Also on today’s menu:
Debate Over Education Freedom Accounts Continues
Party In Name Only: GOP ‘Effectively Dissolved’
Ensuring A Win For President Trump
After deliberating for a day and a half, a jury in Merrimack County Superior Court found Logan Clegg guilty in the 2022 murders of Stephen and Wendy Reid of Concord, despite a lack of evidence directly linking him to the shootings. Although prosecutors did not suggest even a motive for the crime, jurors found enough evidence in Clegg’s suspicious actions — including burning his tent, wiping his computer, and fleeing the state — to justify the guilty verdicts.
Stephen and Wendy Reid met when Stephen was serving in the Peace Corps. They traveled the world together while he served with the United States Agency for International Development. The couple retired to Concord, where Stephen had grown up. They took daily walks and it was during their walk on April 18, 2022, that they were killed. Police say there were no signs of struggle, and robbery was ruled out, as the couple had left their wallets and two cell phones at their Alton Woods apartment. A third cell phone was not recovered, but data analyzed by FBI agent Kevin Hoyland showed that Stephen’s missing phone was downloading and uploading a large amount of data about an hour after the murders. Defense Attorney Mariana Dominguez said during her closing argument that the data usage indicated that someone involved in the killing was looking for something on the phone, and may have known Stephen’s password in order to unlock the phone.
The circumstantial evidence included that Clegg, who was wanted on a probation violation in Utah on charges of burglary, shoplifting, and gun possession, was so fearful of being caught that he refused to use a free food kitchen for homeless people and hid when a Concord police officer found his tent in the woods on April 15. Police encountered Clegg while searching for the Reids on April 20, before their bodies were found, and he gave his name as Arthur Kelly. Clegg used other aliases as he fled the state. Police used his burned tent site to find him, tracing propane bottles at the site to find out where they had been purchased. Surveillance video from the stores showed Clegg’s image.
During the investigation, federal law enforcement officers found that Clegg had purchased a one-way plane ticket to Germany, and police located him in South Burlington, Vermont. When they arrested Clegg in October 2022, he had just finished his job at the Price Chopper grocery store where he had given his manager two weeks’ notice. Clegg had saved $7,000 in cash and had a Romanian identity card under an alias, as well as his own passport, the plane ticket, and a 9mm Glock 17 pistol.
In tracing his history, police learned that Clegg had been investigated in Washington State for homicide in 2018, but officials determined the stabbing was in self -defense, and Clegg was never charged.
Debate Over Education Freedom Accounts Continues
Education Freedom Accounts, intended to provide choice to parents while reducing the state’s total education spending, have proven to be very popular, allowing students to attend private schools or homeschool if parents believe the students are not receiving adequate instruction in public schools. The state spends an average of $5,255 per student in EFA program, compared to $6,161 per student in public schools. Republicans, including Education Commissioner Frank Edelblut, support the initiative, but Democrats claim the program is wasteful and unnecessary, also arguing that the Education Trust Fund should be used exclusively for public schools.
Because of its popularity — enrollment grew by 20 percent since last year — the program will cost the state $22.1 million this school year, up from $14.7 million in the 2022-2023 school year and $8.1 million in the 2021-2022 school year, according to the Department of Education.
In addition to costing less per pupil, the EFA program was supposed to benefit low-income families, but the Republican-led Legislature increased eligibility limits from 300 percent of the federal poverty level to 350 percent, and some Republicans, including gubernatorial candidates Chuck Morse and Kelly Ayotte, have proposed entirely removing the income caps in the future. Additionally, many of the recipients were homeschooled or attending non-public schools before transferring into the program, adding to the state’s cost.
Democrats have attempted repeal or restrain the program, including by requiring that students attend public school before they can receive the education vouchers. Megan Tuttle, president of the National Education Association of New Hampshire, opposes the program, saying “vouchers take scarce funding away from public schools and give it to private and religious schools that are unaccountable to the public. Taxpayer funds should be spent to resource neighborhood public schools to ensure they are desirable places to be and to learn, where students’ natural curiosity is inspired.”
Party In Name Only: GOP ‘Effectively Dissolved’
House Republicans are hoping to nominate a speaker this morning and bring the name to the House floor for a vote this afternoon, but some members of the party are saying the last few weeks have damaged the Grand Old Party. Representative Dusty Johnson of South Dakota said, “Hopefully, small groups of members who have stood in the way of us getting work done in the past understand how incredibly damaging the last four weeks have been,” referring to their removal of Speaker Kevin McCarthy at the beginning of the month.
Columnist Robert Hubbell has referred to the Republicans as a PINO — party in name only, a play on their use of RINO, Republican in name only — and said their inability to elect a speaker “is confirmation that the GOP has effectively dissolved”.
Experiencing the dissolution of the Republican Party will be painful and disruptive for everyone, including Democrats. We should not assume that having three major parties instead of two will automatically inure to the benefit of Democrats. The best path forward for Democrats is to remain focused on registering new voters, motivating existing voters to show up at the polls, and protecting the right to vote and the integrity of elections. That should keep us busy while we watch the painful, unfolding drama of the GOP’s demise.
Eight Republicans have declared their candidacy for speaker: representatives Gary Palmer of Alabama, Byron Donalds of Florida, Austin Scott of Georgia, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Jack Bergman of Michigan, Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, and Pete Sessions of Texas. Representative Victoria Spartz of Indiana said she is pleased to see “competition and vibrancy” and “I think it’s important for us to govern, but I truly think it’s a good process. This institution is so broken, so only crisis maybe will help, for the American people, to make us work.”
Ensuring A Win For President Trump
A meeting at the Georgia Capitol on December 14, 2020, was cited as a central element in Kenneth Chesebro’s last-minute plea agreement on October 20 in which he pleaded guilt to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. During that December meeting, according to a memo uncovered by investigators, Robert Sinners asked for the alternate (or “fake”) electors’ “complete discretion” and told them to say only that they were meeting with two state senators. “Your duties are imperative to ensure the end result — a win in Georgia for President Trump — but will be hampered unless we have complete secrecy and discretion.”
Reporters for the Associated Press and other news organizations noticed that Republicans were entering the building and eventually they were admitted into the room, where they photographed and recorded video of the proceeding.
Chesebro, who prosecutors allege helped to originate the plan for Republican electors to meet in states where Biden was certified as the winner, pleaded guilty one day after Attorney Sidney Powell had pleaded guilty to six misdemeanors for intentionally interfering with election duties as part of a broader conspiracy that prosecutors say violated Georgia’s anti-racketeering law. Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall, accused of playing a wide-ranging role in the conspiracy to reverse Trump’s loss in Georgia, had pleaded guilty on September 29.
This morning, a former lawyer for Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, Jenna Ellis, pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings. Ellis worked closely with Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who also was indicted on 13 charges in connection with the conspiracy. Ellis agreed to complete three to five years’ probation and 100 hours of community service, and to pay $5,000 in restitution to the Georgia secretary of state. She also agreed to write a letter of apology to the state of Georgia.
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