In the most pleasantly surprising news of the year, the Keene Sentinel has broken a story about Keene Police lieutenant Jason Short advocating mass civil disobedience regarding the city’s recently passed mask mandate. Though the Sentinel piece appears to want to shock readers with Short’s opinions, those of us who have engaged with him over more than a decade of peaceful civil disobedience activism are proud to see his evolution.
The Sentinel reveals that Short posted the following to his facebook account:
“Remember the bad guys in movies don’t know they are bad, they think they are doing the ‘right thing’ for the benefit of society. It is only when the ‘good guy’ stands up to them that they realize they are wrong. Citizens need to stand up and stop simply complying to this nonsense mandates.”
The rest of the Sentinel piece is designed to gin up outrage that a police officer dared to openly speak against the city gang’s precious mask ordinance. However, surprisingly, Keene Police chief Steven Russo actually covered for Short rather than throwing him under the bus, explaining to the reporter that it’s Short’s right to express himself as Short doesn’t lose the right to free speech just because he works for the state. Russo claims, “Lt. Short will enforce the Ordinance consistent with my guidance and in the same spirit as all of our Officers regardless of his personal feelings”, but doesn’t say what his “guidance” is. There is a good chance Russo’s “guidance” is to encourage Keene police to use discretion regarding enforcing the ordinance.
Many people, including those railing against Short online for expressing independent thoughts, simply do not understand that all police officers have discretion. Discretion is the ability for each officer to decide whether to enforce any given statute or ordinance, with few exceptions. As I understand it, generally, police officers are only obligated to enforce certain violent felonies. So, even if Russo tells Short to enforce the mask mandate, Short can still use his discretion and the worst than can be done to him is he’d likely get a stern talking-to or perhaps reassigned to the night shift.
Keene Police Officer Jason Short, Civil Disobedience Advocate
City mob boss Elizabeth Dragon was even approached by Sentinel reporter Caleb Symons for comment on whether Short could be disciplined, but she wisely refused to return his calls, as she probably doesn’t want to admit there’s nothing the city council can do if the police refuse to enforce their ordinance. From what I understand, Short isn’t the only police officer who feels as he does.
A decade ago, Short was the antagonist during Derrick J Freeman’s “Victimless Crime Spree“, arresting Free Keene blogger Derrick J in Central Square for open possession of cannabis. In 2014, as the DEA was raiding then-Main Street business Phat Stuff, Keene police were running cover for them and I confronted Short outside the business about his role in the situation. During the conversation, I asked him how he feels about a productive downtown business being destroyed by the DEA, and he told me, “what I feel don’t matter”. I responded that it does matter, which is why I asked him for his opinion.
Now, more than half a decade later, Short appears to have changed his tune, and for the better. He’s not only expressing his opinion about bad law publicly, he’s also taking the correct position – that the mask mandate is evil and needs to be disobeyed. That’s because good people disobey bad laws and good cops refuse to enforce them.
If Jason Short can go from bad guy to good guy, maybe there is hope. Whether or not activists like Derrick J have had a positive influence on Short over the years, kudos to Short for taking a stand.
Packed city committee meeting on mask mandate, supermajority unmasked.
Last Wednesday, dozens of people testified in front of the City of Keene gang’s “Planning License and Development Committee”, with the supermajority of people opposing the return of the city-wide indoor mask mandate. Of the handful of people who spoke in favor of the mandate, nearly all of them work for the medical-industrial complex. Ultimately, despite the large outpouring of opposition from the people of Keene, like with the BEARCAT vote, the PLD committee voted in favor of recommending the mandate be sent back to the full council 5-0.
Last night, the full council heard the proposal and made changes, ultimately passing the amended version 10-3 with councilors Michael Remy, Janice Manwaring, and former cop Thomas Powers voting against. In addition to ignoring the majority of the people of Keene who opposed this mandate, the ten councilors voting for the ordinance also ignored the 70% of Keene business owners who registered their opposition in a survey conducted by the Keene Downtown Group.
Prior to the final vote, councilor Michael Remy proposed making the mandate a recommendation, which the council shot down. Councilor Kate Bosely then proposed the ordinance target individuals for penalties instead of the businesses themselves, as the 2020 mandate did. Mayor George Hansel cautioned the council against Bosely’s proposal saying he thinks targeting the individual would make the ordinance unenforceable. Hansel said targeting of businesses is relatively easy and can be done by the goons in code enforcement, whereas to target individuals would mean that the police would be the ones enforcing the ordinance. Hansel may be aware the police are less than interested in enforcing it – at least according to two officers who told me that personally in the last year or so. City mob boss Elizabeth Dragon also recommended against Bosely’s proposal as it would require snitches to call the cops on a mask-free person and the city gang has no system to track the number of warnings given to people for violations, as Bosely requested the ordinance have a verbal and written warning be issued to the person prior to issuing a $100 ticket. However, councilors voted for Bosely’s amendment, 10-3, meaning individuals will be targets for enforcement instead of businesses.
70% of Keene Business Owners Against Mask Mandate
Before you get to thinking that the three people who opposed the ordinance in the final vote were somehow freedom fighters, please note the entire council voted for the following amendment from the cowardly councilor Robert Williams, who noted that the originally proposed ordinance wasn’t strict enough, in that it allowed people to take off masks when seated in any business. So he put forward an amendment to ensure no one can remove masks while seated anywhere except for restaurants and bars, though Williams is so fearful he actually critiqued the people of Keene for going out to eat at all.
The ridiculous Keene city gang even says the mask must be worn by people playing indoor sports.
