seen above in a video he posted online himself. Yep, this is his favored public presentation. The problem is, he apparently holds a position (or two) of responsibility in the Vermont Republican Party, and he’s been creating a bunch of AI-generated attack videos aimed at U.S. Rep. Becca Balint and Sen. Bernie Sanders — videos being eagerly shared by Republican Congressional candidate Mark Coester. Poitras is the kind of bare-knuckles antagonist who tends to float upwards in the turgid swamp of Donald Trump’s America.
And now he’s elevating himself to the status of Crime Victim Slash Martyr, a casualty of the widespread lawlessness he gleefully chronicles in his cheap-ass “Cops” knockoff videos.
In case you missed it, Poitras claims to have been the target of a home invasion and deadly attack. The alleged assailant is a young man who was the subject of one of Planet Hank’s breathless videos. The man has been arrested and is in custody. And so far, all we have is Poitras’ word for what happened.
If you think I’m exaggerating, remember that while the Brattleboro police officially cut off any cooperation with Poitras, he has many friends in the department — perhaps including the officer/officers who wrote up the incident. And then ponder this quote from the judge who oversaw the arraignment hearing:
There may be more to the story than is obvious from the affidavit.
So the judge smells something fishy? So do I.
Poitras’ account, which seems to have been the basis for the police affidavit, is awfully complicated. There are a number of points that made me wonder what wasn’t being told. Just as a for-instance, Poitras depicts himself as a master of jiu jitsu who fought off a knife-wielding assailant with his bare hands.
If true, well, that’s a really stupid thing to do. It also aligns too perfectly with his video persona as a fearless crimefighter. Fearless, that is, when the police are doing the actual work and he’s lingering nearby with a camera.
I also have to say, what the hell did Poitras think would happen when he goes around videotaping police arrests of alleged criminals and posting the video online for all to see? Seems akin to shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater. Wasn’t it a matter of time before somebody struck back against the person splashing their disgrace across social media for fun and profit?
Also, the young man was shown by Poitras being arrested (a) in Keene, New Hampshire, not Brattleboro, (b) for an alleged domestic disturbance. That has nothing to do with Poitras’ stated mission of exposing criminality on the mean streets of Brattleboro. It has more to do with making fun of the unfortunate, which is Poitras’ true specialtiy.
As for the incident, I don’t know what really happened and neither do you. I hope the truth will emerge from the judicial process. If the defendant is found guilty, I hope he’s punished appropriately. We sure as hell can’t count on getting the truth from our news media, whose performance to date on this incident has been nothing short of disgraceful.
Take The Brattleboro Reformer, please take it. (Henny Youngman callback, for my readers under age 60.) It ran a disgracefully one-sided story under the dual byline of Kristopher Radder and Alexander Belogour. Radder has written about Poitras several times before, always in a flattering light*; Belogour is the son of very wealthy Reformer owner Paul Belogour. Great, just what Vermont journalism needs. A nepo baby.
*If you don’t believe me, just search The Reformer’s website for “Radder Poitras” and read some of the puffery Radder has written about Planet Hank. It’s pathetic.
The headline refers to Poitras as a “community journalist,” which is a downright lie. Poitras is no journalist; he’s a provocateur who’s willing to do just about anything to attract attention. He is a foul-mouthed, racist, misogynist shit-disturber who sometimes appears to be drunk in his own videos. To call this guy a “journalist” is an insult to Radder’s own profession.
The story regurgitates Poitras’ account of the incident, right down to the self-aggrandizing bit about single-handedly routing an armed assailant. The story is bad enough that it calls into question The Reformer’s credibility on any and all Poitras-related news. Which is a real problem because, like it or not, Poitras is a prominent and influential figure in local politics and, like it or not, Belogour’s Reformer is the local daily newspaper.
