NH House Bill 1504 - Life Begins at Conception

Sadly for the NH House libertea crowd, HB 1504, an attempt at giving a clump of cells the same legal rights as an adult woman...petered out. 

Bqhatewvr

Scott Brown - the former US Senator from Massachusetts who moved to NH half an hour ago is the gift that keeps on giving. Steve Peoples via the AP:

Outside after a breakfast of corned beef hash and eggs, Brown acknowledged the challenge.

"Do I have the best credentials? Probably not. 'Cause, you know, whatever. But I have long and strong ties to this state," he told The Associated Press. "People know." Brown spent the first year and a half of his life living in New Hampshire before his family moved to Massachusetts.

Bqhatewvr, indeed Scottachusetts. 

But wait, there's more!

Brown told Pratt that "carpetbagger is a derogatory term" in New Hampshire given that roughly 60 percent of its people were born elsewhere, including the current and former Democratic governors. Gov. Maggie Hassan moved to the state in 1989. Shaheen, who was born in Missouri, has lived in New Hampshire for more than 40 years.

"Sen. Shaheen is not from here, but apparently it's a problem with me?" Brown asked during a brief interview outside the diner.

Scottachusetts

For months now, former Senator Scott Brown, formerly of Massachusetts, has been flirting with New Hampshire. He talked about running for US Senate against NH Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Then he moved to NH in December. Then he talked some more. Some of the Republicans were thrilled by the idea, figuring that Senator Big Name would bring in all kinds of money. They need the money. So far greed trumps the anger emanating from the liberty crowd.

Brown has moved from flirting to heavy petting. No commitment, yet, but the windows are certainly steaming up. Last week he announced he was setting up an exploratory committee, and heading out on a listening tour of the state. This was a good thing - if he’s going to run for office, he needs to learn his way around the state.  He packed up his carpetbag, and leaped into his shiny, waxed pickup, and headed off into the frost heaves.

Sen. Brown’s Twitter team (more on them later) tweeted out pictures every few hours. Scott Brown in Rochester at a diner. Scott Brown at Linos in Wakefield, having a chat with a group of men, including newly minted Executive Councilor Joe Kenney. There was a photo of Gene Chandler trying to sell Brown a time-share in N. Conway village. Next he went up to Berlin, where Mayor Paul Grenier commented that tourists were always welcome to visit and spend money.

The tour worked its way over much the first Congressional district. Senator Brown still doesn’t know where Peterborough and Keene are, but he’s got plenty of time to learn his way around his new state. Give the guy a break; he’s only been here for about 3 months.  One picture, taken by James Pindell of WMUR, and sent out on Twitter showed some mud on his truck bumper along with some strategically placed duct tape. Yessir Mabel, he’s just like us.  

The big question about all of this is pretty simple: who is Scott Brown going to be in NH? In Massachusetts he ran as a moderate Republican. In NH we don’t have moderate Republicans any more. Will Brown reinvent himself to fit in to his new state? Is he that big an opportunist? And why is his Twitter team preemptively blocking folks? They’ve blocked at least one state rep, my blogger friend Tuck at Miscellany Blue, and even blocked Dante Scala, who teaches poli-sci at UNH. A brief twitter campaign of #freedante turned that around, but, preemptive blocking on the part of someone who just moved to NH half an hour ago is odd.

There are things in his voting record that will please the tea partiers. He voted against a federal school breakfast supplement. He’s supported the use of torture. Brown is also a supporter of Big Oil, and Big Banking, and has voted to continue subsidizing them, while threatening cuts to Social Security and Medicare. (He may learn the hard way about the demographics of his NEW state full of OLD people.)

There are going to be some things that are tough for Senator Brown to explain. He voted for Romneycare, and may have a hard time convincing folks that Romney care is different from the ACA. It’s going to be tough to explain why he thought everyone in his OLD state deserved access to health insurance, but he doesn’t think everyone in his NEW state merits that same access.  He supports the roving wiretaps of the Patriot Act, which will be hard to explain to the liberty crowd. Brown will learn the hard way that privacy is a big deal to NH voters. We can’t expect him to know everything – he’s only been here for 3 months.

In 2012 he said, “I’m a moderate, pro-choice Republican, and I always will be.” That probably isn’t going to go over well with today’s NH Republicans, who are desperate to eliminate regulations on everything BUT the uteri of half the population.

