Keene Signals its Support for Secession by its Recent Peaceful Civil Disobedience
In case you aren’t aware, the police have their own gang symbol. It’s called the “thin blue line” – a blue line horizontally sandwiched between two black bars. You’ll frequently see it on the back of vehicles presumably containing police or their immediate relatives. Of course, anyone can buy these stickers now, so police have other ways of recognizing their own, like these family “professional courtesy” passbooks, but regardless, the blue line is still seen on their cars, their clothing, and now flags. It helps create the “us vs them” mentality that some police have. Worse still, some people insist on treating the police as though they are better than the rest of humanity. Their word is gold in court, they get special burials when mass calamity happens, deferential treatment in many of the crimes the corrupt officers commit, and more.
In a recent Keene Sentinel piece about multiple city councilors gushing over their recent decision to paint a horribly garish blue line down the middle of Marlboro St, local commenter Johnson Rice points out that the city is actually committing civil disobedience against the federal government: (more…)
Free Keene Founder Ian Freeman Interviewed by The Jail Paper Keene
New courtroom video/photo blog The Jail Paper Keene has been reporting from Keene’s district and superior courts recently, covering various criminal cases. This week, The Jail Paper Keene posted some of my mugshots and asked for comments on whether I am a hero or villain. Since I’ve been a longtime, publicly visible activist who has done a bunch over the decade plus I’ve been here in Keene, naturally some of the haters came around to post their uninformed vitriol.
I did my best to correct their misinformation and was amazed as some haters also attacked the Jail Paper Keene for even posting my photo to their page, accusing the page of being run by me or one of my supposed “puppets”. Their paranoia knows no bounds.
This Independence Day, I am pushing the meme of New Hampshire Independence. It is its own country of 1,331,000 people with a unique set of cultural, economic, and philosophical values. It’s about time you and I start referring to NH as a country. Forget “draining the swamp” — Leave the swamp!
State Representative Dick Marple again faced down Concord district court judge Kristin M Spath in their final round recently – his trial. At previous hearings and the trial, Marple has wowed observers by shouting at the judge and getting away with it as well as using long-talked-about court theories like refusing to cross the bar. (You can see his other hearings here and here.) He’s challenged jurisdiction from the beginning, and despite Spath’s ruling that she has jurisdiction, Marple still refused to participate in the trial they held for him on April 18th.
Instead he verbally sparred with Spath again for nearly 20 minutes before she proceeded with the show trial. Marple continued to refuse her invitation to cross the bar and sat in the audience through the state’s lone witness against him. Spath ended up taking the matter under advisement after the close of the state prosecutor’s case and later issued her ruling via a mailed order.
In the order, she found Marple not guilty of the misdemeanor “prohibitions” charge regarding his driver’s license, as the state neglected to present any actual evidence, but found him guilty of “driving after suspension”, sentencing him to $310 in fines, all suspended for six months on condition of Marple not getting any further moving motor vehicle violations in that timeframe.
Trial watchers had expected this light punishment for the 85-year-old state representative, who was able to get away with talking to a robed-person in a way that trial observers have ever seen. Most people who tried Marple’s approach would probably be arrested for “contempt of court” and thrown in jail. Was he able to talk back to the judge because Marple is a state rep? Perhaps because he’s elderly? Both?
Regardless, the big question now is whether or not he’ll appeal to the NH Supreme Court. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for any further developments!
Several longtime cannabis freedom activists at the 2017 Concord smoke-out.
Since 2009, on April 20th at 4:20pm people from across New Hampshire gather in front of the State House in Concord to commit mass civil disobedience by smoking, vaporizing, or otherwise consuming cannabis in public. As has happened in previous years, we were again joined by multiple state representatives including Libertarian Caleb Dyer of Pelham, NH as well as Keene’s Ward One Democrat, Joseph Stallcop, and Republican Glen Aldrich of Gilford.
Representatives Dyer and Stallcop were both featured speakers and also toked up with a crowd of over 100 people while representative Aldrich took photos, as he has done for years at the rally. Also photographing the event was Granite Haze of Mind blogger Justin Campagnone – you can check out his albums here. I had the honor of video recording the event, including all the speakers. I’ll be posting each speech to the Free Keene YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe and click the notification bell on the YouTube channel to see the videos as they are released! Meanwhile, here’s a video with some highlights of the event to tide you over:
This year’s event began with speakers at 3pm including representatives Dyer & Stallcop, me explaining the right of Jury Nullification, and Libertarian Party of NH chairman Darryl W Perry. The overcast weather threatened rain which thankfully never materialized and the temperature was cool and pleasant with a couple dozen already in attendance at 3pm by the street, smoking cannabis and chalking messages on the pavement. As we closed in on 4:20pm (the time that cannabis is used in celebration globally) the numbers of attendees swelled to easily over 100 people.
Just a portion of the excellent crowd, photos courtesy Justin Campagnone
Event organizer and executive director of the 420 Foundation, Shire Dude emceed (and live streamed) the event. As the crowd gathered directly in front of the state house close to 4:20, we heard from speakers including Carla Gericke of the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence, the executive director of the NH Cannabis Freedom Festival, Rick Naya, and medical cannabis consultant John Padellaro who told us how cannabis helped him with his inoperable brain growth. Padellaro also said, “I don’t support legalization. I support ending prohibition.” This sentiment was echoed by speakers Perry and Gericke, with Gericke also calling on New Hampshire’s new governor, Chris Sununu, to pardon all peaceful drug offenders and end funding for “Granite Hammer”. Perry and representative Dyer’s speeches focused on the current legal status and future of cannabis reform in New Hampshire while Naya reflected on the previous 420 rallies and people we’ve lost to prohibition. In his off-the-cuff speech, representative Stallcop of Keene told the attendees, “we need to stop looking at each other in terms of left or right. I see, in all honesty, there is right and there is wrong…We will stand together as one people and say that this is our decision, this is our choice.” (more…)