Democracy in Hampton, New Hampshire: The 3 Minute Rule

 Last week,  the Hampton School Board meeting opened with a time allotted to "public comment." This is, apparently required "by law."  Mad Dog knows this because that law was referred to by Lois Costa (Superintendent of SAU 90), later in the proceedings. Apparently, by some law 30 full minutes of the meeting have to  be open and devoted to public comment. This is so important that even after the article on which people had come to comment upon had been voted on, and put to bed, Ms. Costa insisted the required time allotment of 30 minutes at the end of the meeting be fulfilled, albeit in a most peculiar way.

But when a member of the public rose to comment, he was told the "3 minute rule" was still in effect. 

During his first period to comment, that same member of the public had been cut off by the chairperson of the School Board, Ginny Bridle Russell, mid sentence, with a "You have exceeded your 3 minutes. Wrap it up!"

There were only 3 members of the public present so during the first required period of public comment, only 9 minutes were used, owing to the speakers being cut off after 3 minutes. During the second required 30 minute comment session only one member of the public remained but he was restricted, once again to 3 minutes. 

The 30 minutes thing is apparently law.

The 3 minute thing is apparently not--more a whim thing.

During his next 3 minutes, that member of the public (MOP) was asked a question by one of the school board members, and he answered, but when he responded to a comment by Ms. Russel, the MOP tried to respond which really brought the house down.

Another member of the board, Les Shepard, nearly leapt out of his seat, objecting that a mere member of the public addressing the chairperson is not allowed at School Board meetings.

"We don't do back and forth here" one of the other members tried to explain. Members ask the questions; members of the Board do not answer questions from the public.

We have all heard of "the bully pulpit," but in Hampton, this concept has been transmogrified into "the bully from the pulpit." 

Apparently, the 3 minute rule is not state law for town meetings--it is not applied to Budget Committee meetings. Until he hears otherwise, Mad Dog will assume this is a rule by custom, designed to prevent one person from droning on too long and hogging the podium enforced only at the School Board meetings.

But what really transpired at the School Board meeting was the chairperson cutting off a member of the public because his comments had drawn blood--he had replied to the chairperson's argument that her desire to use public funds to support a religious school was "all about the children" and because she "cared for every Hampton child, no matter where they choose to go to school." The member of the public has said he also shared the concern for every child of Hampton, but that didn't mean he wanted to pay for their first communion dresses, or for their Bar Mitzvah's. 

Ms. Russell, the chairperson, had enough and cut him off, finding he had exceeded his 3 minutes.

The School Board meeting went on for 2 hours and 37 minutes, most of which was devoted to topics like the color of the paint on school walls, scheduling, and Ms. Russell took some time to tell everyone about her career in Hampton, since moving here in 1973, and all about the offices she had held and the great things she had done, all of which took more than 3 minutes.

The fact is, the purpose of the 3 minute rule may be sold as a way to be sure everyone has time to speak, but it is actually a way for public officials to suppress real debate, to prevent reasoning and reasoned arguments from being presented. Many reasoned arguments, especially about weighty topics like the separation of church and state, require some context, background and development, and cannot be adequately summarized in 280 characters or 3 minutes. 

The fact is, the School Board is not interested in reasoned arguments or real debate. Members of the School Board are either frankly bored by reasoned arguments or they know they cannot do that kind of thing, so they withdraw. Just look at them on that video and you can see something that goes beyond being uninterested to actual contempt--Mr. Shepard did not put his head on his desk and go to sleep during public comment, but he did look as if he might nod off. 

A republic depends on representatives representing the people, the citizens. What we have in Hampton is not that. The elected representatives are arrogant; they believe they have the power and they are the only ones whose opinions count, and certainly they should never be questioned and required to respond to questions.

Hampton School Board Splinters Over Sacred Heart School Warrant Article

Tuesday, December 12, 2023, a night which will live in epiphany. 

The Hampton School Board has 5 members. 

It is still not clear whether that coveted box at the bottom of the ballot saying "Recommended by the School Board" will be attached to the ballot article. Someone has to "check" on it with someone. 

School Board meetings have agendas and rules, and they open with a time for public comment and members of the public are allowed 3 minutes to speak their minds and then the chairperson cuts them off. Nobody gets to hog the microphone.

