New Hampshire HB 1682 was introduced by Rep. David Welch (R – Rockingham13) on 1/5/2022, followed by a public hearing on 1/14/2022. The House Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety voted that the bill “ought to pass with amendment” and has been referred to the House Finance Committee for further review.
On the Surface It Sounds Great: Hold Police Accountable for Their Actions
The idea of this bill is to establish a committee that’s considered “independent” and separate from local police jurisdictions in order to ensure police officers are held accountable for their actions (or inactions.) According to Rep. David Welch, the aim of the bill is “to establish a single, neutral, and independent statewide entity to receive complaints alleging misconduct regarding all sworn and elected law enforcement officers.” – HB 1682 public hearing, 1/14/2022 – watch here
As outlined in the bill, officers could potentially face the new Conduct Review Committee for a number of reasons, including: if they’ve been convicted of committing a felony, any sentence of incarceration, excessive use of force, driving while intoxicated, moral turpitude (dishonesty, deceit, theft), acts of omission, lying in a police report or criminal proceeding, falsification of records, tampering with or falsifying evidence, racist conduct or statements, etc.
This all sounds great, because of course law enforcement officers should be held accountable for their actions! Which makes me wonder, why aren’t they now?
Policing the Police With Police
There’s already an established Police Standards and Training Council that handles internal reviews in New Hampshire. The new Law Enforcement Conduct Review Committeewould fall under that umbrella, dealing exclusively with misconduct reviews. In recent years the public’s interest in holding police accountable has skyrocketed. Perhaps there are so many cases of police misconduct in the state that they can no longer handle the workload or process them quickly enough.
Since the new Conduct Review Committee would fall under the already established Standards Council, the governor would (again) be appointing its members. The current Police Standards and Training Council consists of mainly a bunch of police officers appointed by Governor Sununu. Since it is the governor who will be appointing members here again, I’m not sure this bill will be as effective as it looks. A politician hand-picking members within the context of “maintaining absolute objectivity” is a farce.
The Law Enforcement Conduct Review Committee would consist of:
Four law enforcement officers appointed by the governor
Three public members with no familial associations to a police officer, lawyer, or judge
While out here trying to do my bit against the Kremlin’s re-incarnation of September 1, 1939…It’s important to raise concerns about some of the apocalyptic Moscow-fighting ideas that are getting put on the table in the excitement. It’s shocking my fellow Kremlin foes are advocating a U.S. led no-fly zone over Ukraine. This is a move which has perhaps 10 percent chance of ending civilization as we know it, since it would require direct, large-scale combat between the U.S. and Russia…inside Russia!
The real solution is deadly but a lot less deadly: Peaceable civil resistance inside Russia, at the discretion of Russians. Guerilla war and civil resistance inside Ukraine, funded, peopled and supplied from across the globe. The Kremlin can be beaten, but it has to be without direct conflict between the two top nuclear powers. This is a long established and proven concept; it’s already been done once in much tougher circumstances. Ideally it should happen at private rather than taxpayer expense, definitely without foreign military presence; each of us does need to do our bit without waiting for governments. We also need to do our bit to prevent Russian bystanders from suffering and prevent the Resistance from going nuclear. Most people are probably reluctant to say this; maybe I can say it since I was a volunteer inside Bosnia during that one and am hopefully doing my part for Ukrainians and friendly Russians during this one.
Dave Ridley NHexit.com “Independence without enmity”
1) The Russian government’s act of all-out conventional war is wildly excessive. Any individual or voluntarily funded institution wishing to help defend Ukraine against this overstep is far within their rights, recent Kremlin threats against this non-withstanding.
2) The initial success of the attack on this Western-leaning nation…is a reminder that Washington cannot be relied on to defend New Hampshire. Counterintuitive as is sounds, NH would be better off – and the Western world should benefit – if we handled own defense and diplomacy. Instead of being tied the weirdly aggressive-yet-impotent D.C. zombie, we would find a wide range of better options for our security. These range from the happily de-militarized neutrality of Costa Rica to the gun-heavy but non-aligned preparedness of Switzerland. We would also have the option of doing something better for future nations-under-threat like Ukraine: We could insist that any government we ally ourselves with…free its own people from invasion-enabling gun control laws:
3) Ukraine’s government has made this invasion practical by doing something most European governments and even American governments are still doing: They limited the private possession/carry of firearms up until the week of the invasion, when they finally let civilians carry them without permission. This is roughly what happened in the ill-fated Spanish Republic during the 1936 war. Ukrainians are now reported to be desperately mobbing gun stores, for good reason but probably too late. GunPolicy.org lists Ukraine as having only 7 civilian firearms per 100 persons…a foreign invader’s dream. Civilians in the average U.S. state, including New Hampshire, reportedly possess over 115 per 100.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_law_in_Ukraine
4) Washington has unnecessarily provoked Moscow over the last 30 years. By moving NATO so close to Russian borders and arguably sponsoring a Ukrainian coup in 2014, it ignored the Rodina’s security concerns. Since 2001 especially, it has bombed, blockaded and invaded many nations with little good reason but much abuse of local civilians. It has cast away the relative ethical high ground, against the wishes of most New Hampshirites. It has also become a direct physical threat to all of us with its unconstitutional rules and raids inside our libertarian-leaning state. It has become incapable of credibly condemning Russia’s actions the way it did during the Kremlin’s invasion of Finland in 1939.
