It’s a plant. Holding it should not result in jail.
Three years after cannabis possession by adults in New Hampshire was first decriminalized, there’s another bipartisan house bill in play this session that will go even further. I recently reported here on HB 1648 when NH 2020 gubernatorial candidate “Nobody” and I went to testify at the house committee hearing for the bill. Of all the speakers at the hearing, only one person spoke against it. Not even the police bothered to send a speaker to speak against the bill – it was an amazing hearing.
Now, the votes are in from the full state house, and it has passed the house with a veto-proof margin – 236 to 112! Though it was veto-proof, it was just barely so, with just over 67% of those attending today voting in favor of it. In 2017, the state house voted nearly 90% in favor of the initial cannabis decrim bill.
HB 1648 is a really good cannabis decrim bill that improves on the one passed in 2017 that made possession of under 3/4ths of an ounce of flower and under 5 grams of concentrate a violation instead of a misdemeanor. If it passes this year, HB 1648 will eliminate any penalty for people over 21 possessing those amounts. It will no longer be something police can act on at all. The bill, significantly, also allows adults to grow their own cannabis at home.
The bill is not perfect, of course, as I pointed out during my testimony in the two-hour long hearing. It still treats people under 21 like children by retaining violation-level penalties for people between 18 and 21, and also penalizes people under 18 for possession by forcing them into the juvenile system. That’s not fair or right. Also, the limits on the amounts that would be legal to possess are too low. That said, it’s a major step in the right direction and does it without creating a taxing and regulatory structure. Also, please note my summary of the bill is based on its text as-introduced. It was passed with an amendment that is currently not available to read online.
Hardcore civil disobedient activists who came out in the rain for 4/20/2019!
Next, the bill heads to the NH senate and its sponsors already include one democrat and one republican state senator, so hopefully that bodes well for its chances. We know that the current republican governor, Chris Sununu signed the first cannabis decrim bill in 2017 but has opposed legalization. That he opposes legalization is actually a good thing however, as all of the legalization bills so far have included regulations and taxes on cannabis. People who want freedom support ending prohibition but should not support taxing and regulating cannabis. Cannabis should be free to grow, sell, and possess without any penalty and that includes having to beg permission from the state gang to offer it to others.
While the decriminalization bill doesn’t decrim sales of cannabis, it is still a big step away from reducing the harm done to adults by the insane war on drugs and allows people over 21 to possess it without fear of police assault. Hopefully the governor will support this continued decriminalization of this amazing plant. If not, hopefully the NH senate will also pass it with a veto-proof margin. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
As Bitcoin (BTC) is once again making headlines for crossing the $10,000 price point, the world’s premiere multi-cryptocurrency, real-life payments platform Anypay has announced they are disabling BTC from their system. Based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Anypay’s co-founder Steven Zeiler said in an announcement today that BTC was “worthless for payments”, now that transactions can be easily canceled.
Originally, when Bitcoin (BTC) launched in 2009, and for several years into its life, one of the major selling points that set it apart from other electronic payments like credit cards was that Bitcoin transactions were irreversible. Once the buyer hit send, there was no way for the buyer to undo it. There was no “authority” like a credit card company or bank that the buyer could contact to have them reverse the transaction. Business owners are very familiar with the concept of the dreaded “chargeback”, where a dishonest customer can use the credit card company’s ability to undo transactions to scam a merchant and receive money back AND keep the product. Chargebacks were impossible under Bitcoin (BTC) and this was a major reason why businesses wanted to accept BTC.
However, midway through its first decade, after its anonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto disappeared and development was taken over by others who did not share Satoshi’s vision, the newer programmers introduced a “feature” called “Replace By Fee” or RBF. The purported reason for this was to allow a sender – after they’d already sent a transaction – to update the associated fee and help it get through the network faster. However, this also allowed them to cancel the transaction entirely, as long as the transaction had not yet received its first confirmation. This RBF “feature” broke one of the fundamental tenets of the original vision of Bitcoin – irreversible transactions.
