Why is NH AG Gordon MacDonald Working With James O'Keefe?

This is James O'Keefe dressed up in his nana's fur coat for his very first "sting," when he was pretending to be a pimp - and fooling no one. 

I don't know why James O'Keefe, the fraudulent fraud "investigator" has a hard on for NH, but he does. He's been trying to prove that there's widespread voter fraud in NH for years now, and has succeeded in stepping on his dick every time. 

In 2012, Jimmy and his Fraudulent Squad tried to prove that folks were rigging elections by voting as dead people. They came pretty close to casting those votes themselves, which meant Jimmy had to stay away from NH for a while, because then AG  Michael Delaney was investigating him. One of the names of the dead they tried to use to  make their case with was a veteran who had died a mere 10 days before. The man's family were not happy with Jimmy and his Fraudulent Squad. 

He has a lot of support here. The wingnut libertea groups in NH love Jimmy, even though he's always revealed to be peddling doctored videos and other tarted up nonsense - they think he's an "investigative journalist." Jimmy always has his grifter hand out, and they are likely donors. NH libertea groups want to prevent as many people as they can from voting, so Jimmy's their hero, flying in, making noise, and in time the noise turns out to be a nothingburger. 

I first read of O'Keefe's latest NH scheme in this September 8 Patch story :

The New Hampshire Attorney General's Office is making structural reforms concerning voter fraud cases after the discovery that investigators appear to have been sitting on voter fraud evidence for more than eight months.

Attorney General Gordon MacDonald made the announcement during an interview with James O'Keefe III of Project Veritas Sept. 4 after the organization questioned staffers from the Election Law Unit in August about the lack of action against a double voting suspect from 2016 — even though investigators had evidence about the case for nearly a year.

It seems our very partisan NH AG is taking orders from the Fraudulent Squad at Project Veritas. (The whole story reads as if it was dictated by James O'Keefe.) They found evidence of a man who voted twice, in what is presented as a sinister and deceptive plot where the man dressed up as a woman to defraud the system. 

Then read this story at Jezebel.com

This ain't no victory. Project Veritas made a big "sting" off a guy who has obvious mental health problems, and  is barely getting by financially, and is likely to lose his job because of them. 

Vincent Marzello is worried he’ll lose his fast-food job. After Veritas showed up at his workplace, the owners asked if they could do a background check; with his arrest and subsequent publicity on television and the front page of the local paper, his boss has implied that if customers start coming in to gawk at the guy who voted twice, Marzello could be out of a job. After his arrest, he said he had 85 cents in his checking account—not even enough to pay the $40 dollars usually required to leave jail.

What a triumph - for the bigoted, transphobic Fraudulent Squad - and the NH AG's office. How proud they must be to have rooted out this criminal element! This is a shameful story of harassing a confused man who needs professional help.  The AG should have told O'Keefe to fuck right off with this. 

Gordon MacDonald is the NH Attorney General. Despite his lack of judicial experience, Governor Chris Sununu wanted to put MacDonald on the NH Supreme Court as the Chief Justice. In a very contentious fight, the Executive Council voted no. The governor has been clear that if he is re-elected, he'll be re-nominating the anti-choice/pro-voter suppression MacDonald. 

We know that MacDonald is essentially working for Veritas at this point. Who else is Veritas tight with? It turns out that O'Keefe is buddies with the Proud Boys - the violent, right wing racist group that the president so kindly mentioned at the debate. 

This piece in The New Republic connects all the Veritas dots to the Proud Boys. In 2017, O'Keefe was honored as Proud Boy of the month in their magazine. He's buddies with Proud boy founder Gavin McInnes and white supremacist Stefan Molyneaux, who has been a featured speaker at some Free State Project events here in NH. 

These are some Proud Boys. I might have gone with a name that didn't suggest a toddler meeting his toilet training goals - but what do I know? 

James O'Keefe, friend of white supremacists,  is who our NH AG is taking marching orders from, at a time when hate groups are establishing themselves in NH, including the Proud Boys. 

It's more imperative than ever that Chris Sununu is voted out. Gordon MacDonald should not be on the NH Supreme Court -  he shouldn't be the NH AG. 

When Freedumb Fighters Become Tyrants

HOUSE BILL 1749-FN

AN ACT relative to the state's authority to prohibit or regulate firearms and relative to the selectmen's authority to manage town property.