So, the public, all three of them, got their 3 minutes each.

The link below shows the whole meeting, but the parts of the meeting devoted to the Sacred Heart School (SHS) funding begins after the Pledge of Allegiance with public comment, and then there are about 2 hours of meanderings through committee reports and idle chatter, then the vote and then a bizarre post mortem comment session. You just have to scan through it.

None of the School Board members explained the reasons for his or her vote, except for Frank DeLuca, who said he had to abstain because he is a parishioner of Our Lady of The Miraculous Medal church, and one of the speakers had remarked that any parishioner of the church voting to funnel public funds  for his own personal church would violate his public trust as a public official, and apparently Mr. DeLuca got that message.

While none of the School Board explained a vote, in the prior meeting the chairperson had said she was voting public funds to a church school because she care about "every Hampton child," including those attending SHS. That was addressed by one of the speakers who remarked that she had failed to mention that 75% of the SHS students are not even from Hampton, and that even if you focused on the 25% of students who live in Hampton, "caring about the children," as he did, did not mean he wanted to pay for their first communion dresses. He said that was the job of the parents, not the taxpayer. 

He also went on to say that while some argue this issue is not about separation of church and state, but instead it's simply "all about the children"  (even those attending SHS,) the truth is that while this may be about the kids,  it is not only about the kids: It's also about the principle of separation of church and state.

To make that point, a famous speech by John F. Kennedy got read, and is there for all to see on Channel 22, in which he says, "Because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected President, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured...So it is apparently necessary for me to state again, not what kind of church I believe in, for that should matter only to me--but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no church or church school is granted any public funds...Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you--until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped."

Instances of the ripping of that fabric in Hampton, New Hampshire were recounted: men driving by, shouting profanities, while children played in their yards, online vilification of Hampton women as being "God hating," all because these mothers had  signed a petition for separation of church and state.

(Apparently, John F. Kennedy would have been called a "God hater" by these people.)

And the vote came, amid some confusion. 

The Vote:

To recommend: Virginia Bridle Russell

                             Les Shepard

Abstained:          Wendy Rega

                             Andrea Shepard 

                             Frank DeLuca

Although a majority of the School Board did not vote to recommend (a majority of 5 is 3), it is not clear what the white box with the recommendation will say. Do you need a majority (i.e. 3 Board members) or simply a plurality for that coveted "Yes, recommended by the Board"?

To Mad Dog's mind a "recommendation" should mean, we affirmatively recommend this. But when the majority say they can neither recommend nor oppose, that is not a recommendation. But that may not be what the powers that be think.

Mad Dog actually liked the post show show: Because, apparently, there is a rule that there should be 30 minutes in total of public comment, and the chairperson had limited the three public commenters to 3 minutes each, interrupting any speaker who went past 3 minutes,  there were only 9 minutes of 30 spent in public comment. 

So after the vote was taken and safely stowed away, they called for the other 21 minutes of comment from the crowd of 2 people who constituted "the public." Only one actually spoke and he was told he had better limit his remarks to  3 minutes. (Not clear what happened to the remaining unspoken 19 minutes.)

During this session Frank DeLuca asked the lone speaker why, after all these years, after voting through this warrant article every year since 1994, anyone would now find a reason to oppose it. The reply was simple enough: the man who rose to oppose said he was not living in town in 1994, but even if he had been, he said, simply doing something over and over because "we've always done it that way" is not always a good idea, especially if an important principle has been ignored by that custom. He cited the racial segregation of schools, which had always been done that way, but eventually we decided that custom was unprincipled.

This was a particularly rich moment because in the previous School Board meeting, when asked if he was disturbed at the article which gave public funds for religious purposes,  Mr. DeLuca said he said he hadn't seen the warrant article yet, so he couldn't possibly comment on an article he had not yet seen. But tonight he said, well this same, identical article has been presented the same way every year for the past 29 years, so what are we arguing about?

When Ginny Bridle Russell said she supported the warrant article and she would never abstain, but would always take a stand--but she hoped voters would vote their own conscience. The member of the public replied, "Well, but then you are taking a stand to try to influence voters." 

