N.H. Governor Signs Law Banning Real ID

South Carolina, Montana, Washington, Oklahoma and Maine also have rejected the federal act.

"Here in New Hampshire, we pride ourselves on being frugal, and here in New Hampshire, we pride ourselves on respecting the privacy of our neighbors," Gov. John Lynch said at the bill signing.

SFGate 6/27/07

Bill Kauffman: Bye, Bye, Miss American Empire

Orion Magazine July/Aug 2007

Secession talk in New England, cradle of Unionism, bête noire of the Confederacy, source of the “Battle Hymn of the (indivisible!) Republic”? Yet no region of the country has been as fertile a ground for secessionist thought as New England...

If Dick Cheney isn’t a dark alien force I don’t know what is. But a healthy secessionist movement must be founded in love: love of a particular place, its people (of all ethnicities and colors), its culture, its language and books and music and baseball teams and, yes, its beer and flowers and punk rock clubs.

New age town in U.S. embraces dollar alternative

GREAT BARRINGTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A walk down Main Street in this New England town calls to mind the pictures of Norman Rockwell, who lived nearby and chronicled small-town American life in the mid-20th Century.
ADVERTISEMENT

So it is fitting that the artist's face adorns the 50 BerkShares note, one of five denominations in a currency adopted by towns in western Massachusetts to support locally owned businesses over national chains.

more...

Legislature votes down Peaks Island secession

Portland Press Herald 5/31/07

The Peaks Island secession bill died quietly in the House Wednesday, closing another chapter in the turbulent debate over whether the island should separate from Portland.

Portland free to continue plundering.

Ron Paul Selects NH Pro-Life Coalition Chair

"The Ron Paul campaign is honored to have Barbara Hagan's support" said campaign chairman Kent Snyder. "Barbara is one of the most respected activists in New Hampshire and a giant in the pro-life community. There is no one better to lead our outreach to the right-to-life voters of the Granite State."

5/1/07 Campaigns and Elections

BTW, she was a 1996 Buchanan delegate.

Mr. Buchanan on the Queen's visit

Last week, Scottish nationalists, many of whom wish to secede, swept past Labor to become the first party of Scotland. Welsh separatists also made gains. Following the Irish, the other Celts want out of the England of Elizabeth II. Is this better, Your Majesty?

continue 5/7/07

News from Celtia

EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Scottish nationalists committed to independence from Britain became the biggest party in the Scottish parliament on Friday in elections which left a political headache for Prime Minister Tony Blair's successor.

Reuters 5.4.07

Support for secession grows among Vermonters

Support for secession grows among Vermonters

BURLINGTON — A recent statewide survey conducted by the Center for Rural Studies at the University of Vermont found that the percentage of eligible voters who favor Vermont seceding from the Union States and becoming an independent republic, as it once was between 1777 and 1791, increased from 8 percent in 2006 to 14 percent in 2007.

The 2007 Vermonter Poll was based on a random sample of 599 eligible voters conducted in February.

The 13 percent figure may represent the highest percentage favoring secession of any of the 35 states with secession movements, according to the Second Vermont Republic, the group that advocates for peacable secession.

The secession support is girded by Vermonters' response to a second question: “Has the United States government lost its moral authority?” Of those polled, 74.3 percent agreed that it had.

Of those Vermonters who favor secession, 83.6 percent would like to see the question put before voters on Town Meeting Day. And, of those who favor secession, 93 percent would then like to see the issue considered by the Legislature.

Posted May 3, 2007 Vermont Guardian

BRING BACK THE QUEEN

Time to come back to earth. Time to call Mother.

FreeMarketNews/Bernie Quigley

Mike Gravel to Obama: 'Who Do You Want to Nuke?'

Newsmax

Okay, Dems, Gravel is your man. God's Speed.

Muslims Call Ham Sandwich Hate Crime

Lewiston Maine

John Birch Society

Clearly, administrators in the Lewiston school district, the Lewiston Police, the tolerance Gestapo at the Center for Prevention of Hate Violence and the Maine Attorney General's office have gone off the deep end. Lou Dobbs seems to concur. "Mr. Superintendent," the CNN anchor asked on his broadcast, "do you have any sense of proportion? These are children, you're supposed to be educating and one would hope imparting some wisdom and discipline. This is ridiculous." Ridiculous it may be, but the incident demonstrates the dangers of Orwellian hate crimes laws.

