The American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFE), is an organization which fights the banning of books, a form of censorship. This censorship occurs when organizations, government officials or individuals have books removed from bookstores, libraries and/or schools. The reasons given for the banning or censorship is usually an objection to the ideas, themes or content (violence, sex or anything thought to be obscene) in a particular book. 

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is thought to be the first book to have been banned nationally, not just for its pro-abolitionist leanings, but it led to, oftentimes, heated debates on slavery. In 1873, Anthony Comstock, a United States postal inspector, an anti-vice activist and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, persuaded Congress to pass the Comstock Law. This law made the delivery through the mail system (or by other means of transportation) of lascivious, lewd or obscene materials, illegal. It went so far as to stopping the mailing of any methods of public information about preventing conception, obtaining an abortion and preventing venereal diseases. Physicians pamphlets on reproduction, textbooks on anatomy, ANYTHING by Oscar Wilde along with The Canterbury Tales were thought to be too risqué to go through the mail. 

Comstock Law remained on the books until 1957, when Roth v The United States came before the Supreme Court. Samuel Roth, a writer and bookseller was convicted for mailing pornographic magazines to subscribers, and was imprisoned until 1961. Now, the legal system in America needed to rethink its definition of obscenity, again.

Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries, how to define obscenity and how it connects to the First Amendment has been the argument of many censorship disputes. While it is now rare for a book banning case to be brought to the federal courts, challenges to books are still happening on state and local levels. 

Here in New Hampshire, HB 514 a bill which is “relative to the dissemination of obscene material by schools and institutions of higher learning” is being considered in the House Education Committee. This bill would require schools to put in place procedures for parents who take exception to materials they feel are inappropriate. Supporters of the bill see it as a  way of protecting children from materials which may be deemed obscene. Opponents see it as a form of censorship and claim these procedures are already in place.

Rep. Glenn Cordelli(R-Tuftonboro), who is the sponsor of the bill, claims obscenity laws in New Hampshire need to be stronger. This legislation would affect grades K-12. Some members of the committee asked if school employees would be subjected to criminal consequences.

HB514 is a bill still in committee and faces difficult hurdles before going to the full House for a vote, but is worth watching.

A hearing for HB 342, which would establish a blood lead level testing requirement for children entering day care and public schools, is being held at 2:00 today in front of the NH House Health, Human Services, and Elderly Affairs Committee.

Here in Keene, I've been pushing the City to work with Sullivan and Cheshire Counties to apply for grant funding available through HUD that would help homeowners and landlords address the lead paint hazard in older homes. In 2021, Sullivan County received $1.7 million to fund lead abatement projects in 60 homes, and expanding that program to Cheshire County is a huge opportunity to make our housing safer for the children to live there.

In December, I had this to say before a Keene City Council committee:

Looking at data provided by the New Hampshire Division of Public Health Services, for recent years in Keene, every year there have been from 10 to 14 cases of children under 6 years old diagnosed with elevated blood lead levels – that is, cases detected where there is more than 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. That’s about half a classroom full of kids every year.

I would note that this is the number of cases detected – there are certainly undetected cases out there, as well as cases where children are affected by lead levels lower than that 5 microgram threshold. There is no safe level of lead in children’s blood.

HB 342 - sponsored by Rep. Nancy Murphy (D-Merrimack) and co-sponsored by Keene Rep. Jodi Newell, among others - would reduced the number of undetected cases of lead poisoning and provide better data with with to address this problem. 

The bill would help to make sure that all students in New Hampshire, except for the few who opt out for religious reasons, are tested for lead, which would enable children who test positive to get services they need to help overcome the challenges they may face due to lead poisoning. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the effects of lead poisoning in children can include damage to the brain and nervous system, slowed growth and development, learning and behavior problems, and hearing and speech problem.