This exchange finally aroused Les Shepard, who raised his hand and object to the public addressing the chairperson in such a manner. The public man was told that School Board meetings do not allow for "back and forth," between the School Board members and the public, which, of course, was exactly what Ms. Russel had precipitated.

Watching this youtube now, it is apparent that the chairperson of the School Board has taken the idea of a "Bully pulpit" into a new realm of "The bully from the pulpit."  The chairperson cut off criticism of herself, declared herself immune, declared herself righteous and outspoken and then withdrew to allow her fellow Board members to close ranks around her. 

If ever there is a contest for "most controlling personality" we have our candidate for the honor right here in Hampton.

So, all and all, it was an exciting night. Two and one half hours of dreary boiler plate declamations, interrupted by 30 minutes of the fog of war.

The youtube video below shows the discussion of the warrant article beginning right after the Pledge of Allegiance at 1 minute, with three speakers from the public, each speaking 3 minutes and that ends around 12 minutes. Then there is a nearly 120 minute interlude during which the School board discusses a variety of things, including, literally the paint on school walls but the vote on the article occurs at 2:02, two hours after the meeting began. So if you can scan ahead, go for it. The vote is worth watching. (If anyone knows how to edit a youtube video so only the 15 minutes devoted to the Sacred Heart School warrant article shows, please let me know.) It was during this exchange, the Board said only they can ask questions but they do not answer questions from the public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Mo0VoF7oA

Sound and fury signifying something. 

We don't yet know what. 

Effete University Presidents Overdose on Political Correctness

 

"This should be the easiest question possible" Representative Elise Stefanik said, and she was right.

Liz Magill

But the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT could not answer it.

It's not original to wonder, "Under what specific context would calling for genocide be okay at Harvard, Penn or MIT?"

I've always wondered just what a university president does, beyond going hat in hand to the waiting rooms of billionaires, while wearing an expensive suit, and asking for a million dollar donation.

Gordon Gee, a sort of gadfly of university presidents, having got himself million dollar gigs at Brown, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, and West Virginia, once said his job was to be sure the official campus bird is the crane, as in one of those things you need to build large buildings. And when someone asked if he was going to fire the athletic director for having said something particularly politically incorrect, Gee responded, "I'm just hoping the athletic director doesn't fire me. We all know where the power is here."

President of Harvard, Charles Eliot, in the 1920's  said that the mixing of the races was an anathema and we should forbid immigration to keep the blood lines of America pure.

But, Liz Magill, a Constitutional scholar could not bring herself to say, "Freedom of Speech is not an absolute right. As Oliver Wendel Holmes said, 'You cannot falsely shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater.  And you cannot advocate by speech for the violent overthrow of the United States government. And, it is clear, nobody on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania should be allowed to call for a new Holocaust or genocide."

Once, at a very fancy cocktail outside Washington, DC an Arnold and Porter lawyer, in his very expensive suit and I got to talking about the ouster of Larry Summers as president of Harvard after he said that women did not seem to gravitate toward math and science, thus violating the politically correct dogma that women can do anything as well as men, and in high heels, while dancing backwards. So he was gone. Faculty voted him out as if he had reaffirmed Harvard's support for eugenics.

"A damn shame," the Arnold and Porter lawyer told me. "He had such a perfect blend of skill sets for the job of being Harvard's president."

"And what could those skill sets possibly be?" I asked. "Being Harvard's president has got to be one of the easiest jobs in the world: You just sit back, keep your mouth shut and watch the donations flow in."

So, Liz Magill has lost her sinecure and, if there is any sense left at Harvard, Claudine Gay should lose hers. I didn't hear what the MIT president said.

It's interesting how Ivy League colleges have been clamoring to put women, particularly women of color, in their presidential offices. Maybe now, they'll be looking to place John Fetterman clones, big guys who talk straight and don't ever try to parse and adjust their words, but hit you between the eyes with, "Call for genocide on campus? We'll gen your backside right off campus."

Slaughter of the Innocents: Gazza and Israel

 

Nightly images of dead and dying children from Gazza are a mute argument against the Israeli strategy of counter terrorism.

You come and slaughter our children and rape our women, look what you get in return!

