Op/Ed

The Op/Ed opinion section

Wikipedia Editors Not Honest

by CrisEricson2016 | Op/Ed

With Pakistan and India both having nuclear weapons, we need to know the truth about nuclear capable F-35 strike fighter jets.

Bernie Sanders did not tell the truth about the F-35 strike fighter jets capability in a televised political candidate years ago. Cris Ericson was running against him and was in the televised debate. Bernie Sanders said that the F-35 strike fighter jets have no nuclear components. Cris Ericson said that he was committing fraud to get votes because the F-35 strike fighter jets are dual capable to carry nuclear bombs.

Reflections on the “White Christian Nationalism” Event at Putney Meeting House

by PeytonE | Op/Ed

*A Letter from the Heart to Mike Mrowicki, Rev. Sparrow, and the Interfaith Community*

An interfaith initiative titled “White Christian Nationalism” recently circulated in Vermont, culminating in a gathering at the Putney Meeting House, led by Representative Mike Mrowicki and Reverend Sparrow. Everyone was friendly, and I believe well-intentioned. But the initiative, sadly, fell into the same trap we’ve seen repeated again and again: othering. Not just in whispers, but woven into the framing itself — casting Christian conservatives as the threat, and “tolerant liberals” as the solution.

Selectboard Meeting Review – Five Hours of Avoiding the Topic

by cgrotke | Op/Ed

Over five hours and the agenda topic – possible reductions in public safety services – was barely discussed by the board. There were over 70 items on the list to be discussed that didn’t get much of a mention.

Tuesday’s meeting seemed designed to prevent the board from having an on-topic discussion. It was stuffed with information previously presented and comments already taken. The people we most wanted to hear from – new board members – didn’t get to have a robust discussion, and their limited discussion didn’t begin until well after 10 pm. 

At tomorrow’s meeting, the new members will be told that they are out of time and have to go with the budget as presented.  They will be told it is their budget. Buck will be passed back to them now for RTM.

My Response to United States Senator Bernie Sanders “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour with AOC

by CrisEricson2016 | Op/Ed

“By Christina Bellantoni Posted April 22, 2025 on ROLL CALL.com “LOS ANGELES — Sen. Bernie Sanders came and went, with two California visits inspiring “Bernie-chella” headlines. He, his populist heiress — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — and organizers of their “Fighting Oligarchy” event in downtown Los Angeles boasted that at 36,000, it was the largest rally he’d ever held.””

The Game of Government

by Lise | Op/Ed

Just for fun, let’s regard the government as a game.

It is, in a way. There are rules, roles, and regalia, a bank, an army, real estate. You could construct any number of exciting board games from this apparatus. In order to play the game of government, you are presented with a rule book that you are required to follow. You are not allowed to tear up the rule book and make your own rules that you then insist are binding to all other players. As is true of every game there is, from checkers to baseball, if you persist in breaking the rules of the game, you are disqualified from playing.

Town of Brattleboro Budget-Cutting Scenarios Win Award for Short Fiction

by cgrotke | Op/Ed

I was going to do an April Fools’ story, but the Town of Brattleboro beat me to it. : )

The Town Manager has provided the Brattleboro Selectboard with an extensive overview of current town operations. Along with it, he provided a number of dramatic scenarios that could unfold if the new selectboard dared to make any cuts to the town budget.

These doomsday scenarios are really something.  Department heads were asked to provide examples of what could happen if some unspecified cuts were undertaken. These were then tossed in the “make scary” machine.

God of Democracy Where Art Thou?

by spoon | Op/Ed

The Charter Revision Commission is making its public debut on Monday, the 30th, in the Library at 6 pm. And online too.  After two and a quarter years it is introducing itself by asking the public what to do about one particular question: should Representative Town Meeting vote itself out of existence and revert Town Meeting to the former and more common open meeting style.  

I have not seen any of the evidence it has gathered pro and con but perhaps they will share that at the meeting itself though at that point perhaps not as useful as it might be.  Presumably they have gathered evidence inasmuch as that is what Charter Revision Commissions are appointed to do.  

Phil Scott Putting Homeless Pregnant Women Out of the Motel Program

by CrisEricson2016 | Op/Ed

What a jerk!

