N.H. Lawmakers Backtrack After Brutally Mocking 4th Graders' Raptor Bill Class Project

[DonViejo]

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Lawmakers on Wednesday passed a resolution formally encouraging student participation in state government even as the legislators were being lampooned nationally for mocking what started as a civics lesson for fourth-graders.

The action in the House of Representatives follows the much-criticized and publicized debate over the students' effort to name the red-tailed hawk the official state raptor. As the students from Lincoln Akerman School watched from the House gallery March 12, one lawmaker invoked abortion and others called the students' effort a waste of time. One suggested the state would next be naming an official state hot dog. The House defeated the kids' bill.

-snip-

Blowback was swift. National media wrote about the comments, editorial writers blasted lawmakers, comedian John Oliver shredded them on his HBO show and the satirical website The Onion weighed in, too. The Republican speaker of the House requested an apology — so far not forthcoming — from the legislator who said the hawk rips its prey apart "limb by limb" and would make a better mascot for Planned Parenthood.

-snip-

When Cushing (Rep sponsoring the student's bill) finished speaking, the lawmakers rose to their feet and applauded for several seconds, but when a motion was made to enter his comments into the permanent record, a minority of legislators shouted, "No!"

Full article:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/new-hampshire-red-tailed-hawk-school-project

[calimary]

1. KICK!!!

It turns out we CAN drag these bastards into the town square to be pelted with eggs and mud and rotten tomatoes! It's called the internet! And the town square is WORLD WIDE! EVERYBODY WHO CAN LOG ON, from ANYWHERE - now knows you've got card-carrying douchebags in your state legislature, New Hampshire. How proud you must be.

I looked through that story in the link for names of these bastards and, as usual, most of the guilty are protected by anonymity. So I suppose you'll have to go to the state legislature website and look 'em up individually. But I'd guess that because the Speaker of the House there is republi-CON, the majority is, too. That explains a lot. The mean-spirited, cruel, thoughtless ones usually ARE from the GOP. Our side generally tends not to do that shit nearly as much, if at all.

But there WAS this, in the comments section:

"It's obvious that the lawmakers were upset that 4th graders were able to put a bill together and they themselves can not."