While filming the merry antics of the Vermin Supreme campaign on November fifth, the eve of the election, myself and another videographer witnessed Manchester police remove an attendee from the Romney rally venue. After a lengthy conversation with a few officers outside of my view, we notice the man being dragged to the ground by three before being placed into a prisoner transport van. It’s difficult to make out the exchanges between the parties over the blaring music of the Mitt Romney/Kid Rock performance. Body language indicates that at one point, the officer appeared to try to take the man into custody, but he backs away and is not heartily pursued. The third party candidate tries to deescalate the situation with police by asking if the man is free to go, to which the officer implied that he wanted the man to leave. It’s possible that the arrested individual was not in the right state of mind and very uncomfortable, as it was near freezing temperatures at the time that this footage was shot.
It’s unclear what the man has been charged with, and a call to Manchester’s public information unit told me that no records were accessible until Monday. The only information regarding an arrest that I have found for this date is a blog entry by presidential campaign follower Ray LeMoine posting on TheAwl.com. The author reports: (more…)
Free Concord had the privilege of interviewing presidential candidate Vermin Supreme on the eve of the United States presidential election. Check out what Free Pony Party’s nominee had to say as we dig deep into his dental policy, addressing America’s moral and oral decay.
Both official presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, will be spending the days leading up to the election appearing and speaking in New Hampshire. Tomorrow morning in Concord, the Obama will be appearing at a ticketed event with none other than former US president Bill Clinton. Monday evening, the night before the election, Mitt Romney will be cohosting an event at the Verizon Colosseum with Kid Rock. The red-and-blue team duo have been traveling the country extensively, appearing with various celebrities who endorse their respective candidacies. The news blog Cleveland.com posted a story today that an underadvertised campaign appearance and concert with Barack Obama featuring Stevie Wonder had less than 200 attendees. A security perimeter has already been established downtown for the Concord event tomorrow morning. It’s comical that such a massive security event as a presidential appearance can be executed without an event promoter catching on to the lack of marketing.
Fourth party presidential candidate Vermin Supreme has confirmed earlier tonight in an appearance on Free Talk Live that he will be live and in person outside of the Romney event scheduled for Monday evening.
Meanwhile in Concord, chalk has already been laid out for the two presidents primed to appear tomorrow morning. (more…)
In addition to previous Free Concord coverage of Barack Obama’s recent campaign stop in Manchester, Dave Ridley has posted four videos so far from his eye on the ground. Rather than playing it normal and objectively recording the event, as I tried, Dave walked along the periphery of the security perimeter, and interacted with police and secret service along the way. He asked poignant questions of the secret service, Obama staffers, and event attendees. Some of his questions pertained to Obama’s treatment of Bradley Manning, and there is one encounter early on with USSS in which it is insisted that he not film, though no action is taken. In the fourth video, a Manchester officer tells him that he is required to answer questions and are seen clearing the sidewalk of all people before the president’s entourage passes through. You can see the one brief encounter I had with a suited USSS agent when I tried to film from inside the secured area here. Ridley’s four videos are embedded below. Additional newsprint coverage is available from the Union Leader and the Concord Monitor.
It was almost 8:00am, and I did not have a ticket to enter the expansive, barricaded area of Elm Street and other roads surrounding Veterans Park. Bulldozers and other large construction machines formed a fortification of the streets to vehicles, and metal barricades monitored by suits and badges kept out pedestrians. The gates were slated to begin receiving unarmed civilians on foot at 9:00am. I was unsure if I had missed my opportunity to get a ticket when I received a text message. “Bailing”, it said, “Obama wont be there til noon”.
After a brief telephone conversation, I had learned that a group of occupiers, who had planned to mic check the president, would be ditching their plans to slave for the empire. Almost all willing participants had a taxpaying job that they could not afford to miss at some point later in the day. Many had woken at 5:30 to get tickets from the Radisson at 6:00am, tickets which they would not be able to use with the president not scheduled to speak until after noon. The actual timeframe of events was not revealed until that morning. “The occupy movement has been destroyed by jobs”, one activist joked. (more…)
Mark Warden is a Free State Project participant and NH state rep in Goffstown. He’s a really principled guy who’s not afraid to show up at a Concord 420 at the state house. (He doesn’t smoke cannabis, but supports decriminalization and is willing to show it.) He also regularly attends court in support of liberty activists. Mark is a respected guy in the state house and an excellent realtor.
Now it appears the Democrats at the state level have decided to target Mark for defeat. William Tucker at Blue Hampshire says Warden’s seat is one of two key races they need to win:
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee today named two New Hampshire House races as key battlegrounds in the fight to make substantial gains in state legislatures around the country.
Aaron Gill, who is running to unseat Free Stater incumbent Mark Warden in Hillsborough District 39, was one of ten races selected through a process of grassroots nominations. The race matters, wrote the DLCC, because the outcome could indicate whether the state’s Republican-leaning districts are in play this cycle and if the Free State Project has staying power.
This is a good point, and this election in general will be a good indicator of whether the election of a dozen “free staters” in 2010 was a flash-in-the-pan or not.
party candidate tries to deescalate the situation with police by asking if the man is free to go, to which the officer implied that he wanted the man to leave. It’s possible that the arrested individual was not in the right state of mind and very uncomfortable, as it was near freezing temperatures at the time that this footage was shot.