The only other written account I’ve seen comes from your friends at the Vermont Daily Chronicle, the state’s number-one right-wing “news” site. (Low bar alert.) The Chronicle’s chief cook and bottle washer, Guy Page, was even more eager than The Reformer to regurgitate Poitras’ story as fact.
Hm. So the very devout Mr. Page is sympathetic towards the guy who said this in one of his own videos (TRIGGER ALERT for rabid threats of violence against women):
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.
Yeah, that just screams “journalist” to me. As does this (again, 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.
This is the guy who gets a tongue bath from Page, Radder and Belogour. This is the guy who’s been identified as the chair of the Brattleboro Republican Committee and the Windham County Republican Committee. (I have reached out to the Vermont Republican Party to verify his status; I will update this paragraph if/when I hear back.)
(By the way, the Vermont Democratic Party and the Progressive Party list all their party officers, down to town chairs, on their websites. The VTGOP does not, and you’d have to ask them why.)
Yet to be heard from on this story: Vermont Public, Seven Days, VTDigger, and The Commons, Brattleboro’s nonprofit weekly. Vermont Public and Seven Days, to be fair, are located far away from southeast Vermont. Digger actually has a full-time reporter based on Brattleboro, veteran scribe Kevin O’Connor, but he does little to no hard news. He mainly writes soft feature stories. The Commons‘ coverage of Poitras has been bland and occasional. The critical pieces they’ve published about Poitras are opinion essays from members of the community. I would expect better of them.
Not that I have any desire to do so, but I’m keeping an eye on Planet Hank. He’s clearly angling to become a power broker in conservative circles, and I wouldn’t bet against him achieving that status.
Postscript. For the sake of completion, I should note that Poitras efforted an “apology” for the garbage comments noted above. This is about as bad a non-apology as I’ve ever seen, and that’s saying a lot:
I apologize for what I said, to people who were offended by what I said, for any mistakes that I’ve ever made in the world, for any harm that I’ve ever done to anybody, for anything that I do in the future. I apologize in advance for it.
Oh yeah, he’s sorry all right.
The Vermont Political Observer. 
The man is clearly unwell. I just hope he doesn’t hurt anyone or anything.
I don’t have a problem with the Hank piece in the reformer. It is completely trivial. What was shocking to me was when I found out he had somehow been elected to some Republican party position. I live right next to Brattleboro, to be truthful we were getting completely overrun with drug addicts, homeless folks and the mentally ill. The state of Vermont decided we would be the homeless hub, so they were sending people from other towns to us. Then we are right on the highway all those dealers from Holyoke Connecticut came and set up shop, Plus we have a large rehab and mental health facility. Some of those patients just stay in town. This makes for a small town with a lot of messed up people. I was driving through town the other morning and I turned down this one street and it was like driving through the walking dead. I have heard somewhere that in the most Liberal state in the US Brattleboro is the most liberal town. Maybe, it would certainly be number one or two. So, we have a group of the most far out liberals that can often appear disconnected from reality. I consider myself a progressive, so this isn’t a right leaning observation. At one point someone had the great idea to open “space” for the homeless right in the center of the business district. They did a lot of homeless art work. I walked by one day and there were some sketchy guys on the stoop drinking beer. It’s like opening a homeless shelter on church street. Needless to say this didn’t sit well with all the merchants who now were losing business. Eventually there was a minor uprising at a board meeting by the town merchants and it was decided to increase the police force. Into this scene stepped Hank. You are absolutely correct about what an atrocious piece of shit he is. My point I want to make after all this is he is essentially a mini-me Trump. If you listed all the things Trump is. Hank has much of those horrendous qualities. On top of that he wasn’t born a millionaire. Which is why his is even cruder. But what has allowed Hank to propel himself into right wing politics is actually the failure of the liberals running the town. Why did they let things get so bad? I follow hank on Facebook and one day I said to him all you ever do is complain about these folks what is your solution? He said there is no solution we need to just stop spending money on them. Ok I said, I am actually on board with some that, so would you close nightly homeless facilities? Cut off all food assistance. Should we not hand out clean needles? What is your vision? I got no response, because he has no thoughtful response. Much like the Republican Healthcare package. It is just talk. The fact that all the Trumpers elevated him. Sadly, it doesn’t surprise me.