By far and away the biggest problem Senator Brown has when it comes to reinventing himself is GUNS. Ever since Obama took office the prevailing philosophy of the libertea fringe is MOAR GUNZ. Scott Brown, former moderate Republican, formerly of Massachusetts has not shown an adherence to the MOAR GUNZ philosophy. He’s been in favor of licenses and background checks. In 2012 he opposed right-to-carry reciprocity. In 2012 he was in favor of extending the state’s assault weapons ban, but not the federal. Then, in 2013, after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead, Scott Brown said okay to a federal ban on assault weapons.

How will Senator Brown bounce back from that? NH State Rep. JR Hoell has called Brown a “traitor to his oath to protect the US Constitution” because he was in favor of “gun control.” That was AFTER Hoell threatened armed insurrection if Brown were the GOP nominee. Will Brown have to wear Kevlar under his folksy barn jacket?  How will he reinvent himself to be THE candidate running against Jeanne Shaheen? Poor Jack Kimball must be howling with rage inside his command center, as he scans the horizon for UN invaders.

The NH Republican Party is desperate for the dollars that Brown will bring to the state. Poor old former Senator Bob Smith isn’t going to get the dark money juices flowing, and neither is Jim “sycophants waiting to shake my hand” Rubens. The GOP doesn’t seem to have much of a bench.  Young researchers are undoubtedly poring over deeds in vacation areas to find other well known, wealthy Republicans who might want to move quickly to NH and run for office. The NH GOP is open for business and Scottachusetts is obviously for sale.

© sbruce 2014

published as an op/ed in the March 21, 2014 issue of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Bugs, Drugs, or Boogers

Sad news, friends. Tyranny scored a victory today in the NH House. HB 1378  was voted inexpedient to legislate. Representative George Lambert tried to free us from the awful tyranny of sanitation created by the use of sugar packets on tables in restaurants, but his efforts were for naught. 

Lambert wanted us to be able to return to the days of  sugar shaker dispensers, and communal sugar bowls. 

Why wouldn't we want to return to these? Kids could pick their noses and then stick their fingers in the hole where the sugar comes out. Anyone could unscrew that top and put drugs or other nastiness  into the dispenser, and of course there are the ants that could crawl in. 

Bugs, drugs or boogers? Who wouldn't want to have that kind of liberty? In a free market we'd have that choice - but not now, because a bunch of nanny statists decided sanitation was a good idea, and wrote an RSA about it. We should all have the freedom to be poisoned by others. What is a poor libertarian like Rep. Lambert to do? When it came down to a vote, ole Atlas gave a big, big shrug. 





h/t to Maureen Westrick for the heading

Peeing into Gummint Urinals

Free Stater (and State Representative) Michael Sylvia is miffed. It seems that some folks in Belmont, where he lives, have submitted a plan to the zoning board in town. Tina and Frederick Fleming have a family farm, and would like to host educational day camps for kids at their farm this summer, so that kids can learn about farming and where food comes from. It's a change of land use, hence the zoning plan. 

Sylvia is miffed that the Fredericks are "checking with their masters" by filing the plan. In true Free State fashion, the bulk of his ire is saved for Tina Frederick, a teacher at the Laconia Middle School, whom he nastily refers to as a "government school teacher." It's typical Free Stater on 2 levels; contempt for public schools and contempt for women. Tuck has the whole story at Miscellany Blue.

That State Representative Michael Sylvia himself is a GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL seems to have escaped him. 

Belmont has public water and sewer. One hopes that, on principle,  Michael Sylvia has had those services disconnected. Belmont also has a fire department, a police department, and, get this - they have residential curbside trash pickup. One expects that Sylvia has told the police and the fire department never to come to his house, and that he takes his own trash to the dump -  never mind that socialist trash pickup. I'll go out on a limb and say he probably eschews the public library, since he undoubtedly already has his own copy of Atlas Shrugged. 

The voters of Belmont chose to enact zoning laws. The State of NH did not impose them - it was a locally controlled decision. The Free Staters often tout their love for local control, while displaying no respect for it whatsoever. 

 Representative Sylvia drinks gummint water and pees into gummint sewers. His trash gets picked up by gummint trucks, and taken to the gummint dump.  He drives to the State House on gummint roads and bridges. He serves his district from the gummint State House, where presumably he drinks gummint water, and pees into gummint urinals. 

