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(I started putting Jackie Cilley's work on birch paper, but the micro-blogging nature of that Tumblr site doesn't seem suitable for these invaluable text-rich alerts, so instead I will start posting them here - Dean)
Before getting to the business of our legislature, there have been several questions raised lately. I've been asked by folks if it is permissible to pass these Alerts along to others and/or to post them to Facebook sites, blogs or websites. The answer is yes, absolutely. In fact, I would encourage you to send these far and wide to family, friends and neighbors without regard to political affiliation. The comments that I have been receiving suggest that folks across the political spectrum are concerned about what they are seeing coming out of our state capital. Even when people may disagree with something that they find within the Alerts, it leads to a discussion of larger issues and the direction of our state - and that is a healthy thing. I would ask that you leave my contact information on the Alert (JCilley AT aol DOT com) simply to allow others to reach me with questions, suggestions and/or feedback which has been occurring on a regular basis.
10. "Unlike other representatives, a direct line can be made between (Brunelle's) behavior filing legislation to his position in that organization." - House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt
9. "I wouldn't say I'm a birther or not, I'm just more confused (like a lot of people)"- Rep. Seth Cohn
8. "Our corporate courts are not doing a very good job. We'll see whether we can straighten them out." - Rep. Lars Christiansen
7. "The Black death was a terrible disease, there was never a shot for the black death and yet it declined naturally. Have you heard of that, the Black Death?" - Rep. Jeanine Notter
6. "The property tax is a great tax because it is a voluntary tax. I pay property taxes based on how large I want to live." - Legislative Administration Chair Paul Mirski
5. "By cutting the amount of help we're willing to offer, we'd like them to discover that some of these people can be cured... You shouldn't keep them just so you can keep your revenue coming in." - House Finance Chair Ken Weyler
4. "When someone in their community has cancer and no insurance, they're gonna rally, they're gonna fundraise, and they're gonna get the treatment that person needs." - Rep. Jeanine Notter
3. "I think the world is too populated. So we believe that there is too many defective people...You know the mentally ill, the retarded, people with physical disabilities and drug addictions - the defective people society would be better off with out. I wish we had a Siberia so we could ship them all off to freeze to death and die and clean up the population." - (now former) Rep. Martin Harty
2. "{Roman Catholic Bishop John McCormack} "is a pedophile pimp" - House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt
1. "I think thugs will not rule New Hampshire" - House Speaker Bill O'Brien.
Bonus: "Shut up!" - House Finance Chair Ken Weyler
According to a national survey done by CUNY in 2008 and featured in USAToday, 35% of Granite Staters self-identified as Roman Catholic.
Roman Catholics have all kinds of disagreements with their church on various issues, from allowing female priests to marriage equality to, and especially, the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the faithful in recent years. Even agnostic I can speak with a bit of experience on this - I was born and raised a Catholic, attended church for many years, received several of the holy sacraments, attended a Catholic high school, and spent more than a few hours with the Greek gospels, Latin vulgate, Thomas Aquinas, and Dante.
But what Majority Leader Bettencourt, and his enabler, Speaker O'Brien, don't seem to understand is that it is never acceptable for a public servant, let alone a person in a top leadership post, to call a member of the cloth, let alone a bishop, a "pimp."
That those inside the Concord Supermajority Bubble don't get that there is a modicum of respect afforded the clergy is remarkable. However, it does help explain their hubris and callousness in a variety of other matters that have come up since January.
(and worse than one of his staffers making fun of colleagues online. - promoted by Mike Hoefer)
No, really:
House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt this morning wrote on his Facebook page that Catholic Bishop John McCormack is a "pedophile pimp" with "absolutely no moral credibility to lecture anyone."
McCormack spoke yesterday at a State House rally where thousands of demonstrators criticized the state budget proposed by the House of Representatives. McCormack criticized the budget for failing to protect people in need and called caring for the poor "the fundamental requirement of our religious heritage."
He's unapologetic, too.
Yeah, I think this tops Speaker O'Brien calling public safety workers "thugs."
Worse than Weyler too.
I think D.J.'s entering Harty's "eugenics" territory here. Will he be wise enough to resign before he's forced to?
(birched; on Twitter @deanbarker)
UPDATE: Manchester's own Garth Corriveau will be on NECN at 9pm tonight to discuss this. and for your tweetsters, a new hashtag has been born: #resignDJ
As most already know, at the rally today House Speaker Bill O'Brien unconstitutionally kicked the people out from the people's House during the budget deliberations.