You can help by signing in remotely to the hearing on Thursday to support HB 342 in the House Health, Human Services, and Elderly Affairs Committee, or by sending an email to the committee at HHSEA@leg.state.nh.us

In yesterday’s House session, the GOP clearly demonstrated what their priorities are for the Granite State.  They opposed HB 626, which would move administration of Education Freedom Accounts (i.e., the state voucher program) from the private contractor that takes 10% of the fund they manage as a fee – about $2.3 million each year – and moves it to the Department of Education, where there is more transparent oversight.  

In their opposition to the bill, GOP lawmakers argued that the millions of taxpayer dollars paid to the private contractor were insignificant, and that the savings from moving administration of the fund would be a mere trifle. (Fortunately, we were able to overcome opposition and send this bill to the Finance Committee.)

Remarkably, but not surprisingly, those same GOP lawmakers went on to oppose several other pieces of legislation involving much smaller amounts of money that would be going directly into New Hampshire communities. For example, they opposed HB 487, which would establish a New Hampshire farm-to-school program that would reimburse schools up to $1200/year for the purchase of locally grown and produced food. This bill would be a win-win-win for New Hampshire farmers, schools, and students. (This bill was tabled.)  

They also opposed (and defeated) two election-reform measures, in part on the grounds that they place a financial burden on taxpayers.  HB 324, the “Voter Owned Elections” bill, would give every New Hampshire voter four $25 certificates which they could donate to the Executive Council or gubernatorial candidates of their choice.  The intent of the bill is to increase the power of local, transparent campaign fundraising, diminish the power of out-of-state dark money, and give our citizens a more direct investment in our representative democracy.  For the Republicans, this was all too expensive at $6 million (= $8 per voter per election cycle in taxes). 

Even the $100,000 per election cycle that would be allocated by HB 508 for pre-paid postage on absentee ballots was deemed outrageous by the same GOP lawmakers who didn’t blink at the millions we pay in administration fees for vouchers.  Rep. Jonah Wheeler of Peterborough argued passionately and eloquently that postage on absentee ballots was a form of poll tax and the New Hampshire citizens who have requested and been granted permission to cast an absentee ballot should not have to pay Uncle Sam to exercise their right to vote. 

The fact that the cost of this program would be a mere fraction of the cost of the administration fees for the state voucher program, and the fact that Republicans are usually the first to argue that we need to stop sending so much of our hard-earned money to the federal government leads one to believe that they had other reasons for opposing legislation that would make it easier for people to vote.

For those keeping score at home: NH House GOP lawmakers are thrilled to send our tax dollars to a private contractor to administer a program that is more than $20 million over budget – but giving schools financial support to buy locally-grown produce from New Hampshire farmers; giving Granite Staters the means to take back some ownership of our elections; and abolishing a poll tax that hinders the ability of some of our fellow citizens to participate in the system of representative democracy, these are a burden we just can’t afford.

Four abortion rights-related measures will have hearings before the House Judiciary Committee on starting at 9:00 AM on Wednesday, February 15. These are:

• CACR 2 (NH’s Reproductive Liberty Amendment): Enshrines reproductive rights into NH’s state constitution.
• HB 88 (Access to Abortion Care Act): Enshrines abortion rights into state statute.
• HB 224: Repeals the criminal & civil penalties from the fetal life protection act.
• HB 271: Repeals the fetal life protection act.

Cheshire 16's Rep. Amanda Toll is prime sponsor NH’s Reproductive Liberty Amendment, CACR2, with multiple other Monadnock-area legislators including Senator Donovan Fenton, and Reps Joe Schapiro, Shaun Filiault, Renee Monteil, and Jonah Wheeler. Additionally, Keene Reps Jodi Newell and Nick Germana will both be presenting testimony.

To support these bills, sign in remotely to the House Judiciary hearings via the General Court's Online Testimony Submission page.

Watch the full testimony of the hearing. Rep. Amanda Toll's bit starts about 12 minutes in.

'Till' will be playing at the Showroom in Keene on Wednesday and Thursday evenings this week, presented by the City of Keene Human Rights Committee and Keene State College Cultural Center. 

The film is "based on the true story of Mamie Till-Bradley, an educator and activist who pursued justice after the murder of her 14-year-old son Emmett in 1955."