Homeless Women Less Than 6 Months Pregnant Will Be Kicked Out Of Motel Program 

From Burlington Free Press: “March 29, 2025 Republican Gov. Phil Scott has signed an executive order allowing families with children under age 19 and “medically vulnerable” Vermonters who face eviction from hotel and motel rooms on April 1 to remain in the state’s General Assistance program through June 30. Pregnant women in their third trimester or who will enter their third trimester between April 1 and June 30 are among those who qualify as “medically vulnerable.”

President Donald Trump Signs Executive Order Re: Department of Education

by CrisEricson2016 | Op/Ed

Ah! Of course! Education should only be for the rich, and closing the federal department of EDUCATION will help to reduce the flow of our tax dollars to teaching illegal migrant children English, and it will help reduce the flow of our tax dollars to teach children with Downe’s Syndrome that they CAN hold down a respectable job, nothing fancy, but something to give them a worthwhile contribution to society, after all, who can serve you food at a restaurant, who can clean toilets, who can hold a sign to beware of workers during highway repairs, who can make bars of soap in a factory?

O.K., so I had a cousin who is now buried in Jericho, Vermont and his mother, my great Aunt Annie Ericson Wheeler, worked sooooooooo hard for so many years for the right of kids just like him to have an EDUCATION.

Attack From The Left

by RDavis | Op/Ed

Disguised as socially responsible budget cutting, the anti-government juggernaut has come to little Brattleboro, Vermont. Don’t be fooled. This is the 2025 version of the Trojan Horse. Our town only has 12,000 people but recently factions have formed to override the decisions of the selectboard as well as trying to push back on an increased police presence after safety issues were identified.

What appears to be a sizeable faction does not want to see the town pass any kind of ordinance that would restrict socially unacceptable behavior because they feel it would unduly target the more vulnerable people in town.

In addition, they want Brattleboro to continue to be an outlier in relation to towns in Vermont as well as around the country by allocating two percent or more of the overall budget to support human service organizations. That amounts to over $400,000. Most towns have either eliminated this support or cut it drastically.

Representative Town Meeting Representatives Have An Opportunity

by cgrotke | Op/Ed

Representative Town Meeting Representatives could reject this year’s budget and the 12.1% increase in municipal property taxes.

Charter prohibitions prevent representatives from telling the Selectboard what specifically to cut, but they can tell them to cut the budget by any amount, and can strongly suggest what needs to be trimmed by the board.

Representatives are in a unique position this year, though. Voters rejected two incumbents that created this budget and replaced them, and the Chair that led this budget process stepped aside and was replaced.  If voters had had the chance, the remaining two Selectboard members might have been tossed, too. 

A Vocabulary of Fascism

by Lise | Op/Ed, Politics

Sometimes we have a lot of useful words but have trouble putting them together.  In the current case, however, they speak loud and clear.  Let’s review the vocabulary and its implications:

Extremely anti-social views and behavior, coupled with a lack of conscience, are evidence that a person is suffering from sociopathy. It’s hard to tell if someone actually lacks a conscience, but anti-social behavior is easy to spot. People who habitually flout the laws and mores of their society, and who are, in fact, against those laws and mores, are behaving anti-socially. This may even be accompanied by misanthropy, which is the hatred of other people.

But just because you hate other people doesn’t mean you can’t love yourself. Narcissism is just that — excessive vanity and admiration of self. And of course, egotism follows, for surely such a fabulous person as oneself will be completely selfish and self-absorbed. It’s the mindset of the spoiled rich kid — I want it, give it to me now!

Please Be Aware That The “Benefits Trap” Also Is Part Of The Puzzle Of Solving The Homeless Crisis In Vermont

by CrisEricson2016 | Op/Ed

Many Vermonters are in the Benefits Trap. You can’t earn over a certain amount of money or you will lose your benefits, and the benefits have more financial value than the value of rent which could put you over the benefits limit by renting a room to someone.

In the Benefits Trap scheme of things, you are allowed to own one home (up to a certain value) and one car (up to a certain value). If you have an extra bedroom, and you rent it out, that is income, and poof! you could lose your benefits which have a value greater than the rent a person might pay.