From your vantage point it may seem as though “The state of Vermont decided we would be the homeless hub, so they were sending people from other towns to us,” but it isn’t true. Many towns and cities have housing shortages resulting in many homeless and unsheltered. Some of them have substance use problems, but many do not. They simply can’t find housing they can afford, including a large cohort who work full-time or even more. There is no state program that shuttles homeless people from place to place; some may choose to locate where housing may be attainable or shelter options are present, but the state isn’t doing anything like that. The state has also failed to adequately address our substance use crisis, and communities across the state are paying the price for that.
“They simply can’t find housing they can afford, including a large cohort who work full-time or even more.”
I am 70 and work two jobs and if it were not for public housing I would be living on the streets as well while landlords gleefully charge $1200-$1500 or more a month for a one bedroom apartment hardly much larger than a closet.
https://www.reformer.com/local-news/confusion-chaos-after-state-chooses-brattleboro-over-bennington-to-house-regional-homeless-shelter/article_d9f582c6-e246-11ee-aefa-4f2a6440bc1c.html
To other point, that people may move where options are available is true and Brattleboro was the place for those options. We had 7 hotels here full of of people, if you lived in any area in southern Vermont, and you suddenly found yourself in need of housing guess where you went? to the place with all the motels rooms. I drove a cab for awhile in Brattleboro and I used to get a lot of calls to these hotels. The things I saw were pretty scary. A lot of seriously medically infirmed people. Old people that should have been in a nursing home. People who were just crazy. There was a drug dealer I used to drive up to these motels. I’d wait till his deals were done. I think blaming the high cost of housing is a bit of a red herring, The people I saw were never going to enter into the housing market. Now I am not saying these folks don’t need help but they are largely welfare cases. I agree we need to have a plan for assistance. However if your the town has everyone with these problems funneling into it, it is not a positive thing. Setting the motel people aside for a moment. They are not the “real” issue. The real problem is the people not in the system because they refuse to be or are not allowed. These are the drug addicts and lunatics that are to far gone to assist. All you need is about 15 of these folks prowling the commercial area causing problems, to hold the whole town hostage. That is a town issue that needs to be resolved.
THe exact same scenario has played out in Burlington, Rutland, and central Vermont at least. One of the hidden costs of the hotel/motel program was that it essentially herded people to where the cheap lodgings were. The state didn’t do nearly enough to help municipalities with the burden. H.938 (now Act 143) looks like a big step in the right direction, reforming the system and adding significant support for the unhoused.
Hi John- Alison Despathy here. Happy summer and hope you are well.
I am wondering/hoping that maybe you would come on to my WDEV show some Wednesday?
just for a friendly respectful conversation between two people who clearly believe strongly in free speech and good government, despite our very different perspectives.
Maybe we could talk to see what it could look like?
I think this is exactly what the world needs more of right now- people who care and feel differently about life, news, politics, solutions – coming together to talk and debate and find common ground or try?
I would be incredibly grateful and I think it would be awesome for Vt to see us come together for a civil, maybe even fun conversation?
Let me know, would love to make it happen. I have tremendous respect for your hard work, dedication, commitment to educating and informing others and depth of knowledge on the history of VT politics, despite our seemingly different opinions and approaches.
call or email anytime to connect or discuss the possibility. Hope to hear from you
Enjoy the beautiful weekend
Happy summer
gratefully and respectfully
Alison Despathy
Alison.despathy@gmail.com
802-424-5310 cell
802-748-1487- landline
There are many people with whom I can have a civil conversation, whether I agree with them or not. I don’t put you in that category. Thanks for the invite, but hard pass.