Miscellany Blue - NH Politics

An unapologetic white nationalist has announced he is launching a Republican bid for a seat in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. “I refuse to sit back and watch the state I love turn into a 3rd world dumping ground while traitors and Anti-Whites try and silence anyone who opposes it,” wrote Ryan Murdough, a 38-year-old Holocaust denier who has been active in white nationalist causes for over a decade. “I will always stand up for the interests of White people in New Hampshire and I will never apologize and never back down.”

In a series of social media posts, the New Hampton resident signaled he will seek the Republican nomination in Belknap District 1, a single-seat district currently held by Republican Rep. Harry Viens, a one-term legislator from Center Harbor. “I am sick and tired of watching New Hampshire be invaded by 'Diversity ' while our so called leaders cuck out and do nothing but cower in fear of being called 'racist,’ ” Murdough wrote.

Despite omitting the vicious ethnic slurs and racial epithets that routinely fill his social media posts, Murdough’s announcement was subsequently removed by Facebook for violating the platform’s community standards on hate speech. “My original post has been censored by the Jews who run Facebook,” he complained.

If Murdough follows through and files a Declaration of Candidacy next year, it will be his second run for public office. In 2010, the Republican state party disavowed his candidacy for the state House after the Concord Monitor published a letter to the editor in which Murdough promoted his candidacy and called on “white people in New Hampshire and across the country to take a stand” and establish “our own homeland.”

“Mr. Murdough is a despicable racist,“ then-party spokesman Ryan Williams responded. "His racist views are abhorrent and he is not welcome in the New Hampshire Republican Party.” Murdough ultimately received 296 votes in the GOP primary but finished last among the five Republican candidates and failed to advance to the general election.

‘Anti-Whites in New Hampshire’

In his campaign announcement, Murdough identified himself as the founder and president of NH Nationalists, an unincorporated group without any other publicly-identified members; though Murdough claims he has established chapters in several New Hampshire counties. Over time, Murdough has both taken credit for and disassociated himself from the group.

Last year, NH Nationalists gained notoriety with a webpage titled “Anti-Whites in New Hampshire” that featured a list of prominent Granite Staters and their contact information. The list came in response to a well-publicized gathering of business executives, nonprofit leaders and government officials who explored how the state can attract a more diverse workforce. The Union Leader reported that at least a half-dozen of the diversity forum attendees subsequently received threatening phone calls and emails.

Murdough’s link to NH Nationalists was first reported by Miscellany Blue, a story that earned us a spot on the “Anti-Whites in New Hampshire” list. Soon afterward, Murdough acknowledged that the webpage prompted a call from the FBI, writing on social media that they were “concerned about the safety of the people on the list due to the information that is listed on it. In particular, the contact info for the State Representatives was supposedly most concerning to them.”

A couple of months later, Google shuttered the NH Nationalists website, which had been hosted on its Blogger platform. Murdough then launched a new “Anti-Whites in New Hampshire” webpage, along with a racist and anti-Semitic blog, on his eponymous website. Recently, that site was also shut down, this time by WordPress.com, for violating their terms of service.

‘The Swastika is the solution’

For the upcoming campaign, Murdough says he will not agree to any interviews with “anti-White” media outlets. “I will use Gab to communicate as it is possibly the last bastion of free speech online,” he wrote. If Murdough’s social media posts presage his campaign, it will be a toxic stew of racist, anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi rhetoric.

On Gab, Murdough responded to the recent mass shooting in New Zealand with an open letter to the state’s mosques and synagogues: “We condemn the shooting in New Zealand but to be honest we really don't care about dead Muslims. We care about our own people and we are sick of your third world culture ruining our nations.”

“We do not support violence toward anyone but we are sick of Jews promoting third world invasions into every White nation,” he continued. “We are tired of our women being raped and murdered at the hands or your pet Africans and being demonized for opposing the savagery. As far as we are concerned the blood is on your hands.”

Murdough embraces Nazi ideals and denies the horrors of the Holocaust. “In my opinion, the most important truth we need to tell is the truth about Hitler and expose the Jewish lies regarding the Holohoax,” one Gab post read. “It's impossible to read Mein Kampf and not realize he was right and has been lied about for 70+ years,” added another.

(Screenshot: New Hampshire Nationalists website)

On the day thousands of Granite Staters attended March for Our Lives rallies around the state and joined with survivors of the Parkland, Florida school massacre to demand action against gun violence, a counter-protest of sorts was taking place in Hooksett.

There, in the parking lot of the Bass Pro Shops, white nationalists and neo-Nazis quietly distributed anti-Semitic flyers demanding to know, “Why are Jews after our guns?”

“Operation Gun Grabbing Kikes” was the first national campaign carried out by Daily Stormer Book Clubs, loosely-connected groups of white nationalists led by Andrew Anglin, the man behind the website the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “the top hate site in America.”

The goal for the operation, Anglin wrote, was to “Raise awareness about who is trying to take away the gun rights of good Americans, leaving them defenseless to the ugly colored hordes they are forcing into our country, against the will of the actual Americans (White people).”

Anglin describes Stormer Book Clubs as an “IRL [in real life] troll army” of like-minded men organized “to prepare for the coming race war.”

“What I envision is more than simple meetings, but something where people can form real friendships with others who are in the know and share a desire to strengthen themselves and crush the enemy,” he explained. “You will form cells, build bonds, develop brotherhood. You will become stronger, better men.”

In a March update to members, Anglin and Daily Stormer’s “man on the ground” Robert Warren Ray (aka Azzmador) proclaimed, “Stormer Book Clubs are going to be the very best pro-White activist group on Earth.”

That same month, leaders of the New Hampshire chapter created an account on Gab, the Twitter-alternative favored by the alt-right. “We represent the great State of New Hampshire and American nationalism on behalf of the infamous and unapologetically pro-White Daily Stormer,” they wrote.

The group used the Gab account, which has since been deleted, to document their exploits around the state. “New Hampshire loves guns, New Hampshire loves Bass Pro Shops, New Hampshire does not love gun-grabbers,” they wrote in a caption accompanying the photos from the Hooksett action.

The group’s next national campaign, “Operation White America,” launched a few weeks later and featured posters that declared, “America was created as a White Nation… and it WILL be a White Nation again!” Members of the local chapter posted a photo that featured one of the posters mounted outside the Target store in Keene.

In June, local members left an anti-Semitic flyer at the New Hampshire Holocaust Memorial in Nashua. “Back to Israel, Jews!” it read, a declaration Azzmador described as “a simple, timely message designed to get people thinking about the pernicious kosherites busily rubbing their hands as they celebrate our destruction.”

No individuals have publicly acknowledged being members of the New Hampshire chapter nor taken credit for distributing any of the flyers. “The anonymity and well-being of our members is our top priority,” the New Hampshire group noted on Gab.

Diversity forum attendees receive threats

One Granite State white nationalist who doesn’t hide from the public eye is Ryan J. Murdough, a one-time candidate for the New Hampshire House and founder of New Hampshire Nationalists, a group whose website and social media posts are filled with racist and anti-Semitic slurs.

“New Hampshire Nationalists are sick of hearing about racial injustice and inequality while 13 percent of the population commits over 50 percent of the violent crime in the United States,” Murdough wrote in a letter to the editor published by the Laconia Daily Sun last year. "I created New Hampshire Nationalists so white men and women can work together to fight for their rights, survival, and those they love."

References to Murdough as the group’s leader have since been scrubbed from the group’s website, though archived copies survive. On white nationalist message boards, the group’s founder and president is sometimes identified as “R.J. McBride,” an apparent pseudonym (or nom de guerre) for Murdough.

The group recently grabbed headlines by publishing contact information for dozens of Granite State business executives, nonprofit leaders and government officials who gathered last month to explore how the state can attract a more diverse workforce. On Gab, "New Hampshire Nationalists" wrote, “The identifying of these anti-White scumbags will never stop."

“The Anti-Whites attempting to force 'diversity' into a state that doesn't need it nor want it, should move to Africa, Mexico, Zimbabwe, Brazil and spare the rest of us from their Anti-White agenda…” the group’s website complained. “Diverse simply means less White and we oppose that very much.”

The Union Leader first reported that at least a half-dozen of the diversity forum attendees subsequently received threatening phone calls and emails following the disclosures.

Some of those who harassed the attendees bragged about their exploits on Gab. “New Hampshire Nationalists” posted a copy of an email he sent to photographer Becky Field, who has been documenting daily life among families of foreign-born residents of New Hampshire since 2012. “Hello Becky,” his email read. “We wanted to let you that your anti-White activism in N.H. has paid off. You made our list of ‘Anti Whites in New Hampshire’, congrats.”

John Young, an “ethnic advocate” for California-based European Americans United, also admitted contacting some of those on the list. “I very politely expressed my displeasure at the racism THEY were demonstrating toward white people, and told them I would work to remove them from positions of power and influence,” he wrote. “But that is not a ‘threat’ in any physical sense. And I am not a white supremacist. I'm an identitarian. Very different thing.”

‘Trump has changed the game’

Murdough has been active in white nationalist causes for over a decade. He served as the New Hampshire state chairman for the American Freedom Party (formerly the American Third Position Party or A3P), a group whose stated mission was to "represent the political interests of White Americans" and as the National Political Director for the neo-Nazi National Socialist American Labor Party.

In 2010, when Murdough ran for a seat in the New Hampshire House as a Republican, the state party disavowed his candidacy. “Mr. Murdough is a despicable racist," party spokesman Ryan Williams said. "His racist views are abhorrent and he is not welcome in the New Hampshire Republican Party."