Analysis: U.S. Public Supports Real ID Law

But Maine doesn't.

In recent months, five state legislatures -- Maine, Idaho, Arkansas, Washington and Montana -- have voted to oppose the new law.

Post Chronicle 4/24

And neither does Ron Paul.

Bill would authorize Peaks vote

Peaks trying to secede. Portland gubmint warns that Portland folks will have to cough up the difference from no longer robbing the islanders.

4/25 Portland Press Herald

Paul 2008: Second in New Hampshire Fundraising

Ron Paul was second among Republicans in itemized New Hampshire contributions with $16,950

Union Leader April 19, 2007

We'd be a more united kingdom with an independent Scotland

9/17/2006 Sunday Times London

Who cares, really, if the Scots one day choose independence? Would it matter if Wales and Northern Ireland, larger than half a dozen European states, wanted their own government as well as their own football team? It need not alter their allegiance to the crown. Gordon Brown and David Cameron, likely combatants at the next election, last week deplored any “loosening” of the union bond, as if it would jeopardise the security of the state.

Guard families cope in two dimensions

Guard families cope in two dimensions
`Flat Daddy' cutouts ease longing

Welcome to the ``Flat Daddy" and ``Flat Mommy" phenomenon, in which life-size cutouts of deployed service members are given by the Maine National Guard to spouses, children, and relatives back home.

Boston Globe 8/30

'Hybrid Mutant' Found Dead in Maine

..."It was evil, evil looking. And it had a horrible stench I will never forget," she told the Sun Journal of Lewiston. "We locked eyes for a few seconds and then it took off. I've lived in Maine my whole life and I've never seen anything like it." For the past 15 years, residents across Androscoggin County have reported seeing and hearing a mysterious animal with chilling monstrous cries and eyes that glow in the night. The animal has been blamed for attacking and killing a Doberman pinscher and a Rottweiler the past couple of years.

More AP/Breitbart

Free Vermont: Going Back To The Future

...As Americans, we eat fossil fuel energy, as most of our food has been grown with fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides, and has traveled hundreds, if not thousands, of miles to reach our plates. A free Vermont, led by local coalitions of farmers, entrepreneurs, community networks, and educated food consumers, will re-invent itself by embracing “food sovereignty,” working to ensure a safe and adequate agricultural system and food supply to feed our citizens in a post-carbon world.

continue reading at vtcommons.com

Peter Forbes: Start With The Land

Are we really loyal to our own soil? Let me make a straightforward proposition: all talk of the future of nations and states that doesn’t start with the fundamentals of soil, and our relationship to it, is the domain of armchair revolutionaries.

Continue reading at vtcommons.com

Sweet Purple

The near-miraculous blueberry.

By Constance Casey
Posted Friday, July 28, 2006, at 2:06 PM ET

The near-miraculous blueberry

We should all stand (or sit, open-mouthed) in awe at the great difference between a cold blueberry and a warm blueberry. Think of blueberry pie. We owe much to the person, probably a native North American in what we now call Maine, who first cooked the fruit.

more

Goodbye History, Hello Wal-Mart?

Hartford Courant, WILLIAM MORGAN July 16, 2006

Wiscasset is one of the most attractive towns along the scenic midcoast of Maine. A white-columned meeting house and a brick courthouse overlook a common; narrow streets lined with cottages and Federal period mansions amble down to the banks of the wide Sheepscot River. History is palpable here, where two centuries ago a thriving maritime economy built and sent wooden ships around the globe, briefly making Wiscasset one of the wealthiest towns in America.

Like so many once-prosperous Yankee seaports, Wiscasset's architectural patrimony survived because its economy languished. Jefferson's 1807 trade embargo hurt the New England states so much that they seriously considered secession. By the time the War of 1812 was over, Wiscasset had been mortally wounded. Huge schooners continued to be built on the Sheepscot, but they carried unglamorous cargoes such as lumber to Boston and New York; the mansions built by the West Indies trade remained, but the glory days were gone...

Ed Note: Wiscasset was founded as a Catholic community, the only one in Maine

Secession Meeting Turns Nasty

PORTLAND, Maine -- The initial round of secession negotiations between Peaks Island residents and the city of Portland turned heated Thursday evening, as secessionists refused to sit at the negotiating table.

A majority of islanders voted last month to sever ties with the city, but the City Council voted against the plan, opting instead for mediation.