SPONSORS: Rep. Hoell, Merr. 23; Rep. Comeau, Carr. 5; Rep. Itse, Rock. 10; Rep. Sylvia, Belk. 6; Rep. Burt, Hills. 39; Rep. Spillane, Rock. 2; Rep. Notter, Hills. 21; Rep. Baldasaro, Rock. 5; Rep. McConnell, Ches. 12; Rep. Wallace, Rock. 33

COMMITTEE: Municipal and County Government

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ANALYSIS

This bill revises the law on the state's authority to prohibit or regulate firearms, firearms components, ammunition, firearms supplies, and knives.  The bill also renders the selectmen's authority to manage town property subject to the provision of RSA 159:26.

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eighteen

AN ACT relative to the state's authority to prohibit or regulate firearms and relative to the selectmen's authority to manage town property.

Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened:

1  Legislative Findings and Purpose.  The general court finds that:

I.  New Hampshire is not a home rule state.

II.  Municipal ordinances and regulations regarding firearm regulation may differ from municipality to municipality which may place a citizen in danger of inadvertently violating the law.

III.  A growing number of towns and local boards are violating RSA 159:26.

IV.  The issue is a growing problem as in the last 6 months, the following events have transpired, all of which violate RSA 159:26:

(a) The board of selectmen of the town of Milford has banned target shooting on town land.

(b) The city of Lebanon school board is attempting to ban firearms in or on school property and at school events that take place on non-school property.

(c)  The Lebanon police department has pledged to enforce the illegal gun ban enacted by the Lebanon school board.

V.  It is in the best interest of the citizens of the state of New Hampshire for the resources of local units of government to be used to enforce current law and not to waste time enforcing decisions that are in clear violation of statutes.

VI.  Repealing and reenacting RSA 159:26 to clarify the intent and further, to include penalties, will prevent these violations of state law.

2  Firearms, Ammunition, and Knives; Authority of the State.  RSA 159:26 is repealed and reenacted to read as follows:

159:26  Firearms, Ammunition, and Knives; Authority of the State. 

I.  The general court shall have exclusive authority and jurisdiction by statute over the sale, purchase, ownership, use, possession, transportation, licensing or permitting, taxation, or other matters pertaining to firearms, firearms components, ammunition, firearms supplies, and knives in the state.  Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, all delegations of legislative authority shall be by statute and shall explicitly state the extent and limits of the jurisdiction or authority delegated.  Except as otherwise specifically provided in statute, no ordinance, regulation, rule, or policy of an agency, political subdivision, committee, or other governmental unit of the state, or agent thereof may prohibit or regulate in any way the sale, purchase, ownership, use, possession, transportation, licensing or permitting, taxation, or other matter pertaining to firearms, firearms components, ammunition, firearms supplies, or knives in the state.  

HB 1749

Local control has always been sacred in NH. Past tense. Some municipalities are enacting gun ordinances for THEIR towns that the freedumb and libertea crowd disapproves of. This bill would remove local control and hand it to the legislature. 

These people (especially Free Staters Ed Comeau and Michael Sylvia) all bray about gummint tyranny - but vote them into government and they become the tyrants. 

JR Hoell - Who Needs Local Control?

GOP Favors Local Control Except When They Don't         h/t Tuck

Pass The Fruit Salad

Those of us who watched the last Republican debate learned a few things about the men who would be president. Dr. Carson, when asked how he would choose a nominee for the Supreme Court said he would look at the fruit salad of their lives. He may be brilliant in an operating room, but the rest of the time he appears to exist in a rather lizard-like torpor. That said, at least (unlike most of his fellow candidates) he can act like a grown up in public.

You may have seen the moment where things REALLY went to hell. That was when the person doing the closed captions abandoned all hope and just put, “unintelligible yelling” on the screen. The men who wish to convince us that they are the right candidate to lead our nation (and handle the nuclear launch codes) were engaging in what looked slightly less mannerly than a 3^rd grade playground fight.

This is where the party of Reagan has led us. Lo these many years, we’ve been hearing that gummint is bad, and gummint is the problem, and we’ve elected people who ensured that it was so. They invited the ill-behaved louts of the Tea Party into their bosom, and the Tea Partiers showed their appreciation by taking over the party, and kicking out anyone who retained any vestiges of sanity or reasonable behavior. NH followed right along. Since then, we’ve watched as a variety of churls shouted down Congresswomen at town hall meetings. We’ve seen them behave badly in the legislature, and everywhere else they go. Recently the Carroll County Commissioners had to deal with an outburst by a Wakefield resident. Steve Brown has been an ongoing problem at the meetings. He’s a libertea guy and like so many of his ilk, he is the center of the universe. He is all that exists, and he has the right…nae the DUTY to say or do whatever crosses his mind at any given moment. And so, when he was caught on tape simulating masturbation, the members of the Commission decided that perhaps Mr. Brown should be compelled to develop some impulse control, and that the Commission and others present, should not be subjected to his lack of propriety and courtesy. Brown is a member of the Wakefield School Board. Hopefully children don’t attend the meetings. 

