Free Republic

CONCORD, N.H. – The bouncing mega-meatball record has landed in the East Coast. Matthew Mitnitsky, owner of Nonni's Italian Eatery in Concord, said Sunday that a 222.5-pound meatball was authenticated as the world's largest after being weighed by state weights and measures officials. A Guinness Book of World Records official confirmed the big meatball as a record breaker and presented Mitnitsky with a plaque.

Pelosi vs. NH: Wrecking the state budgetSaturday, Oct. 31, 2009 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled a health care reform bill that allegedly would cost the federal government less than previous House Democratic plans. But it would cost states more. The previous House bill would have made families earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level eligible for Medicaid, which states partially fund. New Hampshire pays 50 percent of its Medicaid costs. That would have cost states an additional $33 billion. Under Pelosi's bill, families earning up to 150 percent of the poverty level are to be covered by...

Rush Limbaugh is expected to be dropped from a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams, according to three NFL sources. Dave Checketts, chairman of the NHL's St. Louis Blues and the point man in the Limbaugh group attempting to buy the Rams, realizes he must remove the controversial conservative radio host from his potential role as a minority member in the group in order to get approval from other NFL owners, the sources said. Three-quarters of the league's 32 owners would have to approve any sale to Limbaugh and his group. Earlier this week, Indianapolis Colts owner Jim...

Four local young men are under arrest in connection with the violent stabbing death of a Mont Vernon mother and the vicious attack on her daughter. Steven Spader, 18, Christopher Gribble, 19, both of Brookline, William Marks, 18 and Quinn Glover, 17, both of Amherst, will be arraigned late this morning in Milford District Court, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office. Spader and Gribble are charged with first degree murder in the death of Kimberly Cates, 42, and attempted murder in the attack on her 11-year-old daughter. Marks and Glover are charged with burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary...

In the shadow of the fallen Old Man of the Mountain in Franconia, N.H., on a lonely stretch of mountain road, two men lay dead. A spasm of violence that took only a few minutes to play out leaves a community divided and searching for answers. Casey Sherman’s “Bad Blood: Freedom and Death in the White Mountains” (University Press of New England), just published, is an exhaustive account of the longstanding feud between Franconia police officer Bruce McKay, 48, and Liko Kenney, 24, the two dead men. In May 2007, Kenney shot and killed McKay after a harrowing chase that...

BERLIN – The prayers of the city's Catholic parish offered 10 months ago after its church was vandalized and religious items stolen were answered over the weekend with their recovery from the Androscoggin River."That's a minor miracle in itself," said Merle Albert, the deacon at the century-old Good Shepherd Parish, formerly called St. Anne Church.Early last November, parishioners came to church one Sunday morning to find a heartbreaking sight: tipped over furniture, discharged fire extinguishers and broken candles. Worse was the discovery that the Blessed Sacraments -- so important to the church and its parishioners -- and several historic artifacts...

A Christian homeschool girl in New Hampshire has been ordered into government-run public school for having "sincerely held" religious beliefs. An attorney working with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has filed motions with a New Hampshire court, asking it to reconsider its order to send the 10-year-old homeschooled girl into public school. According to ADF allied attorney John Anthony Simmons, the court acknowledges that the girl in question is doing well socially and academically, but he adds that the court went too far when they determined that the girl's Christian faith was a "bit too sincerely held and must be...

Any lingering doubts about the political leanings of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews were forever erased when the commentator launched a verbal assault on New Hampshire resident William Kostric, who had protested outside a “town hall meeting” in Portsmouth Tuesday while openly carrying a pistol. My colleague, David Codrea, writes about this incident here, complete with videos of the Matthews-Kostric on-air exchange, so I’m not going to load up this space with the same videos. CBS blogger Declan McCullagh writes about it here. This meeting was attended by President Barack Obama, it was a canned event with evidently only Obama supporters in...

"Frightening" is how Dr. Nancy Snyderman described it when MSNBC spotted a man openly carrying a holstered handgun near a New Hampshire town hall meeting where President Obama was scheduled to speak. Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy The message could not be more clear. A citizen exercising his or her Constitutionally guaranteed right is a scary threat. And even if they don't have bad intent, they're just not competent enough to have guns. Why, at another event in Arizona, someone dropped a gun, Dr. Nancy tells us, the implication being none of us...