.

Visit the Colonial Theater website for more information. Schedule is as follows:

February 15 – 6:30 pm film followed by Q&A Session with Dottie Morris
February 16 – 6:30 pm guest speaker, 7:00 pm film followed by Q&A Session with Dottie Morris

My local State Rep, Shaun Filiault (D-Keene), ran and won on the issue of repealing the gay panic defense. His first bill that he has sponsored as a State Rep is HB 315 "An act prohibiting provocations based on a victim’s actual or perceived gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation from being used as a defense in a criminal case."

Last week it was voted on in the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. While the bill made it through, a rather weird amendment was attached to it as part of the sausage-making process. The bill is now described as "An Act prohibition provocation based on the defendant's religion, race, creed, sexual orientation, national  origin, political beliefs, or affiliation, sex, or gender identity."

That's right, this bill got All Lives Mattered. 

This bill is of specific significance to the LGBTQ+ community because of an established history in this country of convicted killers of gay or trans people receiving a lighter sentence by arguing that they were so freaked out by someone's gender or sexuality, that they could not help but commit murder. 

HB3 315, as originally written, was an affirmative refutation of this "gay panic defense" and, more broadly, the idea that gay people somehow deserve less protection under the law than everyone else. 

This watered down version now I guess prohibits the "religious panic defense," the "racial panic defense," and the "creed panic defense," though none of those are actual defenses that have been used by lawyers and granted deference by courts. To be sure, hate crimes exist in all those categories, but its specifically the murders of gay and trans people that are currently open to legal question on grounds of "panic."

Broadening the law to include a number of at-risk groups - leading with religion - may seem like an egalitarian and way of finessing a delicate issue. But what it actually does is provide cover for those who want to turn away from recognizing that a specific injustice toward gay and trans people has existed in case law, and that it is appropriate for the State of New Hampshire to specifically repudiate that injustice.  

The question of why people would want such cover is left as an exercise for the reader.

As Shaun said on the Facebook, "When an apple enters committee, it will exit a as pear.... Today I got a pear. A big old pear."

Milford, New Hampshire is located on the Souhegan River in Hillsborough County. In 1794, Milford split from Amherst and became an incorporated town unto itself. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,131 people. 

At one time, there were many granite quarries in the town, some of these stones were used to make the pillars for the U.S. treasury in Washington, D.C. These pillars are depicted on the back of a $10 bill. Who knew? While there’s only a single quarry remaining (as of 2017), the town still carries the nickname, “The Granite Town.” 

Milford was the home of Harriet E. Wilson, whose 1859 semi-autobiographical novel, “Our Nig: Or, Sketches in the Life of a FreeBlack” was the first in the country to be published and by an African-American woman.

But now Milford is in the news for different reasons. On Friday, February 10, about 150 students participated in a peaceful protest at both Milford high and middle schools. These students were protesting new bathroom restrictions. Earlier in the week there was quite a debate by the board of education about whether or not to separate locker rooms and bathrooms by birth gender alone, not including gender identity. 

During that debate held on Monday, February 6, Nathaniel Wheeler, vice chairman, proposed separating locker and bathrooms by birth gender. His proposal was to have gender-neutral, single-stall bathrooms, thus ending the district’s present policy allowing students the use of a bathroom whose gender they identify with. This proposal was criticized by LGBTQ students. What was accepted in a 4-1 vote was a urinal prohibition proposed by board member Noah Boudreault as a compromise. Now the urinals are covered in lawn size trash bags. 

One of the students who took part in Friday’s protest stated students were not even consulted about the proposed new policy.

But, getting back to vice chairman Wheeler; he has no children in either the public or private school system, he home schools them. He himself, was home-schooled by his dad David Wheeler, who is now serving his 7th term as an Executive Councilor. Nathaniel Wheeler claims to serve on the school board to be aware of what is going on and determining how tax dollars are spent, which is commendable and the right of every citizen. However, he recently testified, as a school board member, before the NH House of Representatives on House Bill 396, which is relative to the state recognition of biological sex and could affect transgender students.