The white nationalist American Freedom Party also withdrew support for Murdough, their first official political candidate. Jamie Kelso, the party’s membership coordinator (and onetime personal assistant for David Duke), called Murdough a “Sieg Heil provocateur” who “hurt the party’s image badly.” Kelso told a reporter that the party “repudiated him immediately after they heard his ‘Hitlerian neo-Nazi material.’”

Murdough received 296 votes in the GOP primary for the Grafton District 8 seat representing Alexandria, Ashland, Bridgewater, Bristol, Groton and Holderness. He finished last among the five Republican candidates and failed to advance to the general election.

In a series of recent messages on Gab, Murdough described the campaign as “a blast.”

“I got 13% of the vote despite all of the opposition and explicit pro-White philosophy,” he wrote. “I truly enjoyed how much I triggered the NH media and political establishment... I loved it. It came with consequences but I knew that going in.” He concluded, “I will definitely do it again.”

After the 2010 campaign, Murdough retreated from the public eye. He re-emerged last fall – just weeks after Pres. Trump failed to condemn the white nationalists and neo-Nazis involved in the deadly Charlottesville protest – with a series of inflammatory letters to the editor of the Laconia Daily News and the launching of the New Hampshire Nationalists website and related social media accounts.

State Rep. Gary Hopper believes teaching children the theory of evolution results in a “hopelessness” that is one of the primary factors motivating teenagers to commit mass shootings.

In Hopper’s telling of evolutionary theory – which he recounted during an episode of his online talk show, “Rock, Paper, Hand Grenades” – “there was nothing, and out of some freak accident, everything.” The earth “just happened to be exactly in the right location for life to be created there,“ he said. "Life was an inadvertent accident.”

“If you are a child raised in a situation and you’re depressed, you could look at that particular piece of information and conclude that we are no better or worse than any other parasite on the planet,” Hopper said. “And if you follow the logic of the science in school today, not only are you a parasite on the planet, you are destroying the host that you are born on.”

“So that’s one variable. Hopelessness. No point. You have no point in your life,” Hopper concluded.

‘A problem that has many facets’

The eight-term Republican from Weare acknowledged there is no single factor responsible for mass shootings. “It’s a problem that has many facets,” he said.

Hopper identified three additional factors that, in his mind, lead to mass shootings: boys without a father figure in the home, the use of psychotropic drugs and media glorification of the shooters.

“40 percent of boys are raised without a biological role model in the home,” Hopper claimed. “When a boy is looking up to somebody for guidance, they’re not there – and mom doesn’t do.”

(A 2016 report based on statistics compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau indicates Hopper’s estimate is high. Researchers found that 69 percent of children under age 18 live with two parents and another 4 percent live only with their father. A study by psychologist Peter Langman, PhD, who has conducted extensive research on school shooters, did find that only 10 of the 56 school shooters he studied, 18 percent, grew up in a stable home with both biological parents.)

The third factor that Hopper blamed for mass shootings is the use of psychiatric medication. “Over 75 percent of the kids involved in mass shootings either were, or are, on psychotropic drugs,” he claimed.

“If you look at the psychotropic drugs, one of the warnings always is suicidal ideation,” he said. “If you have a tendency to want to commit suicide on a drug, it only stands to reason that some people want to do homicide on a drug because it’s basically a different side of the coin.”

(Another study by Langman concluded the “belief that psychiatric medications cause school shootings is not supported at either the societal or the individual level.” He added, “The concern about adverse effects of psychiatric medications is a legitimate concern and worthy of ongoing research. This concern, however, is not well served by assumptions, misinformation, and innuendo in the place of facts.”)

Finally, Hopper blamed the media attention that school shooters receive. “Most boys desire to be superheroes,” he said. “It’s just a predominantly male trait that we have this desire to be heroes or to do something profound in our lives.”

“The flip side of that is to be a supervillain. Any teenager that shoots up a school in today’s society becomes a supervillain. They’re all over the media, all over the world. Everybody knows their name, what they look like, what they did,” he continued. “They become a supervillain in a matter of a few minutes with a few guns.”

The guns ‘are not really that relevant’

“If we address those four things,” Hopper asserted, “I think we would go a long way to going back to where we were in the 70s, when you didn’t hear about school shootings.”

Hopper, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary committee, rejected any suggestion that the easy availability of lethal, military-style weapons is a contributing factor.

“I used to take my gun on the bus to school because I was on the shooting team,” he said. “The guns, the instruments of destruction, are not really that relevant. They could have used pressure cooker bombs or whatever they wanted to do.”

(Image: Victor/CC BY 2.0, twitter.com)

With five arrests in the past seven years, all annulled, state Rep. Brian J. Stone definitely has subject-matter expertise regarding legislation he has introduced that would make it easier to erase criminal charges from the public record.

During his successful 2016 campaign for the House seat representing Northwood, Stone’s critics publicized his 2015 arrest for violating a protective order. Court documents related to a job discrimination complaint Stone filed with the Social Security Administration (SSA) reveal four additional, previously unreported, arrests.

The court case grew out of Stone’s 2014 job application for a position with the SSA in Littleton. After multiple interviews, Stone was the leading candidate for the job and was told there was a strong likelihood that he would be offered the position, according to court documents. A few days later, however, the district manager called Stone and notified him that he would not be hired because of an arrest record that was uncovered by his FBI background check.

After being turned down for the job, Stone filed a formal discrimination complaint with the agency claiming that he had been illegally discriminated against because of his national origin (Moroccan), his marital status, his parental status and conduct that would not adversely affect job performance -- his arrest record.

A series of ‘misunderstandings’

The ensuing report by an SSA investigator noted that Stone’s background check revealed he had been arrested three times in 2011 and was then under indictment for multiple charges resulting from a 2013 courthouse confrontation.

The background check indicated Stone was first arrested on July 28, 2011 and charged with criminal threatening. According to the court documents, Stone told the investigator that the arrest occurred during a traffic stop and was the result of a “mix-up with his license being suspended or not being current.” He added, “The whole thing was a misunderstanding and eventually got resolved.”

In October of that year, the report noted Stone was arrested again and charged with simple assault. 19 days later, according to the report, he was arrested and charged with violation of a protective order, breach of bail and two charges of criminal mischief.

In his SSA job application, Stone had notified the agency that he was under indictment for charges that arose from an October 17, 2013 confrontation at the Rockingham Superior Court. In the three-count indictment, Stone was charged with attempting to carry a firearm into a courthouse, disorderly conduct and criminal trespass. He admitted to the investigator that he was originally also charged with impersonating a police officer but he said that charge was dismissed because of his position with the Army Reserve military police.

The indictment alleged that Stone attempted to enter the courthouse with a firearm “telling court security that he was a law enforcement officer when he claimed to be a federal agent,” that he “demanded entrance into the court house with a firearm and began yelling profanity at court security when refused entrance” and that he defied an order by court security to leave the building and store his firearm in his car.

Stone described the incident as a “misunderstanding” and said “he did not do anything wrong.” He acknowledged “he brought a gun into a courthouse” but told the investigator that “he never actually brought it past the metal detector.” He explained, “The Court Security Officer asked him to secure the gun in his car and he did not think that was a safe thing to do.”

The agency’s human resources director told the investigator that, in her opinion, the results of the background check “indicated a pattern of violent behavior that sustained her decision” that Stone was unsuitable for the position.

‘I am not a criminal’

While awaiting a final determination from the SSA on his job discrimination complaint, Stone was arrested again, this time in Durham, for violating a protective order, which he described as a “temporary order” that was issued when he and his wife separated.

"The charge stemmed from a misunderstanding regarding me being in the same location as my wife by happenstance,” Stone explained in a letter to the editor of The Forum. “I followed the guidelines of the temporary order and contacted the local police myself. The charge was nolle prossed (dropped) by the county prosecutor.”

After the SSA denied Stone’s discrimination claim on July 14, 2015, he filed a civil suit in federal court against the acting commissioner of the SSA. “I believe that I have been a victim of federal employment discrimination,” Stone wrote in his complaint. “I did not engage in criminal conduct, and accusations of criminal conduct does not meet the standard of actual criminal conduct.”

”I am not a criminal,” he added. “An arrest record is not necessarily a criminal record.”

On December 21, 2015, Stone’s lawsuit was dismissed following a recommendation from Magistrate Judge Andrea K. Johnstone that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction.

In an email to Miscellany Blue, Stone declined to discuss the particulars of his arrest record but noted that all of the arrests described in this article resulted “in either not being prosecuted, had a finding of not guilty, or were dismissed” and that each arrest has been annulled.

New Hampshire state law stipulates that a person whose record is annulled “shall be treated in all respects as if he or she had never been arrested, convicted or sentenced.” Court records relating to an annulled arrest, conviction, or sentence are sealed and are not available to the general public.

Mr. Stone goes to Concord

In 2016, Stone ran for a seat in the state House, after unsuccessful attempts in 2014, when he lost a Republican primary for the Rockingham District 1 House seat, and in 2015, when he lost a Republican primary in a special election for the Rockingham District 32 floterial seat. On his third try, Stone was unopposed for the Republican nomination and won the District 1 seat with 52 per cent of the vote.

After taking office, Stone introduced legislation that would have automatically annulled arrest records for cases (like his) that resulted in a finding of not guilty or resulted in the case being dismissed or not prosecuted -- including arrests prior to enactment of the annulment statute if requested.

The Department of Safety estimated the bill would have required an additional five full-time staffers to process annulment requests, search and remove the record from the state Criminal History Record Information system and contact the FBI for removal of the offenses. The proposed legislation was rejected by the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee as “costly and unworkable” in a 19-2 vote and was tabled by the House in a voice vote.

