I was recently honored by the Walpole Grange in that they invited me (and the other local libertarians running for office) to their candidate forum event. I was given six minutes to speak about my campaign, where I struck at the root against the entire idea after the state after covering the drug war, voluntarizing taxation, and secession in four minutes. Later, I was given two more minutes to speak regarding the gubernatorial campaign of Jilletta Jarvis. Here’s the video:
Libertarians Protest Unfair Debates Outside St. Anselm College Yesterday
As of 2016’s election, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire has gained full ballot access as a major party on par with the Democrats and Republicans. This is a big deal as it means we no longer have to jump through ridiculous ballot access hoops like petition gathering to get candidates on the ballot here. This has resulted in more Libertarian candidates appearing on the ballot here in Keene than Republican candidates. If the LPNH’s gubernatorial candidate, Jilletta Jarvis, can receive at least 4% of the vote this year, the party’s major ballot access status will continue for the next two years.
Sadly, the two largest mainstream media entities are working to help stop Jarvis from getting her ideas exposure in their debates they are hosting this week. WMUR-TV and the Union Leader are putting on the “Granite State Debates” and have set the rules to where only the Republican and Democrat candidates will qualify. To get in to their debate, a candidate must have received 12% in a recent poll and have raised over $25,000. Ironically, Darryl W Perry told me that both organizations have opined in favor of getting money out of politics, but when it’s a metric they can use to exclude the Libertarians, they apparently support money in politics.
The idea that such rules are in any way necessary is totally ridiculous. There are only three ballot qualified candidates for governor. It’s not like they’d need eleven podiums on the stage. They could have kept it fair and allowed in all ballot-qualified candidates, but they stacked the deck against the Libertarian campaigns. It’s pretty clear the exclusion was done on purpose, likely to appease the other two parties’ candidates, who as we saw recently may refuse to attend if the Libertarian is invited.
It wasn’t just the race for governor. Last night they held their debate for NH’s 2nd congressional district and excluded Libertarian Justin O’Donnell. In an interview with Free Keene, O’Donnell said this on the matter:
Radio and TV broadcasters are given free access to use public airwaves worth more than half a trillion dollars in exchange for a requirement that such broadcasters “serve the public interest” and provide a fair and unbalanced reporting of the news to inform the American people. By hosting a facade of a debate, and failing to include all the options who have qualified to be on the ballot, these broadcast organizations are negligent in their duty to inform the people.
Tomorrow, Libertarians will gather to protest starting at 5pm, two hours before the beginning of the gubernatorial debate at St Anselm College. They will be standing near the college’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics at 100 Saint Anslem Drive in Manchester. LP gubernatorial candidate Jilletta Jarvis will be present. Last night the turnout was approximately a dozen activists – hopefully we’ll have as much or more tomorrow night! The fake “debate” begins at 7pm Eastern. Here is a facebook event for the protest.
The 2018 General Election is approaching in less than 2 weeks. Per state law, the Libertarian Party candidate for Governor, Jilletta Jarvis, needs at least 4% for the Libertarian Party to retain ballot access. This will be difficult since Jarvis and the Libertarian candidates for Congress haves been excluded from the upcoming Granite State Debates hosted by WMUR and the Union Leader. I encourage everyone who wants to keep NH tri-partisan to vote Libertarian in the upcoming election! Governor: Jilletta Jarvis Congress: Justin O’Donnell State Senate: Ian Freeman State House Cheshire 7: Robert J Call State House Cheshire 16: Darryl W Perry Sheriff: AriaDiMezzo Baker Treasurer: Kenneth Kelly III Register of Deeds: Darlene Lester Register of Probate: Jacqueline Mason (write-in)
Yesterday evening I was invited along with other Libertarian candidates Darryl W Perry and Jilletta Jarvis to Monadnock Developmental Services for a presentation to political candidates about the frustrations that families with children who have developmental disabilities have with state “assistance” programs. Multiple family members presented their difficult stories to a couple dozen state reps and candidates for office.
If you want, compassionate solutions to healthcare issues that don’t rely on institutionalized violence, you really need to listen to the first hour of last night’s Free Talk Live to find out why Libertarianism and the non-aggression principle is the best way to help our neighbors in need. Here’s the archive:
RT America contacted me Friday and asked for a quick comment on behalf of Cop Block regarding this week’s mass page takedown by Facebook. The takedown affected the facebook pages of major police accountability and pro-liberty sites including the Free Thought Project, the Anti-Media, Cop Block and others. I explained that Facebook is their property and they can do as they wish with it. Police accountability activists and other libertarians should be building alternative platforms rather than relying on those provided by political corporate behemoths like Facebook and Twitter. Here’s the segment that aired on RT America yesterday:
The good news is, such a platform already exists in the form of Mastodon, which is a decentralized, federated competitor to Twitter. Unlike Facebook and Twitter which are centralized platforms controlled by corporations, a Mastodon server can be run by anyone and worldwide there are thousands of Mastodon servers. Each server admin decides the rules for their server, including which other Mastodon servers to connect to – this is what it means when Mastodon is described as “federated”. Its decentralized, federated structure is why Mastodon is much more censorship resistant than the centralized, corporate platforms.
Cop Block’s new Mastodon!
I recommend you create an account on your preferred Mastodon instance. If you’re pro-liberty, then you should try out Liberdon, which launched this summer and houses various libertarians and voluntarists. I just made a CopBlock account there today, which you can follow here.
Facebook’s blog post explaining their takedowns basically admitted they were upset that pages like Cop Block were getting people to leave Facebook and visit their respective websites, meaning potential revenue for the sites in question and potentially less revenue for Facebook. Facebook doesn’t want you to leave Facebook. Whether there were political motivations behind the takedowns is more speculative, but it certainly reeks of it. Regardless of their reasons, perhaps you should consider leaving Facebook entirely and helping build the decentralized alternatives. It’s up to you.
NH’s top cop has resigned over physical abuse of son – Photo from Valley News’ Jennifer Hauck
Enfield police chief Richard Crate, until recently was the longtime president of the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police. He was a regular figure at state house hearings to decriminalize medical and recreational cannabis. Crate publicly opposed those proposals every step of the way – on behalf of police chiefs across New Hampshire. Here’s some of his testimony on cannabis decrim where he predicted a “wave of devastation”. Needless to say, now a full year since decrim – said devastation hasn’t occurred.
Now it looks like Crate should have take up the habit of consuming cannabis. Maybe a joint at the end of his work day would have helped him calm down and deal with his anger issues that appear to have led him to attacking his own son. Crate resigned earlier this year to avoid prosecution by the state’s attorney general’s office, agreeing that he’ll undergo counseling, apologize to his son, and not seek recertification as a police officer, according to the Union Leader.