If Michael Sylvia had even a bit of the courage of his convictions, he would have moved to one of the  19 NH towns that has no zoning. That he ran for office while  holding nothing but contempt for the government makes him a pretty fierce hypocrite. 

Go Johnny Go...Johnny B. Gone

State Rep. John Burt sent this out today, March 15, on the internal email system at the NH House:

It seems Rep. Burt was eager to share his parody video with all 400 of his fellow representatives and the legislative staff. Here's the video:



 Take a look at this:

Poor guy can't even eat his breakfast without a gun in his hand. What kind of maniacs does he live with that he has to be armed to make sure no one steals his plate? 

Then there's this. On Tuesday, the 11th, the good people of Goffstown had their town election.  John Burt was not elected. By a huge margin. Apparently they've their fill of obstructionism, ideology, and outright mendacity, so they said, "Go, Go, Johnny, Go....Johnny B. Gone..." 

Perhaps a lot of women voted in Goffstown this year: 

Nuts or Sluts - Rep. John Burt's Take on Women

More of Burt's greatest hits:

http://susanthebruce.blogspot.com/2014/02/nh-rep-burt-calls-colleague-terrorist.html

http://susanthebruce.blogspot.com/2012/12/rep-burt-cares-he-really-cares.html

http://susanthebruce.blogspot.com/2013/05/sinkers-loons-and-knaves.html

Jerks

Matt Taibbi has been writing good stuff at Rolling Stone for a long time now. He's leaving, to start a new venture.  You can read all about that here.

What I cherish in this interview with Taibbi is his description of what reporters are supposed to be:

Taibbi’s father is the Emmy Award–­winning NBC reporter Mike Taibbi—and along with Gogol and Tolstoy, he also idolized the “middle-class, working-class people” who then populated newsrooms. “They relished their role as jerks who wouldn’t let anything slide. And I was attracted to that,” he says. “I mean, ­journalists should be dark, funny, mean people. It’s appropriate for their ­antag­onistic, adversarial role.”

I'm not a technically a reporter - but this is certainly my job description. 

"Free Grafton" Frees Itself

The Free State Project was thrilled about this NPR story that aired on Weekend Edition on March 9. A small sampling:

Free Staters say Grafton should withdraw from the school district, cut the $1 million budget by 30 percent over three years, and carve Grafton out as a "U.N.-free zone."

Tony Stelick, a Free Stater who lived in Poland under the boot of Stalinism, remembers a government that slowly gained more and more power. He says locals who oppose Free Staters are unwittingly voting themselves towards fascism.

"They don't know where they going," Stelick says. "I been there. I know where they going."

Even though Grafton has always had a Libertarian streak, Free Staters are a minority and locals have mostly blocked their agenda. Still, Free Stater Jeremy Olson is confident they could shift the balance if they reach out to locals.

"I think most of the people in town are actually supportive of small government," he says.

It's funny - back at the very beginning of the FSP, one of the things they always talked about that they loved about NH - a reason for moving here - was our custom of town meeting. 

Who can blame them? Town meeting is that day where once a year we gather in our towns and hammer out our budget for the year. We discuss the nuts and bolts; streetlights, plow trucks, and software for the library. Should we start a capital fund to replace the fire truck in about 10 years? The big ticket items are discussed by everyone present. When seen on the warrant folks can get grumbly: "72,000 for that, are they nuts?" But then the fire chief or the road agent comes along to explain the why behind the ask. That's the thing. I've been to many town meetings, in many different towns. I've never been to a town that spent money frivolously. 

 LAST year in Grafton  the Free Staters cut the budget by 10%.  

After last year's success at town meeting, how did they do in the Free town of Grafton this year? 

The town operating budget of $993,500, up more than $53,000 from last year, passed on a vote of 381-111.

The default budget, which would have been adopted if the proposed budget failed, was more than the proposed budget, at just over $1 million.

Voters also rejected a tax cap, which would have prevented the Budget Committee from recommending an increase in property taxes of more than 1 percent over previous year’s spending.

And:

Jim Dugan will sit on the Planning Board after winning 368 votes to 134 for Robert Hull. Jeffrey Weiss will be the supervisor of the checklist as he won over 313 voters compared with Jeremy Olson’s 157.

Robert Hull was one of the first Free State movers to Grafton. He's held that Planning Board seat for a long time.  As for Jeremy Olson? That confidence he was boasting of seems to have been misplaced. 

