Also on today’s menu:
Meredith Driver Involved In Hit-and-Run
Random Shooting Kills 8-Year-Old
Café Chatter: In Response To ‘Friendship Above All Else’
The filing period for those seeking congressional office begins today, June 1, and continues through June 10, so the New Hampshire Supreme Court adopted a district map yesterday that meets the “least change” approach that the New Hampshire Legislature rejected in its redistricting proposal. The plan moves just five towns — including Campton, New Hampton, and Sandwich — from District 1 to District 2 in order to meet 2020 census data.
Governor Chris Sununu twice rejected the gerrymandered maps coming out of the State House, stating in the last case, “The citizens of New Hampshire will not accept Senate Bill 200, which moves both members of Congress into the same district. Also, by moving Manchester into Congressional District 2 we would be creating a single district dominated by our largest urban areas. … Granite Staters expect districts that hold our incumbents accountable so that no one elected official is immune from challengers or constituent services.”
In deciding whether to take the case, the Supreme Court had to consider “First, whether the current statute establishing a district plan for New Hampshire’s two congressional districts … violates Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution. … Second, if so, whether this court must establish a new district plan if the legislature fails to do so according to federal constitutional requisites in a timely fashion after having had an adequate opportunity to do so. … We answered the first question in the affirmative. … In answering the second question, we determined that, upon a demonstrated impasse, this court must establish a new district plan and, in doing so, we would apply the “least change” approach … in the absence of a legally enacted plan.”
The court appointed Nathaniel Persily to serve as special master to prepare a congressional redistricting plan by May 27 because May 26 was the last date for legislative action on a plan. “As of May 27, no bill establishing new congressional districts had become a law…. The special master therefore issued … a plan that would equalize the populations of New Hampshire’s two congressional districts by moving the following towns from the First Congressional District to the Second Congressional District: Jackson; Albany; Sandwich; Campton; and New Hampton.”
Oral arguments on the plan took place on May 31, after which the court adopted the special master’s plan.
Meredith Driver Involved In Hit-and-Run
Belknap County Attorney Andrew Livernois is awaiting the results of an investigation into a Sunday hit-and-run crash that sent a 67-year-old Sanbornton woman to the hospital before determining what charges might be filed against the “elderly” Meredith man whose vehicle struck her.
The man told police he did not realize he hit anyone, thinking instead that he had hit an animal. Police did not release his name.
The victim, whose name also has been withheld, has been released from the hospital, police said.
Random Shooting Kills 8-Year-Old
Authorities have arrested Charles Montgomery Allen, 40, of Florence, South Carolina, after he allegedly fired at three vehicles passing his home, killing an eight-year-old Portsmouth, New Hampshire, boy who was on vacation with his family on Saturday.
The Florence County Coroner’s Office identified the boy as Quarius Naqua Dunham, whom Superintendent Steve Zadravec said was a third-grader at Little Harbour Elementary School in Portsmouth.
Allen is facing charges of murder, attempted murder, three counts of discharging a firearm into an occupied vehicle, and possession of a weapon during a violent crime, according to the sheriff’s office.
Café Chatter: In Response To ‘Friendship Above All Else’
I liked the article overall but did not appreciate the comments of people being deranged. You have now become the person who decides if another person is sane or insane, mental or not (I think I wrote about that last week). We cannot get into the habit of deciding who is and who is not. Yes, we can make a personal judgement call about a person and decide if we want to vote for that person, support them or be friends with them, but to tell others a person is deranged is wrong.
This is a problem, if they do not fit into our own little world they are deranged, insane or mental. We have to stop making people fit our own little boxes. We need to expand our box or remove it altogether so we learn and understand other’s views. People put God into a box. God is like this or that, God works only this way or that way. I can tell you God Himself says my ways are above your ways and He also asked Job if Job created the Stars, Universe and all that is in them and we think we know God!
Yes, there are absolutes (at least I think so) we should try never to cross, like outright murder, one who thinks of evil ways to destroy or hurt others, lying (being deceptive is pure evil, how can you trust that person ever), again lying to be a witness to something you never were a part of, a person who spreads discord or strife (we have bigger fish to fry so let’s agree to disagree for the sake of the bigger picture). I know some of these are easy to never cross, but others, not so easy.
We all have issues, we all think differently, we all view things uniquely and that is what makes us human. We are a people who love, forgive, hurt, think, feel, care, comprehend, and work differently from each other. What we need to learn is even though we are all unique we need to allow room for the other’s uniqueness. Trump, Putin and others are unique like we are unique. We may not like what Putin, Trump and Joe do and even hate that they do and who they are and what they stand for, but to say they are deranged, insane or mental I think is uncalled for. I would not want someone saying that about me just because they think it is true, especially when it may not be true. By saying these things others may believe in the little box we created for ourselves are all true.
It's time we come out of our box and start talking with others as you did in this article to try to understand where these people were coming from and maybe how we can influence their lives to cause them to change. One life affects so many others and we never know how many people we touch and change especially by our words.
— John Sellers, Bristol
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