Also on today’s menu:
Police Respond To Canaan and Tuftonboro
Guilty In Kidnapping Scheme
The US Special Military Operation
The NH Ballot Law Commission will meet today to discuss whether it should disqualify any candidates who supported or did not oppose a bill, CACR32, that would have placed a constitutional amendment before the voters to decide whether New Hampshire should secede from the United States.
Karen Steele of Atkinson asked for the disqualification by email on Aug. 20, saying, “It is my assertion that the following people are no longer eligible to hold office in NH and thus are unqualified to run for office as they are in violation of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 3.”
She named the seven members of the state House of Representatives who sponsored CACR32, as well as those who voted not to declare the bill inexpedient to legislate. “Given the overlap,” she wrote, “there are a total of 14 individuals who should not be allowed to run for or hold office in New Hampshire.”
One of those targeted for disqualification, Glenn Bailey, a state representative from Milton, said, “For the 14th amendment to apply at all, those being disenfranchised would have to be first convicted of insurrection or rebellion. If that has happened, I somehow missed that trial.”
Police Respond To Canaan and Tuftonboro
Peter Mancini, 44, of Grafton is facing Class B felony charges of reckless conduct, criminal threatening, and criminal mischief after firing a handgun during an argument with his wife on August 21.
State police responding to the report of shots fired said no one was struck by the gunfire and the two females who were inside the residence were able to safely leave.
When police arrived, Mancini came out of the residence and surrendered without incident.
The Enfield Police Department assisted state police in the investigation, which is ongoing.
Meanwhile, there was a reported standoff in Tuftonboro on August 23 that drew state police, including a state police helicopter, along with a special operations team, the Tuftonboro Police Department, the Carroll County Sheriff's Department, Freedom Police Department, Moultonborough Police Department, N.H. Fish and Game, and Marine Patrol to Tuftonboro.
An armed male, described as in his 30s, refused to leave a garage at 35 Canaan Road when police asked him to do so, according to a report in the Laconia Daily Sun. The man was said to be armed, and there was at least one other person inside the garage.
Police closed Canaan Road to all traffic at least a half mile away from the home.
Guilty In Kidnapping Scheme
Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted on Tuesday of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020. The jury deliberated for two days before returning the verdict. An earlier jury had been unable to reach a unanimous decision in the case.
The FBI described the plot as a rallying cry for a U.S. civil war by anti-government extremists during the election season when Joe Biden was challenging then-President Donald Trump, and armed protests were taking place over COVID-19 restrictions.
Fox and Croft were convicted on two counts of conspiracy to kidnap and attempts to blow up a bridge after the abduction attempt at Whitmer’s vacation home. Croft also was convicted of another explosives charge.
According to the Associated Press, “the investigation began when Army veteran Dan Chappel joined a Michigan paramilitary group and became alarmed when he heard talk about killing police. He agreed to become an FBI informant and spent the summer of 2020 getting close to Fox and others, secretly recording conversations and participating in drills at ‘shoot houses’ in Wisconsin and Michigan.”
The US Special Military Operations
The U.S. military’s Central Command said today that it carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria targeting areas used by militias backed by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, denied that Iran had any link to those targeted, and condemned the strike “against the people and infrastructure of Syria.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and activist collective Deir Ezzor 24 said the airstrikes targeted the Ayash Camp run by the Fatimiyoun group of Shiite fighters from Afghanistan. At least six Syrian and foreign militants were killed in the airstrikes, with Deir Ezzor 24 reporting 10 deaths.
Deir Ez-Zor is a strategic province that borders Iraq and contains oil fields. Iran-backed militia groups and Syrian forces control the area and have often been the target of Israeli war planes in previous strikes.
The U.S. military’s Central Command said the strikes “took proportionate, deliberate action intended to limit the risk of escalation and minimize the risk of casualties.” It did not identify the targets, nor offer any casualty figures from the strikes, which the military said came at the orders of President Joe Biden.
A day before that announcement, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, in his column, “Die First, Then Quit,” had commented on the civilian deaths from U.S. drone attacks in Somalia, citing Brett Wilkins’ tally of casualties: “Since 2007, the U.S. military has carried out 260 actions in Somalia. While the Pentagon only admits to killing five civilians and wounding 11 others in a campaign it claims killed as many as 3,010 militants, Airwars estimates that 78-153 civilians, including 20-23 children, have died in U.S. attacks.”
“That is the ugly truth that no one seems to want to talk about anymore,” Ventura writes. “Our so-called War On Terror has been raging on for so long that we barely acknowledge or even remember its existence. An epic vacuum of lives and tax dollars, forever lost to a war that has become so common that twenty some odd children can die on a summer day in August and it barely even registers a headline or a quick blurb before the next commercial break. I guess the tragic break up of Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson is a far more pressing news story.”
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Good Lord. What a waste of time regarding the bill to leave the union. I realize it’s a protest bill. But, ugh. So done.