With veto overrides, lawmakers expand voter eligibility in Brattleboro, Burlington – 06/20/23
Brattleboro is now the only city in America that lowers the voting age AND gives its young people the right to serve in all elected offices, including its lower town council, called the Representative Town Meeting (RTM). The amendment approved by the Town included the right to serve on the school board. BCS agreed with legislators to eliminate this in order to gain earlier approval“
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Comment:
The selectboard lawsuits against our homeless shelter are overwhelming and frightening, and it’s great to have this good news. It’s been ten years, and Brattleboro is the first city — the only city in America where young people have a voice as voters and as elected officials. This may stem the tide of youth moving out of town. I was just talking with Addie Lentzner of the Vermont Youth Lobby. We’re thinking about a state-wide campaign. BCS will advocate for full voting membership on school boards.
Young Brattleboro students have a great range of options for political expression. On one hand the student member of the school board is formal but tokenized and not allowed to vote. On the other hand students who worked on the Youth Vote also disrupted the selectboard and the Heifer Parade to declare a climate emergency. The Youth Vote amendment creates the best option, both formal and powerful, if the young voters choose to own their power.
OUR RESPONSE TO TRUMP
CONFRONT
The New York Sun, report by Seth Gitell, September 16, 2008,
Brattleboro Common Sense (BCS) director Kurt Daims presented at the Massachusetts School of Law conference “War and the Law”:
“. . . Where the conference broke new ground was on the amount of time and discussion focused on getting members of the uniformed officers corps to come over to their side. . . .
“A Brattleboro, Vt., activist and author of a successful petition in his town calling for the arrest and indictment of Messrs. Bush and Cheney, Kurt Daims, addressed the audience: “We have been trying to tell Congress, ‘don’t fund the war.’ We’ve just got to go around them,” Mr. Daims, a panelist, said. “We don’t talk to the president . . . We don’t talk to Congress . . . We talk to the military and say ‘Hey, your oath is to the Constitution, not to the president.'”
“. . . Subsequent speakers spoke for and against the concept of anti-war activists bringing their message directly to members of the military.”
The back-story of No-Kings begins in Vermont. Brattleboro particularly has experience with controversial local resolutions, having approved a resolution in 2003 declaring the “Patriot Act” to be a threat to the Constitution. By 2006 there was a concentration of Vermont towns resolving against the act or for impeachment. By 2006 they were joined by San Francisco, Chicago and state legislatures in Minnesota and New Hampshire. Brattleboro Common Sense promoted the Bush Indictment Resolution, for expediting the prosecution of Bush for war crimes in Iraq under a theory of universal jurisdiction. It turned an international spotlight on Brattleboro and presidential war crimes. It was reported in the international press, radio and TV, on the back page of the New York Times, and the front page of US Today.
OUR RESPONSE TO TRUMP
COMPROMISE
We believe transgenderism should be treated as a health issue, not a political issue. And people need to know that trans people are victims, exploited by liberal communities who want to increase their membership, and especially by a heartless corporate health industry that cares first and foremost about profit. They deserve help, not blame.
In 2016 we favored trans rights. While our allies wanted to wait for action at the state level, we promoted trans-friendly bathrooms in the local high school. It was a simple civil rights issue. But it isn’t simple. Our board of directors has approved proposals to reverse the influence of transgenderism, including legislation focused on removing transgender influence in schools.
Why is this necessary ? Here is our theory of how the movement became popular so fast. Four strong influences have aligned suddenly to promote transgenderism: social media, internet politics, the news media, and the medical industries. First, social media have devalued true friendship and parental love and separated children’s social lives from their parents’ supervision. Secondly, non-straight groups are deceptively recruiting confused young people through those un-supervised social media platforms. Internet activism and social media have created a shallow standard of civic involvement, and non-straight activist groups are desperate for active membership. So, they pose as saviors, flattering confused young people for their victimhood and grooming them as new members. Thirdly, transgenderism is ideal clickbait. With elements of sex and conflict, it dominates the attention of the news media, exaggerating its apparent importance for the public.The last influence is the medical industry, with burgeoning investments in drugs, surgeries, counseling, and artificial birth. Promising to neutralize the very idea of women, transgenderism opens a market for artificial birth and is a strategic investment.
(Photo by Vuk Valcic/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) Story here.
Hi Kurt
My statement to Google, which it gives confirmation to:
Article 1 section 8, which says that Congress can declare War, does not say that the President cannot order terrorists to be attacked by the military without a Congressional OK.
Google replied with this truth:
While Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to “declare War”, it does not explicitly restrict a president from ordering targeted, short-term military strikes against terrorist targets. Presidents frequently rely on their Article II authority as Commander-in-Chief to authorize such actions, particularly to protect national security.
Targeted Strikes vs. War: The Department of Justice has argued that localized strikes against non-state actors (terrorists) do not constitute “war in the constitutional sense,” thus not requiring prior congressional approval.
Legal Debate: While many agree the President has power to act in emergencies, there is long-standing debate over the extent of that power, with some scholars arguing that significant, sustained military action requires Congressional approval.
………..
Bottom Line–those WERE drug boats our military RIGHTLY blew up-they were each loaded with cocaine, and fentanyl.