Satoshi Nakamoto, Anonymous Creator of Bitcoin
For a while, this cancellation “feature” was only accessible through the “full node” Bitcoin Core software, which meant it was relatively tough to use in a real life payments situation. However, as shown by this video here, now more mobile wallets are incorporating the “feature”, which means that accepting Bitcoin (BTC) at point-of-sale is now highly dangerous and increases the risk of fraud. Hence, Anypay has announced they are no longer going to allow Bitcoin (BTC) payments on their platform.
In a video posted today, Zeiler announces that BTC has been disabled on the Anypay Cash Register app until further notice, as he’s had a “final revelation that it’s worthless for payments”. This, after having seen the new video that shows how easy it is now to commit fraud against real-life payment systems using BTC.
While some BTC-only fanatics will be disappointed by the news, the reality is most people don’t use BTC for payments via Anypay’s platform anyway, given BTC’s ridiculously high fees compared to other, more useful cryptos that were designed for payments like Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and DASH or even Bitcoin SV (BSV), which Anypay is now supporting. Plus, when paying with BCH or DASH on Anypay at a real-life business one will usually receive 10% back instantly thanks to Anypay’s “Bitcoin Cash-Back” and “DASH-Back” programs.
I think Anypay has made the right choice here to protect merchants from potential fraud. It’s too bad the Bitcoin (BTC) programmers forced Anypay’s hand, by making BTC less useful over time. Once upon a time Bitcoin was useful for payments, as it was originally intended. Sadly, those days are long gone. Bitcoin (BTC) may still be the king crypto, but if it’s not useful for payments, is it really a currency?
Anypaymap.com shows the most active crypto-accepting businesses in the area.
Big news from the Monadnock Crypto blog! The Keene area now has three additional local businesses that are accepting cryptocurrency for their services. All three are mobile businesses and will travel to their customers and were all added to the local Coinmap in the last month. That brings the already very high concentration of businesses accepting crypto to an all new level, keeping Keene in the top tier of cities globally that are high in crypto-acceptance-per-capita. In fact, both Forbes and Bitcoin.com have called Keene, “Crypto Mecca”.
With her new business, “EuPHOria”, the founding chef of Keene’s “Pho Keene Great”, Isabelle Rose, has struck out on her own and is now regularly meeting customers in Keene with hot Vietnamese food cooked-to-order. Another recent addition is Pure Bliss Clean, a professional cleaning service that handles home and small businesses. Also, Kenzy Dietz of “KD Prestige Detailing” recently won Monadnock Crypto’s radio giveaway contest on 92.7 Bratt FM and decided to set up Anypay Cash Register shortly thereafter. Dietz had already been introduced to cryptocurrency by someone close to her and was elated to be the winner of the $500-worth-of-crypto giveaway. When asked what her reasons were for accepting cryptocurrency at her car detailing business, Dietz said, “Cryptocurrency is the currency of the future, so I am delighted to be a local business that accepts it as payment. Not only is it easy to accept, but it’s a great way to broaden my businesses acceptance of alternatives to paying with just cash, checks, or debit. The future is coming.”
After a decade of attending various cannabis legalization and decriminalization hearings at the Concord state house, this week’s hearing for HB-1648 was refreshing. HB 1648 is a really good cannabis decrim bill that goes even further than the one that passed in 2017 that made possession of under 3/4ths of an ounce of flower and under 5 grams of concentrate a violation instead of a misdemeanor. If it passes this year, HB 1648 will eliminate any penalty for people over 21 possessing those amounts. It will no longer be something police can act on at all.
The bill is not perfect, of course, as I point out during my testimony in the two-hour long hearing. It still treats people under 21 like children by retaining violation-level penalties for people between 18 and 21, and also penalizes people under 18 for possession by forcing them into the juvenile system. That’s not fair or right. Also, the limits on the amounts that would be legal to possess are too low. That said, it’s a major step in the right direction and does it without creating a taxing and regulatory structure.
The real shocker at the public hearing this week was the lack of any police presence. Having attended these cannabis hearings over more than a decade, this is the first time where the police not only did not speak against the bill, but weren’t even there watching. The chiefs of police association did sign the blue sheet against the bill, and were the only ones to sign against it. All other signatures were for the bill. Plus, of all the various people who spoke, there was only one who spoke against it, the woman from prohibitionist busybody group “New Futures”. All the other voices were in favor of the bill passing.
