Democracy for New Hampshire - Corporations

Net neutrality--Protecting the last refuge of free speech from the corporate global takeover

Thu, 15 May 2008 11:57:48 -0400

Will Antitrust Law Save Net Neutrality?

Congressman wants to use old regulations to prevent Internet discrimination

By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.Com

May 12, 2008

The ongoing struggle to protect "net neutrality," the right of consumers to access content on the Internet equally, took a new turn as members of Congress introduced legislation that would treat interference or content-blocking as violations of antitrust law.

The "Internet Freedom and Nondiscrimination Act of 2008," introduced by House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and co-sponsored by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to interact with each other on a "reasonable and nondiscriminatory basis," and would require network operators to ensure that all content, applications, and services are treated the same and not favored over others when consumers access them.

Monsanto + Monoculture = Monopoly

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 09:03:58 -0400

If the human species has one unique characteristic, it may well be the propensity to kill things it doesn't like or that simply displease. Other species destroy to sustain themselves; humans just do it because they can.

Now there's big money in it.

One of the biggest money makers is Monsanto, the organization that brought us Agent Orange, dioxin, RoundUp and, most recently, acquired the company, Delta&Pine Land, that developed, together with the Department of Agriculture, the terminator gene.

Like the other monopolistic clients (Walmart and Tyson Foods) of the Stephens Group of Little Rock, Arkansas, Monsanto is not flamboyant and not keen on random publicity. Which is probably why they declined to be interviewed for the French documentary on their achievements.

Video below the fold.

Seacoast Anti-Pollution League--Annual Meeting

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:25:43 -0400

We at SAPL have been making a concerted effort to raise the issues we all care about to a new, younger generation of New Hampshire seacoast residents, and to engage the area press in these issues:

Independent, offsite monitoring of the man-made-radiation environment
Containment and treatment of toxic waste sites
A push for energy conservation and sustainable energy alternatives
A physically and biologically healthy NH seacoast environment

Our annual meeting, May 29th 7PM at the Urban Forestry Center in Portsmouth, will feature the nationally recognized President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Arjun Makhijani as the main speaker. His seminal work, “Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free, A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy”, gives us a glimpse at a hopeful American energy future.
His bio: http://www.nuclearabolition.research.umich.edu/makhijani.html

News from Detroit

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 06:02:11 -0400

Perjury in the Court of Public Opinion

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:05:54 -0400

This past Sunday, the venerable New York Times published a lengthy screed in which it was revealed that some twenty-two high ranking retired military men and one still on active duty in the Pentagon had been suborned to give false evidence, about the conduct and progress of the aggression against Iraq, to the electronic and print media.

Concord Monitor - 200 flock to rally for impeachment

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:16:42 -0400

SOURCE: Concord Monitor
State representatives to vote on resolution

By LAUREN R. DORGAN, Monitor staff, April 15, 2008

Calling President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney "domestic enemies," Pentagon Papers icon Daniel Ellsberg headlined a rally in Concord last night calling for their impeachment.

The rally, which drew more than 200 people to the Capitol Center for the Arts, was aimed at the New Hampshire House, which is considering a resolution that would call on Congress to begin impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney. The resolution may come to a vote on the House floor tomorrow.

A pre-rally reception for the House members who will vote on the resolution drew a couple of dozen, among them a few who said they were on the fence about the resolution. Rep. Betty Hall, the 87-year-old Brookline Democrat who is the measure's lone sponsor, was bullish, pumping her arms at a press conference and saying: "I think it's gonna pass."

Scoop News interviews NH Rep Betty Hall on HR24: Impeachment Resolution

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:54:16 -0400

SOURCE: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0804/S00172.htm

NH Impeachment Resolution: Betty Hall Interview, Saturday, 12 April 2008, 3:12 pm, Column: Rosalea Barker

Stateside With Rosalea Barker

The ship of state is drifting and it’s getting hard to steer
It’s a complicated issue but the direction’s pretty clear
And each of us is who we need to get to there from here
In these times
Noel Paul Stookey, “In These Times”

As someone who once helped a group of people push a stranded scow back out into the Pacific Ocean, I know personally what people can achieve when the tide is right. In this brief email interview with Betty Hall, she says:

Brasscheck TV: The assassination of Eliot Spitzer

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:10:27 -0400

SOURCE: http://www.BrasscheckTV.com

http://www.BrasscheckTV.com

Most people have the sense that there was something bizarre and surreal about the sudden coordinated FBI and US news media attack on New York Governor Eliot Spitzer.

After all, unproven allegations about how he may have chosen to spend his own money on his own time hardly seems a worthy subject of front page news for a week

Citizen testimony before the NH House on HR 24 Resolution to Impeach

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 13:08:21 -0400

Review testimony from NH citizens at the NH House hearing on HR 24 the Resolution to Impeach. NH citizens from all political stripes, all adhering the the US Constitution, speak out on the need to get to the truth about the Bush administration.