The good people of Grafton had a colorful deliberative session in February. 

More Republicans Have Endorsed Mike Cryans

The NH Executive Council Chamber at the NH State House. The special election to replace the late Ray Burton as the NH District 1 Executive Councilor is March 11, 2014. This is an important election for everyone in this district - be sure to get out and vote - and drag along your friends and family. VOTE!! 

From Joe Kenney's website: 

These are Republicans who have endorsed him:

Supporters

1. Chris Ahlgren   Carroll
2. David Bickford   Strafford New Durham
3. Glenn Cordelli   Carroll   Tuftonboro
4. Jane Cormier     Belknap                Alton
5. Ralph Doolan     Grafton                Littleton
6. CharlesFink        Belknap                Belmont
7. Robert Greemore Belknap Meredith
8. Harry Merrow Carroll Ctr Ossipee
9. Bill Nelson Carroll Brookfield
10. Leon Rideout     Coos Lancaster
11. Skip Rollins          Sullivan Newport
12. Stephen Schmidt Carroll               Wolfeboro
13. Michael                Sylvia    Belknap Belmont
14. ColetteWorsman Belknap Meredith
15. Also Have Sen. Sam Cataldo from earlier (not counting him as house member)
16. Plymouth State University Republicans

If any Democrats are endorsing Joe, they aren't listed on his website. 


From Mike Cryans' website:

Republicans for Cryans

Congressman William Zeliff, Jr.

Herb & Fay Lloyd, Bethlehem

Lisa Capaldo, Canaan

Mark Hounsell, Conway; former Republican State Senator

Mary Grimes, Columbia; Ray Burton’s sister

Richard A. Crate Jr., Enfield; Police Chief

Lynn Presby, Freedom; retired New Hampshire State Police Colonel, current Racing and Gaming Commissioner

Lynne Whitacre, Hanover

Ray Labombard, Hanover

John Manchester, Hanover

Ray Abbott, Jackson; former Republican Carroll County Commissioner

Richard Coggon, Laconia

Ralph Hough, Lebanon; former Republican State Senate President of NH 1993-1994

Joel Bedor, Littleton

Dick Hamilton, Littleton

Winston Merrill, Littleton

Wayne Presby, Littleton

David M. Miller, Littleton

Hillary Seeger, Meredith; Republican candidate for Select Board

Gerald Coogan, New London

Bonnie Ham, North Woodstock; former Republican State Representative

David Babson, Ossipee; Republican Carroll County Commissioner

Steve Panagoulis, Plymouth ; former Republican Grafton County Commissioner

Ken Randell, Tilton; former Republican State Representative

Marjorie M Webster, Wolfeboro; former Republican Carroll County Commissioner 

David Sorensen, Eaton; Republican Carroll County Commissioner

Mike has also been endorsed by Ray Burton's family.

It sure looks as if more Republicans have endorsed Mike Cryans than have come out in support of the Republican candidate in the race. 

Sharp-eyed readers will note that two of the three Carroll County Commissioners have endorsed Mike. What about the third Carroll County Commissioner?

We can safely assume she's endorsed Joe Kenney, seein' as how she's married to him. 

Here's Mrs. Kenney in action at a Carroll County Commissioners meeting:

Feeling Bilous

Joe Kenney's candidate website is a sad and amateurish affair. It's rife with misspellings and almost completely lacking in punctuation - but what really strikes me is that Joe managed to trot out a picture of himself in uniform (of course) with the late Ray Burton - but there is not a single picture of Joe with his wife and kids on his site. Not a one. 

Hey family values guy - where's the family? 

We do know from the site that he has 16 (!) supporters. One of them is State Rep. Leon Rideout from Lancaster. Rep. Rideout is frequently bad tempered on Twitter, which he uses as a platform for shouting incomprehensibly at people. 

Here's an example. Pro-tip, Leon: Spelling your candidate's name wrong should never be an option.

Here's some incomprehensible shouting. Who is Sharon Smears? Why is he tweeting about her at me?  Why would any candidate want a supporter who behaves this way in public? 

The Sharon Smears nonsense tweet was in response to my tweeting out this picture:

Is there anyone here who thinks that Joe Kenney (or Leon Rideout for that matter) defended Ray Burton in 2004, when Bass, Bradley, Sununu, and Gregg were howling for him to resign over the Seidensticker business?  The chorus of "Ray wouldn't do this" by this passel of hypocrites ought to make us all feel a little bilious. 