This session, Stone has introduced legislation that would reduce the waiting period for filing a petition for annulment of a criminal record. “Someone shouldn't have to wait another 3 years to make an annulment request if they make a mistake on their original annulment application,” Stone wrote in his email to Miscellany Blue. “It doesn't serve the public or private interests of anyone.”

(Graphic: Danor Shtruzman/CC BY-SA 4.0)

A number of prominent New Hampshire politicians, on both sides of the aisle, received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from a Ukrainian-born billionaire who is reportedly under investigation by Robert Mueller’s team for his 2016 campaign donations to political funds controlled by Donald Trump.

In September, ABC News reported the special counsel’s investigation had begun looking into nearly $2 million in campaign contributions from three Americans with Russian business connections. One of the businessmen is Leonard Blavatnik, a dual citizen of the U.S. and U.K., who is ranked by Forbes as the 40th wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $21 billion.

After emigrating to the U.S. in 1978 when he was twenty-one years old, Blavatnik obtained U.S. citizenship and earned advanced degrees from Columbia and Harvard Business School. He then returned to Russia, where he made his fortune in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, becoming business partners with Russian oligarchs who now have close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

Viktor Vekselberg, Blavatnik’s classmate from the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers, has been named the richest man in Russia and reportedly holds frequent meetings with Putin. Blavatnik and Vekselberg built the second largest aluminum business in Russia and then merged it with UC Rusal, Russia’s largest.

Blavatnik continues to hold a minority interest in Rusal and served on its board of directors until Trump’s election. Rusal’s founder and managing partner, Oleg Deripaska, has been called “Putin's favourite industrialist.” His name previously surfaced in Mueller’s investigation when it was revealed that Trump’s then-campaign manager Paul Manafort had allegedly offered to provide his former client with personal briefings about the campaign.

$1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund

According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Blavatnik began making contributions to U.S. politicians in 1996 with relatively modest donations to candidates from both parties.

His first New Hampshire-related contribution was a $2000 donation to Jeanne Shaheen’s first Senate campaign in 2002. Two years later, Blavatnik and his wife Emily made donations to the New Hampshire Republican State Committee totaling $1011.

Blavatnik increased his donations to Granite Staters in the 2010 election cycle with donations to Democratic congressional candidate Katrina Swett ($2400) and both parties’ senatorial candidates, Democratic Congressman Paul Hodes ($4800) and Republican Kelly Ayotte ($2400).

Blavatnik contributed $2500 to then-Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown for his 2012 reelection bid against Elizabeth Warren. In the 2014 election cycle, he made maximum $5400 donations to both Brown and Shaheen in their senate face-off.

An analysis by the Dallas Morning News noted a dramatic change in Blavatnik’s political contributions for the 2016 election cycle. “Blavatnik's political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP political action committees,” they wrote.

In addition, Blavatnik contributed $1 million to Donald Trump’s inauguration fund. A spokesperson for Blavatnik denied he had donated any money to Trump or his campaign, noting the Presidential Inaugural Committee “has been responsible for organizing the inauguration ceremonies of every U.S. president since 1901.”

Blavatnik’s 2016 contributions included $100,000 to the Republican National Committee’s legal fund that has been used to pay for some of Trump’s legal fees related to the Mueller investigation. After the inauguration, the Wall Street Journal reported Blavatnik donated another $12,700 to the fund.

Putin's clutches

Unless Blavatnik’s contributions were directed by a foreigner, they do not appear to violate U.S. campaign finance laws. Nevertheless, Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, says contributions from American citizens with ties to the Kremlin are of “keen concern.”

“The oligarchs are really part and parcel of service to the Kremlin,” Schiff told ABC News. “They can be called upon at basically Putin’s will to do what he needs done. It gives them some distance from the Kremlin, it gives them some plausible deniability.”

Tax-exempt nonprofits that can engage in unlimited lobbying and do not have to disclose the source of their funding have become a favored vehicle for corporate lobbyists who wish to remain anonymous.

They inhabit a “shadowy world,” writes Boston Globe’s Michael Kranish, involving “groups that have vague but high-sounding names” where corporate operatives seek to shape public opinion “without leaving fingerprints and without having to directly associate their name and brand with the attacks made on their behalf.”

Last week, Union Leader reporter Dave Solomon reported on a nonprofit social welfare organization that is using so-called “dark money” to organize opposition to the Northern Pass energy project. Protect the Granite State (PGS), a Delaware-registered nonprofit, can legally raise unlimited funds without disclosing its donors -- and it’s keeping them a secret. "The organization is a 501( c )(4) whose donors choose to remain anonymous," PGS spokesman Jim Merrill told the Union Leader.

Solomon was unable to lift the group’s cloak of anonymity but he did document a connection between PGS and a Massachusetts-based nonprofit group that opposes the Access Northeast Pipeline project, Consumers for Sensible Energy (CSE). PGS and CSE share “some of the same key players and very similar presentation in their websites,” Solomon wrote.

A broad network of connected organizations

In an effort to determine who might be behind the organizations, we were curious to see if there might be additional nonprofit social welfare organizations with connections to PGS and CES. We found five.

We began by searching for websites with a combined privacy policy and terms and conditions page containing language identical to the PGS Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions page. We found four – and only four – that are virtual duplicates. The groups hosting the four sites are Coalition for Jobs & the Economy (CJE), New Mexicans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions (NMCES), North Dakotans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions (NDCES) and South Dakotans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions (SDCES).

Each site’s terms and conditions begins with the sentence, “In order to create an enjoyable and safe online experience on our sites, we ask that all users understand and comply with our site Terms and Conditions.” From there, they are all virtually identical except for the organization name and contact information.

A link on the NMCES website led us to another energy-related advocacy organization. A Twitter icon on the NMCES website links – inadvertently, we assume – to the Twitter feed for Wind Future Pennsylvania (WFP) which led us to the WFP website.

On the WFP website, we found a section describing the benefits of wind energy for Pennsylvania that is almost identical to a similar section on the SDCES site. “Wind energy has created over 102,000 American jobs. That includes between 1,000-2,000 jobs in Pennsylvania … a number we need to grow!” reads the WFP site. “Wind energy has created over 102,000 American jobs. That includes between 1,000-2,000 jobs in South Dakota … a number we need to grow!” echoes the SDCES site.

Connecting the dots

All seven of the websites we identified belong to nonprofits advocating for, or against, specific energy projects or energy-related legislation. In addition to the two New England organizations lobbying to block specific power projects, the group in Virginia is lobbying in support of a natural gas pipeline project while the groups in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, South Dakota and New Mexico all promote wind energy projects or legislation favoring renewable energy suppliers.

The connections among the groups suggest at least some level of coordination, if not funding, by a single entity. We took a look at the projects and legislation each group promotes (or opposes) and matched them to the energy companies that would benefit.

That analysis – and a bit of stray metadata – makes a compelling case that the one company whose corporate initiatives align with each group’s advocacy work is the nation’s largest electric utility: NextEra Energy.

To make that case, we’ll walk through each organization’s history, its advocacy positions and the related NextEra Energy initiatives that align with the group's advocacy.

Protect the Granite State

NextEra Energy claims to be the world's largest generator of renewable energy from the wind and sun but it is best known in northern New England as the owner of the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant and the Wyman Station power plant in Yarmouth, Maine.

The utility giant’s opposition to Northern Pass is well documented. In March 2017, Allie Morris noted NextEra’s objections to a plan by Eversource to buy power off the proposed Northern Pass transmission line. In July, Central Maine Power announced a partnership with NextEra to bring energy from proposed wind and solar facilities in western Maine to Massachusetts, competing with Northern Pass for the largest renewable energy contract in New England history.

PGS’s mission is clearly stated: “Help us stop Northern Pass.” The group's website describes Northern Pass as “a monstrous extension cord” across the Granite State that “will benefit big corporations – not New Hampshire consumers.”

Consumers for Sensible Energy

CSE, which registered with the state of Delaware in April 2016, reported 2016 expenses of over $1.4 million organizing opposition to the Access Northeast Pipeline, a proposed $3.2 billion natural gas pipeline project being developed by Eversource Energy, National Grid and Spectra Energy Partners (now part of Enbridge).

In addition to opposition from the anonymously-funded nonprofit, the Press Herald has documented efforts by NextEra Energy Resources and Public Service Electric and Gas to block the project with a petition to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to deny the funding mechanism by which electricity ratepayers would shoulder the pipeline cost.

“Environmental and citizen groups grab headlines in the fight over new gas pipelines,” reporter Tux Terkel wrote. “But don’t look for these power generators to be marching around with protest signs that denounce climate change, or raising their voices at town meetings where pipeline routes are debated. Their fight is being waged quietly in legal filings at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, D.C., the key agency that must approve interstate power projects.”

Coalition for Jobs & the Economy

In February 2017, Coalition for Jobs & the Economy (CJE) registered with the state of Virginia. The group’s website describes the organization as “a non-profit, non-partisan coalition formed to advocate for projects that help build infrastructure, create jobs, and support local growth in Southwest Virginia.”

The site, branded as “Virginians for Jobs & the Economy,” identifies a number of initiatives it calls “projects that matter.” One of the projects the group supports is the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). The website quotes Gov. Terry McAuliffe describing the pipeline project as part of a “world-class energy infrastructure that provides abundant access to low-cost energy sources.”

NextEra Energy has a 31% ownership interest in the MVP joint venture that will build and own the proposed $3.5 billion, 303-mile natural gas pipeline. On October 13, 2017, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the controversial pipeline project, a process that began in 2014 with the initial application. The pipeline, which will run parallel to the Appalachian Trail for over 90 miles, still needs to obtain state permits and will likely face legal challenges from environmental groups.