This goes back to my earlier article of a few days ago about Free Staters and Liberty Alliance members. How they quietly infiltrate local, governing boards. Are the Wheelers Free Staters? We don’t know, but to learn more about Free Staters, please read this Boston Globe article "Free Staters Seek to Undo NH Government from Within."

Sad to say, but there is a similar bathroom debate taking place in Concord concerning the public schools there. 

On Thursday, HB 624 came before the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. The bill would require that state police provide notice to the public when they have been informed by federal agencies, such as Customs and Border Protection, of traffic checkpoints being set up for the purposes of immigration enforcement.

This notification procedure would be similar to the way that police in New Hampshire are required to notify the public of sobriety checkpoints. 

This bill was sponsored by Rep. Christine Seibert (D-Manchester) and co-sponsored by Keene Reps. Joe Schapiro and Jodi Newell. This legislation was considered last year as HB 579, which passed resoundingly in the House last year but failed in the Senate on a straight party-line vote.

Sebastian Fuentes, Movement Politics Director for Rights and Democracy, spoke in favor of the bill:

I am in front of you as one of the many US Citizens and NH residents stopped under no suspicion by Border Patrol in New Hampshire. I lived in Thornton, NH just miles away from the Woodstock / Thornton area where border patrols were set on Interstate 93 many times. I traveled that way to go to work, grab my children from school, do errands as simple as grocery shopping, etc.

CBP has authority over 100 miles of any border, that includes the coastline of NH. 100 miles from Canada going south, 100 miles from Portsmouth going West. 

To be more specific, Border Patrol can stop you while riding your motorcycle on your way to Laconia Bike week…. They can stop you in Nashua while going to your local Market Basket, they can stop you in Hanover while driving for medical care at Dartmouth Medical. They can stop you while grabbing a cup of coffee at your local Dunkin Donuts. 

Now I am a supporter of border security, reasonable and humane border security. It is a personal wish of mine to have these border checkpoints to be moved 10 to 15 miles from the border. That is reasonable. 100 miles from all US borders is an abuse of federal power. Two-thirds of US population live inside these 100 miles from any border line jurisdiction. 

Sebastian Fuentes described his experience during one of the incidents when he was stopped during one of these checkpoints:

During another stop I was stopped close to an hour with a couple of friends, one of them of Muslim origins wearing a hijab. We didn’t comply, following our fourth amendment rights. CBP officers told us to stay in our vehicles, windows up while they were ¨processing¨

Mind you, this was in the middle of summer, with the windows down it gets really hot inside a vehicle. I told the officer that I had breathing issues (asthma) and I needed to get some fresh air. My request was ignored.

Right before the hour, CBP office came back with a clipboard with the Facebook profile picture of the driver, my Muslim friend. A photo that she does not use for any office purpose as her driver’s license or citizenship forms. This was her Facebook profile picture.

Its worth remembering that, not long ago, our country had a rogue Department of Homeland Security, headed by an Acting Secretary, never approved by the Senate and accountable to no one but Donald Trump.

These traffic checkpoints in NH have not been happening since the pandemic, but one can expect that if Republicans get back into White House in 2024, regular violations of people's Fourth Amendment rights will be back on the menu. If and when that happens, HB 624 can provide some minor respite.

It’s time to vote! It’s not November. Yet, thank goodness. No, it is time to vote with your dollar. 

Every Day is a trip to the ballot box!

You, like me, probably spend a dollar every day; but I wonder, do you think about it? 

Do you think about how when you buy a dollar’s worth of gas you are voting to support a handful of extraordinarily wealthy people who rape the future for their own short-term gain? I didn’t before. But I do now.  

Do you think about how when you buy a dollar’s worth of coffee at Dunks you are voting to support a handful of huge shareholders and executives who pay growers a pittance for the cup of joe they sold you? I didn’t. But I do now.