Nobody told the house Criminal Justice panel that rather than punishing people under eighteen by putting them into the harsh juvenile system if they are caught with cannabis, the most the state agents should do is call their parents. He said further, “The idea that kids should be subject to more criminal liability than adults kind of flies in the face of reason, when you think about it. I mean, we’re going to attach a criminal penalty to your behavior because your mind is not well enough formed yet to make decisions that have a lasting impact. Well, don’t you think it’s possible that taking criminal sanction against somebody has a lasting impact on their life? Maybe they shouldn’t be bound to that by a decision they make so young.”
One year later from their threats against a local Asian cuisine restaurant, I’ve got a Christmas gift for the City of Keene gang – the video they didn’t want you to see where multi-term mayor Kendall Lane reveals his racist view about New Hampshire’s low crime rate:
The clip is from a just-released documentary called “Young Guns“, from a Keene State College student, Reece Dunn who was visiting from the UK. Anonymous sources inside the college informed me that when this video premiered at the Monadnock Film Festival in 2018, there was immediate action from the people calling themselves “the City of Keene” to squash it inside the college. However, the college couldn’t do much as Dunn had already left and returned back to the UK. Dunn ultimately decided to release his student film publicly on YouTube this holiday season. The short documentary is about a young man from a total gun prohibition state exploring a place where there is very little restriction on gun ownership.
In the process, Dunn ended up talking to Lane about growing up with the New Hampshire gun culture and ultimately asks Lane why New Hampshire’s violent crime rate is so low. Lane says, “I have theories about why New Hampshire is particularly safe…” then pauses a while before stuttering and stumbling and then finally says, “part of the reason New Hampshire is so safe is because quite honestly it, the state is 98% white. The state is very homogeneous. There’s not a lot of diversity in New Hampshire.”
Only advocates of peace are allowed to blog at FreeKeene.com
It’s a shocking statement from the same mayor who gave a speech at an anti-racism candlelight vigil in late August of 2017 after Keene resident Christopher Cantwell made international news for being a leader of the Charlottesville, Virgina white nationalist “Unite the Right” protests.
Lane’s ridiculous statement in Dunn’s documentary can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. He could believe that white people are more peaceful than people of other skin colors or he could believe that people of different races living nearby each other and mixing together leads to more violence. Whatever the interpretation, the beliefs he expressed sound a lot like Chris Cantwell’s white nationalist views that Lane appeared to speak against just two years ago.
Lane is wrong for the same reasons Cantwell is wrong. The racists can drag up their statistics and studies all they want to prove their claims about various groups of people, but to libertarians it is the individual who matters. Individuals from different parts of the country and world come here regardless of skin color, perhaps because they value the freedom they can have here. In particular, the freedom to defend one’s self, family, and community with whatever weapons one chooses.
New Hampshire attracts people who value freedom and the freedom to self-defense without having to beg for a government permission slip first is the reason we have more peace and dramatically less violence than other places. Even though New Hampshire has a state gang, they are less oppressive than other states in the area of gun ownership, and so we have less violent crime as a result.
Lane chose to not run for re-election this year and will end his term in January when he’ll be replaced by mayor-elect George Hansel. Hopefully this video will end any chances of Lane trying to run for other political offices. Meanwhile, Lane should stop listening to Chris Cantwell’s radio show and reconsider his dated, collectivist, racist views.
State Rep. Mike Sylvia is no stranger to civil disobedience.
In a slap in the face to the idea of property rights a robed man from Belknap’s “superior court” has ruled against A+ rated liberty state rep Mike Sylvia for living on “his” property. This week, nearly two months after a civil trial, James D O’Neill III issued a 15-page order, ruling in favor of the Belmont town gang, awarding them legal fees and further ordering Sylvia to no longer stay at “his” property.