As most already also know, multiple lawsuits have been filed on account of O'Brien's disgraceful and undemocratic decision.
But has anyone else seen this quote from Paul Twomey at the bottom of the WMUR piece?
"We want to make it clear that barring the public from the people's house is not acceptable," Twomey said. "There is also a significant, unresolved question as to whether the passage of the budget act is valid, given the public was denied access to the proceedings."
Wouldn't it be altogether fitting if O'Brien's hamfisted efforts to ram through a budget with as little transparency as possible ended up nullifying it instead?
Religious leaders have endorsed the rally, with both Bishop Gene Robinson of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire and Bishop John McCormack of the Catholic Diocese of Manchester expected to speak, D'Allesandro said. The New Hampshire Council of Churches, which represents 10 denominations, is encouraging people to attend. Executive Director David Lamarre-Vincent said the budget proposal before the House surpassed the "worst fears" of the council.
"We're galvanized to take action and say to the House members, 'You can't possibly pass this in good conscience,' " Lamarre-Vincent said. "And to the Senate, 'You can't even begin to use this as a foundational document to begin a budget. You have to throw it away and start over again.' "
UPDATE2X: Un-be-liev-able. Bill O'Brien puppetmaster Kavin Smith tells churches to step up and stop relying on big gummit. END UPDATES.
Bill O'Brien has awakened a sleeping giant - the good and decent people of New Hampshire. I keep hearing things from various places about how desperately he is trying to damage control the situation by possibly having the vote a day early, by creating a security climate of fear ala the "union thug" meme, etc...
How will he spin this one? A release:
Prayer Vigil for Humane Budget Begins in Speakers' Office Wednesday
CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE - A small group of clergy and others from several communities and faith traditions plan to conduct a prayerful vigil at the office of Speaker of the House William O'Brien Wednesday afternoon to Thursday.
(Weyler is ignorant, incompetent and unfit to serve in the House. - promoted by William Tucker)
Here is House Finance Chair Kenneth Weyler's reaction to members of the New Hampshire public who came to Concord to voice opposition to mental health cuts so inhuman they almost certainly violate the Americans with Disabilities Act:
Weyler, a Republican from Kingston, charged that mental health providers encourage people to become "patients for life" to preserve state funding.
"By cutting the amount of help we're willing to offer, we'd like them to discover that some of these people can be cured," Weyler said. "You shouldn't keep them just so you can keep your revenue coming in."
Weyler said if a woman went to a mental health center for help with postpartum depression, the center would keep her as a patient for the rest of her life. In reality, he said, the woman might no longer need services after a year, once her baby became "a little more animated."
..."It's up to the mental health practitioners," Weyler said. "If they find someone who is really a danger to themselves and others, but don't try to stabilize them, and they say, 'Aha, this guy is going to go out and do something really strange, but if we turn him away, we can say, ah, we were right, you cheap bums.' "
There is no possible excuse for Weyler's comments. They cannot be glossed over as breathtakingly ignorant.
Representative Weyler is alleging that New Hampshire mental health providers mistreat the mentally ill for the sake of profit.
Call or write Speaker O'Brien, Majority Leader Bettencourt, Minority Leader Norelli, and your representatives today to demand Weyler's resignation.
Part One: Fearing the public, introduce and pass in committee a budget amendment in six minutes when no one is looking or expecting it. An amendment that undoes decades of basic labor rights.
Part Two: Fearing the bad press of a public outraged over Part One, refuse to move the committee vote to Representatives Hall to accommodate the hundreds of middle class New Hampshire workers who came to show their opposition .
Part Three: Fearing the worse press of the biggest rally for working families this state has seen in years, play chicken with the timing of the full house vote:
House Speaker O'Brien says vote on budget will come Thursday. House could vote on 'collective bargaining' amendment as soon as Wednesday.
and:
House Speaker Bill O'Brien says he expects the House to vote on the budget Thursday. But the Speaker didn't commit to a time when the House would take up what is perhaps the bill's most controversial provision.
Last week, hundreds flooded the statehouse to protest a measure in the budget that strips public employees of certain protections.
If the Speaker thinks gutting labor rights on Wednesday is going to stop hundreds, perhaps thousands of people from protesting the nightmare that is his total budget on Thursday, his judgment is truly clouded.
O'Brien must know in his heart that what he is setting out to do is deeply unpopular to all but the most radical in his base and his Cornerstone, AFP etc... taskmasters. And so he is doing his best to manage the poor optics of this to his advantage.