This week, Marco Rubio (a candidate for President of the United States) made penis jokes about Donald Trump (a candidate for President of the United States.) Also this week, the NH House Criminal Justice and Pubic Safety Committee had a public hearing on HB 1525: relative to the circumstances that constitute indecent exposure and lewdness.  This bill was written in response to the topless protests held last summer at Hampton Beach. A group of women didn’t think their bodies should be considered obscene, and espoused the view that they should be able to go topless at the beach. This is also the bill that caused a dust-up back in December, when one of the original sponsors, Rep. Josh Moore, tweeted at a female colleague his opinion that a nipple out in view was fair game for grabbing. Rep. Moore has since removed himself from the bill. It’s worth noting that Rep. Moore is a member of the House Education Committee. The bill would make it a misdemeanor for a woman to show her breasts or nipples “with reckless disregard” for whether it would offend someone.

The current sponsors of the bill are Representative Brian Gallagher, a freshman legislator from Sanbornton; Rep. Peter Spanos, a freshman legislator from Winnisquam; and Rep. George Hurt, in his third term, from Gilford. All are Republicans. At the hearing, these men warned the committee that if women can go topless at the beach, they’d soon be topless at the library and at Little League games. (Do these guys ever even go to the library?) They said that NH could lose tourism dollars if women wander around in public with exposed breasts. Good point. No one goes to Europe any more. All those topless beaches keep everyone away. One hopes these tender legislative blossoms avoid Weirs Beach during Bike Week.

It’s almost amusing. Breasts are used to sell nearly every product on the market – but heaven forfend you should see one at the beach! Men spend their whole lives trying to catch a peek at them yet now they’re all boogered up about the idea of seeing an uncovered gland in public. The underlying message here is that women’s bodies are obscene and must be covered. Women are perverts who will flaunt their dirtypillows at the library! Women’s filthy bodies will drive away tourists! Keep those reckless breasts under control! What a wonderful message these men are sending to their own daughters and granddaughters. Perhaps next year all their daughters can wear festive holiday burkas for the family Christmas card.

On the one hand, we have Republican male presidential candidates making rude comments and jokes, and male Republican elected officials simulating masturbation at public meetings. On the other hand we have Republican male legislators who are so offended by women’s bodies that they want to make it a crime to show a breast in public.  Seriously?  It sounds to me, as if you boys need to clean up your own side of the street before you try anything big like governing.

What we ought to do is take a cue from the Italians. Topless sunbathing is a matter of choice in Italy. It is, however, against the law for men to touch their genitals in public. Italian men do not paw at, grope, grab, or tug at their crotches in public. This law was upheld by Italy’s highest court. From The Guardian: “The third penal division of the Rome court was having none of it. It said that public genital-patting "has to be regarded as an act contrary to public decency, a concept including that nexus of socio-ethical behavioural rules requiring everyone to abstain from conduct potentially offensive to collectively-held feelings of decorum".

That’s right. Men’s grabbing at their private parts is an act contrary to public decency – not the showing of a nipple.

Next year perhaps a bold legislator will write THIS bill. The women of the nation (and many men) will thank you.

Published as an op-ed in the March 4 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Nipples and Nonsense

It’s the start of the new year, and that means that the legislature will be back in session! The fun has already begun, with some of our NH Republicans covering our state with glory in the national media.

You may have read that a couple of male legislators made boobs of themselves over the horrifying thought of being subjected to the view of a female nipple. It seems that State Representative Josh Moore was so incensed at the idea, that he told a female state rep that any woman who was putting her nipple on view deserved to have it stared at or grabbed. This is especially fun because Josh is Ted Cruz’s “faith based outreach” director in NH. (Be sure to ask Josh or Ted whose nipple Jesus would grab.) The other offender was Representative Al Baldasaro, who also made crude remarks, but stopped short of justifying assault.

This all came about because last summer some women staged a “free the nipple” topless protest at Hampton Beach. This apparently was too much for the Patriarchal Police, so
a trio of male legislators filed a bill (HB 1525) to define the circumstances that comprise indecent exposure and lewdness.  

