Shibonunu

                 

 


NH Governor Chris Sununu held one of his bi-weekly COVID-19 press conferences on Monday, August 18. You can watch the entire video here, or just look at the highlights I'll be referencing. 

From about 13:33 - 17:07, the governor answers questions from reporters about voting. He's asked if he'll be voting absentee or going to the polls. At about 14:10, you'll hear him tell voters they can take their absentee ballots and "walk them over to a safe drop box." Sununu has just told folks to break the law. Absentee ballots can't be left in drop off boxes, and they're not likely to be counted if they are. David Brooks at the Concord Monitor gives the straight dope on drop off boxes. 

Sununu is also asked if he thinks the issues with USPS will affect absentee voting, at about14:25.  He tells reporters that he's not worried, that he has spoken to Regina Bugbee , the District Manager of USPS Northern New England District. For some reason, he refers to Ms. Bugbee as, "a lovely woman." Patronizing? Patriarchal? You decide. He did not, however, make any references to lovely men at any point during the press conference. 

After the post office, he was asked about issuing a mandate that masks should be worn at the polls. He isn't going to. He is asked about towns mandating masks, and says that's fine, "it's on them." 

At 28:48, the topic of nursing home outbreaks is brought up, and the governor deferred to DHHS Commissioner Lori Shibonette. The Commissioner was very unhappy with an NHPR story by Casey McDermott on a long term outbreak at a nursing home that is still not under control. NHPR Josh Rogers was at the press conference, and was the target of Shibinette's wrath. She accused them of leaving out information because of a pre-determined narrative. The commissioner tried to make the case that even though the Greenbriar nursing home in Nashua has been cited numerous times for deficiencies over the years, that had nothing to do with the Covid outbreak, because many other nursing homes had outbreaks. Some were facilities that had no reports of deficiencies. That is true. 

BUT, what no one mentioned is that those nursing homes with no deficiencies cleared up their outbreaks quickly. The Covid outbreak at Greenbriar has been raging since May. More than 150 staff and residents have been infected, and 28 residents died. 

Shibinette was defensive. She was also strangely blasé about deficient nursing homes. One might expect the Commissioner of DHHS to voice concern over the long term history of deficiencies in those homes, and reassure us that the state was going to turn this situation around. She didn't do that. 

 There were questions about the lack of a mask mandate at large events, like Bike Week. The governor is sure that people will be responsible. He spoke of how much better New Hampshire's unemployment numbers than those of Massachusetts. NH has a population of 1.3 million and MA has a population of 7 million. (One of these things is not like the other.)

The last question  came at 47:30. The media personality is Michael Graham, from Massachusetts, who writes commentary for the Boston Herald. Graham is also the voice of an online publication called NH Journal. In a state where right wingers regularly make disparaging comments about people from MA and urge anyone they disagree with to "move back to Massachusetts," the irony of the media personality from Massachusetts writing the NH Journal is worth mentioning. 

Graham tries to spin the issue of USPS mailboxes disappearing and sorting machines being shut down (and even sold off) as a conspiracy theory by the Democrats. Governor Sununu refused to take the well-timed, baited, softball, and so was able to end the press conference on an upbeat note. 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Sununu has benefitted from flattering, even fawning media coverage. Six months later, hard questions are being asked, and he and his minions don't like this very much. The next press conference is Friday, August 21, at 3 PM. If you vote, you should watch these! 


* Be sure to read Casey McDermott's story about 
nursing homes.  This is good reporting. 

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? 

Time to Kill the Death Penalty

Last week the NH Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty had a press conference to announce the kick-off of their new campaign to repeal the death penalty in New Hampshire. There was a large bi-partisan group of legislators and community leaders on hand to show their support for the measure. Repeal bills have been tried before. In 2000, both the Republican controlled House and Senate voted to repeal the death penalty, but Governor Jeanne Shaheen vetoed the bill. This year, it seems that the planets may be in the proper alignment. The repeal bill has the support of the faith community, some Democrats, some Republicans, and much of the libertarian crowd. It’s a strong group of supporters.