It is deeply unfortunate that our beautiful ship of state should be guided in part by one who has reserved such a focus on theatre, rather than on an understanding of what it means to be a servant of the public. I urge everyone to start organizing for 2012 now.
Well before the nuclear catastrophe in Japan, a Republican state rep filed a bill in Concord "that would have required real-time radiological monitoring in the communities that surround the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant."
After the (still unfolding and worsening) nuclear catastrophe in Japan, and with criticism of plant operator TEPCO's truthfulness and transparency rising faster than the radiation levels, the Bill O'Brien statehouse killed the bill.
NextEra Energy, the company that operates the nuclear reactor, testified against the bill. Why, shucks, they already do radiological monitoring! Monitoring not done exclusively by the monitored would be "redundant."
In other news, a bill that would have forced New Hampshire's poor to be drug tested in order to receive food stamps was deliberated earlier this year in Concord.
Two days before Bill O'Brien badly overreached with his "Worse than Wisconsin" gambit to grab the national spotlight, I wrote:
...the daily arrogance displayed by the O'Brien statehouse is a byproduct of its inherent weakness. Those Republicans outside of Representatives Hall who have been around longer in this state and who do not yet have their attention wholly wrapped around the courtly rituals of the First-in-the-Nation primary, I believe, are worried that the Speaker will cost them dearly in 2012.
Before Tuesday those voices were in whispers, as befits customary GOP message discipline. Now, with the entire public sector workforce, their families, and their friends, up in arms over the attempt to abolish collective bargaining, with Jeb Bradley's gubernatorial plans crumbling around him, the GOP state elite are speaking out loud to reassert control of the narrative:
"In all honesty, I have not talked to a single senator who will vote for the budget with that provision in it," [Senate President] Bragdon said.
..."The public hearing process is important," Bragdon said. "The process is important, and I haven't talked to a single one who will support it."
Unfortunately, I still also stand by a prediction I made earlier as well, in regard to where this is all going, and Bragdon's statements have me thinking we are heading in that direction:
In the end, they'll strip the amendment - for the price of the keeping the rest of the tremendously harmful budget bill intact.
Winning the battle of collective bargaining is not winning the war on the House budget. The budget, which itself wages war on all of us, and especially the most vulnerable in New Hampshire. Consequently, a loud and vocal and growing opposition will be required well past the labor rights fight.
In just over six minutes, under cover of darkness, with no public hearing, and without even the minority members of the House Finance committee aware of it coming, the Bill O'Brien led statehouse passed in committee an amendment that would abolish the basic labor rights of tens of thousands of Granite Staters, that would create chaos and downshifted costs onto all of our cities, towns, and municipalities, that would make the public sector ripe for patronage and corruption.
On incredibly short notice, hundreds traveled to the statehouse to show that destroying basic rights is not the New Hampshire way. Despite O'Brien's refusal to accommodate for the public safety of the multitude by moving the meeting to Representatives' Hall, despite the incredible outrage that the O'Brien House has produced over this radical legislation, the gathering was, I am told by multiple sources, peaceful and largely civil.
But of course that won't stop the NHGOP from trying to stem the damage from O'Brien's overreach with the predictable and phony "union thugs" meme. From Republican party boss Jack Kimball's statement:
"I am pleased to see the House Finance Committee fighting for the taxpayers. This, in spite of bullying and intimidation tactics perpetrated by the Democrats."
..."There must be civil discourse in order to be productive. There is no place for harassment and fear-tactics. They are unacceptable and will not work."
Kimball earned his reputation with the fringe of the Republican base that vaulted him into power by precisely that: bullying, intimidation, harrassment, and fear tactics. Salon's Joan Walsh captured Kimball's words as the organizer of a "Town Hell" against Carol Shea-Porter:
...They had their little chants and rants going such as "health care for all" etc. But, we came up with a few of our own such as "no gov't health care" and "Carol Shea Porter, you're FIRED". We also came up with "Bye, Bye, Carol" (similar to the Red Sox cheer).
I had a bit of a run in with one of those Idiots when he jumped into the middle of some of our group that were posing for a picture (with his sign) and we exchanged some up close and personal pleasantries where he accidentally got a bump on the head when I went to grab his sign. Oh well, got to have a little fun at these things.
I'm not being hyperbolic with the use of "beware" in the title. I fully expect the NHGOP to try to distract the press from their agenda of destroying middle class workers' rights by creating a phony counter-narrative of Scary Union Protestors. Just yesterday, in fact, a prosecutor from Indiana was forced to resign after an email he wrote to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker surfaced in which he urged him "to fake an assault or assassination attempt on Walker in order to discredit the unions and protesters."
