The right to choose your stance?

The jury’s — that is, voters — are still out, but the likely overturning of Roe v. Wade has politicos, mostly carrying a GOP ID, who are running in high-profile races scurrying for something to tell the vast majority of NH’ers — close to 70% of whom, by some estimates, favor a woman’s right to choose abortion in all/most cases.

The sticky situation gets really stickier when you realize that pure, 100% opposition to abortion is what NHGOP primary voters are gonna want to hear.

So, what’s a pol to do? Well, they could do what GOPer Kevin Smith is doing.

KS is a longtime anti-choicer — going back to his days as head of the Christian group Cornerstone Action, and even before then, when he was GOP rep.

It was during his time as a rep in the late ‘90s when he sponsored a bill prohibiting a certain medical procedure that’s used for abortions as well as for treating women after a miscarriage. At first, he kept language in there that allowed the so-called D&E’s when the life of a mother was under threat. But he later changed his mind about that and inserted language removing all exceptions. So, a mother’s life under threat was a no-go.

That was then. This is now. Shortly after the US Supreme Court’s Roe decision, KS, in an interview for Channel 9, told the newspeeps that he has “always” supported exceptions to abortion.

“I’ve always been pro-life with exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother,” quoth KS.

Hmmm … so he was against a “mother’s life” exception before he was for it?

A bigger bench?

Keep your eye on the bid by Charlene Lovett, former GOP rep and mayor of Claremont, who’s running as a Dem for the Dist. 8 Senate seat (the one Ruth Ward holds).

On most counts, it sure seems like CL might be a good fit for the Dems seeking to unseat RW. Because there’s a growing bunch of peeps just like her — ex-GOPers who’ve said “no mas” to a party that, in NH at least, seems to only want the world to look like what they see in the mirror every morning.

Per CL: “The party that I grew up in and have been part of for many decades isn’t the party of today. I feel like the party left me behind.” Of course, you’ve heard the same version of that statement over the years from people who may even be near and dear to you.

But there’s one thing about CL that, in another world and at another time, might have been no problemo.

She’s in favor of limiting abortion to the first 20 weeks of pregnancy — not exactly in step with what most Dem politicos or the party’s platform have been saying in the wake of the 24-week limit backed by the GOP and signed by the guv last year. They were against it, you may recall.

Oh, and CL also supports a gun owner’s right to carry concealed weapons without a permit, and allowing the prevention of college students from voting.

Just a bit of history: There used to be quite a few Dems in the Legis. who held views similar to CL’s.

“I’ve done more on the prolife issue, if you will, than anyone.”

— Guv Sununu, in a recent DC-based podcast interview. Sounds almost Trumpian, doesn’t he?

The truth hurts

Nothing says more about the peeps who make up the NH House of Reps than when they get publicity about their outside interests, whether it’s membership in a white supremacist militia, squirrel-killing or, most recently, getting sued for defamation for outright lying.

Such is the case of Derry GOPer David Love, who is being sued by two peeps who took part in a “Drag Queen Story Time” get-together in Derry in 2021.

You may recall that at the time, The Man Who Actually Has Love In His Name claimed that one of the drag queens was a convicted sexual offender and the other was “rubbing butts” with children during the Story Time.

Both claims, the plaintiffs say in their defamation suit, are “wantonly, maliciously and oppressively” false accusations.

Where did the claims come from? Well, it turns out DL is the sponsor of House Bill 1529 — later ITL’d — which would have required public libraries to conduct background checks on any prospective employees and volunteers. And it was, according to his own testimony in committee — because of the things that DIDN’T HAPPEN EXCEPT IN HIS OWN MIND — involving the two drag queens.

The claim about “rubbing butts” was as “false as it can possibly get,” said Scott Hayward, owner of Tupelo, when the claim was first made. And DL himself told the UL that he was “told by a couple constituents” about the claim.

As for the pedophile claim, when asked by a reporter where he found the “info,” he told Manchester Ink Link he read it in a newspaper, with the caveat, “I don’t know if it was a Boston Herald or the Union Leader or what.”

It was neither, BTW.

The beauty part? Love actually admitted in a Facebook DM to one of the plaintiffs that his statements were “erroneous” and, in a DM to the other plaintiff’s mother admitted that his statements were “incorrect.”

In other words, lies.

MAKING THE ROUNDS

Remember the days when, if high-ranking state officials faced serious criminal charges, they would more than likely be forced to resign, if not get fired?

Quick question: If it were a GOPer who voted twice in the prez primary — once in NH and the other time in Jersey — would he have gotten a pat on the back from the AG and not even a slap on the wrist?

Despite the mood in the Legis. over “voter integrity,” or whatever they call it this week, SB 418 — the “provisional ballot bill” — may turn out to be a can of worms for supporters, since they may not have factored in all the military peeps and their supporters who oppose the bill as limiting their ability to vote.

Will hotblooded Free Staters consider it a warning sign when Croydon voters, in a landslide, restored the original school budget after the FS’ers originally engineered a move to cut the budget by more than half? Probably not.