I agree with this letter writer, that ‘Town Meeting should be about town business’, not pushing votes on Resolutions (which have no ‘teeth’ anyway) about national or international things that a town Resolution can’t do anything about and is effectively a waste of time.
https://www.reformer.com/opinion/columnists/commentary-erica-walch-town-meeting-should-be-about-town-business/article_b0a2bf3c-fece-46bd-a143-ee9dd7fe4093.html
I’m conservative but not Zionist nor a Nuketard. I joined the 1,000 people anti-war march down Main St. Bratt in the spring of 2003, and after that I joined a couple of Dan Dewalt’s (he suffers from TDS Bigtime!) Friday marches up and down Main st when Skull & Bones scumbag Bush was Prez., and I joined the 1,000 people march against Entergy Co. & Vermont Yankee on March 22, 2011 shortly after Fukushima (it was 80 degrees that day on Putney Rd.! -No NOT because “Global Warming’ is real–it’s a $cam)
The left had no big problem with deporting illegal aliens and funding ICE when Obama was Prez, or when Biden was –cuz the Left is a bunch of HYPOCRITES.
I voted for Trump all 3 times, not because he’s perfect, No President ever was, but at least he’s anti-Globalism (-the reason why he’s been attacked by top Dems AND RINO Reps who’ve all taken Globalist Bankster Gangster’s money) and he was definitely the lesser of evils compared to the corrupt Biden Crime family or Harris (BOTH brain dead) and the corrupt evil Hillary Clinton. I held my nose to the ‘Warp Speed’ & Lock Down / forced mRNA (fake “vaccine”) shots tyranny-
https://patriotpost.us/memes/124930-resisting-tyranny-2026-02-06
and to the Zionist genocidal slaughter of mostly innocent Palestinians which American tax $$ paid for.
I pray that we don’t have WW III (likely nuclear) with Russia & China–they’ve together had War Game scenarios where they together attack their common enemy–us/the West.
The only Rapper worth listening to– Tom MacDonald->
The Left-Right Paradigm splained by Tom– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=najeyO0CuXw
George Harrison also did a tune with this same title in his last album-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCBNwGHPZ2M&list=RDzCBNwGHPZ2M&start_radio=1
Tom’s latest-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzKVhhDJE4&list=RDFuzKVhhDJE4&start_radio=1
(please forgive the late reply, as we have been overwhelmed by lawsuits from local government for most of three years)
Hello, Alex.
It is true that the Constitution does not explicitly forbid the president from bombing suspected drug traffickers. Instead of forbidding millioins of things the Constitution says something like all the powers that aren’t listed for the president belong to the Congress and if they’re not listed for the Congress the powers belong to the states. In other words, if the constitution doesn’t say you can do it, then you can’t do it. To make this more believable to you, remind yourself who wrote the Constitution. Those people had just fought a war against a King that they called a tyrant. The Constitution was about limiting the powers of government. and preserving powers of the states.
Why are you so sure the boaters were trafficking ?
I’ll check out Mr. McDonald, if you tell me more.
We have an innovative and ambitious agenda on homelessness and the housing shortage, including rent control legislation, private rental policies and an emergency homeless shelter. To us the disagreement between select-person Elizabeth Ms. McLoughlin and legislators defending H91 is a dainty detail-oriented debate on how to splurge. Ms. Mcloughlin, and the legislators are just now becoming aware of the homeless crisis as a monetary issue. They all have been in denial about it for a long time. Putting people in hotels, at $3000 to $6000 a month long-term is too much. While hotel owners reap abusive profits, Vermonters are suffering extreme tax hikes, and the housing crisis threatens to bankrupt the state. In 2010 Brattleboro approved the BCS resolution for a legislative study of eminent domain to relieve an economic threat. BCS proposes invoking eminent domain to put hotels and other spaces under government control for emergency use. When Ms. Mcloughlin says “Brattleboro’s municipal costs attributable to the state motel program approximate a million dollars and reach every municipal department”, she establishes Brattleboro’s standing and central argument for an eminent domain action. (Ask to see the memorandum of law.) Eminent domain is not just for bridges, as Brattleboro has recently used it. It is a normal necessary tool of government, and the courts have frequently upheld the use of it for economic purposes. (See Kelo v New London, 2025.)
It is odd to see the legislators complaining about Ms. Mcloughlin’s letter as if their feelings were hurt. Officials who aren’t direct opponents usually expect lip service and backpacking from me from each other at every turn. Thus the public hears nothing but praise within their circles and thinks that the legislators and officials are doing a good job. Even in this exchange the legislators have praised Ms. McLoughlin for her “ long time concern” for the issue. But this is empty praise. McLoughlin even more than the legislators has expressly denied the homeless crisis as recently as 2023, when she told her board chairman, “I just take exception to your use of the word, uh, ‘housing emergency’ in the state of Vermont. We have not declared it as such.” — and the other members didn’t let out a peep. Earlier two BCS workers spoke to the board about the homeless emergency and were told that the churches had it under control. They proposed decentralized homeless campsites away from downtown, with RVs as shelters that cost just pennies compared to the hotels. That is another emergency tool.
In 2019 the Brattleboro selectboard installed three rental toilets for the homeless downtown, but they couldn’t manage the cleaning. So, the toilets were removed three months later, and nothing more was done on the issue for five years.
Let’s be frank: this does not show a long-time commitment by our selectboard or by our legislators. Their proposals are normal public assistance measures and apartment buildings that take years, the kind of proposal that would be normal if there were no emergency. This is an emergency. They need an emergency attitude and they need to use emergency tools.
For Brattleboro Common Sense
Kurt Daims
Apologies, everyone. The website needs updating because we’ve been overwhelmed with lawsuits about our emergency shelter for most of two years.