Speaking of hypocrites Ray Wieczorek endorsed Joe Kenney, while waxing on about how no one can replace Ray. This is the same Wieczorek who called for Burton's resignation in 2004. These people are absolutely incapable of shame. 

Joe Kenney - Wrong Side of History

Here's a look at some of Joe Kenney's votes when he served in the NH legislature:


Voted against Martin Luther King Day.

Voted against removing the prohibition against fostering and adopting by gay people.

Voted for creating and funding the commission on the status of men.

Voted against a resolution requesting Congress to protect and preserve Social Security.

Voted against recognizing civil unions/gay marriages legal in other states, in a bill that also
specifically forbid even recognizing them as couples.

Voted against abolishing the death penalty.

Voted against increasing the minimum wage.

Voted against medical marijuana.

Voted for SB 110 - causing health insurance rates in the north country to increase by as much as 500%.

Voted to change the name of Mt. Clay to Mt. Reagan.

Voted against requiring a course in civics as a condition for graduating from high school.

Voted against protecting NH residents from predatory lenders.

WWJS

From the You Gotta Be Shitting Me Files:


Guns for Jesus

In an effort its spokesman has described as “outreach to rednecks,” the Kentucky Baptist Convention is leading “Second Amendment Celebrations,” where churches around the state give away guns as door prizes to lure in nonbelievers in hopes of converting them to Christ.

As many as 1,000 people are expected at the next one, on Thursday at Lone Oak Baptist Church in Paducah, where they will be given a free steak dinner and the chance to win one of 25 handguns, long guns and shotguns.

The goal is to “point people to Christ,” the church says in a flier. Chuck McAlister, an ex-pastor, master storyteller and former Outdoor Channel hunting show host who presides at the events as the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s team leader for evangelism, said 1,678 men made “professions of faith” at about 50 such events last year, most of them in Kentucky.

Get Your Aristotle On

Ray Burton was our Executive Councilor in District One for 35 years. District One is the largest district, from Claremont to Pittsburg and down to Milton. It’s a big, big area to cover. Ray started covering it in 1977. He had the unique opportunity to grow into the job at the same time as the population of the north country was growing.

Ray was remarkable. He remembered everyone’s name. He was always friendly and charming, and always listened, even if he didn’t agree. Over the years there have been politicians who ducked my calls. Ray never did. He took his job seriously, and that meant listening to everyone.

Ray was never an ideologue. Ray was north country first – and Republican second. He was never a fire breathing conservative intent on pushing a radical right agenda. He believed that his job was to fight for the best interests of the people in his district, and that’s what he did. The Executive Council shouldn’t be a partisan sideshow.

A brief overview of the role of the EC: they approve state contracts for more than $10,000, and approve the receiving and spending of federal funds. They watch the state treasury to make sure that departments don’t spend more than they were allotted. They also approve judges, commissioners, notaries public, justices of the peace, commissioners of deeds, and they hear pardon requests. NH is the only state that has an Executive Council, just as we are the only state that has a 424 member volunteer legislature. The EC does not pass or repeal laws on the state or national level.

The special election to fill Ray’s seat from now till November is coming up on March 11. There are two candidates: Joe Kenney from Wakefield and Mike Cryans from Littleton.

Joe Kenney served 4 terms in the NH House and 3 in the state Senate. He ran for governor in 2008, and garnered approximately 30% of the vote. Mike Cryans has been a Grafton County Commissioner for 17 years – 16 of them working on that commission with Ray Burton.

Mike Cryans has worked in NH as a teacher, a banker, and worked at a transitional facility for substance abusers. Joe Kenney hasn’t had a job in the private sector since he left college.  He spent 30 years in the military. His service is certainly laudable, but it doesn’t make him any more (or less) qualified for the EC. Joe Kenney hasn’t had an actual paying job in NH since he worked for his parents as a teenager. 

Both Kenney and Cryans did interviews with the Concord Monitor. Both men talked about the infrastructure needs of the north country.  Kenney also talked a lot about his political beliefs, and he was honest about his intention to use the EC as an ideological platform.