There are 32 states that still have the death penalty. Eighteen states have abolished it. Alaska abolished the death penalty in 1957, before they officially became a state in 1959. New Hampshire is the only remaining New England state that has not abolished capital punishment.

NH has a long and convoluted relationship with the death penalty. We’ve mostly been squeamish about it, about using it, which is a good thing.  In 1834, Governor William Badger was the first to ask for a repeal. In 1972, a US Supreme Court decision voided the NH death penalty. In 1974 the legislature passed a new statute. In 1976 the US Supreme Court reaffirmed the use of the death penalty. In 1977 the NH statute was changed to make execution an option not a mandate. In 1984, Governor Meldrim Thomson called a special legislative session to enact new legislation. In 1986, the law was changed to make lethal injection the primary method of execution, leaving hanging as an option.  Every two or four years some kind of tinkering with the statute takes place.

New Hampshire may be stubbornly clinging to the option, but we’ve never been vigorous practitioners. The first recorded execution was in 1739 and the last was in 1939. NH hanged 22 people in all, and one, Ruth Blay, is now regarded as having been executed wrongly. She was hanged in Portsmouth in 1768 for allegedly killing and concealing the body of her illegitimate infant. She hid the baby under the floorboards of a barn. At the time, concealment of the birth of an illegitimate child was a capital offense.

That’s the thing. Long before DNA, we were executing the wrong people some of the time. Since 1973 some 140 innocent people on death row have been exonerated. There have been many problems with capital cases over the years, including mistaken eyewitnesses, incompetent lawyers, unreliable informants, and coerced confessions. The very possibility of executing an innocent person should be enough to deter us. Unfortunately the moral high ground isn’t usually persuasive. Money usually is.

In 2009, the legislature established a Death Penalty Study Commission. A year later the majority voted to retain but not expand the death penalty. The committee agreed that the death penalty is more expensive than the alternatives. That has proven to be true. A death penalty sentence costs 3-5 times as much as life without parole. The state of NH has already spent about $5 million on the Addison case. That amount is expected to at least double by the time appeals are exhausted. At the press conference, retired Superior Court Chief Justice Walter Murphy wondered what sort of reaction legislators would get if they explained to constituents that there was a NH program that cost $1-2 million per year and the only people who get anything out of it are lawyers. The last budget passed delivered a $10 million cut to the judicial branch. That’s as much money for the whole state as the prosecution of just one case is expected to cost. So much for Yankee thrift.

                                            Justice Walter Murphy

There is no proof that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. Few criminals consider the consequences before committing any crime, preferring to think that they’re too smart to get caught. Or in the heat of the moment the consequences don’t even occur to them.

The death penalty is presented to us as justice. An eye for an eye, a way of families getting closure. A case that drags on for years and years doesn’t allow for closure or healing. Some of the most eloquent speakers against capital punishment are family members of murder victims. Lead sponsor of the current repeal bill, Rep. Renny Cushing, is one of those eloquent speakers. (see below)  His father was murdered in 1988. A sentence of life without parole doesn’t disrespect the memory of murder victims. It protects the public while preventing any possibility of a mistake. It is a sentence that prevents the state from using violence in an attempt to prevent violent crime, which is as unsuccessful as killing for peace has proven to be.  Or, as Justice Murphy put it, “The Constitution of NH says nothing about retribution. It’s the Department of Corrections, not retribution.”

The bulk of executions in the United States take place in the south. Texas leads the way, having executed over 500 people since 1976. During that same time period there was precisely one execution in New England. It was in Connecticut. Yet despite this execution zeal, any one of the New England states have far less violent crime than any of the top execution states.

NH is consistently ranked as one of the safest states to live in. Given that we haven’t executed anyone since 1939, it’s safe to say that the death penalty isn’t what makes us safer. The group that has come together in opposition to capital punishment is impressively diverse. It’s time for NH to join the rest of our civilized New England brethren, and repeal the death penalty.