Wind Future Pennsylvania

Wind Future Pennsylvania Inc. registered with the state of Delaware on June 12, 2017, the same day that Goldman Sachs announced that it has entered into a long-term agreement with a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources that will enable the investment and development of a new 68-megawatt wind farm outside Scranton, Pennsylvania. The announcement noted that the project “is anticipated to facilitate up to 150 construction jobs.”

The Wind Future Pennsylvania website, dedicated to supporting “the development of renewable wind energy, produced in Pennsylvania and used locally,” promotes wind energy and asks visitors to sign a petition to support the development of a proposed new wind energy project in Lackawanna County near Scranton. “150 jobs will be created during construction,” the website notes.

New Mexicans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions

Americans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions, Inc. (ACS) registered with the state of Delaware in January 2017. Three nonprofit organizations describing themselves as “affiliated” with ACS subsequently registered in New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota. The groups’ websites promote wind energy as part of an “all-of-the-above energy strategy.”

In February, legislation was introduced in both chambers of the New Mexico legislature to extend state tax credits for renewable energy production. The next week, New Mexicans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions, Inc. registered with the state of Delaware and launched a website that lobbied for the proposed legislation.

“The Tax Credit that helped encourage investment in these projects will expire on January 1, 2018,” the website warned, “leaving New Mexico caught short when it comes to realizing the full economic benefits of renewable opportunities in the state.” The Santa Fe New Mexican reported a lobbyist for ACES/NMCES spent $16,857 in March on advertising urging the legislature to extend the renewable energy tax credits.

A subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources owns and operates three wind farms in New Mexico that generate over 400-megawatts of energy. Last year, NextEra was on the record supporting similar legislation and warning of the consequences if the state fails to renew the tax credits. The Santa Fe Reporter quoted a company representative telling a legislative committee, "If you don't have the production tax credit, that makes a difference between whether projects build here or elsewhere."

North Dakotans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions

In February 2017, a North Dakota state senate committee approved a two-year moratorium on wind development projects. The Associated Press reported that the bill’s sponsor complained that “the state's wind industry enjoys more favorable tax incentives and less onerous regulations than coal factories, putting them at an unfair advantage."

A representative from NextEra Energy Resources, which provides about half of North Dakota's wind-generated power, called the legislation "extremely shortsighted." AP’s James MacPherson reported that NextEra criticized the bill for ignoring “the fact that wind development in North Dakota is a significant source of tax revenue and job creation, not to mention a source of income for private landowners.”

On March 1, ACS registered with the state of North Dakota as a social welfare organization promoting energy policy and registered the trade name, North Dakotans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions. The group’s website includes a review of the 2017 legislative session that notes, “The session was challenging for private property development and local decision-making by bills that included an ‘anti-wind’ element.”

As with all of the advocacy websites, NextEra’s name does not appear on the NDCES site. However, the metadata included with a document that details energy-related federal incentives indicates the document was prepared by one “Angela Pitale.” In 2016, the NextEra Energy Resources regional director for state tax policy testified before a North Dakota legislative committee in support of a sales tax exemption for electrical generating facilities. Her name is Angela Pitale.

South Dakotans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions

Americans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions, Inc. registered with the state of South Dakota in August 2017, doing business as South Dakotans for Comprehensive Energy Solutions. “While SDCES supports the consumption of all types of domestic energy, including coal, oil, natural gas, solar, wind, and other types of renewable energy,” the group’s website notes, “SDCES is particularly focused on the development of wind and solar resources.”

“Wind energy is the future,” the website proclaims. “It’s clean. It’s local. And it supports a thriving economy, money for schools and roads, and creates local jobs.” The site lists the benefits of a proposed new wind farm in South Dakota: “Construction of the project will create 600 jobs and bring business to South Dakota construction companies in procuring supplies. [It will contribute] $75 million dollars in property tax payments to South Dakota.”

The launch followed a March announcement by Xcel Energy, in which the utility company described plans to build South Dakota’s largest wind farm to be developed by a subsidiary of NextEra Energy. The Argus Reader reported that the 600-megawatt Crown Ridge Wind Project will generate $75 million in property taxes. “Construction of the wind farm is also expected to create about 600 jobs and bring business to South Dakota construction companies in procuring supplies,” Xcel Energy regional vice president Laura McCarten told reporter Megan Raposa.

Dark money ‘undermines our democracy’

NextEra Energy did not respond to our email seeking comment for this story. A 2016 review by the Center for Political Advocacy (CPA) noted “NextEra Energy does not disclose its contributions to candidates, parties, and committees, or its payments to trade associations and other tax-exempt groups, such as 527 or 501( c )(4) organizations.”

Efforts to close the 501( c )(4) “dark money” loophole have included legal challenges, proposed legislation, campaigns urging the IRS to tighten regulations and even a request for presidential executive action. Ultimately, however, the most efficient and effective path to reform may run through company shareholders.

“Dark money not only undermines our democracy, but also poses serious legal, reputation, and business risks to companies,” the CPA warns. “Corporations can safeguard their reputations by being forthcoming with shareholders and consumers, and by adopting transparency and accountability policies.”

(Graphic: 9vj/CC BY-SA 4.0 modified)

7/23 Update: The Boston Free Speech Rally organizer who posted the announcement on Reddit now says that Phinney will not be speaking at the rally. "He did initially say he was interested," he wrote in a message to Miscellany Blue, "but decided against speaking later on."

Organizers for a May 2017 Boston Common rally that devolved into a shouting match between alt-right militants and anti-fascist protesters have announced that a New Hampshire lawmaker will be the featured speaker for round two.

The inaugural Boston Rally for Free Speech, organized on 4chan by a Peabody teenager, drew a crowd described by Esquire’s Luke O’Neil as three hundred or so “MAGA teens, denizens of alt-right groups such as Kekistan, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and the greater diaspora of white male rage and impotence.”

A smaller group of socialists and Antifa activists gathered for a counter-protest about a hundred yards away, separated from the alt-right protesters by a small contingent of officers from the Boston Police Department. The groups taunted each other (“Fuck Trump!” “Go home cucks!”) but they avoided the kind of violence that occurred in the Battle of Berkeley, the series of clashes earlier this year in California that preceded the Boston rally.

In a notice posted on Reddit promoting a second Boston Free Speech Rally, organizers announced New Hampshire state Rep. Brandon Phinney, a recent convert to the Libertarian Party, will be a featured speaker. “[W]e are looking to make this event have a more libertarian angle,” the organizer wrote, “hence our first confirmed speaker being an actual elected member of the libertarian party.”

The organizer who posted the announcement insisted the rallies are not an “alt-right thing,” though he conceded that “certain people who attend are what would be deemed 'fascist.' ”

“I assure you that our rally is actually a free speech rally, most of the people who show up are libertarians,” he wrote.

“Calling events that bring out lots of fascists ‘free speech’ rallies is nonsense,” one Redditor replied. “I support you're [sic] right to say whatever you want, but don't dress it up. At least have the balls to come out and say you're having a fashy rally with plenty of white supremacists and lots of people who believe in Western cultural hegemony.”

The rally announcements on 4chan were less circumspect. In one post, the announcement was illustrated with a photo from the first Boston rally that pictured alt-right comedian Sam Hyde “yelling at a jewish kid.” A second posting of the announcement kicked off complaints about the “fucking niggers” who protested the first rally.

“Can I carry my black sun flag?” asked another 4chan member, referring to the banner embraced by many neo-Nazis and white nationalists. “Of course you can,” the rally organizer replied. “This event has a lot of different people, often libertarians or militiamen, but there were also many members of the alt-right.”

‘Too weird, mean and racist for Republicans’

The announcement came just days after Phinney changed his party registration. And while the national Libertarian Party welcomed Phinney with open arms, some members expressed concern over having him join their ranks.

Referencing the Miscellany Blue profile that documented Phinney’s history of controversy, the former Connecticut state director for Gary Johnson’s presidential campaign blasted the Rochester lawmaker.

“This is NOT what we need in the LP,” Libertarian Party activist Jody Weitzman wrote on Facebook. “I can't support his racism or his misogyny -- or the fact that he just seems to be a bad person. Just another obnoxious internet bully who was too weird, mean, and racist for Republicans.”

“IF the only people we can get are mean racists that shame fat women, and the men who defend them, then we just suck,” Weitzman added. “I can't stay in a party that tolerates racism, and misogyny, and so much garbage. If we need the racist vote to win, we are worse than Republicans. I have seen this for years and in the Trump era, it's gone toxic.”

‘I am not a white supremacist’

This week, Phinney responded to the criticism by denying he is a misogynist and a racist. ‘I have never been ‘misogynistic’ or ‘racist’ towards anyone in my whole life,” he wrote in a public Facebook post. “I am not associated with any ‘alt-right’ groups and I am not a white supremacist. I actively reject those ideologies as they are not in line with liberty.”

The one-term Rochester lawmaker did acknowledge his history of inflammatory rhetoric. “[T]he article highlighted some posts from me that I cannot deny posting because it is clear as day that they are associated with me,” he wrote.

“Some time ago, I used to be very antagonistic about certain views and I would blatantly post my opinion about them without regard to anyone's sensibilities and basically make myself look like a jackass…” he confessed. “I assure you that it is not my intent to hurt anyone's feelings or to antagonize others.”

“The point of some of the posts that I have made in the past was to challenge the PC liberal narrative that basically treats everyone with contempt and hatred, the very same attitudes they claim to fight against,” Phinney explained. “I do not accept a culture that is turning ‘tolerance’ into intolerance for anything that challenges their worldview. However, the things that I've said in the past and the way that I've said them is in no way a reflection of who I am today.”

The man who may be the legislature’s first card-carrying member of the Church of Satan says he doesn’t talk about it with a lot of people “because they just don’t get it.”

