Also on today’s menu:
Mixed-Use Development Aims To Meet Housing Needs
House Votes Without Evidence To Impeach Biden
The New Hampshire Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Unit has filed a civil complaint against Nationalist Social Club-131, member Christopher Hood, and 19 others, referred to as John Does, charging them with violating the state’s law against discrimination, RSA 354-A.
The department alleges that Hood led a group of 19 NSC-131 members in an attempt to force the Teatotaller Café to cancel a planned drag queen story hour on June 18. Hood and the others stood outside the Concord café and for more than an hour, shouting homophobic slurs, chanting, and giving Nazi salutes, as well as banging on the café's glass windows and directing intimidating gestures and comments at the performer and those inside the café.
Attorney-General John Formella issued a statement: “Acts of hate designed to terrorize an individual or business into violating our state’s anti-discrimination laws are simply wrong and will not be tolerated. The Department of Justice will continue to enforce the state’s anti-discrimination laws to the greatest extent possible to ensure that people of all backgrounds can live free from discrimination, fear, and intimidation because of who they are. … New Hampshire is not and never will be a safe haven for hate groups that commit illegal acts that harm our citizens.”
NSC-131 operates in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and other New England states, and its alleged actions were “motivated by sex, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity” according to the complaint. Conviction under the anti-discrimination law can lead to an administrative fine as high as $10,000, and the court can take additional steps to ensure that future discrimination does not occur. Discrimination complaints are filed with the New Hampshire Commission for Human Rights; the plaintiffs have asked the commission to allow them to proceed directly to court.
Discussion: While the attorney-general’s earlier attempts to charge members of the group with violating the state’s civil rights act by hanging a “Keep New England White” banner from a Portsmouth overpass proved to be ill-advised and were rightfully deemed by the court to violate First Amendment rights (Formella’s office has appealed the ruling to the New Hampshire Supreme Court), NCS-131’s actions in Concord crossed the line by intimidating others and infringing on their rights. People are free to hold any opinion, but imposing their beliefs on others runs contrary to this nation’s ideals and laws.
Mixed-Use Development Aims To Meet Housing Needs
North Conway is one of the state’s 147 communities that allow mixed-use development, which addresses the needs of people who are working or living active lives into their 70s and 80s. Developer Joe Hogan is planning such a development with Ridgeline Community, that will offer housing ranging from cottages for people aged 55 and older, ski condos, and affordable units to assisted-living and memory-care facilities.
The first phase of the planned project will include 17 one-bedroom cottages, 15 of which will have rents capped at $1,500 a month, intended to accommodate some of workers who will be operating the assisted-living and memory-care facilities. The second phase will include 20 of the planned 56 cottages for people aged 55 and older, 140 market-rate condos, and a biomass plant that will heat many of the buildings and sidewalks. The third phase will be the construction of assisted-living and memory-care facilities, with 46 skilled-nursing units and 20 memory-care units.
Hogan has secured $3 million in state grants for affordable housing and $1.4 million in federal money for the biomass plant. The project will give people who want to age in place the option of living where shopping, dining, and recreational opportunities, including skiing, hiking, and kayaking, are abundant.
Discussion: As BabyBoomers age, and as health care prolongs life, there is a greater need for mixed-use projects that the old zoning laws did not envision. In the past, such residential communities were available only to those who are wealthy, but there is a need for more affordable housing throughout the state that meets the needs of every age group.
House Votes Without Evidence To Impeach Biden
Republican presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson, a former congressman who presented the impeachment case against former president Bill Clinton in 1999, does not support the impeachment of President Joe Biden Jr., which even those bringing the charges admit is not based on any evidence of wrongdoing. “Impeachment should be reserved for the most serious of offenses,” Hutchinson told the BBC. “That’s how our founding fathers designed it. We don’t want to get into the tit-for-tat between the parties on impeaching the president from the opposing side.”
Despite that, House Republicans have unanimously voted to open an impeachment inquiry. When asked what he hopes to gain from it, Representative Troy Nehls (R-Texas) replied, “All I can say is Donald J. Trump 2024, baby.” Indeed, Trump told Megyn Kelly in a radio interview in September that “I think had they not done it to me … perhaps you wouldn’t have it being done to them. And this is going to happen with indictments, too.”
Biden reacted to the vote by calling out Republicans for “wast[ing] time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts” and pointing out that they are ignoring genuine issues such as funding for Ukraine and Israel and immigration policy. He said their inaction will lead to “self-inflicted economic crises like a government shutdown, which Republicans in Congress are driving us toward in just a few weeks because they won’t act now to fund the government and critical priorities to make life better for the American people.”
Trump told an audience in Iowa that, unless he is reelected, “we’ll have a depression the likes of which I don’t believe anybody has ever seen.” Yet, under Biden, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has reached an all-time high, over 37,000, while unemployment has remained below 4%, inflation has fallen to around 3 percent, and hiring for jobs remains strong.
Discussion: An impeachment inquiry is pure theater to detract attention from the inability of the House to transact any real business, as well as to show Trump that Republicans will give him the revenge he seeks. They know that, even if they succeed in the House, the Senate will never find Biden guilty of impeachable acts without anything to support the charges. House Republicans already have looked at 100,000-plus pages of records and have taken nearly 40 hours of testimony without finding such evidence.
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