Apparently people in Washington think we pay no attention to what happens in our neighboring states. The President decided to speak on government health care plans in New Hampshire because each of the neighboring states has had a failed experiment with exactly the kind of changes Washington wants to bring to all of us. None of the rhetoric in the President's speech was new to New Englanders. All of it is eerily reminiscent of the hopes and dreams of Dirigo Choice in Maine and Commonwealth Care in Massachusetts. Both of those plans went into effect, and neither has proved effective,...

Supporters, protesters and media began gathering in Portsmouth Tuesday morning in preparation of President Barack Obama's arrival in New Hampshire.

Paging Jonah Goldberg! If this developing story did not smack of some twisted Orwellian nightmare then I might chuckle, but instead I am left wondering if this is the start of something bigger. In any event, I am not sure if there has been a precedent of this nature and I am holding the White House responsible. Unless of course if Secret Service calling up individuals because of what they post on the Internet is normal, then perhaps I am just over reacting. It all began several days ago, when I wrote about the 'disinformation' collection request issued by the...

The Eagle Times, a six-day-a-week newspaper that serves Claremont and surrounding towns, is publishing its last edition today, the owner told employees Thursday. In a four-paragraph memo distributed to workers, company president Harvey Hill said Eagle Publications will file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy Friday. Hill said his family is unable to continue underwriting the losses of the company, which also includes three weekly publications. "We did our best to continue the operations, but the economy and the changes in the newspaper industry have made it impossible to continue this business," the memo reads. He thanked the workers for their support...

Gun legislation on both the state and national levels is inevitable because of the makeup of both state and national legislative bodies. It’s time for gun owners, be they hunters, sport shooters, people who own guns for self and family protection and even trappers who own guns to dispatch their trapped animals to put down any petty differences they may have with one another and get active. If you can’t volunteer to work against some of these very restrictive laws that are in the works, the least you can do is to join the NRA or our own state’s very...

For five months of the year, Marj Rawls and Janice Pollack make New Hampshire their home. After selling their house in Harpersville, Ala., 12 years ago and using the money to buy an RV, the two have been traveling all across country – and stop at a little campground in Brookline each summer to enjoy the Granite State. But after making New Hampshire their home for so many summers, they may start rethinking their travel plans due to the state's newly revised rooms and meals tax. "We love this area and we love coming here," Rawls said. "But now we...

Massachusetts wants even more tax revenue—from New Hampshire.___ Should New Hampshire businesses have to collect Massachusetts sales taxes from border-crossing shoppers? That’s the issue in Town Fair Tire v. Massachusetts, a case before the Bay State’s Supreme Judicial Court with ramifications for commerce and constitutional law well beyond New England. In 2003, a Massachusetts Department of Revenue audit uncovered invoices from three New Hampshire outlets of the Town Fair Tire company (TFT) to customers with Massachusetts addresses. Because Connecticut-based TFT also has locations in Massachusetts—and therefore benefits from various public services there, from police protection to road maintenance—the Massachusetts Appellate...

Putting it in the vernacular of little people everywhere: “The worst has happened”. The 4th Annual New Hampshire Live Free or Die Rally is quickly sinking into a quagmire of bureaucratic red tape, and with no 11th hour reprieve on the horizon, chief organizer Jean Coutu may have to cancel. Billed as the All Free, Only TRUE First Amendment Rally in the U.S., this years Live Free or Die Rally is scheduled for August 21, 22 and 23. “It looks like it’s finally over. Not just for us, but for the right to assemble, Coutu wrote Canada Free Press (CFP)...

The drive for same sex marriage stalled in New Hampshire over insistence by Governor John Lynch that the legislation must include strong protections for religious institutions and individuals who oppose such unions. This tactic – now adopted by gay marriage advocates across the country – may provide office holders with political cover but will offer very little legal security for defenders of traditional marriage. Legislative “conscience” provisions won’t survive lawsuits by agitators or judgments by activist jurists. If gay marriage is a fundamental human and constitutional “right,” then how could faith-based groups or religious individuals legally discriminate against the exercise...

