As reported here this week, I was threatened with arrest along with Darryl for handing out fliers inside the new courthouse. Further, on Wednesday, Jason Repsher was similarly threatened by court security agents. I went to court this morning for Graham’s trespass case and was told there is a new “order” in place for both courthouses. I was given a copy of said order. Basically, it continues the standing media restrictions in all NH courthouses, and further bans any distribution of literature inside the courthouse.
The new order is signed by both robed men, Edward J. Burke and John C. Kissinger, and with the whisk of their pens, freedom of speech has now been prohibited along with freedom of the press.
It matters not that I’ve been handing out “Don’t Take the Plea Deal” flyers in the public lobby of the district court in Keene (as well as other district courts in NH) for years. Now if I hand someone a flyer, I’ll go to a cage for an indefinite period of time for “contempt”. “Contempt” is a “power” that robed men have that is inherent in the system, not statutorily authorized, meaning there’s no way to change that part of the system, and there’s no way to challenge a contempt ruling, as I understand it. They literally can cage you forever with virtually no accountability.
So much for freedom of speech and the press inside government buildings. If you want to speak, you can do it outside in the freezing cold or rain.
Last month, myself and Darryl, as ministers of the Shire Free Church, contributed a check in the amount of over $1,400 to the “City of Keene” for services we value, that are not coercive in nature, such as road maintenance. We specifically left out of the check the amount of money the city was demanding for the government school system.
Instead of sending money to a system based on coercion of our peaceful neighbors, we have chosen to send $1,000 instead to a peaceful school that does business by consent, the Monadnock Waldorf School. People have asked how schools can be funded without the state – it’s easy. One method is to pick the school(s) you like and send them the money the state system would have otherwise taken from you. Let the market decide how money should be distributed, not centralized bureaucracy that gets their funding by threat of stealing homes.
This is not a property tax revolt. Churches and their parsonages are not supposed to pay property tax, even under the state’s system. The city people sent a year-end property tax bill to the home I used to own that I donated this summer to the Shire Free Church, and we used the amount of money demanded on that bill as suggested amounts to calculate what we would actually give for the community services we value.
Whether the people calling themselves “the City of Keene” will recognize the Shire Free Church’s freedom of religion and cease sending property tax bills to the church’s parsonage remains to be seen. We delivered their exemption form (the BTLA-9) to the city assessor this week, as a courtesy, not because we feel the church is in any way obligated to the rules of their coercive system. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
Today at the NH state house, both critical legislative votes were delayed until next week due to there being too much to do. The NH Freedom blog has a rundown of what did today, including the good news where they voted to legalize home poker games.
I was nearly arrested today at the new superior court building while doing jury nullification outreach for the first time in 2014 and also the first time at the new building. In the several year history of doing jury outreach at the court, we’ve never had any real issues, but that’s because we never went inside the court building to conduct the outreach. That’s what set them off today, as they clearly want to protect their new territory from those darn activists who always want to exercise their rights, in this case, freedom of speech.
After I’d successfully handed out a couple dozen NHJury.com fliers in the superior court lobby, court security officer Bob Tebo approached, accused me of “soliciting” and called the sheriffs. I then called up Darryl who was doing “Don’t Take the Plea Deal” outreach the floor below at district court to come record and witness the coming threats. (Darryl had no similar issues with district court’s more professional security staff, by the way.) While waiting, I continued to hand out fliers. Here’s the video, courtesy of Darryl:
Sheriff’s deputy Shanks arrives with another of the grumpy court security officers. (more…)
The Laconia police prosecutor has dropped the DUI and drug possession charges, meaning Amanda Billyrock is now only facing class B misdemeanors. Here’s her post from her Facebook page where she announces the news:
