Silver, Sovereigns, and Propaganda

Like so many things these days, the annual look at bills coming up isn’t much fun. There are 938 bills that will be heard by the legislature. Over one hundred have been withdrawn. Some were withdrawn because the sponsors weren’t re-elected. Some were withdrawn because they duplicated others, and some of the authors may have had a sudden attack of common sense. House Minority Leader Dick Hinch withdrew his school voucher bill, which was wise, considering that it didn’t pass under a Republican controlled House, and was even less likely to pass under Democratic control. A bill to amend the Constitution to enshrine vouchers was also withdrawn. Also withdrawn was a bill relative to carrying a pistol or revolver while hunting with a muzzleloader. Can there really be such a thing as carrying too many guns at once in New Hampshire? 

HB 190 would allow gold and silver as lawful mediums of exchange. Would we all be expected to carry around our own scales and testing chemicals, or would those be provided at businesses, banks, and other agencies? The bill doesn’t specify. The lead sponsor of this bill is Representative Dick Marple from Hooksett. He also sponsored HB 525, which requires legislators be paid in silver dollar coins. No word on where those coins would be stored. Representative Marple is deeply concerned with matters of currency, as he what is known as a sovereign citizen, a band of miscreants who fancy themselves Constitutional scholars and experts on British common law, as well as US law. They do not recognize US currency and have found convoluted “loopholes” to try to avoid obeying the law. If you’d like a little fun with sovereign citizens, go to YouTube and search, “I’m not driving, I’m traveling,” and immerse yourself in videos of sovereign citizens getting pulled over for traffic violations. Fun for the whole family. 

Sovereign citizens are no joke. They don’t believe that the US government is legitimate; they believe the county sheriff is the most powerful law enforcement officer in the country, and some places they are actual terrorists, tied to white nationalist groups and militias. Representative Marple is serving his fifth term for the town of Hooksett. These bills are the kind of fringe nutter stuff that the minority party knows won’t go anywhere, but they encourage the fringe to file these bills as part of their mission to obstruct and delay. 

Marple is also a sponsor of HB 198, which would repeal the prohibition against texting while driving. That’s supported by a number of Free Staters and libertea types, because their perceived freedom is more important than your safety. Another Marple is HB 215, which would require the legislature to approve the appointment of town managers. Think about that Conway – the next time you appoint a town manager; hundreds of representatives from other counties would make your decision for you. 

In HB 124, ideologues would repeal the buffer zone bill around women’s health clinics that was passed a few years ago. These folks think that women should be shouted at, harassed, photographed, and abused while going in to a medical facility. To take that right away from the harassers (who may also be terrorists, given the level of clinic violence that occurs in this country) is cause for loud bleating about the first amendment, an amendment conveniently ignored by this crowd the rest of the time. 

HB 177 would limit education stabilization grants, which is bad timing, given that we learned this week that Berlin is being forced to close their last elementary school, because of our bizarre education funding system. We fund education through property taxes. New Hampshire has the 2^ndhighest property taxes in the nation. What towns do you think have the highest taxes? Rye, Newcastle, Wolfeboro, maybe Bedford? The places where the wealthy reside? Not even close.  The highest property taxes in the state are in Claremont, and Berlin is a close second. This says a few things – that our education funding system is deeply flawed, that Berlin (and the rest of Coos) should stop electing Republicans, and that The Pledge is a bumper sticker, not a tool for good government.

There are a couple of bills to enshrine our tax structure in the Constitution, one concerning a broad based tax and one an income tax. The property tax IS an income tax. The difference is that if your income goes down, so does an income tax. The property tax, on the other hand, continues to increase. The Pledge is a remarkable lesson in the power of propaganda. It prevents discussion and discourages learning. 

Here’s a thought; in addition to teaching civics, we should be teaching high school kids how to understand the NH tax structure. It would be great preparation for future voters. Who wants to write that bill? 

published as an op-ed in the January 25, 2019  edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

We Live Here Now

The Oxford Dictionaries recently chose the term “post-truth” as their international word of the year. It’s certainly appropriate, after all of the events of the last 2 years.

Post-truth is where we live now. I was driving north last weekend, and heard a North Carolina voter discussing the election with a person from NPR. She pointed out that President Obama had deported more undocumented immigrants than any other president, and he responded by saying “That may or may not be true.” In post-truth America you can decide what the facts are, based on whether or not you like them.

Given that the NH GOP has control of every branch of the NH government, we will all be dwelling in the land of post-truth for the next two years, and trying to undo the damage they will do for at least the next decade.

In a state where young people don’t stay because they can’t get good jobs or afford housing, where we have the 11^th worst infrastructure, and the highest utility costs in the northeast, you might think that those might be priorities for the new legislature. You would be wrong.

There are 4 gun bills. NH has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the nation – but that is not enough to satisfy the MOAR GUNZ crowd. Perhaps when babies are given guns in the hospital along with a car seat they’ll finally be able to lighten up.

There are bills to limit abortion – something our new governor is in favor of.  (Given the endless parade of Sununus we are subjected to, do we call this one Sununew?) His pretend concern for women is touching. Abortion has been legal for over 40 years. He claims to be worried that abortion clinics must be surgical centers or some such nonsense. Meanwhile, he’s expressed zero concern for the homeless women and children who are about to experience winter. He’s expressed no concern for the increasing rate of child poverty in our state. It’s worth remembering – and I will be here to remind you – that Chris Sununu was a Trump supporter. He supported a man who said vile things about women, and boasted gleefully about sexually assaulting them. His concern for women doesn’t exist.

There are at least 4 bills aimed at making it even harder for people to vote. There were stories all over the news after the election of NH Republicans complaining about voter fraud, including one from the latest Sununu. We’ve been hearing the stories about busloads of people coming from Massachusetts to vote in NH. The Republican Party took the Governor’s office, has control of the NH House, the NH Senate, and the Executive Council. If there’s so much fraud – how did that happen? Worst buses ever!

Sununew wants to put the kibosh on same day voting. One reason we have same day voting is because it exempts us from having to comply with motor voter laws. Someone will explain that to him. Other bills include the usual tortured attempts to redefine words like “domicile” and “residence.” There’s the annual constitutional amendment aimed at making sure only white, male, Republicans can vote.

He’s snagged Charlie Arlinghaus to be his budget advisor. Arlinghaus is the head of the Josiah Bartlett Center, which is allegedly a non-partisan think tank. If perpetuating the same, failed GOP economic policies of the last 30 years is non-partisan, I guess they’re right. The Bartlett Center is funded by the Koch brothers, and is also a member of ALEC, the conservative group of state legislators who are handed model legislation and then bring it home and present it as their idea. Apparently Sununu didn’t dare to ask Greg Moore of Americans for Prosperity. Everyone knows they’re funded by the Kochs. The Bartlett Center also feeds from the Koch trough, but the NH media politely never mentions it. 

State Representative Dick Marple of Hooksett, filed an LSR that calls for the voluntary registration of motor vehicles. Rep. Marple was arrested at the polls on Election Day, on a bench warrant for driving with an expired license. He won re-election anyhow. Perhaps his next bill will call for making driver’s licenses voluntary. And maybe some doughty Republican will file a bill preventing public servants from being arrested while they’re in office. Whatever comes next, you can be certain that it won’t have anything to do with ethics reform.

The new majority will do its damnedest to pass right to work legislation. In NH no bad idea ever dies, they just return every two years, ad infinitum. One wonders, though – suppose they pass free guns for all, voting limited to middle aged white male Republicans, no more abortion, right to work – and big business tax cuts – and nothing changes? Not one of these things will do anything to solve NH’s economic problems.

There’s an ugly race brewing for Speaker of the NH House. The libertea crowd has never forgiven Rep. Shawn Jasper for beating out former Speaker Bill O’Brien with the help of the House Democrats. Somewhere, O’Brien is ensconced in a padded room, kicking and howling because he didn’t run for reelection.)   The other candidates are Rep. Laurie Sanborn of Bedford, Rep. Carol McGuire of Epsom (and the Free State Project), and Rep. Frank Sapareto of Derry.

McGuire and Sanborn are good libertea locksteppers. They both have 100% scores from the Americans for Kochsperity, the House Republican Alliance, and A’s from the NH Liberty Alliance. Sapareto is less of a lockstepper. He only got an 82% from AFP in 2013, and 89% in 2014. He got a 90% from the HRA, and a B from the NHLA. That would seem to indicate that he could think for himself at least part of the time, which means he’ll never be speaker. His conviction for 3 domestic assaults in 2013 won’t be a problem – not in today’s NH GOP.  

This would be a lot more amusing if we weren’t going into the future with leaders who are stuck in the past. Sununu wants to run our state like a business. Remember the last governor who had that dream? He lasted one term. Running a state is not like running a business, no matter how often you invoke kitchen tables. A business owner invests in his business. Republicans do not invest in our state. They’re the reason there are 350 red listed bridges. The bill for decades of neglect is going to be a whopper when it comes due. They will, however, find a way to blame it on the Democrats.

Post-truth. We live here now.

This was published as an op-ed in the November 25 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper  

The Post-Truth Era

Author and teacher Ralph Keyes published a book in 2004 called, “The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life.” The “post-truth era” sounds so much better than the liar-liar-pants-on-fire era – but any way you look at it, that’s where we now reside. We don’t expect honesty in any situation anymore, and we’ve cultivated a variety of euphemisms to soften the blow of that reality. We use the term “spin” instead of deceit. We say, “ethically challenged” instead of thief or charlatan. We’ve become so compromised that we can’t even use the word liar.

There is little we can trust in our public lives. In the post truth era, we can pick our own media. We can choose the media sources that give us information that confirm our beliefs or biases. Saint Ronnie told us that gummint is the problem, so we don’t expect anything good or honest to come from our elected officials. We watched as Reagan’s history was rewritten to make him a saint. Everything is fair game these days – even history can be sanitized for our protection. Our presidential primary has become a reality show where big, bold lies are TRUMPeted with no fear of reprisal. The sad truth is this -there are no consequences for lying.

The NH House of Representatives has an internal “all reps” email listserv that is supposed to be used by House members to communicate with one another (and constituents) as they work on The People’s business. Instead, it is frequently used as a means of sending out ideological mendacity. In 2013, State Representative Peter Hansen of Amherst achieved global renown when he sent out an all reps email where he referenced, “children and vagina’s” instead of saying women and children. In 2013 State Rep. Romeo Danais sent out a “joke” over the internal mail system that compared people getting food stamps to wild animals. Danais found it so amusing that he sent it to all of his colleagues twice. In 2013, State Representatives Gary Hopper and Jordan Ulery found it necessary to send out an all reps email with a scantily clad photo of a young woman. The subject matter of the email was the “Democrat’s plan for a 100% gun ban.” In other words, it was fabrication combined with soft-core porn.

 In the weeks since the terrorist attacks in Paris, we’ve seen a near constant barrage of prevarication on just about every level of public discourse. From presidential candidates to NH state legislators, folks are working overtime to spread fables in order to gin up fear.

On November 13, State Representative Dick Marple of Hooksett sent out a real beaut to the all reps listserv:

Coming to a State near you!

“Oh” “Yes” it is coming here too! 1200 to 2,000 a day are coming here. Obama asked for to have 10,000 then it expanded to 100,000 the with in a week it went to 180,000. That is a lot of Diaper heads.

The thing is, these that Obama is bringing in does not have a wife or family with them! This a invasion! Wake up people we are being taken under with out a shot fired! Obama’s pen does the same thing! If this pisses you off! GOOD!

The spelling, sentence structure, and grammar are all Marple’s. The email heading read: “Four wives? Yup n Miochighan.”

Xenophobic? Check. Offensive? Check. Incoherent? Check.
Marple sent this out to all of his colleagues on the official House internal email system. He referred to Syrian refugees – people fleeing for their lives during wartime - as “diaper heads.” These are the words of an adult man, speaking about some of his fellow humans. That’s awful enough, but this is, by the way, a listserv paid for and maintained by our tax dollars. Our tax dollars are subsidizing the spread of lies, fear, and hate. Marple is serving his fourth term, so one assumes that the good people of Hooksett support his incoherence, duplicity, and his xenophobia.

