Also on today’s menu:
Authoritarians For Trump
Special Counsel Grilled About Politicizing Report
Voters in the Newfound Area cast their ballots on March 12, and some had their town meetings that day, as well. Among the towns with business meetings on Tuesday was Bridgewater, one of the three towns considering withdrawal from School Administrative Unit 4. The decision was a surprisingly strong vote, 291-28, in favor of leaving the Newfound Area School District.
A decision to withdraw and form a special-purpose school district relies on an affirmative vote of all three towns; if one of them votes no, it will not happen. Groton voters will decide on Saturday, March 16, and Hebron voters will not decide until their town meeting on Tuesday, May 14.
Bristol voters chose former selectman Don Milbrand over newcomer Steven Coffill, 235-101, in the only contested race on the town ballot. All of the proposed zoning amendments passed, although one aimed at restricting homebuilding by doubling the required square footage for dwelling units was close, passing by 182-160.
Results of the district-wide elections for offices in the Newfound Area School District were not immediately available.
Discussion: The withdrawal decision was surprisingly strong, due, in part, to the tactics used by the Newfound Area School Board to ensure that withdrawal would be as disruptive as possible for the students and community. When first proposed, the three towns wanted to maintain close ties with Newfound through tuition agreements and memoranda of understanding for administrative services and extra-curricular participation, but Newfound board members pushed back, forcing the Bridgewater-Hebron-Groton Steering Committee to look toward Plymouth for the services Newfound would not provide. It is probably too late to affect Groton’s decision, but a newly seated school board might take a more conciliatory attitude and persuade Hebron voters to remain with SAU 4.
Authoritarians For Trump
While it is illegal for foreign nationals to “directly or indirectly” make independent expenditures on behalf of any party to a US federal election, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán posted to X:
Orbán, who traveled to Florida last week to meet with Donald Trump — while avoiding meeting anyone from the Biden administration — has weakened democracy in Hungary by undermining the checks and balances built into the system, announcing in 2014 that he was building an “illiberal” state. He maintains strong ties with Moscow and Beijing.
During a campaign event in Philadelphia, President Joe Biden Jr. referred to that meeting between Trump and Orbán, saying, “You know who he’s meeting with today down at Mar-a-Lago? Orbán of Hungary, who stated flatly he doesn’t think democracy works; he’s looking for dictatorship.”
Discussion: Both Donald Trump and Joe Biden Jr. have clinched their parties’ nominations, setting the stage for an eight-month general-election campaign. With foreign involvement through the use of social media platforms, it will be important to sort out truth from propaganda on both sides but, especially, to recognize the danger to democracy that authoritarians pose.
Special Counsel Grilled About Politicizing Report
Republicans hoped to use Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Biden’s handling of classified documents from his years as vice-president to bolster their impeachment efforts, but when Hur testified before the House Judiciary Committee this week, he was the one who took the heat. The Department of Justice released the full transcript of Biden’s testimony to the special counsel, which belied Hur’s gratuitous comments alleging the president’s mental facilities were declining and saying Biden could not remember details such as the date of Beau Biden’s death.
Attorney-General Merrick Garland is facing a backlash from Democrats for his decision to appoint Hur — a partisan Republican and Trump supporter — to oversee the investigation into whether Biden had mishandled classified documents. Garland’s decision to appoint Hur in January 2023 was aimed at avoiding accusations that the Department of Justice was favoring Biden, but Hur took the opportunity — after finding no wrongdoing by the president — to devote more than 300 pages to portray Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
Hur resigned from the Department of Justice before appearing before the committee, which meant that he was no longer bound by DOJ ethical guidelines and would be testifying as a private citizen. Democrats on the committee took him to task, getting him to admit that Biden had not engaged in the obstruction of justice and willful retention of documents that Donald Trump has been indicted for employing.
Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) asked Hur whether he was hoping for an appointment in a second Trump administration and asked him to pledge not to accept such an appointment, but Hur would not do so.
Discussion: Representative Adam Schiff summed it up when he chastised Hur, saying, “What is in the rules is you don’t gratuitously do things to prejudice the subject of an investigation when you are declining to prosecute. You don’t gratuitously add language you know will be useful in a political campaign. You understood exactly what you were doing.”