Do you think about how when you buy a dollar’s worth of cheap art supplies from Hobby Lobby you are voting to support a company that wants to ensure that the separation of church and state applies to all churches except theirs? And that you are voting to support a business model that relies on cheap labor and catastrophic environmental destruction to make you a “Live, Laugh Love” sign that is unique … just like everyone else’s? Okay, that one I knew. 

Your Vote Matters!

I know that we all must survive in the world in order to change it. While this is indeed a fact, it can quickly become an excuse. 

“But I need to buy a gallon of gas to get to work.” 

This may be true, though electric vehicles, bikes, feet, and the internet make this “need” a bit more of a want for a lot of us. And even if there is no other option, that dollar you put into your tank to go to work has company. It is joined by the dollar you spent idling in the McDonald’s drive-through, the one you spent treating Main Street as your own personal quarter-mile track, and the one you spent just because you “couldn’t possibly drive a small car.”

I know that our economy is built on fossil fuels. But I also know that that economy is killing us and all of the species we share this little blue marble with.

Stop voting against your own self-interest!

Whether you are standing at the ballot box, the cash register, or the gas pump your vote counts. I know that it can be difficult to believe that sometimes but it is true.  Here are a few easy things that you can do to vote in your own self-interest:

1. Vote Local! The fastest way to make a difference is to vote your hard-earned dollar to one of your grateful, hard-working neighbors instead of to a Manhattan balance sheet (AKA a big box chain) that won’t even know it’s there.  
2. Vote Creative! This is New England, you can’t throw a rock without hitting an antique store or a thrift shop. Buy an old window and paint “Live Laugh Love” on it if you must. At least then your sign will be unique. And bonus! Creativity is fun! (And don’t throw rocks).
3. Vote Small! Making change can be daunting. It can be overwhelming. So start small. Walk downtown instead of driving once. Have lunch at Local Burger instead of the global chain once. Buy an apple and a head of cabbage from the co-op once. Then turn once into twice and see the difference you start to make.  

We are in trouble. We are killing ourselves with convenience and apathy. But we all have the power to vote for change. With every single dollar that we spend. 

Respect to the people of Milford, who turned out in numbers to a school board meeting on Monday night to oppose an attempt to deny transgender students their right to use the bathroom.

Milford currently has policy of allowing students who identify as transgender to use whichever bathroom and locker room they find appropriate. This is a humane policy that supports, rather than ostracizes, transgender teens. Naturally conservatives hate it.

In January, the school board's vice chair proposed to roll back this policy. Lest this be seen as an isolated incident, recognize that this is part of a broad, nationwide Republican strategy of building themselves up by demonizing the LGBTQ+ community.

Across the country and in New Hampshire, concerned so-called "parents" groups have been attacking the rights of transgender students - banning books from libraries, banning the use of pronouns, and making sure the trans kid can't play on the field hockey team. 

These actions cross the line from "malicious" to "downright evil" when you consider that transgender teens have the highest rate of suicide in America. Its certainly hard enough being transgender and a teenager without national political groups pushing your school to stigmatize your existence and alienate you from your peers. These groups have blood on their hands.

And now these demagogues are in Milford trying to make it difficult for trans kids to the bathroom. 

One student described her experience having to plan her day around having access to the few single-stalled bathrooms in a school building: "I just want to use the bathroom. It should take no more than thee minutes but I am forced to wait in line in the hall for five minutes to go to the bathroom." If you want to hear what else she had to say, skip ahead to 1:30:55 in this video.

I wish I could say the School Board covered themselves in glory shooting down this bad idea, but instead they voting 4-1 to move forward a compromise that still entertains the right's desire to attach further stigma to trans students.

While the original proposal of revoking bathroom rights for trans kids was pulled from consideration, it was replaced with a measure to limit the number of kids allowed in a restroom to the number of stalls available. The rule change also prohibits public changing areas and, for some reason, the use of urinals.

The cost of the related urinal-removal project was estimated at well north of $30,000.

Update: Urinals at Milford schools have now been covered in trash bags.