The problem is with the "you."

Those Palestinian children did not rape your women.

It's a question of what you are willing to allow to respond to an outrage.

And it's also a question of the enemy your are fighting.

In the 1940's, there was Hitler and the Japanese military. If you ravaged civilians on your way to defeating the German and Japanese armies and navies, there was a clear outcome you could point to: Hitler dead, the Japanese military defeated and surrendering on the deck of an American battleship, and it's all over.

Never mind all those innocent children you incinerated in Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Hiroshima, Tokyo and countless other cities and towns around the world.

They were "innocent" bystanders, but we were willing for them to suffer to accomplish the greater good of a military victory, an end to that war.

And then there was always the question of whether those children and their families were completely "innocent" or actually "willing accomplices." 

In the case of Germany, it is now pretty clear a sizable part of the population, including children in the Hitler youth, fully embraced the stuff Goebbels was feeding them about being part of a master race and the need to exterminate the  vermin Untermensch.

 But isn't a twelve year old boy so malleable as to be innocent for having been recruited into that gang? What is "innocent" in a child? The American army executed 16 year old boys who acted as spies for the German army when the Americans swept into Germany. But, of course, those kids were post pubertal. In Gazza we are seeing 7 year old kids dying. What kind of threat could they be?

Those Gazza kids and their parents are more powerful than any Israeli bomb, simply from a strategic viewpoint. In practical terms alone, the Israelis are simply stupid to drop bombs on them.

You cannot defeat an idea. You cannot kill hatred with bombs. Couldn't do it in Belfast. Couldn't do it in Selma, Alabama. You have to find another way. 

You bomb a church in Birmingham and kill four little Black girls, you've already lost the war. The wives who sent off their husbands with packed lunches to the Ku Klux Klan rallies have to watch the images of those dead girls on TV and everything begins to crumble.

Frontline's 20 Days in Mariupol

Just what I needed, after daily servings of the carnage in Gazza, a documentary of children dying and mothers crying from the Ukraine: "20 Days in Mariupol."

Can I bear to watch yet another 90 minutes of unremitting horror show? 

But, as President Zelensky has said, as long as people can see the horror, they will do something to try to help; when Ukraine recedes behind the news from Gazza, help to Ukraine dries up.

Republicans in Congress from Rand Paul to Marjorie Taylor Green to Lauren Boebert are trying to "America First" the country into abandoning Ukraine. It's not even a new story: Charles Lindbergh and a whole bund of right wing American Nazis tried to keep America from coming to the aide of embattled Britain, and would have gladly come to terms with Adolph Hitler and his control of Europe from the Rhine to the North Atlantic. 

Now, it's Vladimir Putin and his murderous hordes launched against Ukraine.

A democracy which had the misfortune of having a border with Russia is simply being annihilated by a dictator. The NATO countries seem aware of the threat posed. They suspect once Mr. Putin has crushed Ukraine, like Hitler, he will look for another country to accuse of provoking him into a war he cannot avoid.

Democracies barely work, so the attraction of the dictator, the strongman who claims to be essential to control, law and order and harmony is understandable. Italy has put a immigrant hating woman, Georgia Meloni, in power. Hungary voted in Viktor Orban, another White power autocrat and even the Netherlands just voted in Geert Wilders, who is a vehement anti Muslim and right wing champion.

So we are not the only ones dealing with Confederate Congressmen who speak ominously of Ghost Buses in the sky coming to seize your government from you, of Marjorie Taylor Green who says this is, always was and always should be a White Christian nation and Lauren Boebert who says the Constitution never mentions separation of church and state and the right of individual citizens to own howitzers is not only guaranteed by the 2nd amendment but God given.

Today, waiting for the light to turn green at Lafayette and Exeter Road, I saw a plaid shirt guy in his mega pickup truck, flying a big Trump flag take the right hand turn and head toward Exeter, no doubt in pursuit of ghost buses and planning to execute the plan Congressman Clay Higgins was talking about when he told the head of the FBI, we are coming for you; your day will come.

Standing against these middle aged men and young women are the quiet members of the Hampton Dems club--mostly men past retirement age and a spectrum of women in their middle years. 