This is a long way of saying that the O'Brien statehouse was surprised at the numbers yesterday and is already on the defensive with phony memes and hypocritical rhetoric. The momentum is not on their side. Let's keep it that way by increasing the pressure, the numbers, and the civility.
The economy that George Bush destroyed, and Barack Obama struggles to fix, moved more Granite Staters to pull an R ballot than a D one last November, giving us House Speaker Bill O'Brien and his supermajority.
In return for our vote Granite Staters received a sustained assault on our children. Looked at in its totality, the following to-do list should rightfully go down in New Hampshire history as one of the blackest marks ever against our young citizenry.
• Deleting judiciary power in education funding, so that the legislature can decide the state can contribute $0.00 to schools if it wants to.
• Gutting the school bullying law on account of gays and lesbians.
• Defunding educational televsion.
• Defining down adequacy, so that towns don't have to offer courses students need to get accepted to college.
• Lowering the dropout age, i.e., guaranteeing youth joblessness.
• Abandoning at-risk kids by destroying Children in Need of Services.
• Cutting students' vocational training, limiting their ability get a quality job.
• Slashing funding to our public universities, guaranteeing tuition hikes.
• Disenfranchising college students' right to vote.
It occurs to me that if we have, as everyone expects, an open race for 2012, our side could really benefit from having a self-styled "education" gubernatorial candidate. Because what it appears New Hampshire children need in the face of this assault is a champion for their rights and futures.
(Bumped to the Frontpage of this Obscure Blog - promoted by Mike Hoefer)
New Hampshire House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt on the two dozen radical right Birchers in his ranks:
Asked about the John Birch Society, Bettencourt said, "It is not our policy to judge the value or merits of a piece of legislation based on the personal and sometimes private affiliations or associations of the sponsors, which are tolerantly protected by the United States Constitution."
New Hampshire House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt back in January:
They said Brunelle filed legislation that benefited his position. For example, Bettencourt said, Brunelle filed legislation to increase the minimum wage, which relates to the Democratic Party platform. Other bills Brunelle sponsored include limiting the expense payments made to legislators, supporting federal earmarks for public safety and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and establishing a job creation tax credit for small businesses.
..."I don't know how things have been run in the past, but I can tell you this is how we're going to be run," Bettencourt said. "The Constitution is going to be followed. Ethics are going to be followed with a zero-tolerance policy."
Bettencourt added, "Unlike other representatives, a direct line can be made between (Brunelle's) behavior filing legislation to his position in that organization."
My hope is that Rep. Brunelle employs whatever legal means are available to him to redress the outrageous abuse of power conducted against him and his constituents by the Republican House leadership, and if he does, I expect this will be yet more evidence in his favor.
(birched, but not Bircher-ed!; on Twitter @deanbarker)
(So much of the House agenda is trivial and insignificant. This bill is literally a matter of life and death. - promoted by William Tucker)
When the Bill O'Brien statehouse proposed gutting the brand new anti-bullying law, the sponsors removed the entire section describing the targets of bullying:
II. Bullying in schools has historically included actions shown to be motivated by a pupil's actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry or ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, physical, mental, emotional, or learning disability, gender, gender identity and expression, obesity, or other distinguishing personal characteristics, or based on association with any person identified in any of the above categories.
At the time I said:
This scissor work makes no sense whatsoever - unless there is some target of bullying in that list the sponsors don't want to equate with the others.
Then in a follow-up the bill sponsors gave contradictory reasons for deleting the list, only serving to further suspicions.
For those of you, who, like I, thought this was really all about excluding gays and lesbians from anti-bullying protection, you were right. Tom Fahey:
The state's bullying law, in effect all of nine months now, is poised to be watered down if the House goes with an Education Committee recommendation. It would no longer list the reasons bullying occurs, such as age, sex, race or religion. Conservatives were peeved last year that sexual orientation was included. Their team's in control now, so out comes the list.
Some New Hampshire "conservatives" are "peeved" that sexual orientation is writ into law, so to remedy that they will put vulnerable children in harm's way.
The recent spate of suicides spurred by anti-gay bullying has generated a lot of attention. I am more drawn to the data that roughly a third of LGBT youth report being threatened and school and are three times more likely than their straight counterparts to attempt suicide.
As someone who was once bullied for simply being friends with others who were suspected of being gay, and at a school that turned a blind eye to it, I am repulsed by this news.