View all of the youtubes here

Click the video below to hear Representative Betty Hall's testimony

Concord Monitor: "87-year-old firebrand resolved to oust Bush"

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 08:25:03 -0400

SOURCE: Concord Monitor, Article published Mar 19, 2008, By SARAH LIEBOWITZ

Photo, KEN WILLIAMS / Monitor staff
Rep. Betty Hall, a Democrat from Brookline, (right) talks with Majority Leader Mary Jane Wallner at the State House yesterday.

The first time Rep. Betty Hall had the opportunity to vote in support of a presidential impeachment, she declined.

It was 1973 and Hall, only two years into what would become a lengthy legislative career, found herself surrounded by New Hampshire lawmakers debating a resolution urging the impeachment of then-President Richard Nixon. Opposition was overwhelming: The proposal garnered 11 votes, Hall said.

Baldasaro (R-Londonderry) tries to pervert HR24 Impeachment Resolution with illegal amendment

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:20:58 -0400

NH Representative Baldasaro (r-Londonderry) attempts to derail HR24 with illegal amendment to impeach Carol Shea Porter...HELP NEEDED - ETERNAL VIGILANCE - HELP PASS HR24

Betty Hall will be on George Corrette's radio show this morning (Thursday) from 9-10am live streaming on this web site: www.WKNH.org

George's program is called "Empire Watch" and it comes right out of Keene State College 91.3 FM (It comes right after Democracy Now! from 8-9am).

What happened Wednesday was only the tip of the iceberg revealed right here in NH....we now see plainly the cards that Bush's supporters are mounting against Betty's petition calling for commencement of impeachment hearings of Bush/Cheney.

We are shining the light of underhanded tactics.....meant to discredit and bring shame on the impeachment process and drag US Representative Carol Shea-Porter into this nefarious plot by introducing...like a toxic slug!....an illegal amendment onto Betty's petition.

Rep Betty Hall's HR24 to be voted on Wednesday, March 19

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:26:08 -0400

Rep Betty Hall's HR24 to be voted on Wednesday, March 19.

Concord, NH - We know Rep. Hall has the courage, she is known for her integrity and today, Wednesday March 19, New Hampshire House Resolution 24 will come up for the a vote in the Full House Session.

Today on the 5th Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq, while some around the country are discussing "sunshine patriots", Representative Hall and her colleagues will debate attributes of Jefferson's Manual, FISA, US Attorney firings and how "our right to vote protects all other rights" regarding impeachment of President Bush and Dick Cheney.

We learned at an impeachment teaching forum last night, in Manchester that they cannot ignore an impeachment subpoena or it becomes another impeachable offense. Ignoring the subpoena is what caused Nixon to decide to resign in 1 1/2 days.

Many people we have contacted including House Representatives tell us they are looking forward to the debate. US Representatives Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter have been invited and could attend.

Sometimes they do the right thing: House Democrats reject telecom amnesty, warrantless surveillance

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 16:37:32 -0400

SOURCE: Salon.com

Finally, we have some genuine resolve and defiance in favor of the rule of law and basic constitutional protections.

BY Glenn Greenwald

Mar. 14, 2008 | (updated below - Update II)

The House just now approved a new FISA bill that denies retroactive immunity to lawbreaking telecoms and which refuses to grant most of the new powers for the President to spy on Americans without warrants. It passed comfortably, by a 213-197 margin.

Notably, many of the 21 "Blue Dogs" who previously signed a letter indicating their support for telecom immunity and the Rockefeller bill -- including several of the six whom our highly successful fund-raising campaign earlier this week targeted -- voted (and spoke) in support of the House bill (only 10 Democrats voted against the bill, including at least a couple of progressives who think the bill doesn't go far enough). Many of those Blue Dogs were persuaded to support the bill by the protections which the bill offers to telecoms (i.e., authorizing them to introduce even classified evidence in the lawsuits to prove they complied with the law, if they actually did).

The $200 billion bail-out for predator banks and Spitzer charges are intimately linked

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:37:50 -0400

SOURCE: www.GregPalast.com

By Greg Palast

While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an 'escort' $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush's new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.

Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there's a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush's man Bernanke was using ours.

This week, Bernanke's Fed, for the first time in its history, loaned a selected coterie of banks one-fifth of a trillion dollars to guarantee these banks' mortgage-backed junk bonds. The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers' bordello: Eliot Spitzer.

Farmers markets and Big Brother

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:10:27 -0500

SOURCE: NYT

March 1, 2008, Op-Ed Contributor, My Forbidden Fruits (and Vegetables), By JACK HEDIN, Rushford, Minn.

IF you’ve stood in line at a farmers’ market recently, you know that the local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are having a tough time keeping up with the demand.

But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.

As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As I’ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.