I previously reported on this case here at Free Keene in 2018, but here’s a quick rundown on the case history: Sylvia purchased the property in question after the home burned down in 2009. The only standing building left was a garage. Sylvia parked an RV on the property as he worked on the property but soon found himself being stalked by a “zoning enforcer”, Steve Paquin. Paquin, apparently on orders from the city council to target Sylvia, would regularly drive by and creep on Sylvia, observing smoke coming from a chimney on the garage and footprints in the snow going from the RV to the garage. Paquin even speculated about Sylvia’s bathroom habits, his reports ultimately leading to the town gang issuing Sylvia threats demanding hundreds of dollars per day in fines for violating their precious zoning rules.
According to the “Town of Belmont” criminal enterprise, they have a right to destroy people’s lives and steal their wealth because some strangers wrote some words on paper and called it “zoning”. According to these arbitrary rules that none of us agreed to, the town gang says you must ask their permission before laying down to sleep in what you thought was your property, since you know, you paid for it with your hard-earned money.
Zoning thug Steve “Creeper” Paquin wants to watch you on your property.
But no, you don’t actually own your property. Ownership is proven by control. If you don’t control a thing, you don’t own it. Sylvia’s case proves clearly again that the group of strangers called “the state” actually owns all the property. You can’t do what you want without asking their permission, including simply existing on it. Asking permission is evidence that you are not exercising a right, but begging for a privilege. Begging is not the way of free people, nor the actions of an owner.
Sylvia acted like he owned the land. He, correctly, doesn’t believe he should have to ask permission to live a place he should have a right to be. Sadly, there are men with guns calling themselves “the Town of Belmont” and “State of New Hampshire” that have decided to force their beliefs down on Sylvia and all the rest of us who believe in property rights.
Judge O’Neill’s order prohibits Sylvia from “occupying the garage and/or recreational vehicle” unless he is given a permission slip from the town. He’s further prohibited from using a “water appliance or fixture” on the property until a “compliant septic system” is installed. The hundreds of dollars a day in fines the town has assessed against Sylvia and the property were ordered held in abeyance and will only be imposed if Sylvia disobeys the robed man. Sylvia has however been ordered to pay the town gang’s legal fees, for which they’ll present an invoice for some likely ridiculous amount.
What is the state gang’s excuse for their violence? Besides their obvious thirst for obedience, compliance, and control, they would argue that there’s some kind of danger to public health because the garage doesn’t have a septic system. Ignoring the fact that RVs have their own waste tanks that can be safely disposed of, the property is wooded. Sylvia even asked the creeping zoning thug during trial if he was aware of an old outhouse that was in the woods. Even if there isn’t an outhouse and Sylvia was pooping directly in the woods, so what? Are we supposed to believe that human feces is somehow more dangerous to the neighbors’ property than all the bear, moose, dog, and other animal dung that’s left throughout the woods?
Robed man James D O’Neill III says the state owns your property.
Sylvia believes that he was targeted by the town gang specifically because of his actions as a state representative. One less-discussed responsibility of New Hampshire’s state reps is they also make up the “County Convention” which controls the county taxes. Given he’s an award-winning state rep, rated A+ for liberty votes, Sylvia is a threat to the county’s budget as he will not vote to raise taxes. Therefore he was targeted by the town gang for retaliation.
Arguing this in court didn’t help, of course, because the man in the robe is paid by the same state gang that targeted Sylvia in the first place. But no, that’s not a conflict of interest. Sylvia also argued that Paquin couldn’t prove he was actually sleeping or pooping on the property, but that doesn’t matter in civil court, where the court decides based on the “preponderance of the evidence”, not the criminal court standard of reasonable doubt. Therefore, the testimony of the sole creepy witness was sufficient for the court to rule against Sylvia.
Zoning is a nightmare for anyone who believes in property rights and the only solution is to abolish it entirely statewide. We’re going to need a lot more libertarian activists in New Hampshire before that can be done. Meanwhile, Sylvia has literally been kicked off what he believed was his own property by the people calling themselves “the state”, and thrown out into the cold.
Sylvia told me in an exclusive interview, “Property rights, according to the judge don’t really exist”. He says he was unable to find any cases where property rights have been looked at by the NH Supreme Court and is not sure whether or not he will be appealing the decision. He’ll be considering future action legislatively to address the corruption in town governments. You can read his response to the ruling here on his blog. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for any further developments in this case.