NH has some serious problems. We have the 11^th worst infrastructure in the United States. Our roads, bridges, dams, and water systems are in serious need of repair. We need telecommunications infrastructure. Young people are leaving the state in droves, because there are no jobs and no affordable housing. NH invests less than any other state does in higher education, so our college students have a tremendous debt load. We’re unwilling to raise sufficient funds to run the state as if it were a going concern, so all state agencies are insufficiently funded and don’t run properly. Our property taxes are some of the highest in the nation, and prevent young people from buying houses, and force old people to sell theirs.

The response of our legislature to the very serious problems our state faces? Nipples. Nonsense.

There are 8 bills attempting to eliminate abortion. Republican  men may not know diddly about planning future, but one thing they do know is that women can’t be trusted with their own bodies. There are 11 gun bills. There’s a constitutional amendment to try to ensure college students can’t vote here.  There’s a bill to require TANF recipients to be drug tested, another to dictate where SNAP benefits can be spent, and a resolution to encourage the governor and executive council to open their meetings with a prayer. Yeah, that’ll help. The legislature opens every session with a prayer, then they go on to do the best they can to ensure that the state’s poverty rate continues to rise.

Some of the bills are very familiar. Our legislators are not deterred by bills that fail to pass for decades – they just keep filing. There’s the usual attempt at defining “domicile” in ways that are aimed at preventing voting as opposed to encouraging it, this time in the form of a proposed amendment to our state constitution. Another constitutional amendment would require a 3/5 vote in the House to override any veto. We’ve heard these before.

HB 1629 would disqualify members of foreign terrorist groups from receiving public assistance. Is there a box that folks check off (yes or no) to notify the state that they’re members of a terrorist organization? HB 1542 would require drug testing of people receiving TANF benefits. This is one of Representative Don Leeman’s favorite hobbyhorses, brought back again. Kansas spent $40,000 on drug testing TANF recipients and got 11 positive test results. Mississippi spent $5,290 and got 2 positive test results. In a state that can’t afford to fix bridges, this seems like a bizarre use of funds, but hey, those poor folks aren’t going to demonize themselves.

HB 1115 stipulates that NH residents would only be required to obey our own state and federal laws. The laws of other states wouldn’t apply to us. This bill is sponsored by Rep. Frank Edelblut, a Republican who wants to be our governor. HB 1128 would designate the second week of September as Patriot Week. Because legislating patriotism makes it happen!

House Majority Leader Jack Flanagan is the lead sponsor of HB 1668, a bill that would create a registry for people convicted of heroin related offenses, and require the registration of those offenders. NH offers very little in the way of treatment for addicts. The GOP is determined to eliminate the NH Health Protection Program, (aka expanded Medicaid) which enables 40,000 low wage NH workers to access health insurance that they wouldn’t have otherwise. Insurance that covers treatment for addiction. Offering young people a future might be more helpful, (affordable education, good jobs, home ownership) but we’re not about to do that – so the only thing left is trying to prosecute our way out of a heroin epidemic. That it hasn’t worked yet is not a consideration.

Coming to us from the small gummint crowd is HB 1596, a bill aimed at changing the paperwork requirements for marriage. Representatives Itse, Hoell, Hill, and Ingbretson do not believe that the state should license anything, so they want to go forward into the past to the way things used to be, with couples filing a certificate of intent to marry, and then a certificate of marriage, which gives interested parties the opportunity to object to the marriage. I’m not making that up. It’s in the text. The text also only refers to couples that are comprised of a bride and a groom. It’s nice to see the same guys who moan and wail about gummint interference working hard to interfere in the personal lives of NH residents. Bravo, libetea dudes!

You can check out all 812 potential bills filed thus far at www.gencourt.state.nh.us . On the right side of the page, you’ll see the section labeled “State Legislation Dashboard” where you can find all bills – the good, the bad, and the peculiar. Presidential primaries generate a lot of heat and noise, but what happens on the state level has the greatest impact on our lives. Make it your New Year’s resolution to pay more attention.

published as an op-ed in the Conway Daily Sun on January 8, 2012

Allergy Warning

Members of the NH House have filed most of the bills for the 2016 session of the legislature. The deadline for filing LSRs was September 18. LSR is the acronym for legislative service requests. Legislative Services helps state representatives and senators with research into these fledgling ideas that may become bills. There have been 639 LSRs filed by House members thus far.

The Senate’s filing deadline is November 3. There are only 32 LSRs filed by senators thus far. It’s a safe bet that a big bunch will be filed at the last minute. Also listed on the NH General Court website are the 56 LSRs that have already been withdrawn. Only the titles of the LSRs and the lead sponsors are available, so it can be difficult, in some cases, to know what the bill is really about. In others, there is little doubt.

