In 2014 the New Hampshire General Court passed a new restriction on minor party access to the general election ballot by prohibiting a political organization from collecting petitions before the election year. The Libertarian Party of New Hampshire filed a lawsuit challenging this new law. A similar law in Rhode Island was struck down in 2009 because the sole claim by the Rhode Island government was “reducing the number of ‘false positives’.” In New Hampshire, that was the initial reason given for passage of the new law, however William Gardner changed the reasoning the rationale to prevent ballot clutter and to ensure that political parties have a current modicum of support. (more…)
A couple of days ago the Keene Sentinel published the following Letter to the Editor, and the letter has been submitted to the City Council as a formal communication to be heard at an upcoming Council meeting.
For the last couple of years the city council has been debating whether or not, and by how much to increase parking meter rates, and the Parking Czar recently announced his retirement. The City even sued 6 people who were feeding meters to make a political statement, in hopes of creating a debate on whether or not the City even needs parking meters. (more…)
Liberty-friendly state representatives have come up with an interesting idea for a contest for children in NH. Instead of encouraging them to think up new laws, they’re asking kids to find NH’s dumbest laws. The contest is already making headlines.
Max Abramson, a liberty-oriented state rep from Seabrook told the Seacoast Online, “All New Hampshire students have until Sept. 15 to post a law they’d like to see repealed on the event’s Facebook page called New Hampshire’s Dumbest Law. Sept. 15 is three days before the deadline for lawmakers to file legislation.”
In an interview with Free Keene, Abramson added, “The class that comes up with the silliest or most ridiculous law gets to have a bill sponsored to repeal it.”
After making international headlines and despite a major facebook mistake and bad weather, approximately two-dozen ladies persevered and came out to Hampton Beach today to stand against the social stigma associated with women being topless in public.
Free State Project early mover Jessica Wardell traveled all the way from Henniker to join the topless ladies and their male supporters today and had this to say about the event, “It was lots of fun, there were about 20-30 girls participating, and I didn’t receive any negative criticism. Mostly people were curious about what was going on, and everyone that I talked to seemed to support the idea- especially when I brought up breast feeding.”
The event has already received coverage from the Daily Mail, which focused on the dozens of topless equality events taking place internationally, Reuters, Boston.com, NECN, as well as in Manchester’s Union Leader. Seacoast newspaper “Fosters” was dismissive of the event in their article, calling it “a bust” (yuk, yuk) and claiming only a dozen women came out. How many actually attended? Wardell claims 20-30 ladies in her estimate, with 40-50 additional supporters, including topless males. While more than 1,300 had claimed they were attending on the facebook event, facebook event attendance estimates are almost never close to the actual turnout. Many will indicate they are attending on facebook simply to show support for the event.
What day at the beach would be complete without sand boobies?
The ladies who set up the Hampton event, Kia Sinclair and Heidi Lilley, deserve a lot of credit for doing a great job promoting it and fielding media interviews in advance. Sadly, a major mistake was made early this morning when someone canceled the facebook event! The night prior, one of the admins posted a warning that they were going to cancel the facebook event this morning, but told people that did not mean the event was actually canceled. (Apparently, the FB event was canceled due to heavy trolling of the comments, however this could have been solved by only allowing admins to post.) Of course, only a fraction of the event attendees saw that post, so when the event was cancelled, EVERYONE on the event received a notice this morning from facebook saying the event was canceled with no explanation. This, in addition to the cold, rainy weather was likely a major contributing factor to the turnout. Two dozen topless ladies in bad weather actually seems really good, all things considered!
Organizer Kia Sinclair agreed, saying in a Free Keene-exclusive interview, “I am really happy about the turnout despite the weather. There were actually quite a few topless women around the beach at different times throughout the day. Because of the rain, a lot of women took shelter at the seashell stage. I will say that it was slightly intimidating being stared at and photographed by so many people. Its actually silly that just us being topless made so many people want to take pictures. If the weather was better I don’t think it would have been quite like that. But either way there were a lot of supporters despite the rain.”
Free State Project Early Mover Jessica Wardell, Graham Colson, and FSP Early Mover Matt Genack
Of course, all the mainstream media articles have been showing censored photos, or the ladies shot from behind, because the media are part of the problem. The social stigma against showing women topless runs deep, and mainstream media certainly won’t cross that taboo. Free Keene is not beholden to those rules. Share this article on social media at your own risk – you may get reported and banned for doing so. UPDATE: Facebook has targeted this article for censorship, so if you want to share it there, goto this link and hit “share” on it. That will share a version with a censored pic that uses Graham’s breasts to cover Jessica’s.
Liberty activists in Keene continue the tradition of ambush interviews on presidential candidates. This time Jeb Bush receives our attention. He’s peppered with questions about Edward Snowden, debate inclusiveness, Jeb’s disdain for encryption and privacy, and more! Who is next? Stay tuned here to Free Keene.
Keene Native Jared Goodell Launching Morning Talk Show in Manchester
Keene independent newsman and local radio pro Jared Goodell has been given a major promotion – straight to morning talk radio in Manchester, NH, starting Tuesday 8/25. Saga Communications’ Manchester-based WFEA-AM 1370 flipped to talk radio earlier this year to provide some competition to iHeartMedia’s longtime market leader, WGIR. This summer, WFEA also signed onto translator 99.9 FM.
Goodell’s show will be the first local, longform weekday talk show on the station and it’s a major win for Goodell, a Keene native who cut his teeth in Keene music radio for years – he started at age 13 at WOOL-FM in Bellows Falls, VT. It’s a bold move for Saga to tap a young talk host like Jared to head up mornings. Good for them for taking the chance on the farm team rather than going the typical route of hiring some old politico or using a national morning show.
Goodell says of his new gig, “I hope to usher in a new era for talk radio. There is a lot of speculation as to the future of the format, some of which is not great. I love talk radio and want to see it live on for many more generations. Talk radio has always been the medium that the American people could use to amplify their voice and to hold their government accountable.”
He’s proven he’s got the chops for issues-oriented talk radio in his recent week-long fill-ins for longtime local morning man Dan Mitchell on WKBK here in Keene. I was grateful to be a guest on a recent episode to discuss the Shire Free Church:
Goodell’s new show will be 7a-9a to start, eventually expanding to 6a-9a after a syndication contract ends. While his show will not air in Keene at this time, you can still listen online via WFEA’s website.
