Is It Okay To Make Elected Officials Feel Uncomfortable?

There's quite a lively discussion going on over at BlueHampshire.com, where Manchester activist Brinck Slattery has posted a controversial Election Day video featuring Senator Betsi DeVries (who voted against medical marijuana), Senator Maggie Hassan (who voted in favor of medical marijuana), and  disabled veteran Ronald Mitchell.  Ron's doctor has told him that medical marijuana would improve his quality of life and allow him to dramatically reduce his intake of prescription pain medicines, so he wasn't too happy with his Senator being one of the 10 who voted to kill the bill.

Assuming NHInsider readers would prefer to make up their own minds about this encounter, here's the video:

Comment away!

Comments

[Chaz Proulx]

Matt

At least Dems are being critical of their own. But it was Democrats that championed this bill.

I haven't seen similar attacks on any Republicans. Perhaps because we ALL expect them to be morally superior when it comes to the dreaded weed.

I hope that at least privately our libertarian small government friends are giving some credit to democrats for their votes in favor of compassion.

[Matt Simon]

Chaz,

I'm not orchestrating this stuff, but you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be encounters with Republicans as well.

Given the promise by Gatsas to leave the Senate if elected mayor, it would have been insane for patients to target him on Election Day. Apparently some Democrats would prefer that marijuana policy reform activists were all insane.

For the record, I live in Manchester now... and I wrote in a name rather than vote for either Gatsas or Roy. (I do this pretty frequently -- I've never been able to stomach the whole "lesser of two evils" voting strategy).

Every individual who voted for HB 648 gets full credit from me, regardless of party. I don't think there were any legitimate reasons to vote against this bill, regardless of all the nonsense I keep hearing about the bill's supposed flaws... and I certainly don't blame the patients for being angry enough to embarrass the prohibitionists who voted against them.

Matt

[Richard Barnes]

Chaz, BULLSHIT!

You commented on the article in which I named the names of the 9 republicans in senate (and one Democrat) who prevented the medical MJ bill from passing. Saying you haven't seen Republicans calling out there own when you out right know better is an out right lie!

If you want to play partisan politics and make this a democrat vs republic issue you and people like you who wish to play these games will be the sole reason such bills will NEVER pass.

I thought this would be the one issue partisan politics would be put aside but clearly I see I'm wrong. Do you forget it was a DEMOCRAT (Lynch) who is the main reason this wasn't passed int he first place?

[Rowland]

I was making Carol Shea-Pelosi uncomfortable before making her uncomfortable was cool. But she made me uncomfortable first, so there.

If they can't take the people's heat then they should get out of the people's kitchen.

[Rowland]

Anyway Shea-Pelosi did it to Jeb Bradley first. Bradley sure had it coming but not from the likes of her.