We all know that NH has some serious issues that need to be addressed. In looking at the House LSRs, it seems that the most important problems we face in NH appear to be guns and abortion. Get ready for the non-budget session of the biennium, with a side order of special sauce on account of the presidential election. Avoid the sauce if you have allergies, since it was prepared in an area contaminated by nuts.

State Representative Michael Brewster represents Epsom and Pittsfield. He appears to be the winner in this years “most LSRs filed contest,” after filing a whopping 37. It seems that Brewster has some grievances with our judicial system, regarding the custody of his child. Most of the 37 LSRs Brewster has filed involve judges or the judiciary system. Brewster has also filed an LSR calling for the impeachment of Governor Hassan, and another to remove the five executive councilors from office. But, so far, my absolute favorite of Brewster’s LSRs: “prohibiting the general court from filing legislation in the second year of the session.” Well done, sir.

There are several bills calling for a registry of drug dealers to be created. House Majority Leader, Jack Flanagan, has one that would establish a registry for people convicted of heroin related offenses. There isn’t a registry for the bankers who destroyed the US economy, but Flanagan wants to put some poor junkie who gets caught buying a bag on a registry that will forever impede him from turning his life around. (A gun registry would be tyranny!) Jack Flanagan is pondering a run for Congress in the second district.

Rep. Gene Chandler is one of the sponsors of an LSR aimed at amending the NH Constitution on the issue of domicile. The Republican dedication to limiting voting rights continues unabated. Other states are looking at expanding voter rights. New Hampshire is not one of them.  

State Representative Don Leeman would like to require drug testing for public assistance recipients. This has proven to be a big waste of money in other states, where the only winners were the companies who raked in the big bucks for finding a tiny percentage of people who failed the test. One wonders how far this would go. Would the families who receive assistance for their children with disabilities be required to pee into cups? Leeman filed another LSR that would restrict the use of food stamps in convenience stores. Many SNAP recipients live in areas where there are no supermarkets and there is no public transportation. Apparently it was a long, hot summer in Rochester, with nothing to do but think about ways to demonize the poor.

Self-styled Constitutional scholar, Rep. Dan Itse did not disappoint. He may have been overshadowed by Rep. Brewster in the number of LSRs filed, (Itse only filed 28) but he did manage to bring his usual level of peculiarity to the process. Itse has filed an LSR that would change the marriage license requirement to a requirement that couples obtain a certificate of intent to marry. He would also like to proclaim the second week of September as Patriot Week.

An LSR was filed calling on the US House and Senate to consider a constitutional amendment prohibiting campaign contributions, unless the donor is eligible to vote in that election. Free Staters Ed Comeau and Max Abramson didn’t utter a peep when a libertarian millionaire from Texas inserted his “free speech” into the special election in March that gave Yvonne Dean-Bailey a seat in the NH House, but both are sponsors of this LSR.  Continuing on in the tradition of legislating personal grudges, Abramson has also filed an LSR requiring the testing of law enforcement officers for steroid use. Abramson was arrested and charged with felony gun charges for attempting to break up a party at his house (in a residential neighborhood) by firing a gun.

There are at least 8 LSRs regarding firearms, but most of them aren’t coming from the gundamentalists. One would create a criminal penalty for providing a firearm to an individual that is prohibited from having one. Another would require firearm owners to have liability insurance, something that might go a long way to cutting back on stupid. For example, Max Abramson’s party trick would have caused his insurance rates to go up.

There are also 8 bills aimed at either hindering or ending a woman’s right to bodily autonomy. The faked up videos done by an anti-choice group got the GOP all wound up into thinking they can somehow ride to victory in 2016 by forcing women to serve as involuntary incubators. NH has never been a part of Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue donation program. (Only 2 of 48 states are). Demonizing Planned Parenthood means demonizing the thousands of women who rely on their services. Planned Parenthood saved my daughter’s life. They are often the only health care low income women in rural areas can afford to access.

It’s a wonderful bit of hypocrisy to see how many Free Staters support the various bills. These are people who claim to be all about freedom and libertea, but as always, when the surface is scratched, libertarian freedom applies (and appeals) to white, heterosexual men. And as always, the sponsors of these bills vote against any programs that help women, children, and families.

This is just a small snapshot of what will be coming up in 2016. It’s a mere thumbnail of the bad and the bizarre, but there are a number of LSRs that sound good. Some originate right here in Carroll County. In the coming weeks, I’ll cover those, too. Meanwhile, watch out for the allergens.

Published as an op-ed in the October 30, 2015 edition of the Conway Daily Sun