5) U.S. ruler Joe Biden’s statement of Feb. 24, 2022 is partially worthy of condemnation: “Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences.” By speaking in this manner, he equated the Russian people with their quasi-dictator…that would be like equating General Franco with the Catalan anarchists he so victimized in the Spanish Civil War. Individual Russians and the Russian nation should be treated as potential allies against Putin; many have already risked their lives this week to protest against him
6) New Hampshire, unlike Switzerland and Costa Rica, is currently on the nuclear target list as a result of its membership in the United States system. This would be one thing if the U.S. were generally in the right and generally humane. It is not and thus is not worthy of *our* lives. Both D.C. and Moscow deserve opposition; neither deserve support.
7) Moscow’s move may be designed to divert attention from a planned attack on Taiwan, where invasion-friendly gun laws are even more severe than Ukraine’s.
8) The appropriate New Hampshire move is to peaceably declare independence from the U.S. (as Rep. Sylvia’s current legislation at Concord is attempting to do). Then it should set a clean foreign policy of its own crafting. This policy should be one that does not overextend and does not aggress but does keep faith with foreign allies by insisting (as a minimum condition of continued partnership) that their governments end all the gun controls they are imposing on their people.
Dave Ridley NHexit.com “Independence without enmity”
According to police, the then-unknown motorcycle operator ditched the bike and ran into the woods before police were able to catch up. Fortunately for the cops, a local snitch, Alexander Short – the owner of Short’s Detailing at 58 Forest Ave in Swanzey – approached them and told officers he knew who the operator of the motorcycle was, as the two had been hanging out in the Target parking lot the same night. The snitch placed a phone call to Mikey’s cell phone and officers were then able to locate and take him into custody, ultimately returning him home to his parents’ house.
Months later, Mikey was subsequently charged with two misdemeanor counts: “disobeying an officer” and “operating without valid license”. The first count was charged as “class A”, which could result in up to a year in jail and the second count charged as “class B” which could be a large fine. The Keene Police prosecutor offered a plea deal which would have dropped the class A charge in return for his guilty plea on the class B with the punishment being a 30 day loss of license and $620 fine plus $720 suspended on condition of good behavior. Now-seventeen-year-old Mikey heroically refused the plea deal and took the charges to trial earlier this month:
After the state presented its case, Keene district court judge Patrick W Ryan took the case “under advisement” and complimented Mikey, telling him, “you did a good job”. It was Mikey’s first time in court and he appeared pro-se, defending himself without the help of an attorney.
Normally, when a robed man takes a case under advisement it is a good sign that the verdict will not be “guilty”, because usually they are hesitant to deliver a not-guilty verdict in front of an audience and cameras. Judges are likely to issue more favorable verdicts when the cameras are off and no one is around, and that is exactly what happened in this case. Actually, the charges were “dismissed” according to the case file, which means Mikey wasn’t found “not guilty”. Dismissing charges after the trial has finished is an unusual result, but it’s still a solid win for the teenage Cop Block activist.
Observers reported that the snitch Alexander Short laughed and told Mikey outside of the courtroom to “have fun in jail”. Who is laughing now? One benefit of taking charges to trial is the police have to put snitches – or any undercover agents – on the witness stand to make their case, whereas if the defendant takes a plea deal the snitch is protected from public view. So now everyone knows that Alexander Short of Swanzey New Hampshire is happy to throw his friends under the bus and rat them out to the police for victimless crimes.