Vermont Afghan Alliance Statement

by Not Signed In | Op/Ed

Statement on Trump Executive Order Suspending Refugee Admissions, Impact on Afghans in Vermont

Burlington, Vt – The Vermont Afghan Alliance released the following statement in response to the Trump Executive Order suspending the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program:

“All of us at the Vermont Afghan Alliance are devastated to learn of the Executive Order suspending entry of refugees into the United States under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), including Afghan refugees awaiting relocation to the United States.

Trump’s 2nd Inauguration on Martin Luther King’s Birthday – Both Spoke Against U.S. Regime Change Wars

by jay janson | Op/Ed

Noting a Coincidence 

As it turned out, Trump’s 2nd Inauguration as President of the United States of America falls on Martin Luther King’s birthday, a federal holiday (King being the only American to be presently so honoured). Interestingly, both had spoken against U.S. regime change wars, but whereas King paid for his outspoken condemnation of America’s atrocity wars with his life, Trump, though initially denouncing the regime change wars as money better spent at home, once in office, seemed to have dutifully served the deep state industrial military complex in its wars and violent foreign policies just as every other U.S. president since Franklin Roosevelt.

Is It Treason For A Judge To Take Away President Trump’s Right To Own A Gun, Making Him An Easier Target For Assassins?

by CrisEricson2016 | Op/Ed

Recently, the legal argument of a person being charged with one thing, and then another penalty is tacked on because they own a personal home protection gun, which was entirely unrelated to what they were charged with, has come to my attention.

I wanted to do a show on Twitch.com but I was kicked out after I posted that I wanted to discuss various state medical cannabis, marijuana and marijuana laws, because if you are charged with wrongful possession of cannabis marijuana under various state laws, and you happen to own a gun, the charges are increased.

Can President-to-Be Donald Trump Get Away With Maintaining Blind Eye To Genocide In Gaza? 

by jay janson | Op/Ed

We’ve had Holocaust Denial. Now we have the phenomenon of Genocide Denial in spite of the plethora of photographs and videos of the obliterated cites of the Gaza Strip, of the deliberate demolition of neighbourhoods, cultural sites, and essential facilities” in violation of international law. 

President-elect Donald Trump has been impressive in his statements and comments since his overwhelming election. He speaks with authority and determination in his voice promising to resolve the nations problems and take the high road morally on all issues.

All the more perplexing is Trump’s maintaining silence at best, and at worse contradicting reality regarding the genocide in Gaza by saying the judges of the International Court of Justice must be sanctioned for issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his minister of defense.

Eminent Domain Creates Emergency Homeless Shelters

by Kurt Daims | Op/Ed

While hotel owners reap abusive profits, Vermonters are suffering extreme tax hikes, and the housing crisis threatens to bankrupt the state, and homeless people are dying in the streets, we must take emergency measures.

Quoting Karl Grossman on Counterpunch, “The application of the state’s power of “eminent domain” to nuclear power was pioneered in New York State in the 1980s – and was how the completed Shoreham nuclear plant was stopped from opening. That ended the scheme of nuclear promoters to turn Long Island into a “nuclear park” with seven to 11 nuclear plants.

Force Joe Biden To Watch Videos of the Thousands of Adorable Palestinian Children He Had Slaughtered.

by jay janson | Op/Ed

Joe Biden should be tried and convicted of illegally providing American bombs and planes for genocide, but not before being forced to watch videos of some of the thousands of adorable Palestinian kids murdered or maimed by Biden’s bombs and warplanes. Let Biden see the blank look of horror of a temporarily surviving Palestinian child alongside the bloodied dead body of its mother, father, brother, sister, playmate, auntie, uncle, grandad, grandma, or as often enough all of them killed by the same blockbuster bomb.

Let the condemnable President of the United States of American brutality be seen on the cover of Time Magazine as ‘Man of the Year.’ Let Americans become aware of the reality of their government’s horrific most monstrous ever crime against humanity. Though there is currently an international arrest warrant for Biden’s partner in the crime of genocide, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, the International Criminal Court lets Biden off the hook.