Tag Archives: Jeffrey Epstein

Oh Sure, This is My Vision for Vermont Law Enforcement

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We have a new front-runner for weirdest press release of the year in the usually buttoned-up world of Vermont politics. It comes from Christopher Helali, the duly elected High Bailiff of Orange County. He won the post in 2024 via write-ins, because I guess nobody bothered to file for the low-profile, largely ceremonial position.

Helali was last seen hanging out in Iran takin’ selfies in front of anti-American protests. One picture shows him posing in front of a bright red banner that reads “Kill Trump.” In a post on XFormerlyKnownAsTwitter, he said he was in Iran “to honor, salute, and pray for Imam Khamenei and his family.” That would be the former Iranian supreme leader who was killed in a joint American-Israeli airstrike in February. Before that, Helali made the news when he went on EBay and bought what was purported to be an address book that belonged to international sex criminal (and friend of Donald Trump) Jeffrey Epstein. Gotta say, this dude gets around.

Well, now he has issued a press release boasting that he “has become the first ever elected US political official while in office to join a foreign military, in this case the Russian army.” Specifically, he is now a member of Axmat Spetsnaz, a highly-trained organization of elite fighters who have taken part in many of Vladimir Putin’s aggressive operations — including the war on Ukraine.

Yep, those guys at the top of this column.

You okay, Orange County?

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Broke. Destitute. Insolvent. Beggared. Strapped. Bust. Pauperized. Skint. Embarrassed. Down at Heel.

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The Vermont Republican Party doesn’t have much money to spend right now, but here’s a suggestion: Invest in a metal detector. You might improve your fortunes by finding some spare change and, who knows, maybe a pirate doubloon or two.

This isn’t exactly new for the perpetually impecunious VTGOP. But if anything, it’s gotten worse — especially when compared to the Vermont Democratic Party, which had a gangbusters 2022 by comparison.

The latest Federal Elections Commission filings covered the month of November. It’ll be a few days before we get the year-end reports. But I doubt the situation will change all that much, and the situation merits exploration right now.

(Reminder: Although the VDP and VTGOP are state parties, the vast majority of their financial activity is under federal jurisdiction. The figures that follow are all from FEC filings.)

The VTGOP ended November with a paltry $2,204 in cash on hand. The Dems: $207,060, nearly 100 times as much. And that was after generous Democratic expenditures in the run-up to Election Day. The VDP’s goal was to enter the off-cycle period with enough resources to avoid post-campaign staff cuts. They’ll have to maintain a solid fundraising pace to accomplish that, but so far things are looking good.

Meanwhile, the VTGOP just suffered its worst legislative defeat ever and couldn’t sniff a statewide victory for any candidate not named “Phil Scott.” They need some serious rebuilding, and they have no resources to even begin the work. The numbers tell the tale.

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The Sleaze-Adjacent (At Best) World of Richie Rich

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We’ve met this guy before. Brock Pierce, child actor, failed gaming entrepreneur, wealthy cryptocurrency investor and possible independent candidate for Pat Leahy’s U.S. Senate seat. (He’s registered as a candidate but says he’s only thinking about it.) A later installment of this blog covered the mystery of whether he really lives in Vermont.

But now there’s a half-hour YouTube video that gets deep into the details of Pierce’s career, and boy, they are sketchy as hell. “The Bizarre Case of Brock Pierce” is by Georg Rockall-Smith, a Britisher who produces videos about strange-but-true stories. And he himself says that this is one of the strangest things he’s ever come across.

The short version is that wherever Pierce goes, he’s skirting the edges of the law and consorting with questionable folks. He never actually gets in trouble himself — partly because he’s bought his way out of legal scrapes — but over and over again, he winds up fighting lawsuits and hanging with the wrong kind of people. It happens so often that to call it coincidence beggars credulity.

The cast of characters in this video includes a convicted child sex offender, Steve Bannon, and Jeffrey Epstein. Yikes.

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