New Hampshire lawmakers unexpectedly rejected a bill on Wednesday that would have made the state the sixth in the United States to authorize gay marriage. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives voted down the bill in a 188-186 vote, hours after its Senate approved the legislation 14-10 along party lines. An earlier version of the bill passed the state's House of Representatives on March 26. Both chambers had been asked to approve language that would give religious institutions opposed to gay marriage legal protections, including the right to decline to marry same-sex couples. That wording was added by Governor John Lynch,...

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - The New Hampshire House has passed a bill intending to protect retailers from becoming tax collectors for other states. The bill, which had passed the Senate, bars retailers from sharing sales information with out-of-state tax collectors. It was filed in response to action in Massachusetts revenue agents took against a Connecticut-based tire store chain that has stores in New Hampshire.

CONCORD, N.H. – Gov. John Lynch said Thursday he will sign a bill to make his state the sixth to legalize gay marriage as soon as the Legislature makes some changes, which legislative leaders immediately said they would back.

Now! Hampshire: The thousands of taxpayers who gathered in several locations around the Granite State on Tax Day “didn’t even know what they were protesting,” according to the state’s top Democratic Party official. “They looked like they lost their minds,” said Ray Buckley, Chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party of the protesters.

If the marijuana protest and guerilla gardening in downtown Keene failed to raise many eyebrows, the sight of a handful of handcuffed Free Staters being taken out of the city’s District Court earlier this week surely had plenty of residents scratching their heads. The reader comments piled up under online coverage of Monday’s protest at the District Court on The Sentinel’s Web site, where some people ridiculed and criticized the Free Staters for wasting taxpayer dollars and the time of city police officers. “Time and again, the Free Staters come off as insolent children who stomp their feet and hold...

As Portsmouth resident Betty Hill drove her mother home on Route 108 at 8 p.m. Sept. 7, 1977, she saw large red and green lights on what she believed to be a UFO as she neared Trickling Falls in East Kingston. Later as she was driving home, she saw another UFO with red and green lights following railroad tracks near Route 107. Betty Hill's report of a UFO sighting is one of thousands she catalogued during her lifetime after she and her husband, Barney Hill, became known internationally for reporting they had been abducted by aliens in 1961 in New...

52 Buildings Burn on Easter at New Hampshire Christian Center Sunday, April 12, 2009 ALTON BAY, N.H. — A massive Easter fire has damaged dozens of buildings on the grounds of a Christian center in New Hampshire. Firefighters tell the News 9 television station in Manchester that 52 buildings burned at the Alton Bay Christian Conference Center, 30 miles northeast of Concord. The buildings are cottage-type seasonal homes. There are no reports of civilian injuries. One firefighter has been hurt. The fire erupted at 4:30 p.m. Easter Sunday, when Christians were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The fire's cause...

State is wrongly seizing private fundsBy CHARLES M. ARLINGHAUS 7 hours, 30 minutes ago New Hampshire's budget is being balanced this year in part by turning private insurance funds into government money and appropriating the funds for government use. The raid illustrates how fiscal problems can tempt a government to limit property rights and rationalize behavior it would never consider otherwise. The state's current financial crisis is well known. During the governor's budget address, he announced his intention to use $110 million from a little-known medical malpractice fund to balance the budget. His announcement immediately sent policy makers scrambling to...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPCxYPN3yDM Adorned with bowie knives, pistols and peaceful exasperation...Freedom activists swarm the New Hampshire legislature demanding passage of a warning to Washington. This bill would declare the union nullified if the central government commits certain abuses.

Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter (D) announced Monday that she will not run for US Senator in 2010. Congressman Paul Hodes (D) previously entered the race to succeed retiring US Senator Judd Gregg (R). Hodes now looks unlikely to face serious opposition for the Democratic nomination. Former US Senator John Sununu is considering running on the GOP side, and would be viewed as the strongest Republican candidate. Several other Republicans -- including former Congressman Charlie Bass and former Governor Steve Merrill -- are also looking at the race.

If you run a red light, you could get a ticket. A few legislators want to change that equation. Their idea: If your car runs a red light, you will automatically get a ticket. A pair of Bedford Republicans, of all people, have introduced another red light camera bill. Sen. Sheila Roberge and Rep. John Graham want to allow local police departments to install cameras at intersections. If the camera photographs your car running a red light, you will be sent a ticket. Click for Editorials & Op-EdsSo much for being innocent until proven guilty. With red light cameras, you...