“Before my father’s murder I had evolved a set of values that included a respect for life and an opposition to the death penalty. For me to change my beliefs because my father was murdered would only give more power to his killers, for they would then take not only his life but also his main legacy to me: the values he instilled. The same is true for society. If we let murderers turn us to murder, we give them too much power. They succeed in bringing us to their way of thinking and acting, and we become what we say we abhor.”  ~  Renny Cushing

Resources: 

Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights

NH Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

© sbruce 2013    Photos from October 24 press conference by sbruce

Also published as a bi-weekly oped column in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper. 

WGBH 16th Annual Muzzle Awards

WGBH in Boston announced the winners of their 16th annual "Muzzle" Award. They honor those folks who have done their best to thwart freedom of the press.

This year, northern New England had two winners!

Maine Governor Paul LePage gets his third "Muzzle" since he took office. (This is his third year in office).

Editors at the Bangor Daily News must have known their request for public documents about concealed-gun permits last February would be controversial. After all, The Journal News of White Plains, NY, had already set off a firestorm by publishing an interactive map of gun owners on its website.

But the reaction to the BDN was so intense that it called into question the very nature of “public” records. State legislators, especially Republicans, denounced the newspaper. A “Boycott Bangor Daily News Don’t [sic] Tread on Us” page popped up on Facebook.

The BDN was clear that they had no intention of publishing personal information about gun owners.  

LePage recently secured his 4th Muzzle when he announced he'd no longer speak to 3 of the state's largest newspapers

And speaking of petty tyrants, New Hampshire was also an award winner.  Disgraced Former Speaker of the NH House Bill O'Brien won his "Muzzle" for the day he refused to admit Concord Monitor reporter Annmarie Timmins into a press conference, because he was miffed about a cartoon that had appeared in the paper. Annmarie didn't draw the cartoon - but the petty tyrant took his miffage out on her. 

William O’Brien is not one to brook much in the way of back talk. When a protest broke out in the House gallery during a budget hearing in the spring of 2011, he ordered state police to kick everyone out.

A year later, a fellow Republican legislator became so upset with what he saw as O’Brien’s attempts to silence him that he directed a toxic remark at the Speaker: “Seig Heil.” The legislator was ejected from the chamber and forced to apologize.

The cartoon was the direct result of the "Seig Heil" incident. 

This is one award richly deserved by the former speaker, a little Napoleon who attempted to rule the State House as if it were his own personal fiefdom. 

I sat in the House yesterday in wonder, as O'Brien made a floor speech telling his colleagues that the budget they'd just passed was the result of all of his hard work. Plain old Rep. O'Brien refused a committee assignment this session, because - well - after being royalty, mixing it up with the peasants was too dreadful to even contemplate. O'Brien did no work on the budget - or anything else. He showed up on Wednesdays to vote. The hardest work he did all year was yesterday, when he asked for two roll call votes. Yet, he gave himself a big old pat on the back, and informed his colleagues that this new budget was "his legacy." 

As repellent as I find him, I do marvel at O'Brien's ability to walk through the world unencumbered by facts or logic. 

Our very own NH award winner is running for Congress.  Pass the popcorn! 

What is Wrong With the NH Media: An Illustration

Big press conference today at the LOB, on the subject of medicaid expansion. Good speakers, good experts who gave  good answers to questions. Lots of media.

And what did the reporters from our major papers do the minute the press conference ended?

They raced over to Greg Moore of Americans for Prosperity. As you can see in the picture above, Moore is surrounded by Kevin Landrigan of the Nashua Telegraph, Garry Rayno of the Union Leader, and Norma Love of the AP.

Greg Moore is not an expert on health care or Medicaid. Greg Moore is a shill for a far rightwing group that claims tax free status so they don't have to disclose their donors. (Don't whinge about the IRS, APF. You slithered through - and the last thing you are is charitable. To anyone.)

Some of those donors are undoubtedly paying for Greg Moore's health insurance. During the last biennium his insurance was paid by NH taxpayers, while he worked for disgraced former speaker Bill O'Brien.

This is what is wrong with the NH media. A roomful of experts to talk to, but  they'll break their legs to interview a wingnut who has nothing but propaganda to offer.