Nashua Must Like Getting Sued

Our own illustrious Beth Scaer is pushing the buttons and pulling the triggers of the snowflakes cluttering up Nashua City Hall. She has requested that they fly another flag, and they’ve returned with a hard no.

At least one version of the flag is featured above, and there is no good reason to deny it. Maybe the City has decided it doesn’t like Beth? She made news and waves a few years back when she wanted to fly a Save Women’s Sports flag on the People’s Pole in front of City Hall. The flag got permission and was raised, but within 24 hours, whiney mayor Jim ‘The Douche’ Donchess had it pulled down (His pole appears to have a partisan case of ED).

When pressed with legal concerns after Boston lost 9-0 in the US Supreme Court—another flag pole and a different flag—Nashua removed the citizen flag pole webpage as if the solution was to do what Boston did after losing: stop raising citizen flags altogether. If we can’t control the speech then there shall be none! I’m actually okay with that. It seems wholly inappropriate for cities to be flying black Marxist banners and Gaystapo gang colors, given how intolerant the militant factions among each tend to be.

But, cities like Boston wanted to fly pride flags and BLM flags, but if they did that, according to the court, “…it will probably have to allow a Proud Boys flag. That’s just what the First Amendment requires.”

Damn, you First Amendment!

You may also be familiar with longtime ‘Grok friend and occasional contributor Hal Shurtleff. He took his case against Boston to the high court and won. We interviewed him about that journey here but back to Beth. The City must still be raising citizen flags because she asked permission to fly the NH Pine Tree Flag.

Nashua’s brave soldiers fought and died at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775. I applied to raise the Pine Tree Flag, which our soldiers carried into battle that day, on the Nashua City Hall Plaza to commemorate this solemn anniversary. My request was rejected because the “flag is not in harmony with the message that the City wishes to express or endorse.” The citizens of Nashua would be quite alarmed and ashamed to know that the City does not endorse the message of commemorating our soldiers fighting and dying at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

I am writing to appeal this decision by Jennifer Deshaies of Risk Management and requesting that my application to raise the Pine Tree Flag on June 15 be approved.

See my application and the rejection letter below.

As noted above, that was a hard no. Beth adds, that,

Mayor Donchess should be deeply embarrassed about his administration rejecting the raising of the Pine Tree Flag on Nashua City Hall Plaza in commemoration of the Battle of Bunker Hill. I am asking him to overturn the decision by the Risk Management office and approve my application to fly the flag.

(Law) Suit Yourself

After Shurtleff v. City of Boston, Nashua has very little room to move. As arrogant and intolerable as the City’s legal counsel is, they can’t possibly think they could survive a pricey trip through the American legal system given that Free Speech cases in general, and one identical to this, resulted in a unanimous verdict against a similar rejection. Every Justice agreed, and that trend continues with Sotomayor writing the latest 9-0 opinion in opposition to another deliberate case of viewpoint discrimination.

If Nashua has flown anyone else’s flag, they will lose, and having an unconstitutional pole policy is no excuse.

It’s not even a shadow of a penumbra. The only possible victory for Nashua is if a lower court has the sense to save taxpayers millions by stopping their viewpoint discrimination in the lowest court possible.

That seems unlikely. Another feature of the Gate City is that the mayor is just as arrogant as his legal counsel. As I write this, Beth has informed me that her appeal has been rejected.

Is there a national legal outfit willing to drag Donchess and the City into Court? I’m guessing Donchess doesn’t think so. Maybe someone will surprise him, not that his city doesn’t love being sued. Just look at how they handle the right-to-know requests (or the spending cap, for that matter).