Hampton is not Mariupol. 

Yet.

Ghost Buses In the Sky! Ode to January 6th

 

(To the tune of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" --Hughie Edward Thomasson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LtmZM0OWO8

Old Congress folk got talkin' one dark and windy day/

Inside a paneled hearing room Clay Higgins had his say/

When all at once upon the screen he flashed for all to see/

All painted white and bundled tight, white buses numbered three/

Their license plates were painted over, their bumpers burnished steel/

Their tires were black and shiny, their foul exhaust made us squeal/

Yippie-i-oh Yippie-i-ay!

Ghost buses in the sky!

Ghost buses in the sky!

Their windshields all streaked with mud, their windows burning bright/

Their drivers trying to control them, but they careened clear out of sight/

Cause they've got to drive forever on those roads up in the sky/

And we all know, they're loaded with agents and provocateurs from the FBI!

Yippie-i-oh Yippie-i-ay!

Ghost buses in the sky

Ghost buses in the sky. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OvB9kvLR7c

A Republic, If You Can Keep It: Ghost Buses In The Sky!

 

Asked what sort of government the Continental assembly had given the people, Benjamin Franklin smiled at the woman who had stopped him, and said, "A Republic, Ma'am. If you can keep it."

Now, roughly 230 years later, the tenuous nature of that gift seems as apparent as ever.

Congressman Higgins

Less than 90 years after the United States were formed into a fractious whole, a Civil War was required to keep it together, as the second American revolution established the principle that if you wanted to be a member of the club, you had to abide by certain rules which applied to all members, and that once you'd joined, you could not leave.

That second part may seem almost Mafia like, but it was a simple acknowledgement of the problem of knowing the will of the people. Less than 5% of people in the South owned any significant number of slaves, but the power of a small minority was able to whip up secession fever, and Lincoln was probably correct in asserting that the Southern aristocracy had established a mind control over the population to act against its own best interest.

If ever there was a fantasist's delusion, the delusion of fighting for Tara and the wonderful cause of plantation life, of defending those 19th century concentration camps, was it.

Today, from the Neverneverland of fantasy and conspiracy, located mainly in the old Confederacy and its diaspora in the Mountain West, we have that emergence of the "stab in the back" theory, alive and well in the form of the revisionist history patriots, among them Clay Higgins from Louisiana. Mr. Higgins is  trying to tell us that January 6th, like the attacks on 9/11, were an inside job, carried out by the Democrats and their federal government provocateurs. (And if you want to see it, you can review the documents held at Area 54, along with those space aliens the government doesn't want you to know about.)

Representative Higgins has "mounds of evidence" those brave patriots  did not storm the Capitol, but merely marched to it to peacefully protest a stolen election, and were the victims, not the malefactors. 

Relishing the spotlight, the  Louisiana Republican, presents "indisputable, convincing" evidence (having done "my own research") that it was actually FBI agents in "ghost buses" who drove the attack on the Capitol, which was actually a crowd of everyday tourists, until the FBI agents started their "nefarious" actions. (Mr. Clay was clearly very proud of using such a 50 cent word as "nefarious" as it established his intellectual credentials.)

And everyone in law enforcement obviously knows all about "ghost buses" which are directed like drones using Soros space lasers from a basement in a secret pizza pallor in Washington, DC. Or maybe San Francisco. Or Portland, Oregon. 

But, whatever you think of the volumes of rock solid "evidence" assembled by Mr. Clay and his staff, his merry band of freedom warriors, you can plainly see he represents his constituents, just as clearly as Marjorie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan and Lauren Boebert represent their voters.

Nobody doubts those representatives represent their constituents, as the result of free and fair elections. 

And that is the problem Benjamin Franklin foresaw.

Our Republic can only last as long as there are enough aroused voters to vote down those molded out of the same Clay as Higgins. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OvB9kvLR7c

Wouldn't you have just loved it if the FBI man, Christopher Wray, had the presence of mind to lean forward and whisper into the microphone, "Well, actually, Mr. Higgins, we might just have to look into space laser driven Ghost Buses filled with space aliens from Area 54."

"Ghost Buses In The Sky," is already playing on radio stations in Louisiana. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LtmZM0OWO8