Rest of the article: News 8 WMTW 7/21/2006

eXile: Why Britian Should be banned from the G*

July 2006

38. Even the Welsh want out of UK England's clearly on the decline when even Wales has got an independence movement. You heard us: the Welsh don't want to be associated with the English. That's like if Tula tried to secede from Russia. The Brits thought setting up a National Assembly in the 90's would placate them, but they wuz wrong! Plaid Cymru, the biggest single Welsh political party, wants to break free of England's change and form a new country. If they manage, that'd leave Prince Charles without a realm to rule over. Now's the time to do it, too. What with the British Armed Forces tied down in Iraq, it'd be up to the Territorial Army to try to stop 'em.

LRC: SVR mention

7/19/2006 LRC
The Left Is Pro-Empire
by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

...There were once some people on the left who were genuinely skeptical of the federal government and favored political decentralization. A few can still be found – Kirkpatrick Sale, for example, and some of the people behind the Second Vermont Republic. But they are a small minority. If radical decentralization is off the table, what does the rest of the left suggest? From what I can see, the left’s plan is to keep the federal government as powerful and irresistible as it is now, but just hope it behaves responsibly in foreign affairs....

LRC to the North: The case of Canadian 'libertarians'

LRC, Michael Cust, 7/17/06

Canada, by contrast, was slower to develop its welfare state. During the Great Depression, Conservative Prime Minister R.B. Bennett attempted a Canadian version of Roosevelt’s New Deal, including a minimum wage, a maximum number of working hours per week, unemployment insurance, health insurance, an expanded pension programme, and grants to farmers. The provinces fought him legally on his changes arguing that welfare is a matter of property and civil rights and hence as per section 92 of the British North America Act – Canada’s constitution – provincial jurisdiction. The case made it to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England, at the time Canada’s highest court. The court agreed with the province’s argument and struck down most of Bennett’s welfare programs. This is not to say that Canada did not have a welfare state, it did. There were a few welfare benefits, a monopoly wheat board, and several crown corporations (government-owned businesses). This welfare state was expanded upon in the 1940s and 1950s.

Our own Lee Shelton on antiwar.com:

July 3, 2006

'Conservatives' Condemn Freedom of the Press

by Lee Shelton

The folks at the Weakly Substandard have joined the ranks of "conservatives" calling for a crackdown on journalists who "leak" national security "secrets." In an essay entitled "Leaks and the Law," Gabriel Schoenfeld tries to make "the case for prosecuting the New York Times":

Exiles Eternal, Bill Bonner

LRC July 8, 2006

...Ol' Cap'n Earl used to live out on a pier in the West River. He had built himself a rickety cabin over the water to get away from his wife. He would sit outside, drink his beer and throw the cans into the water. In the summer, after work, when the river smells rose up so strong they were almost overpowering, men would gather out on the pier with him. They would talk. And drink. Sometimes they would pull a crab up out of the water. And the hours would pass.


But then some agency showed up. His cabin was condemned by about 12 different government agencies. Cap'n Earl, an old man by that time, was moved onto dry ground and died soon after. And then, the sailboats came, owned by Washington lawyers. They were soon so thick on the river that you could walk from one bank to the other, hoping from boat to boat...

Study sees decline of young, educated workers in N.E.

By MARK JEWELL, Associated Press
Thursday, June 29
BOSTON -- ...Most New England states can expect declines in the percentage of young workers holding bachelor's degrees or higher, with the steepest drops expected in Massachusetts and Connecticut, researchers conclude in a study commissioned by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.

The "New England 2020" report attributes the decline primarily to population growth among young minorities outpacing gains by majority whites, and a widening education attainment gap between minorities and whites, who are more likely to complete college continued...

Gasp! Anti-road press from The Economist?

…[H]ighways began expanding rapidly after President Dwight Eisenhower, 50 years ago this month, signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 which committed the government to invest heavily in a national network of interstates.
…[T]he network that he authorised was often referred to as the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. The generals thought that better roads would make it easier to move military convoys around in case of attack, as well as to evacuate big cities in a hurry. The overpasses were made high enough so that ballistic missiles could be transported beneath them. Though the atom bombs and invaders never came, life in America would never again be the same. continue...