“I'm not really a joiner and I'm not a person who likes to put a label on things,” says Rep. Brandon Phinney, “but I'm a Satanist because these words [in The Satanic Bible] are who I am. He's speaking about me as a person, so that book was very important to me.”

Phinney, who recently changed his party affiliation from Republican to Libertarian, shared his story on The Devil You Know, a “Satanically-inspired podcast” where he discussed he work as a corrections officer, his experience in the legislature and what Satan means to him.

"Satan is the ultimate symbol of rebellion…” the Rochester lawmaker said. “He represents the burning desire of people to accept their carnal nature and reject suppression by holier-than-thou uptights. Satan is a symbol, an image, a reflection of man's true freedom and liberty…”

From Christian metalhead to Godcrusher

Phinney’s outspoken religion beliefs have caused controversy before. He made national headlines in February with a letter to the editor in which he publicly identified himself as an atheist and described belief in religion as “foolish” and “archaic.”

“In an age of information, scientific progress and exploration and the understanding of the workings of our world,” he wrote, “it is difficult and to be frank, rather foolish, to hold onto archaic beliefs that deny reality.”

Phinney says he was an active Christian when he was growing up "even so far as to be involved in church ministries and music teams.” As a musician in a metal band, Phinney referred to himself as a “Christian metalhead” -- but by 2013 he had rejected the religion of his youth with a vengeance.

That was when he joined a band called Godcrusher (!) and embraced The Satanic Bible, which he said he first read in high school. “I was reading it again being in the mindset of ‘I hate religion and I hate Christianity because I’m so angry at myself for being duped for as long as I was,’” he said. “It made sense to me again. It placated a lot of that anger for me.”

Two years ago, Phinney made it official. He became a Registered Member of the Church of Satan and received the vaunted “red card” that members use to identify themselves to other members. Phinney says he also plans to apply for Active Membership, the next level in the church hierarchy for members who seek more involvement with the organization and with other members.

Metalheads react

When Phinney announced he was running for public office, the regulars who had interacted with him on a message board for fans of local metal bands were scornful – and not just because of his “endlessly changing radical religious beliefs.”

“This thread is to express your appreciation for Brandon Phinney,” began one message, “prolific sometimes-Christian, sometimes-white supremacist as he runs unopposed in the New Hampshire House of Representatives District Strafford 24 Republican primary.”

“Let's celebrate Brandon Phinney's long history as an RTTP poster (both as MillenialKingdom and ConquerTheBaphomet) with no real internal compass, wildly vacillating between religious and irreligious, secretly racist and openly racist - I'm sure he'll bring this rock-solid sense of self to state government!” the message concluded sarcastically.

“Brandon Phinney aka ‘ConquertheBaphomet’ as he was known here is a bipolar assclown,” another member wrote. “His endlessly changing radical religious beliefs, misogyny, dumbass racist Facebook rants, and real life connections to individuals associated with the white power movement are legitimate concerns for someone running for public office.”

“I met Brandon once years ago,” a third member added. “Seemed like a nice dude. His one man argument he seemed to be having with himself about religion was kind of strange, but when you're young you think you know everything and it comes out in weird ways sometimes.”

“Where I get off the bus though is Godcrusher and the quasi white power Cherry St circle jerk scene,” he continued. “The few times I looked into them they seemed to have this obsession with amending ‘minorities and their rampant welfare abuse are destroying our country’ to the whole god crushing platform.”

Allegations of fat-shaming, misogyny and racism

Phinney appears to have deleted most of the social media posts mentioned by his critics – the earliest public post on his personal Facebook page is from January of this year -- but a few remnants remain.

In 2013, Boston comedian Justin P. Drew documented a misogynist, fat-shaming rant from Phinney’s Facebook page. Phinney had posted a link to a Daily Mail article about plus-size women and wrote, “This isn’t what ‘real women’ look like. Men are attracted to fit, healthy women with actual good looks.”

“It’s just science, it doesn’t mean we’re all shallow and pathetic,” Phinney continued. “Women don’t like fat guys, it’s the same concept. You don’t see men traversing all over the internet demanding change on the social standard of what’s deemed attractive or not. Obesity is fucking disgusting and we need to stop celebrating this fucking epidemic. Shut the fuck up with your bullshit feminist agenda.”

And then there was this Facebook thread that journalist Dan Arel, who grew up in Rochester, labeled “super racist.” In the thread, Phinney took issue with a message from Arel’s brother supporting Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid that read, “Also, white men are the absolute worst human beings. It's time for our first female president.”

“Is this satire?” asked Phinney. “White men are the worst human beings?” With that, Phinney proceeded to ridicule the notion of white privilege and claimed whites are the real victims of racism.

“I can promise you that nothing in my life has ever been fucking handed to me because I'm white,” wrote Phinney. “Racism is defined as discrimination against someone based on their skin color or race. To say it can't be used against white people is the stupidest thing I've ever read.”

“I'm proud to be white and male. Oh no, alert the liberal thought police!” he added. “There is no such thing as white privilege.” Interspersed with his comments, Phinney posted a series of memes:

Photo: twitter.com/al_baldasaro

Incendiary remarks by a Granite State lawmaker during last year’s Republican National Convention continue to stoke national controversy. Minutes after state Rep. Al Baldasaro attended an East Room signing ceremony, White House press secretary Sean Spicer condemned the 2016 comments and said anyone using that type of language “should not be welcome” in the White House.

Baldasaro, co-chair of the New Hampshire Veterans for Trump Coalition, was in Washington to witness the president signing legislation that reforms the Department of Veterans Affairs by protecting whistleblowers and making it easier to fire incompetent personnel.

In a White House pool report, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman noted Baldasaro “was sitting in one of the first two rows in the audience. The crowd stood as the president departed, and Baldasaro yelled out a thank-you to the president for keeping a promise.”

‘Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot for treason‘

The six-term Londonderry Republican drew press attention because of controversial comments he made during last year’s Republican National Convention, when he made headlines for calling Hillary Clinton “a piece of garbage” who should be executed.

“Hillary Clinton to me is the Jane Fonda of the Vietnam,” Baldasaro told WRKO radio host Jeff Kuhner. “She is a disgrace for the lies that she told those mothers about their children that got killed over there in Benghazi. She dropped the ball on over 400 emails requesting back up security. Something’s wrong there… This whole thing disgusts me. Hillary Clinton should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.”

‘Why was Al Baldasaro ... invited to the VA event today?’

In a press briefing following the signing ceremony, Spicer was asked about Baldasaro’s attendance after the press secretary had denounced the “lack of outrage” over violent rhetoric directed at the president.

“If the White House is concerned about the message of Julius Caesar and stuff that’s said by Johnny Depp,” asked The Hill correspondent Jordan Fabian, "then why was Al Baldasaro, who said that Hillary Clinton should be shot for treason for the handling of Benghazi, invited to the VA event today at the White House?”

“I don’t believe that any -- and the President has said this as well -- that anybody who goes out and tries to highlight those kind of actions should not be welcome. I don’t -- I’m not aware of the comments he made,” Spicer replied.

“But again, I’ll say it right now, that I don’t think that we should be resorting to that kind of language with respect to anybody in our country,” he continued.

“You do condemn it? asked Fabian.

"I do,” answered Spicer.

Initial acknowledgment followed by collective amnesia

Spicer’s claim that he was “not aware” of Baldasaro’s explosive comments mirrored the reaction by his boss when he was confronted on the campaign trail with questions about the controversy.

Early in the campaign, then-candidate Trump had referred to Baldasaro as “my favorite vet, the king,” but when NH1 News political director Paul Steinhauser asked if he condoned Baldasaro’s controversial remarks, Trump pleaded ignorance. “I don't know what he said. You'd have to show me what he said," Trump replied.

Trump’s denial contrasted with the initial response from his campaign. The day after the controversy made headlines, campaign press secretary Hope Hicks, who now serves as White House director of strategic communications, distanced the campaign from his remarks and insisted that Baldasaro “doesn’t speak for the campaign.”

“We’re incredibly grateful for his support,” Hicks told Steinhauser, “but we don’t agree with his comments.”

A conservative organization with a long history of anti-LGBT advocacy is opposing efforts by the state Department of Health and Human Services to implement a program providing early intervention services for those with HIV.

The proposed Early Intervention Service Program will provide services “for individuals who are unaware of their Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) status in order to provide referrals to prevention services as well as referrals to HIV care services,” the department explains, and will include “HIV testing, targeted counseling services, referral services as well as health education to assist clients in navigating the HIV system of care.”

The department expects the program “will lead to an increase in the number of New Hampshire residents who are made aware of their HIV status allowing them the opportunity to be referred to care. In addition, individuals who are at high risk of acquiring HIV will be provided with referrals to prevention services,” they add. “These services are designed to reduce individuals contracting HIV as well as lowering the transmission of the virus to others.”

‘We want no involvement with the abortion industry’

HHS posted a Request for Proposals to implement the program in December 2016. Two proposals were received and evaluated. Both vendors, Planned Parenthood of Northern New England and Equality Health Center (formerly known as the Concord Feminist Health Center), were selected to receive funding.

Wednesday, the Executive Council is scheduled to review the department’s request to contract with the two vendors to provide the early intervention services.

Cornerstone Action, a conservative “pro-family” advocacy organization, opposes the agreement, citing the fact that Planned Parenthood and Equality Health also provide abortion services. “It's not enough to say that a particular contract isn't about abortion,” the group noted is an email alert. “We want no involvement with the abortion industry.”

A history of anti-LGBT advocacy

It’s worth noting that in addition to an anti-abortion agenda that includes support for personhood legislation, Cornerstone has a long history of anti-LGBT advocacy.