Entrepreneurs have a mindset and orientation to work their way through uncertainty by taking action. "Making things happen" is the hallmark of an entrepreneur, and it defines our 44th president.

A proposal to build an expansive wind farm in the high elevation lands of the Northern Forest has both the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and the Appalachian Mountain Club voicing concern. Biologists for Fish and Game said the project of Granite Reliable Power LLC to build 33 turbines in the Dixville Peak and Mount Kelsey area would permanently bisect habitat of at least four wildlife species and will have "severe and unmitigated adverse effects on the natural community," which is host to about 60 others. AMC has filed as an intervenor on the project, expressing concern about the...

NEW YORK – As the Obama administration attempts to push through Congress a nearly $1 trillion deficit spending plan that is weighted heavily toward advancing typically Democratic-supported social welfare programs, a rebellion against the growing dominance of federal control is beginning to spread at the state level. So far, eight states have introduced resolutions declaring state sovereignty under the Ninth and Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, including Arizona, Hawaii, Montana, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma and Washington. Analysts expect that in addition, another 20 states may see similar measures introduced this year, including Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho,...

HCR 6 – AS INTRODUCED 2009 SESSION 09-0274 09/01 HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION 6 A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles. SPONSORS: Rep. Itse, Rock 9; Rep. Ingbretson, Graf 5; Rep. Comerford, Rock 9; Sen. Denley, Dist 3 COMMITTEE: State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs ANALYSIS This house concurrent resolution affirms States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles. 09-0274 09/01 STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Nine A RESOLUTION affirming States’ rights based on Jeffersonian principles. Whereas the Constitution of the State of New Hampshire, Part 1, Article 7 declares that the people of this...

Rep. Carla Skinder would like to set the record straight: She owns six horses, a donkey, six sheep, a potbellied pig, two dogs and a cat. Plus, her husband has a horse of his own. So when she proposed a bill requiring all horse owners to pay an annual $25 registration fee and prove their equine had been vaccinated for rabies, she knew the fee would come out of horse owners' pockets.

Bedford Republicans, Sheila Roberge, Ken Hawkins and John Graham have intoduced a bill into the NH Senate to bring red light cameras to NH intersections. Bill text at: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/SB0113.html

State Senator Sheila Roberge (R-Bedford Senate District 9) has put forward a Legislative Service Request (LSR 2009-S-0874-R) for 2009 titled "Authorizing the electronic enforcement of traffic signal violations." A similar bill was introduced by Democratic legislators in 2005 and was defeated in the New Hampshire House by a 2-to-1 margin. With very different legislature and a much tighter state budget we cannot assume this will happen again. These cameras are very controversial no matter where they are installed. The state of Virginia discontinued its widespread use of red light cameras for two years following a Virginia DOT study that showed...

NH joins final test of greenhouse gas cap-trade systemBy DAVID BROOKS Telegraph Staff Published: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 If it's true that the country tends to follow New Hampshire's lead – which is the whole idea of our presidential primary, after all – then today's auction of the right to send 1.2 million tons of carbon into the air has extra significance. New Hampshire is participating for the first time in the 10-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI, or "reggie"), the hemisphere's first cap-and-trade system designed to curtail the gas that most contributes to global warming. The recession has reduced...

NASHUA, N.H.—A biodiesel refinery is opening in Nashua, N.H., next week and another is planned in Keene early next year. Batchelder Biodiesel Refineries is hosting a grand opening of its first refinery on Wednesday. The facility will convert yellow and brown waste grease into biofuel, a process that eliminates the "food vs. fuel" controversy like ethanol, which is processed from corn.

Meet Esther Kennedy. Esther Kennedy was born and raised in Rural New York and moved to the Dover Portsmouth area to work in public schools. She is currently the owner of a Marina called Esther's Marina on 41 Pickering AVE in Portsmouth. She has worked in the special education department in The school systems of Dover and Guilford. She has also worked in Marine affairs and several state wide task force. Yes! We should believe a typical city politician in a large growing New England city. There is however a dark side. Esther Kennedy was an employee of the...

