Every year, advocates of an all-powerful federal government claim that June 21 is New Hampshire’s “birthday” because it ratified the Constitution on that day in 1788. Representative Chris Pappas made that absurd claim on Bluesky:
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Thursday was a rainy day, chilly for late May, and I needed to do something to improve my mood, so I set out on an afternoon’s tour of libraries near the New Hampshire coastline. The towns in this region mostly have small land areas, and each other has its own library, so I could cover a lot without too much travel. The ones I put on my list were South Hampton, Seabrook, Hampton, Rye, and Stratham. On the way home I passed right by the East Kingston library, so I dropped in there, as well as the Plaistow library.
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I am furious at the Democrats. They are cowards who won’t stand up to a president grabbing as much power as he can. To a man who has literally portrayed himself as king and pope. To a man who says he doesn’t know if he needs to uphold the Constitution.
To be precise, I mean the office holders and leaders in the party. Voters have to choose a party if they want to vote in primaries, and they choose where they think they’ll have a positive effect. They don’t necessarily like what the leaders are doing. But I have utter contempt for nearly all the Democrats in Congress.
The Republicans in Congress are despicable, with rare exceptions like Rand Paul. They’re actively collaborating with Trump to enable abductions of people and maintain a fake “emergency” so he can impose ruinous taxes on us. But that’s not the topic here. The Democrats are supposed to fight this. They don’t feel like it.
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This has been a bad year for freedom of expression in the United States. ICE thugs have hauled people away without charges for expressing views that the government doesn’t like. In New Hampshire, a federal judge has delivered an outrageous decision regarding a protest in Bow, New Hampshire.
The ruling by Judge Steven McAuliffe is full of absurdities and disregard for the First Amendment. The basic argument is that school athletic events are a limited public forum, and the schools retain some control over types of expression at them. This is true, but it doesn’t mean they can arbitrarily decide what people can say or can’t. The restrictions have to serve a legitimate purpose and be viewpoint-neutral, and they have to be enforced evenly.
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Concord is a small city which is the capital of New Hampshire. Bow is a small town just south of Concord. Governmental censorship efforts in both of them have made the news. The pushes to censor come from significantly different gangs, but they aren’t very different at the root.
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On September 17, 2024, Kyle Fellers and Anthony Foote wore pink armbands with an “XX” on them to a game as a protest against the Bow, New Hampshire school district’s transgender policies. They did not interfere with the game, annoy the players, or do anything else. However, the school officials didn’t like the protest, so they called it “harassment” and issued an order banning the two from subsequent games. This was a classic violation of First Amendment rights, and the two took the town to court. United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe has overturned the ban, though for the present they may not wear the armbands at the games.
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A bill before the New Hampshire legislature, Senate Bill 523, is a frontal attack on school libraries in the state and the vendors that provide books to them. The bill is sponsored by State Senator Kevin Avard. It’s the kind of lunacy you’d expect in Kansas or Texas, not New Hampshire.
It would set up a bounty system for bringing complaints against material which is allegedly “harmful to minors.” Anyone claiming to be aggrieved under the bill’s terms would be able to sue for damages. A person bringing a successful suit would be guaranteed a minimum payout of $1,000. What Avard is trying to set up isn’t just a way to remove inappropriate books but a way to incentivize gratuitous challenges.
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For the past six years, a newspaper called Carriage Towne News has arrived in my mailbox every week. The next one, scheduled to arrive on February 1, will be the last. The lead article in this week’s paper explains:
The Carriage Towne News — a free weekly newspaper dependent on small local ads and a wrapper for advertising circulars — will publish its final edition Thursday, Feb. 1. …
Financial support for the paper has seriously eroded in recent times as the critical revenue from advertising content dwindled while newsprint, production and mail distribution costs continued to increase.
Unfortunately, those factors combined to make it economically prohibitive to continue publication and direct marketing of the paper through mailed distribution to 26,000 southern New Hampshire households.
A few weeks ago, the New Hampshire Attorney General issued a cease and desist order to the National Democratic Committee, claiming that it had made “false, deceptive, and misleading” statements in violation of New Hampshire law. The statements in question noted that any delegates chosen in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary won’t be accepted at the party’s national convention, and therefore the primary is “meaningless.” Violation of the cited law is a felony.
This is disturbing in at least two ways. First, the Democratic National Committee isn’t a New Hampshire organization. It isn’t subject to New Hampshire law. The AG’s office seems to be saying it can enforce its law anywhere in the country, maybe anywhere in the world.
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