Founder Karen Testerman opposed the state’s civil union legislation in 2007, referring to gays and lesbians as a “special interest group.” The group subsequently opposed marriage equality, noting, “When adult desires for acceptance conflict with the needs of children, the social science is squarely on the side of children.”

In 2011, Cornerstone fought to roll back marriage equality with legislation that would have replaced same-sex marriage with a novel civil union available to any two adults – including family members – that would have offered no legal protections.

Today, Cornerstone continues to oppose same-sex unions, claiming they will lead to marriage becoming irrelevant. “Redefining marriage irrevocably changes society,” Cornerstone’s website warns. “Public institutions such as schools, business, and charitable organizations are forced to promote the marriage redefiners’ agenda, to include homosexualizing school curriculum against the will of parents.”

“Once marriage is arbitrarily redefined to mean same-sex couples,” the group argues, “there is no good argument against another legislature calling any other type of relationship ‘marriage.’ At that point, the institution of marriage is pointless.”

Transgender discrimination and conversion therapy

This year the group opposed House legislation to ban discrimination against transgender individuals and targeted legislators with hundreds of messages from an online petition. (Cornerstone’s name was nowhere to be found on the site hosting the petition, biologymattersnh.com, but the site’s images reside on Cornerstone’s web server and the group acknowledged ownership in an interview with LifeSiteNews.)

Cornerstone also opposed legislation to ban so-called conversion therapy for minors; a widely discredited practice that claims to "cure" homosexuality. In Senate testimony, Cornerstone executive director Shannon McGinley claimed the ban would violate the U.S. Constitution. “Psychotherapy/counseling is both medical conduct and speech. Banning [sexuality orientation change efforts] therapy is against the First Amendment of the Constitution and is viewpoint discrimination,” she said.

While most Americans reacted to the shooting that wounded a congressman and four others with shock and horror and bipartisan calls for a more civil political discourse, some Granite State lawmakers and former officials took to social media to blame Democrats and issue dark warnings of retaliation.

Soon after the Alexandria shooting, former state Rep. Daniel Tamburello (R-Londonderry) posted a list of 21 deadly attacks – including mass shootings at the Virginia Tech campus, an Aurora Colorado movie theater and the Sandy Hook elementary school – all of which he blamed on Democrats. “A partial list....” he claimed.

In a separate message posted online by former Rep. Susan DeLemus (R-Rochester), Tamburello noted the Alexandria shooter was a Bernie Sanders supporter.

“These people (the shooter, ‘antifa’, the modern leftists, etc., et al) are not (clinically) insane. They are the result of frenzied media spewing lies, hatred and propaganda, and an education system dominated by Marxists for 60 years,” Tamburello wrote. “This is part of what happens when people are made to believe in the justification of violence in pursuit of ‘social justice’.”

Along those same lines, Rep. Jordan Ulery (R-Hudson) forwarded a tweet that declared, “Dems have committed all the assassinations/attempted assassinations in the US. It is now a political strategy. Dem Party of Hate,” and Rep. Al Baldasaro (R-Londonderry) retweeted a message from a Sean Spicer parody account that asked, “Wonder if we’ll hear anything about Democrats’ dangerous rhetoric contributing to Rep Scalise’s shooting. Magic 8 ball: Highly doubtful”.

Former House Speaker Bill O’Brien (R-Mont Vernon) weighed in by reaching back to a 2008 quote from “Barack Hussein Obama” in which the president explained to donors that he was prepared for an “ugly” general election campaign. "If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," Obama had told the crowd, paraphrasing a quote from the movie, The Untouchables.

“It doesn't look like they are waiting for us to bring a knife,” O’Brien wrote.

Rep. Glen Dickey (R-New Boston) responded to O’Brien’s message with a dark warning. “The Left should be careful. It’s all too easy for things to get out of control,” he wrote. Former Rep. Leon Rideout (R-Lancaster) echoed that warning. “The question is how long the right will tolerate the violence before responding and then where will it end ???” he tweeted.

And then there were the comments from two lawmakers in response to a CNN photograph of House Democrats praying for their colleagues after learning of the shooting. “Rather than prayers maybe they could do Republicans and country a favor and tone down their unfounded 24hour anti-Trump anti-R hysteria,” tweeted Rep. Bart Fromuth (R-Bedford). “Who exactly r they praying to?” asked Rep. Lisa Freeman (R-Manchester). “Allah?”

A New Hampshire lawmaker is in hot water over public comments he made in Concord this morning that were characterized as “overtly racist” by some observers. It’s not the first time he’s faced accusations of racism.

During today’s House committee debate on school voucher legislation, a representative from a public education advocacy group, Reaching Higher NH, reported Rep. Joe Pitre (R-Farmington) claimed the proposal could be funded with money the state currently spends on “black children and latinos.”

Pitre’s comments came during a debate on Senate Bill 193, legislation that would establish a statewide Education Freedom Savings Account program, which would provide parents with a voucher that could be used for educational expenses at private schools and for home schooling.

Rep. Victoria Sullivan (R-Manchester) pushed back against those characterizing Pitre’s reference to money spent on “Black children and Latinos” as racist. New Hampshire Dems are “lying again,” she tweeted. “Rep. Pitre said funds alone have not closed the [education] gap, and we need a better way."

There may be a honest debate over Pitre’s intent today, but there was no such debate in 2012 over an email Pitre sent to House colleagues.

In that incident, which followed a crackdown by then-Speaker Bill O’Brien over “harassing, derogatory, and defamatory” messages, Concord Monitor reporter Annmarie Timmins reported that Pitre sent an email to fellow lawmakers that included a photoshopped image of a purported White House event that featured Pres. Obama and the First Lady dressed as a “pimp and a ho.”

A Belmont representative’s lighthearted reference to rape in a public meeting met with a call for sanctions and was denounced as a “disgusting” contribution to “rape culture.”

The incident, first reported by Susan Bruce in the Conway Daily Sun, occurred during the May 22 meeting of the Belknap County Delegation. Video of the meeting was made public by Lakes Region Public Access.

During the debate over a supplemental appropriation request for the sheriff's department and county corrections, state Rep. Michael Sylvia referred to the former Belknap County sheriff's deputy who was convicted of sexually assaulting a female inmate.

"We had a sheriff deputy on staff who was convicted of raping prisoners in transport and is accused of nine more charges,” Sylvia said. “That tells me we had somebody that had time on his hands."

Diana Lacey, also from Belmont, rose to condemn Sylvia’s comments. “In all the budget discussions that I've sat through so far with this delegation,” she said, “I have to say that I have never heard anything as egregious as when Rep. Sylvia referred to someone being a rapist as someone having too much time on their hands.”

“I take offense to it and think he should face sanctions for it,” she continued. “It's disgusting. I think it's just way over the top and it contributes to the rape culture in our society and it is so incredibly wrong.”

In subsequent remarks, Sylvia addressed the controversy and defended his comments. “I've been accused of hating cops at one point in the discussions and I don't believe it's true,” he said. “One thing that is true, I hate rapists. And make no mistake, don't even try, I hate rapists. Is that clear?”

Sylvia’s detractors note the three-term lawmaker spoke on the House floor earlier this month in opposition to Senate Bill 9, legislation that would strengthen the privacy rights of rape victims.

He also voted against House Bill 94, which would amend the state’s sex trafficking statute to prohibit a defense based on a lack of knowledge of the victim's age or consent of the minor to the sex act.

And as Bruce pointed out, Sylvia was one of just three representatives in 2014 to vote against legislation that established the crime of domestic violence.

In a recent speech to the House, Rep. Debra Altschiller (D-Stratham) urged her colleagues to “create an environment that is more respectful, more sensitive to victims of sexual violence and more aware of how what we say and what we don’t say influences the people we represent."

When state Rep. Robert Fisher testified before the House Legislative Administration Committee last week, he admitted posting on Reddit as pk_atheist, the pseudonym used to create The Red Pill, but he denied -- under oath -- that he is still running the notorious forum that some have called the heart of modern misogyny.

The question was raised due to a report in The Daily Beast (that followed a similar Miscellany Blue investigation), in which reporters identified numerous items that appeared to link Fisher with the current Red Pill moderator, a Redditor using the pseudonym, redpillschool. “Fisher may still be very much an active contributor and chief moderator of The Red Pill,” The Daily Beast concluded.

Fisher explicitly denied that he is continuing to moderate the site as redpillschool. "It's starting to look like a zany conspiracy theory by a liberal rag to me,” he complained in an email to reporters.

It is important for the House committee to determine if Fisher is the current moderator, not only because it would contradict Fisher’s sworn testimony, but also because the committee is limiting its investigation of Fisher’s activities to statements he made after he took the oath of office in December 2016.

We compiled the most compelling clues that suggest Fisher may have simply shed one anonymous persona for another and is continuing to run the site as redpillschool:

1. Fisher and redpillschool sound strikingly similar

In March 2013, redpillschool appeared as a guest on the BBC World Service Newshour program using the alias “Morpheus Manfred.” Here, you can compare his voice, as captured in that broadcast, with a recording of Fisher when he was interviewed on the Tom Brown Show in September 2014.

2. Fisher and redpillschool apparently share a Google Adsense account

Fisher explained the fact that his email address appeared as the DNS administrator for several websites managed by redpillschool by saying he is “a reseller for a web hosting company” and has provided free or low-cost hosting accounts for many people he has never even met.

“I am not responsible for the content on these sites, nor am I endorsing anything on them,” he wrote. “My email address was the default for DNS records when somebody didn't provide me a different address."