(It is important to shine a light on this. - promoted by Jennifer Daler)
There will be a lot of words spilled over a Republican State Rep's support of eugenics for the mentally ill and physically disabled:
Asked what he meant, she said Harty clarified, "You know the mentally ill, the retarded, people with physical disabilities and drug addictions - the defective people society would be better off without."
...Harty said nature has a way of "getting rid of stupid people," and "now we're saving everyone who gets born."
...Harty then stated, "I wish we had a Siberia so we could ship them all off to freeze to death and die and clean up the population."
But it's the larger point I find even more disturbing, though all of us who follow politics in New Hampshire already know at some gut level.
Our massive hobby legislature means precious few voters, especially in a mid-term election, know who they are voting for on the local level.
Now contrast that with the arrogance with which the Bill O'Brien statehouse has conducted itself so far, and it's no wonder we've been seeing such a calvalcade of radical legislation pushed forward in such a short amount of time.
For me in 2012, priority one is shining a light on the down-ballot candidates locally.
(birched.)
(`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away". - promoted by elwood)
Do you remember Litchfield Republican George Lambert, who is angling to be New Hampshire's Scott Walker with his intention of filing a bill next year to eliminate collective bargaining rights?
Rep. Lambert is today's example of the supreme hubris that has taken hold of our Hobby Legislature now that the Bill O'Brien Republicans are in charge:
...one New Hampshire Republican said if Democrats want to walk out on a debate about curtailing collective bargaining, he'd show them the door.
"Let them go," said state Rep. George Lambert, R-Litchfield. "We have such a supermajority, we don't need them. The numbers are so large, the people have spoken so loudly, the Democrats are completely disenfranchised. If they don't come to agreement with Republicans, too bad."
..."I can guarantee a two-thirds majority vote to override any veto," Lambert said.
Poll after poll in Wisconsin and nationally show strong support for collective bargaining. But Mr. Lambert thinks that the results of November's economy-driven election give him the mandate to end this basic labor right. He can guarantee it!
This would be humorous if it the complete lack of perspective and total arrogance displayed by Rep. Lambert were not so appalling.
(We have to keep this front and center. - promoted by Jennifer Daler)
Because ensuring the failure of future state prosperity can't simply be left up to the actual people New Hampshire elected. When the vote is in doubt, just use Bill O'Brien's Rent-a-Reps:
In an unusual show of force, O'Brien visited the Republican members on the House Transportation Committee about the bill to abolish the rail authority (HB 218) for 30 minutes behind closed doors Wednesday.
O'Brien then handpicked five GOP lawmakers to take one-day seats on the committee to beef up the opposition.
A nice response to this would be to make a note of each spot on the committee O'Brien does this over the biennium, and to make sure the constituents of the districts represented on those seats know that their voice in Concord has been pre-empted by the House of O'Brien, the third smallest legislature in the English speaking world.
(birched earlier)
Adding: and how rich is it that notably thuggish Jack Kimball is trying to make hay over calling this abuse of power thuggish?
Addinger: I know this has already been diaried, but - is anyone else as sickened as I am by this? O'Brien actually found a way to pervert the dignity of our legislature even further than the kanagaroo court effort to oust a Rep for being a Democrat. Do we the people of New Hampshire have any lawful recourse for this kind of abuse of our government prior to the next election?
Adding-est (Sunday): It gets worse.
It's been almost impossible to keep up with the sheer level of recklessness emanating from the O'Brien Legislature over the past week or so.
Did their epic fail save marriage - for a year, at any rate?
House Republicans have decided not to pursue a repeal of New Hampshire's gay marriage law this year and plan instead to focus their energy on finding ways to improve the state's financial footing.
...[Bettencourt] said there was widespread agreement that social issues would have to come later.
That leaves open the possibility that Republican leaders will postpone action on repealing gay marriage until next year, a non-budget year. The House can do that by having committees retain bills. Bettencourt would not say if leaders plan to do that.
If true, this is great news. The longer they wait, the harder it will be to strip taxpaying Granite Staters of their legal rights.
Adding: There is much skepticism in the comments on this report. To that I say: based on the wild swings one way to the next we've seen over the past week, we have every right to be skeptical. In fact, I think we should start from the premise that this is not true.
More: From Mo Baxley, Director of NH Freedom to Marry:
"We hope press accounts are accurate that House Republicans have decided not to pursue a repeal of New Hampshire's gay marriage law this year. If so, we applaud the Republican leadership for listening to the people of New Hampshire. There is bipartisan opposition to repeal marriage equality. All families here want the legislature to focus on the economy, and now is not the time to consider taking away rights from committed couples and their families."