Back in June of 2012, then Speaker Bill O’Brien sent out an email to all reps advising them of a new policy regarding speech on the all reps listserv:

"Electronic media cannot be used for knowingly transmitting, retrieving, or storing any communication that is: 1. Discriminatory or harassing; 2. Derogatory to any individual or group; 3. Obscene, sexually explicit or pornographic; 4. Defamatory or threatening.  In addition, also prohibited are jokes . . . or any other non-legislative work activity that is not allowed on government computers." This new policy was, according to O’Brien, going to be strictly enforced, and violators would lose their email privilege. Clearly it was not strictly enforced, nor has it ever been. Not a single speaker or majority leader (including O’Brien himself) has ever attempted to enforce this rule, no matter how much offensive stuff is sent out on the official House internal email system.

One would think that these guys would be smart enough to send stuff like this out over their own personal email, rather than risk having someone like me make their bigotry, calumny, and bad spelling a matter of public record, but one would be wrong. There are no consequences for lying.

State Representative Max Abramson, Republican, Free Stater and convicted felon, from Seabrook sent out his refugee falsehoods on Twitter. He tweeted, “Shaheen and Obama are still trying to bring 10,000 Syrian refugees to New Hampshire to help the Democrats win a close race in 2016.”

This is complete fabrication. The total of all Syrian refugees approved to come to the United States is 10,000. That is for the entire country, not the state of NH. If Representative Abramson had done even a modicum of research, he would have learned that a refugee coming to the US is not eligible to apply for citizenship for five years after they arrive. They have to be citizens to vote. Abramson didn’t bestir himself to find facts. His intent was to gin up fear and xenophobia for his political party, before an election, so he deliberately sent out misinformation. 

No one has paid any attention to his lies, or those of his colleague Dick Marple. We should want better from our elected officials, but this kind of behavior is exactly what we have become conditioned to expect. There are no consequences for liars in the post-truth era.

“Casual duplicity picks at the thread of our social fabric.” Ralph Keyes

published as an oped in the November 27 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Pitfalls of a 400 Member Legislature, Part Two

Max Abramson is a member of the Free State Project, the group of armed libertarian miscreants that intend to take over and dismantle the NH state government, then threaten to secede from the US. He's also an elected state representative from the town of Seabrook. This is a screenshot of a comment he left at a story at the Union Leader newspaper. The UL is one of the propaganda arms (along with WMUR) of the NH GOP. 

The 10,000 refugees he mentions are the sum total of ALL Syrian refugees slated to come to the US in the next 12 months. 10,000 for the entire country. Not the state of NH. 

Also, only US citizens can vote in US elections. 

Felonious Max is deliberately spreading dishonesty and deliberately fearmongering, just like his GOP colleague Dick Marple. We should expect better from our elected officials. 


This is another instance of what you get when you have a 400 member volunteer legislature.  

He's Lost His Marples

Dick Marple (pictured above) is a NH State Representative from Hooksett. He's well known for taking some peculiar positions on issues - like his 2008 opinion that a woman can't legally be elected president.

The NH legislature has an internal email system that is supposed to be used for doing The People's business - official communications. Far too often, it's used to spread offensive communiques. ( Like this one: Vagina's and Children First) 

Representative Marple was moved by the events in Paris to send this out to all of his fellow representatives:

Incoherent?  ✔

Offensive? ✔ 

Racist? ✔

It's also a lot of bunkum. Marple links to a YouTube video that is supposed to fuel the anger of his fellow white American  incoherents, narrated, curiously by a fellow with a British accent. The video

is available here: https://youtu.be/0R81h6rWgtU

The video is completely debunked by SNOPES here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/4wives.asp

This man is an elected representative from the state of NH. He's using the NH House internal email system (paid for by NH taxpayers) to spread fear, hate, and xenophobia. 

Diaper heads. That's what an adult man is sending out as a message to his colleagues. 

The NH GOP covers our state with glory once again. 

Tuck over at Miscellany Blue and I attended the same choir practice yesterday.