Fisher didn’t explain why the Google Adsense publisher ID linked to Puerarchy.com, one of the websites linked to his email address but managed by redpillschool, is also linked to InsideNH.com, a website authored by Fisher and Rep. Nick Zaricki (R-Goffstown) where the legislators discussed issues related to their work in the New Hampshire House. Ad revenue from Puerarchy.com is directed to the same Google account receiving ad revenue from InsideNH.com.

3. Old redpillschool content was edited after the press contacted Fisher

As The Daily Beast reported, some comments written by redpillschool (and captured by the Archive.is project) were edited after The Daily Beast contacted Fisher with questions related to The Red Pill. “[A]rchives of redpillschool’s comments seem to suggest Fisher may have quickly moved to cover his tracks,” The Daily Beast noted.

For example, the version of a message captured on March 8, 2017 adds a sentence about living on the West Coast that was not included in the version of the message captured the day after it was posted on January 11, 2017.

Similarly, another reference to living in California appears in the version of a RedPillSchool comment captured on May 9, 2017 that did not appear in the version captured the day after it was originally posted on October 27, 2016.

4. Reddit comments by Fisher and redpillschool contain significant similarities

Jason Baumgartner, a “big data aficionado” and neuro-linguistic programming analyst, has collected and archived more than three billion Reddit comments and submissions. He responded to a “How many of you think that redpillschool is Robert Fisher?” question on Reddit with an analysis of every single Reddit submission from pk_atheist and redpillschool.

"After reviewing all of the data, I am certain that pk_atheist and redpillschool are both Robert Fisher's accounts,” he wrote in a message to Miscellany Blue. “There are too many similarities between the two accounts.” Here are a few of the similarities he discovered:

Pk_atheist and redpillschool both mentioned the OKCupid online dating site and their frustrations with it:

pk_atheist: "I actually had to quit OKCupid because it was just making me angry. 99% of the profiles that had girls I could be attracted to (i.e. not large) had this self-important BS. They have a lot of expectations."

redpillschool: "But check out OKCupid some time, because you'll see it's female profiles that have the ‘Must be 6' tall, athletic, please no losers thx’ checklist at the bottom. … 80% of women go after 20% of the guys. On OKCupid, women ranked 80% of men as ‘below average.’”

Both frequently used the word "hypergamy" and both capitalize it:

pk_atheist: "I'm going to argue that part of taking the red pill is letting go of the pipe dream that was marriage. Marriage is dead. Hypergamy reigns supreme."

redpillschool: "I see very little conscience, self doubt or regret in the women I know. They simply blame their husbands and are eager to get out of their marriage vows at the earliest opportunity. It's not 1955 any more, it is the decade of Open Hypergamy."

Both mentioned the KETO diet; both suggested that it’s ok to drink diet sodas while following the diet; and both noted that they have lost 25 pounds while on the diet:

pk_atheist: “I really don't follow paleo. I have however lost 25 lbs since July on the keto diet. I will read leangains.com, thanks for taking the time to reply with some meat! … “I've lost a ton of weight on keto and diet soda. Just saying.”

redpillschool: “Diet cola is fine. I do keto and drink diet sodas all the time. Lost 25 pounds. Working on my last 10.”

Both mention theoretical physicist Brian Greene and his book "The Fabric of the Cosmos:"

pk_atheist: Brian Greene argues that we only see time (and entropy) go in one direction because we're on the upswing towards a return to high entropy.

redpillschool: That's not really provably true, and that's why Schrodinger's cat is such an interesting experiment. For instance, we already know via experiment here on earth that we can have twin particles in a superposition until observed- and that's with gravity and some very fancy science to hold the particles for a period of time. (Mostly illustrated in Brian Greene's latest book, if you're interested.)

Both speak about "feminism being a sexual strategy:"

pk_atheist: Interesting perspective. I have long maintained that above all else, feminism is a sexual strategy. It's a long list of accomplishments women have been making to better poise themselves to make sexual decisions. Trying to change the social narriative to say that being a slut is ok is part of the strategy.

redpillschool: I think feminism is a sexual strategy, but not intentionally one. We believe it's an unconscious drive for women called the feminine imperative.

Both use the term "feminine imperative:"

pk_atheist: The only game advice I condemn is one that plays strictly into the feminine imperative. "Don't forget to be respectful, women like that." … Good, you feel guilty about letting women benefit from men's work. The feminine imperative has successfully entered your consciousness.

redpillschool: I think feminism is a sexual strategy, but not intentionally one. We believe it's an unconscious drive for women called the feminine imperative.

Both reference the same three video games: Command & Conquer, Grand Theft Auto and SimCity.

Both mention Gary Taubes, the controversial journalist who has challenged scientists' claims about diet and health.

Both use the expression "and so on and so on."

Both use the expression "down the rabbit hole."

The most frequently-used six word phrase related to women by both pk_atheist and redpillschool is "not all women are like that."

5. Fisher and redpillschool both posted the same time of day, in the same subject areas and using a similar vocabulary

Baumgartner analyzed the time of day pk_atheist and redpillschool posted messages on Reddit and concluded “there is a strong correlation between the two.” He noted “pk_atheist has far less posts than redpillschool by close to an order of magnitude, but there is still enough data to draw some statistical significance.”

“What we see here is a really good indication that the two accounts are at least in the same time-zone, and that they start posting around the same time of the day (the hour of the day is in UTC time),” he wrote. “We also see that there is a slight increase in posts around the 20th UTC hour and then a great falloff after the 22nd hour onwards until the next day.”

Baumgartner took a look at each user’s top 50 subreddits for posting comments and found 23 of the 50 subreddits are the same for both pk_atheist and redpillschool. The list of shared subreddits not related to Manosphere topics includes the gaming, SimCity and startrek subreddits.

(Photo: Tim Horrigan)

Testifying under oath before members of the House Legislative Administration Committee investigating his activities, state House Rep. Robert Fisher confessed to being responsible for creating one of the web’s most misogynistic destinations but told the committee, “I have never hated women.”

“Several years ago,” he conceded, “I made some injudicious statements regarding women and my frustrations with dating.” A previously unreported blog dating from 2012, apparently created by a writer using pseudonyms now linked to Fisher, adds to the collection of misogynistic statements.

The two-term Republican lawmaker has admitted to being pk_atheist, the previously anonymous Reddit user who created and moderated The Red Pill. Within weeks of creating the infamous subreddit in late 2012, a separate WordPress blog linked to the forum debuted.

“Who am I?” the site’s author asked. “I’m Desmond. I am the curator/admin of the /r/TheRedPill subreddit. My handle on reddit is pk_atheist.” (Daily Beast documented Fisher’s use of the Desmond pseudonym on other websites in late 2012.)

The Antidate (tagline: “You've been poisoned. Quick, take this”) includes just three posts, all dated in late December 2012. A historical snapshot of the site, maintained on the Wayback Machine, confirms the blog and the current content were live in 2013.

(Screen capture: The Antidate)

“Women are blatent (sic) and narcissistic,” pk_atheist wrote. “They do not hide their atrociousness. They lie, cheat, and create a public environment where they deride others for the very things they themselves do. Fuck em.”

In a post titled, “There’s a reason to be angry,” pk_atheist spewed with rage. “I think I’ve got a good reason to be angry,” he wrote. “Because women lie. And no matter how much of a strategy it is, no matter how much evolutionary psychology you’ve got to back this up, no matter how much sense it makes, it’s still unattractive to me. And I can be ok with this.”

“Women lie about what they like. They lie about what’s respectable in society. They have expectations of the people around them, but they lie about the morality of it,” he continued. “I am expected to be a nice, kind gentleman that does the right thing all the time. It’s expected of me. But women have no such compulsion.” […]

The Daily Beast unmasking of a New Hampshire House member as the founder of a notorious online forum that has been called “the heart of modern misogyny” sent shockwaves through the state’s political community. The governor, House speaker and GOP party chair all called on Rep. Robert Fisher (R-Laconia) to resign and last week the Republican-led House voted 307-56 to review Fisher’s actions for possible sanctions.

In a Laconia Daily Sun column, Fisher implicitly acknowledged his role in creating the forum when he explained and defended comments attributed to Reddit user pk_atheist in Bonnie Bacarisse’s detailed investigation. The previously anonymous Redditor is the founder of The Red Pill, which bills itself as a forum to discuss “sexual strategy in a culture increasingly lacking a positive identity for men.”

Fisher’s defense pointedly omitted any mention of The Red Pill, either his role in creating it or his ongoing involvement in the community. He will have a chance to expound on that Tuesday when he appears before the House Legislative Administration Committee. Here’s what we found.

‘Friends, I am stepping down’

On January 4, 2013, pk_atheist handed off the role of The Red Pill moderator to RedPillSchool, a Redditor whose account had been created just 17 minutes before the message from pk_atheist.

“Friends, I am stepping down,” he wrote. “Thanks for the great month.. this place has really grown and I'm excited for its future. Unfortunately due to circumstances I won't be bringing up here I am officially stepping down as a moderator and will no longer take part in any way with this community.”

“But don't worry..” pk_atheist wrote. “I leave you in the very capable hands of /u/redpillschool. I have been talking with him over the past few weeks and he is more than prepared to continue taking the community in the same direction. So long, and thanks for a memorable experience.”

“Don't worry... I promise to fill the void!” RedPillSchool chimed in. “Pk and I are on the same page.”

Over time, some Red Pillers conflated the two aliases and referred to RedPillSchool as the forum’s founder. For example, pickup artist Daryush "Roosh V" Valizadeh introduced The Red Pill to his blog’s readers by writing, “The Red Pill subreddit was created by an anonymous individual who goes by the handle RedPillSchool.”

When “The Red Pill Sidebar” was published in 2015, a post that had been written by pk_atheist in November 2012 to introduce the forum was included -- but it was now attributed to RedPillSchool. RedPillSchool thanked the member who assembled the collection and he placed a copy on a Red Pill website “so it doesn't disappear one day.”