Hawthorne family reburied next to author

AP

By Ken Maguire
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tucson, Arizona Published: 06.27.2006


CONCORD, Mass. — It was a Hawthorne family reunion, for the dead and the living.
About 40 descendants of Nathaniel Hawthorne gathered in Concord on Monday to watch as the remains of his wife and daughter, buried for more than a century in England, were interred in the family plot at the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery alongside the author.
"It's greatly significant to see the family reunited," said Alison Hawthorne Deming, 59, of Tucson, Hawthorne's great-great-granddaughter.

"It's also great to get together different parts of the heritage. It's a beautiful celebration for us," said Deming, a professor of creative writing at the University of Arizona. "It's not something we imagined happening. These people have never all been together."

Hawthorne, author of "The Scarlet Letter" and "The House of the Seven Gables," died in New Hampshire in 1864. His wife, Sophia, moved to England with their three children and died there six years later. She and their daughter Una were buried at Kensal Green cemetery in London.
Hawthorne's daughter Rose returned to the United States and started a Catholic order dedicated to caring for cancer patients. The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, based in Hawthorne, N.Y., had paid to maintain the Hawthorne graves in England.

But when cemetery officials told the nuns that the grave site needed costly repairs, the order arranged to have remains reburied in Concord.

On Monday, one modern casket containing the remains of mother and daughter was put on a horse-drawn 1860 wooden hearse and carried through the town center to a church for the memorial service.

The burial, which was private, took place in the section of the cemetery known as Author's Ridge, not far from where writers Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson are buried.

Feingold hedges on Peace...time to look to the antiwar Right again?

antiwar.com 6/26/06

Not even Russ Feingold believes – or says – U.S. troops ought to get out of the region entirely. Speaking on Meet the Press Sunday, an otherwise admirable performance by Sen. Feingold, a putative presidential candidate, was marred when he assured Tim Russert that he had no objection to leaving a substantial force of American soldiers behind in Iraq, and that of course we would have to go back in force at the first sign of real instability.

Peaks Island votes to Secede!

June 13, 2006
PORTLAND, Maine --Residents of Portland's most populous island voted Tuesday to secede from the city and make a go of it on their own.

Final post on ReactionaryRadicals Blog

I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together…by Bill Kauffman

...Our America– the ragged prophet/volunteer fire department/sacrifice bunt America—ain’t dead yet. The late great Edward Abbey used to say “Up with Spring/Down with Empire! Now there’s a war cry you could win elections with.”

Still could, Ed.

Chesterton told us that the patriot never, under any circumstances, boasts of the largeness of his country, but always, and of necessity, boasts of its smallness. Dorothy Day spoke of the Little Way. Or little way. As the anti-American Empire crumbles into unlamented dust, patriots of the little America, on their front porches and in their backyards, will reclaim our country. Read back through this discussion. Our side is fiddles and poetry and baseball and country churches and the local beer. Their side is bombs and tanks and television. How can we lose?

Note from Mr.Kauffman

Dear Mr. Bowen--
Great essay. I'll drink, too, to the Old Republic, and our ancestral memory of it, and its return.
Sounds like you've made a good home in Maine. I like New England very much. Small enough, sometimes defiant still. The Second Vermont guys hit the right notes.
Drink up!
Best,
Bill

Spanish American War tax finally sunsetted....

May 25, 2006
Mises Blog
Phone Tax Finally Sunsetted...

After 108 YearsTim Swanson
Several months ago Ted Roberts wrote an article discussing the tax on international phone calls that was originally levied to finance the Spanish-American War back in 1898. Today, MSNBC and others are reporting that effective July 31, this tax will finally disappear. In addition, consumers can file for a refund on this tax from March 2003 through the present - this is expected to be approximately $13 billion when the dust settles.
While much can be said on the topic of coerced philanthropy, this should serve as a clear illustration of how when the State gains the authority to do something, it is reticent to relinquish the authority. One down, thousands more to go.

May 12, 2006

How many secessionists are there?

By Thomas Naylor

posted May 12, 2006

The 2006 Vermonter Poll recently conducted by the Center for Rural Studies at the University of Vermont indicates that the percentage of eligible Vermont voters who favor secession from the United States could very well be the highest in the nation....