This weekend, the Free State Project celebrated “Porcupine Day”, the annual commemoration of the FSP reaching its goal of 20,000 liberty activists pledged to move to New Hampshire. That goal was reached on February 5th, 2016, making this the sixth annual Porcupine Day. Approximately 140 people packed Murphy’s Taproom in Bedford last night to celebrate and “Queen Quill” Carla Gericke and Odysee co-founder Jeremy Kauffman spoke. Here are both of their speeches:
“This bill establishes the crime of subversion of the legislative process-treason for any act to subvert the legislative process based on a false claim of emergency caused by COVID-19.”
Politicians and bureaucrats that violate our medical freedom by enforcing unconstitutional and unlawful mandates should go to prison. The legislative process is sacred. President Joe Biden is not a king, and the executive department cannot subvert the legislative process when it is convenient. It is up to individual state legislatures and the United States congress to enact legislation that impacts the citizens…It is well within the authority of the general court to protect its constituents from overreach of federal executive power. This bill aims to check the power of the federal government, and to defend the people of our state from unconstitutional executive actions and decrees that encroach on their ability to conduct business freely. This bill protects the right of private businesses to make their own decisions in what they require of their employees, and frees them from being shackled by executive overreach.” – Rep. Tim Baxter, HB 1027 public hearing, 1/19/2022 – watch here
Arguments Presented at the Public Hearing
Rep. Baxter’s arguments focused on how covid-19 mandates in New Hampshire have affected employers/employees negatively by forcing them into catch-22 situations. One example was a mother in tears because she didn’t agree with the vaccine mandate, but would lose her job if she didn’t comply. Rep. Baxter argued that businesses should be in charge of setting their own parameters, without government intrusion or intervention whatsoever.
Rep. Yokela’s arguments focused on how using covid-19 as the basis for “emergency powers” is an abuse of the legislative system. Over two years into the pandemic, any “emergency powers” enacted are unnecessary, as the entire world is well aware of the situation. Employers do not need hand-holding, and employees should not be forced into unconstitutional positions by the government. Rep. Yokela argued that legislatures have enough time, at this late stage, to follow the legitimate legislative path instead of enacting laws by executive decree. If they do not follow the proper path, it should be considered an act of treason.
I became actively involved in this process in the end of 2021, beginning of 2022, and I was actually appalled with the way people are being discriminated against because of this pandemic. Not only in our communities, but right here in our legislative body. This bill would hold those people responsible and accountable at every level. It needs to be done. I was in a Senate hearing yesterday and one of the senators who spoke…said the bottom line is that we don’t want to approve this because we want everyone vaccinated. That’s not appropriate. That is not appropriate for someone to take that kind of a stand. He’s representing the people of New Hampshire. Not everyone in New Hampshire wants this vaccine. Not everyone in New Hampshire believes in this vaccine. Not everyone in New Hampshire trusts our federal government, or even our state government at this point. I’m here today to support this bill; it’s a good start.” – Russan Chester (NH citizen), HB 1027 public hearing, 1/19/2022 – watch here
New Hampshire constitutional amendment concurrent resolution (CACR27), introduced January 5, 2022, would give “we the people” of NH the ability to boot out the corrupt and tyrannical judges that permeate the current landscape.
All state court judges shall be subject to recall and removal by petition and vote of registered voters pursuant to provisions established by the legislature.” – CACR27 summary
Introduced by Rep. Norm Silber (R), Rep. Michael Sylvia (R), Rep. William Foster (R), and others, a public hearing for the amendment took place January 12, 2022. Rep. Silber began the hearing by stating that many of his constituents (Gilford/Meredith) had come to him with “horror story complaints about their treatment by judicial officers in the court system in the state, most of whom are complaining about how they’re treated in family court. Some dealing with child custody, child removals, DCYF.” Current NH law only allows the removal of a judge through the process of impeachment.
The public hearing for CACR27 lasted about 40 minutes and ended with NH criminal defense attorney Richard Guerriero saying, “I think the greater issue at hand is a greater scrutiny of the courts…This would give the people a path to take should they not be able to inspire their representatives to protect them from government.”
It Seems Obvious This Should Be a Law
I, you, and everyone we know probably knows at least one person who’s gone through the court system only to find it, and the judge, totally corrupt. Obviously when it comes to child custody and child removal from a family, if a corrupt judge is installed entire generations could be destroyed. But really, all corrupt judges ruin lives, don’t they?
It seems obvious this constitutional amendment should be law. Doesn’t it? Why the hell isn’t it? This is New Hampshire! And while we’re at it, let’s vote out all the bad cops, too. It would really put the “public” back into the “servants,” don’tcha think? Sound like a plan? Let’s see what happens with this!
Watch the Public Hearing for CACR27: (4:59:23 – 5:38:00)