Legislative experience is a wonderful thing, but it does leave a trail. All of the roll call votes from 1999 on are available on the NH General Court website. Looking back over Kenney’s voting record I was struck by how often he voted on the wrong side of history. He voted against Martin Luther King Day in 1999. He voted for a law so punitive that it not only refused to recognize out of state civil unions, it also refused to recognize gay couples. He also voted for SB 110, the 2003 bill that gave health insurance companies the right to discriminate against customers on the basis of geography – a move that caused health insurance rates in the north country to increase by as much as 500%. 

The month before Ray died, he joined 3 of his colleagues on the EC to support Governor Hassan’s call for a special session on expanded Medicaid. As Ray knew quite well, his district has the largest population of uninsured adults. As Ray also knew, there are plenty of working poor in Carroll, Coos, and Grafton Counties. Service jobs don’t pay enough for most people to live on. Coos County has the highest concentration of families on food stamps. There are no jobs. And there won’t be until something is done about the infrastructure up there.

That takes money. We’ve all seen how loath some of our elected officials are to allow any of our federal tax dollars to return home to us. NH is unwilling to raise sufficient revenue to fund the state properly and rebuild our infrastructure. That infrastructure is costing us on so many levels. Companies won’t locate here because of it, and the longer we put off the work, the more it will cost. NH is the seventh wealthiest state (per capita) yet we have the 11^th worst infrastructure in the nation. We’re not a poor state. We’re a cheap state. The oft-repeated canard that there is all kinds of pork in the NH budget is mendacity that hurts our state. As long as people buy into that lie, we’ll continue to avoid doing the work, which serves to perpetuate the cycle, and further increase the eventual cost.

The future isn’t popular. The radicals of the far right have no vision for the future, only a longing to return to an imaginary past. NH is a state that desperately needs a vision for the future and elected officials who are going to work toward that vision. The north country, more than any other part of the state, needs a fierce advocate, someone who will fight for all of us.

On Tuesday, we’ll all decide who that advocate will be. I urge voters to read up on the candidates, read the Concord Monitor interviews (in the March 5 edition), and take a look at each of their endorsers.

Tuesday is also town meeting day for many of us. It is our chance to participate in the budgeting and decision making in our towns. It’s an opportunity that is envied by people in other parts of the country. Madison Moderator George Epstein once described town meeting to me as “pure Aristotelian democracy.”

Get your Aristotle on, go forth, and participate.

h/t to Kathleen Ronayne at  the Concord Monitor

© sbruce 2014   Published as an op/ed in the March 7, 2014 Conway Daily Sun newspaper. 

October 1, 2003 - Free State Project Wayback Machine

Step into the Wayback Machine with me, and we will travel all the way back to October 1, 2003. It's the day that the Free State Project announced they'd chosen NH as the state they would move to. 





Dr. Sorens tells the media at this press conference that he has every confidence that the FSP will have 20,000 people in NH by 2006. 

They had to move the goal posts. More than once. It's 2014 and they still only have about 1500 people here - and there's some question about that. Do they change the numbers when people move away? Or die?

By far and away my favorite statements were about their funding. Dr. Sorens assures us that the money for the FSP is all from personal donations. No gummint funds, no corporate funds, and no foundation money. Ms. McKinstry, then the VP of the FSP earnestly tells us that their books are open to anyone who contributes a dollar or more to the FSP. 

Is that still true, FSP? A dollar gets us a look at the books? 

Defending Our Country: NH's Executive Council

The Executive Council approves contracts. They do not, as a body, take up arms to defend our country. The EC is not a military or a paramilitary organization.

These are some of the things they actually do:

All state Departments and Agencies must seek approval of both receipt and expenditures of state and federal funds, budgetary transfers within the department and all contracts with a value of $10,000 or more (amended 11/17/2010 at Governor and Executive Council meeting vote 4-1) not including personal service contracts of $2,500.

The Executive Council approves the appointments of Judges, Commissioners, Notary Public, Justice of Peace, Commissioners of Deeds and hears Pardon Requests.

Executive Councilors make certain that those appointed to the executive branch of state government, whether Commissioners, Department heads or citizen members of the myriad of regulatory boards, agencies and commissions are all responsible to the citizens of New Hampshire and not to special interests. 

Given that Mrs. Schweagler is on the NH GOP Executive Committee, one would think she might be better informed about the 
role of the Executive Council.

The desperation of Kenney's supporters is palpable. It's tough to shill for a guy who doesn't appear to have ever had a job in the private sector.