Philly Liberty Activists Fortify Occupation

On November 10, I traveled down to Philadelphia to cover the story of the Truth-Freedom-Prosperity “Warming Station” at the city’s Occupy Movement. This is where Occupiers can stop in for a warm cup of tea and enjoy some open-minded discussion with liberty-lovers.

While not terribly liberty-loving (almost everyone I met there was a Constitution-worshiper), the group’s members are far more in-touch with the problems of government intervention than the rest of the Occupy Movement.

The group is leading by example, but not always in the ways I’d like to see. For example, they build a structure and offer the blueprints to others so that anyone can emulate the successful project. On the other hand, they intend to move tomorrow to make way for the construction of a multi-million-dollar, taxpayer-funded skating rink when asked by city police. How nice. (more…)

Ron Paul in Keene on Monday

I’ve just heard from college activist friends that Ron Paul will be speaking at Keene State College next Monday evening (the 21st), at 4:30 in the Lantern Room Mabel Brown Room of the LP Young Student Center.

I hope local liberty activists will be out in force, making lots of friends.

This is also the perfect opportunity for Manchesterites to visit Keene to negotiate the terms of their surrender. (Government officials involved in the war on drugs are likewise invited to surrender.)

Plus, LGBT activist Charlene Strong will be speaking at Keene’s United Church of Christ Keene State College this Friday at 6pm.

Torture/Murder a Federal Employee, Receive Verbal Warning

Really. No, wait, not really. 

It has been several months since I contributed to the Free Keene blog regarding my transition to liberty or my opinions about stuff that is happening in the government world. In fact, my second to last post here was about how I, for the first time in 30 years crawling this planet, got arrested.  I was arrested at the US/Mexico border in Nogales, AZ by United States Customs and Border Protection for exercising the 5th Amendment.

My blog was titled “I Sat in a Cage to Defend the 5th Amendment.”

Well, I finally got my “arrest report” from the feds (after 4-5 months of notarizing forms, mailing things back and forth, and begging) and it sure looks like they let me off easy for the pure evil I unleashed at the border station. It looks like I misled you in my July blog in that that I failed to mention that I, according to the federal officer who arrested me, murdered one of their co-workers.

Among the two things I “could have been arrested” for were 18 USC 111 and 18 USC 1114. That would be forcibly impeding and murdering a federal officer. Now verbal warnings are given out every day for things like speeding and rolling through a stop sign… but I never imagined I’d get a verbal warning for violating a law that I could get the federal death penalty for. I went straight from never having been arrested or convicted of anything to the lethal injection.

Here’s the report.  It is so ridiculous, I believe it deserved its own meme.

Now, having written a police report or two myself, I’ll point some things out that are happening in CBP Officer Aldrich’s weak attempt of a report he came up with.

(more…)

More city council results

The Sentinel has posted the voting totals:

Philip Dale Pregent, who did not run for re-election as mayor, was the top vote-getter with 1,522 votes; he was followed by incumbent Kris E. Roberts (1,256), incumbent Ruth R. Venezia (1,045); Carl B. Jacobs (925) and David Meader (721).

They bested Joseph W. Bendzinski (668), Robert B. Sutherland Jr. (645), Steven W. Lindsey (594), Dorrie Faulkner O’Meara (429) and Heika Courser (208).

I am surprised by some of these results. I was using the results of the primary to predict the results of the general election, expecting that the vote totals would be roughly proportional in both cases. This was largely true, with two glaring exceptions.

Steve Lindsey (endorsed by me) did worse than predicted. Bob Sutherland (endorsed by Ian) did better than predicted.

Lindsey has suggested that the order of names on the ballet would depress his vote total. (The order of the names is decided by performance in the primary, with highest vote-getters at the top. Since Lindsey tied for fifth in the primary with David Meader, the order of the two was decided randomly. Meader got the fifth spot, and Lindsey the sixth.) If ballot ordering was the cause, then that hit him particularly hard, costing him over one hundred votes.

At the moment, I have no theory to explain Sutherland’s strong performance.

I want to know what’s driving these two exceptions. It would be helpful to have a more accurate model for future elections.