Via Isaac Chotiner, Newsweek reports: The day of the third debate, Palin refused to go onstage with New Hampshire GOP Sen. John Sununu and Jeb Bradley, a New Hampshire congressman running for the Senate, because they were pro-choice and because Bradley opposed drilling in Alaska. The McCain campaign ordered her onstage at the next campaign stop, but she refused to acknowledge the two Republican candidates standing behind her. So according to the hatchet man/woman who talked to Newsweek, Palin is such an ideologue about drilling in ANWR that she won't stand next to Bradley, even though John McCain has the...

New Hampshire’s two freshman congressional incumbents are going back to Washington on their Democratic Party's sweep of major elected offices. U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter held off a late charge from Republican Jeb Bradley, who served the 1st District from 2003 to 2006. U.S. Rep. Paul W. Hodes celebrated a commanding victory over Republican Jennifer M. Horn in the 2nd District. With 11 of 12 wards in Manchester reporting, Shea-Porter led Bradley by 22,751 to 17,297. Hodes won his home city of Concord by a 2-to-1 margin, 13,817 to 6,941. In an election season of attacks and counter-attacks, the incumbents worked...

FOX News is reporting that Republican poll watchers in New Hampshire are being kept 40 feet away from the tables were new voters register. Republicans have filed a lawsuit (to be heard within hours) against the New Hampshire Secretary of State.

OK. What's your take on the famous New Hampshire hamlet? Post your views here.

Has anyone found any links for live video of Sarah in Columbus or McCain In NH? CNN apparently has cleared the way so the Fraud can be shown with the Ass from Asbury Park exclusively.

ABC News Reporter Jake Tapper's Political Punch Blog has a report on Sen. Barack Obama's push-back on John McCain's description of his tax policies, Tapper begins with a quote from Obama in Florida, here is the whole report: "The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich," Obama said in Sarasota, Fla., yesterday. "I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That's the American dream, that's the American way, that's terrific.

I just returned from a Sununu gathering of "Veterans for Sununu", the alternative is to dreadful to contemplate. John almost lost me when he joined the "Gang of Ten" but he came across very stongly on veterans issues, education, health, and family assitance. When you think of Queen Jean Shaheen being returned to power, I think that John is the way to go. All of the powers that be from the VFW, The Legion, and the DAV's where there. For those of you that recieved the VFW Mag endorsing Carol Che Porter in the NH First District, the State Commander...

John McCain has gained ground for the third straight month and now holds a slight two-point advantage over Barack Obama in the swing state of New Hampshire. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the Granite State finds McCain attracting 49% of the vote while Obama earns 47%. A month ago, it was Obama by a point. At the moment, the presidential race in New Hampshire is a toss-up. Nationally, the race remains close in the Daily Presidential Tracking poll. Seventy-four percent (74%) of Obama voters say they will vote with enthusiasm for their candidate, a feeling shared by 68%...

Customers at Northwood Power Equipment are hoping to get their outdoor wood heaters delivered before a new state law bans the selling of some models starting Jan. 1. "I don't think we're going to be taking orders anymore," said store manager Rick Devoid. "We're getting close to the deadline. Right now, it's a November-December delivery date." A state law passed in July set the Jan. 1 ban for selling outdoor wood-fired hydronic boilers that don't meet federal air pollution standards.

Nearly five years have passed since the Free State Project adopted New Hampshire as its home base and began the task of convincing 20,000 activists to commit to uprooting their lives and moving here. They would come in droves, the plan went, overwhelming the sparsely populated state and ultimately changing the way big government works by limiting its power through free-market solutions. There would be tax reductions; regulations such as being required to have a driver’s license to get behind the wheel of your own car would be relaxed or scrapped; power would be restored to the people and the...

MANCHESTER — - Drivers along I-291 had quite a sight Saturday, as a man wearing nothing but a thong, fake breasts and a wig sauntered along the side of the highway. Police said they received several calls about the man, which prompted an hour-long search. Police said they found the man, fully clothed and collecting cans behind a business on Batson Drive in Manchester. Police said they found a wig and fake breasts in the man's car. David Gebhardt, 42, of Manchester, was charged with disorderly conduct and simple trespass and was released on $2,500 bail.