The Story of John Henry: Spy against the New England Republic

After retiring from the Army, he relocated to northern Vermont to farm and study law (presumably falling asleep during the ethics part of the curriculum). Also to write anti-republican diatribes. Let’s not forget that. In 1809, after reading some of his work, Sir James Craig, the British governor of Canada hired Henry to spy on the Federalists. It was well known in Great Britain that the New England Federalists were unhappy. Many Boston essays and pamphlets found their way to England where they enjoyed a life renewed in British newspapers (for example, Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering’s [the leader of the so-called Essex Junto] letter to Governor James Sullivan was more widely circulated in British newspapers than in American newspapers). John Henry was sent to Boston to measure their unrest and to ascertain if secession was likely (and if it was likely, to help shepherd the wayward states back into the Empire’s fold).

story

Look Homeward, America - new Bill Kauffman

Look Homeward, America
In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists
By Bill Kauffman

INTRODUCTION

I am an American patriot. A Jeffersonian decentralist. A fanatical localist. And I am an anarchist. Not a sallow garret-rat translating Proudhon by pirated kilowatt, nor a militiaman catechized by the Classic Comics version of The Turner Diaries; rather, I am the love child of Henry Thoreau and Dorothy Day, conceived amidst the asters and goldenrod of an Upstate New York autumn. Like so many of the subjects of this book, I am also a reactionary radical, which is to say I believe in peace and justice but I do not believe in smart bombs, daycare centers, Wal-Mart, television, or Melissa Etheridge’s test-tube baby.

“Reactionary radicals” are those Americans whose political radicalism (often inspired by the principles of 1776 and the culture of the early America) is combined with—in fact, flows from—a deep-set social “conservatism.” These are not radicals who wish to raze venerable institutions and make them anew: they are, in fact, at antipodes from the warhead-clutching egghead described by (the reactionary radical) Robert Lee Frost:

With him the love of country means

Blowing it all to smithereens

And having it all made over new

Look Homeward, America

Affections for a country not their own in MA

Massachusetts has real problems including an "opposition candidate" like this in the 4th District running against Barney Frank who recently (scroll down) voted for "war" against Iran.

The 51st state: Israel and America
By Charles A. Morseweb posted May 15, 2006

Chuck Morse is the Republican Congressional candidate for the Massachusetts 4th district.

Romney Nearly Drops Panel

Boston, MA High Culture? Romney "nearly" drops panel?


Gay-Lesbian Group Survives Parade Incident
May 13, 2006By STEVE LeBLANC, Associated Press

BOSTON -- Gov. Mitt Romney flirted with abolishing a state advisory commission on gay youth for promoting a parade today featuring a cross-dressing master of ceremonies and embracing transgender teens, a spokesman said Friday.

Cops told Pat K was at watering hole before crash

Boston Herald

By Dave WedgeFriday, May 12, 2006 - Updated: 04:28 AM EST

Capitol police in Washington, D.C., investigating U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy’s early-morning car wreck have been told by witnesses that the Rhode Island congressman was at a Capitol Hill bar before the crash, the Herald has learned.

Now Is the Time for a Left-Right Alliance

Read The Article Here: May 10 Antiwar.com
A rebel alliance already exists that could stop Bush administration attacks on the Constitution
by Thomas R. Eddlem

Thomas R. Eddlem is a native of the Boston area of Massachusetts and a graduate of Stonehill College. He is a radio talk show host in Southeastern Massachusetts and is a frequent contributor to The New American magazine.

Wartime explosives still turning up

Wartime explosives still turning up

NANTUCKET, Mass. - An excavator working in the area of a former Navy base found what the Inquirer and Mirror called an "ordnance" and took it home. Someone realized it was a hazard and called fire and police, who called the state police bomb squad, which arrived by helicopter, carried the World War II shell to a site near the airport and detonated it with what the newspaper called a "loud explosion."

Also note, this Block Isalnd paper is highlight Maine Island Secessionist news...

New microbrewery to open in Milford (NH)

Jewett is planning to market what he calls a "firehouse ale" series with a portion of the profits to go to local police, fire and emergency medical providers. He also plans to make a Vienna-style lager featuring the names of different locomotives.

We here at the Remnant, do not support Continental Lagers, however, it seems like this is a sort of local thinking that can and should be supported.

New Policy???

Illegals to be banned from jobs in Milford restaurants

MILFORD -- In response to what the Board of Health sees as a growing health crisis, local restaurants may be banned from employing illegal immigrants as a condition of their food serving licenses.
The policy will go into effect this summer.
The board plans to notify restaurant owners and managers of the new policy in a letter to be mailed in June. According to a draft, the move comes in response to a growing concern "with the resurgence of some serious infectious diseases nationally and locally."