In that same discussion, RedPillSchool recounted a date he had with a women's studies major who was familiar with The Red Pill and “went on and on about how refreshing it was to go on a date with a guy who was nothing like that. … I told her that I created the forum and actually hated women. She laughed and ordered another round. I don't think people would believe me if I did go public. Lol”

RedPillSchool made an explicit effort to refrain from providing personal details that would threaten his anonymity. In 2013, though, he did confirm his age as “30 +- 2 years.” (Fisher was 28 at the time.) In a Guardian interview he also confirmed that he is “white, atheist [and] conservative” (though admittedly, that likely applies to most Red Pillers).

RedPillSchool does occasionally repeat the story that he inherited The Red Pill from its founder, pk_atheist. “The sub itself was handed over to me early on,” he wrote last year, “I had had a lot of long conversations with the founder who went on to bigger and better things and he trusted I would run the forum well.”

But in a Guardian interview, RedPillSchool changed his story and said that he was the creator of The Red Pill. In the unabridged version of the interview RedPillSchool posted online, he told the reporter that he had been moderating the subreddit “since the red pill's inception.”

RedPillSchool described the events that led him to create the site. “I got started when I stumbled upon a few manosphere blogs and realized there wasn't really a good forum for discussion on masculine topics,” he explained. “I noticed the attitude of women in the dating market was very negative, it was a terrible experience. So that led me to researching others' experiences which led me to the mansophere, and eventually theredpill.”

(The Guardian piece referred to RedSchoolPill as “Morpheus Manfred.” RedPillSchool explained: “A few years ago was my first big interview, it was BBC world News. I needed an email, quickly. So I made a GMAIL, and it needed a name, so I figured, let's try Morpheus. You know, for obvious reasons. They needed a last name though, so I just thought Manfred sounded kinda righteous. Didn't realize they'd read my ‘From’ line on the email and announce me as Morpheus Manfred on the air. Since then I just kept it for consistency's sake.”)

‘We are the Puerarchy’

As The Red Pill grew, RedPillSchool was instrumental in rolling out a series of Red Pill-related websites – all with a connection to Fisher.

The original administrator’s email address for each site was Fisher’s personal email address -- the same email address linked to his campaign website, his band website and included in Fisher’s letter of complaint to the PUC -- and are all hosted on servers in Orlando, Florida. (Fisher once told Redditors that he is “personally spending thousands of dollars to co-locate [computer servers] in places like Florida.”)

The websites include trp.red (email), a Red Pill-related social media platform; forums.red (email), an archive of the Reddit Red Pill subreddits; feministvictims.com (email), a fundraising site for “victims of feminism;” and puerarchy.com (email), RedPillSchool’s blog.

Puerarchy.com is also linked to Fisher through a Google Adsense account. The website shares a Google Adsense publisher ID with insideNH.com, a website authored by Fisher and Rep. Nick Zaricki (R-Goffstown) where the legislators discussed issues related to their work in the New Hampshire House. (The insideNH.com domain name expired last month and the site is now offline.) Ad revenue from the two sites is directed to the same user's account.

Puerarchy.com made its debut in the summer of 2013. The word “puerarchy” was coined by the author of The Manosphere: A New Hope For Masculinity, Ian Ironwood, to describe “the evolution of male values and masculine goals toward a more selfish, self-oriented and unashamedly masculine perspective.”

RedPillSchool embraced the notion as a battle cry: “We’re going to eat pizza. We’re going to play videogames. We’re going to look at porn. We’re going to fuck every bitch we can. And we’re never going to ‘grow up,’” he wrote. “Some of us may make brilliant amounts of money. But one thing’s for sure: what we do is for us- and we’re not going to share. … Honor is dead. Long live the Puerarchy.”

In addition to news and discussion, the site hosts an interactive, text-based game: Slut Quest. It’s a sendup of Depression Quest, the game by female game developer Zoe Quinn that was at the center of the Gamergate controversy. The Slut Quest storyline is a typical Red Pill trope: a woman who has sex with men to advance her career and threatens to accuse them of rape if they don’t accede to her demands. “Slutquest was my crowning achievement,” RedPillSchool wrote.

Feministvictims.com was launched in response to the Andria Richards controversy that resulted in a male tech employee losing his job after she overheard him making an off-color remark. A Huffington Post write-up included a quote from RedPillSchool explaining why he believed the new site was necessary. “Unfortunately in today’s climate, being a man has become a financial liability,” RedPillSchool wrote. “Say the wrong thing in the wrong place and you can find your entire life ruined. Destroyed.”

“Feminists have fought for equality, but now they’re out for our rights,” he continued. “They’re destroying us financially. They’re trying to tear apart our families. We’re saying that enough is enough. No longer should men fear masculinity.”

‘I won't deny that the language is colorful’

When interviewed by Guardian’s Stephen Marche about The Red Pill’s notorious reputation as a misogynistic cesspool, RedPillSchool said, “I won't deny that the language is colorful and there's a lot of emotion expressed by the men on the forum.”

“I would argue that the definition of misogyny isn't really very concrete, that much is labeled as such because it's inconvenient. So, let's say there's a guy who just says ‘well I hate women.’ I think that's textbook misogyny and, in fact, we let them say that,” he continued. Because there's nowhere else for a man to blow off steam. … The endgame of our advice isn't to hate women. It's to understand them so you can stop being so darn frustrated by them.”

“If a guy came on and talked about actually hurting women or plotting to harm them, we'd remove them and possibly contact authorities if there was any risk of an immediate threat,” he insisted. “But this is the one place where men have the freedom to throw around ideas, vent, and discuss openly with other men.”

RedPillSchool denied the forum promotes rape culture. “There's no discussion of rape strategies. It's antithetical to our entire purpose, which is to find a way to become attractive enough that women will want to be with us,” he said. “If the group was seriously pro-rape, there simply wouldn't be a discussion on building attraction. We'd just take 'em all by force.”

“There have been probably a handful of comments I've removed over the past three years,” he continued, “and they're usually one-offs by trolls who want to make the group look pro-rape. They're banned and removed, since that is strictly forbidden in our forum rules.”

On the other hand, RedPillSchool has endorsed the subject of rape as “a great marketing gimmick.” In a post summarizing the “Red Pill state of affairs” written last year, RedPillSchool praised pickup artist "Roosh V" for the attention garnered by his plans for an international meet-up that was condemned as a “make rape legal” rally by detractors. The American blogger is best known for a 2015 article in which he proposed legalizing rape – a piece he said was a “satirical thought experiment” and “not to be taken literally.”

“I really can't fault him for the play that he made,” RedPillSchool wrote. “Some clever statements about rape that could be played off with the plausible deniability of satire, but gaining international attention on the sound bites. He was able to scare feminists and women in every major city, convincing them that big, bad rapists were coming to town to meet, plot and fester in the underbellies of their streets.”

‘The wrath of vitriolic women’

RedPillSchool has apparently been keeping a close eye on the Fisher unmasking and the subsequent reactions. The day Fisher’s response to the Daily Beast article was published by the Laconia Daily Sun, RedPillSchool posted a link to it on a Red Pill-related site. “I just got sent this by somebody on [Reddit],” he wrote.

Saturday, he addressed the unmasking, referring to it as “the recent doxxing of an alleged redpill founder.”

(Photo: Steve Rhodes/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

A bill introduced in the New Hampshire House would prohibit anyone who desecrates an American flag or state flag from receiving state funds “including, but not limited to, financial assistance to needy families, food stamps, and tuition assistance.”

If the legislation is enacted, the state would be punishing residents for exercising a constitutionally protected right. The Supreme Court has twice ruled that burning a flag is a type of political expression protected by the First Amendment. “It is poignant but fundamental that the flag protects those who hold it in contempt,” wrote Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy.

"If I were king, I would not allow people to go around burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment, which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged -- and it is addressed in particular to speech critical of the government," the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia explained in a 2012 interview. "That was the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress."

Co-sponsor Rep. Sean Morrison acknowledges flag burning is protected speech, but offers this tortured rationale for the legislation: “Should not we who pay for other people’s welfare not have protection regarding our freedom of speech and expression by not having to pay for people protesting the very government which provides them our money?”

The Epping Republican adds, “I don't believe that people are entitled to other people's money to be used for this purpose,and I believe that people who may respect their flag should also have a right not to pay for the lighter that will burn it, maybe even fought for. It's not a ‘right’ to use other people's money to desecrate what others may hold dear.”

(In regards to spending other people’s money, the Department of Health and Human Services says they are not aware of any previous acts that would have made recipients ineligible for financial assistance under the proposed legislation, but they do estimate there will be a cost of $360,000 for software upgrades and staffing to automate this type of ineligibility if the legislation is enacted.)

Morrison’s contempt for flag burning is shared by Pres. Donald Trump, who has seemed to suggest he is in favor of a constitutional amendment to ban the act. In late November, he tweeted, “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!”

At a rally in December, The Hill reported Trump followed that up by telling the audience, "We love our flag, and we don't like it when we see people ripping up our flag and burning our flag. We don't like it. And we'll see what we're gonna do about that, OK? We're gonna see," he said.

It’s worth noting that the flag desecration ban is not the only punitive action Morrison would take against those receiving public assistance. He also favors mandatory drug testing for aid recipients, a policy that has proven to be costly and ineffective in states that have adopted it.

While defending his support for the flag desecration legislation, Morrison posted an image of a fake tweet attributed to Trump, in which the president supposedly declared drug testing will be mandatory for those receiving public assistance. “I’m of this mindset as well,” wrote Morrison.