Last night, the Brentwood Selectman held their weekly meeting but this one was a tad busier than their regular meetings. The biggest issue was something that was printed in the independent newsletter called ‘Brentwood Newsletter.’
This is not a town newsletter although it reports on all things in the Town of Brentwood. Residents voted to provide some funding to the newsletter for postage and printing costs. The newsletter is all voluntary with ads and donations making up the rest of the costs of preparing, printing and mailing it out. It’s an informative newsletter that lets everyone in the town know what’s going on and what’s coming up.
Brentwood Democrats took issue with the May 2019 newsletter because on the, now notorious ‘Page 7,’ they didn’t like a list of legislation posted along with how Representatives Liz McConnell (D-Brentwood) and Josh Yokela (R-Fremont, who represents Brentwood as the floterial) voted.
One of their complaints was that some of the titles of the legislation listed wasn’t exactly the title of the legislation in the legislature. All votes were accurate, although McConnell didn’t seem to want to admit that truth.
You can see what was printed below:
You can read all the actual details of the above legislation at the New Hampshire General Court website, as is also listed at the top of the table of bills from the newsletter.
During the meeting, when directly asked by one of the volunteers of the newsletter if her vote on HB 109 was accurate, McConnell refused to answer. That’s one of the titles that’s actually accurate although the bill is far, far more damaging to Granite Staters than the title lets on. That’s just one example. Again, all bill numbers and votes are 100% accurate.
And what is it that Brentwood Democrats were demanding the Board of Selectmen do to the Brentwood Newsletter, again, reminder, independently run?
C O N T R O L
Eric Turer presented the demands to the Brentwood Board of Selectmen. Turer also happens to be McConnell’s campaign treasurer. He used the word ‘control’ too many times to keep count.
This wasn’t a personal attack. It wasn’t dishonest information. The votes were 100% accurate. Only some of the titles were changed (not by the Brentwood Newsletter) to more accurately reflect the legislation. Too often, titles of legislation (that aren’t even created by the sponsors of said legislation) do not reflect the truth of what the legislation actually does. This table has been floating around the interwebs for the past few weeks now, many people have posted it.
Here are a list of the ridiculous demands Turer made that he thought the Board of Selectmen could force upon the independent Brentwood Newsletter:
EricTurerDemands
No, this isn’t a joke. He and Liz McConnell and other Brentwood Democrats are dead serious about this and they wanted to have the Brentwood Board of Selectman force these demands. Turer stressed that people should know who wrote that table of legislation and who sent it to the newsletter.
One of the editors of the newsletter said that some people don’t want to put their names on Letters to the Editor for fear of bullying because, as many of you know, even with adults, that can be a real issue. The same editor also brought up the fact that anonymous political speech is indeed protected by the First Amendment as has been argued by the Supreme Court of the United States. From EFF:
Anonymous communications have an important place in our political and social discourse. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment. A frequently cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:
Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.
McConnell is already on record as being against Free Speech with her vote against repealing the unconstitutional ‘Buffer Zone Bill’ so this is right up her alley.
One of McConnell’s biggest issues seems to be with the title of HB 696. She claims she would never vote for legislation that creates a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ standard. Of course, that’s a lie. McConnell is for Bloomberg’s Red Flag law which does exactly that. You can read all about that destructive legislation here. You can read the text of HB 696 here and decide for yourself what you think it does.
During the meeting, Turer even attempted to claim that there may be an issue of plagiarism from, of all places, GraniteGrok, because he tried to claim what the Brentwood Newsletter printed came from here (it didn’t. You can see what Skip wrote here).
What’s REALLY at issue is Democrats are scared that voters will learn the truth about McConnell’s record. It’s an R+5 district that McConnell only won (barely) because she spent almost $3,000 (in a town of a little over 4,000 people, 1/3 of that money came from Michael Bloomberg) while the Republican incumbent barely campaigned and spent so little he didn’t have to report it (yes, HIS own fault).
Of course McConnell doesn’t want that type of district to know how horribly she’s voting. She’s voted for every tax increase, every government increase and every freedom DECREASE she possibly can. She refuses to answer questions on her public state rep Facebook page and thinks the people of Brentwood are too ignorant to find out how badly she’s representing them.
THAT is the real issue at hand. THAT is why Brentwood Democrats want the ‘state’ to censor the Brentwood Newsletter.
If they were truly concerned about facts, they’d speak to McConnell about the mistruths she consistently tells in the same Brentwood Newsletter about how she is voting. She usually doesn’t give the numbers or actual titles of the legislation, she makes up some ‘feel good sounding’ name as to how she voted and they are neither accurate nor factually descriptive of what she really voted for.
Brentwood Democrats should start censoring their own selves for the truth rather than demanding the Board of Selectman censor anyone else.
If they can’t stand the heat of McConnell’s votes and what they stand for as a political party in Brentwood, maybe they should get out of the kitchen.
