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.