The new mask mandate does not apply to gyms or other businesses with memberships that are technically not open to the public. It also has a carve-out for medical exemptions and people aren’t required to produce documentation to prove it. The 2021 mask mandate ordinance goes into effect on Monday, December 20th.
As I recommended at the committee hearing, people who don’t want to wear masks need to refuse to obey this ordinance. It’s likely not going to be enforced, and if it is, then people who are ticketed should demand their trial. If convicted, they should refuse to pay the fine. Make these tyrants work for their convictions and don’t ever reward their thuggery by paying them fines. The worst that they can do is jail you for a night, but the judge will nearly always let you do community service instead of go to jail – as long as you’re willing to go to jail. This isn’t legal advice, just my experience.
The successes of the freedom migration to New Hampshire keep piling up. So much that our statist opponents cannot ignore or laugh at us anymore. Their posts on social media are a constant stream of frustration at their failures to impose more tyranny on the Granite State. Recently, leftist group “Granite State Matters” posted, “FREE STATERS plotted to invade and take over NH two decades ago. Their plan is working.”, when announcing a podcast episode about it. This, not long after the Hillsborough Democrats gave a 90-minute infomercial about the amazing success of the Free State Project and the various organizations libertarians have started or engaged with here in New Hampshire. There are a lot more such caterwauling posts from the statists than I can put here. To see it all, I recommend following @FreeStateNH on Twitter.
Granite State Matters is right. The Free Staters’ plan is working. It’s actually been working for quite a while, but since COVID happened the migration has kicked into overdrive as libertarians, voluntarists, and liberty-loving anarchists have begun moving here sooner and faster, thanks to state governments becoming super-tyrannical virtually overnight.
Concentrating liberty activists in one small, low-population state is effective. The Free State Project is no pie-in-the-sky, fanciful idea. It’s a real movement with nearly two-decades under its belt. It’s a proven success. Anyone paying attention knows the freedom migration to NH has had more wins in 15 years than the entire Libertarian Party has nationally in 50 years.
It’s no surprise that with the world’s largest concentration of libertarians on the planet, New Hampshire is the freest place in all of North America, and arguably the entire world. Indeed, recently released studies from CATO and the Frasier Institute bear this out with hard numbers and research.
NH #1 in 2021 “Freedom In the 50 States” Study
CATO’s study, Freedom in the 50 States, looks at both economic and personal freedoms in multiple categories, coming up with rankings for each category and the overall score. Overall, New Hampshire has reclaimed the number one spot, defeating Florida, which had somehow snagged the top slot from NH in the 2020 rankings. Though the study is released in 2021, anything that actually happened in 2020 and 2021 are not factored into the study as it takes time to gather the statistics. The study’s authors point out in their NH analysis that New Hampshire had some major advances in freedom in 2021, like Education Savings Accounts, and lowering and eliminating taxes, and they expect NH to put some distance between it and #2 Florida in the coming years. These advances are largely due to the dozens of Free Staters who have been elected to the state house and the tireless efforts of groups like the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance.
Not only did New Hampshire beat Florida in the CATO study, but in the 2021 Economic Freedom of North America study by the Frazier Institute – with data from 2019 – NH again took the top spot, beating #2 Florida when all US states, Canadian provinces, and Mexican states were considered. New Hampshire also took number one in their separate ranking looking at just state and local laws affecting freedom, with Tennessee taking the #2 spot there and Florida dropping to #3. The difference in the results are that the overall North America freedom rankings factors in Federal government restrictions and the rankings of just the states ignores Federal controls. New Hampshire wins in both rundowns!
We’ll even help you move-in!
Finally, thanks to the Free State Project‘s newsletter for pointing this one out, the “Taxpayer Return-on-Investment” rankings from Wallethub for 2021 show New Hampshire as the number one state, meaning not only do its inhabitants have an overall low tax burden, but that its government “services” are relatively high quality considering their low cost.
As the numbers of liberty migrants to NH continue to grow, it will get harder for the little tyrants to have any success expanding the state. They will continue to be frustrated and eventually, they’ll quit, as many already have. They they will leave New Hampshire for places where their meddling ways are common and welcome, like Massachusetts and New York. New York, by the way, is number 50 in both the Frazier and CATO studies. Libertarians who want a better life instantly and who are willing to work towards more freedom should move to New Hampshire as soon as possible. Here are 101 reasons why you should.
Don’t be fooled. Florida is not going to get more free and libertarians there have zero influence. Florida a police state. If you’re a conservative, move to Florida or Texas. If you’re a liberal, move to California or the other West Coast states. If you love liberty, there’s only one place on the planet with the largest and most successful liberty community, and that’s New Hampshire.
Six months after arresting a grandmother and Sunday School teacher Kathleen Bossi for not wearing a mask at their meeting, the Timberlane School Board once again has arrested another peaceful parent. At this week’s meeting, Nolan Pelletier, who is also the chairman of the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire, was arrested for “criminal trespass”. Why? For sitting with his wife in the main seating section instead of the segregated seating section for unmasked people. Here’s video, including some of what happened before and after his arrest:
Pelletier has been to every meeting this year and was witness to Bossi’s arrest in May. He and his wife Jessica have a child in the government school district and are not happy about the mask mandate being forced on the school kids. In an exclusive interview for Free Keene, Pelletier told me that at school board meetings, they even have a separate, segregated entrance for maskless people, who are then told they must sit in a segregated area of the auditorium.
Dr. Kimberly Farah, local sociopath and head of Timberlane School Board
The Pelletiers and some other freedom-loving parents refused to enter via the “separate but equal” doors and eventually were allowed in the front door, and then rather than sit at the “back of the bus” – as one woman referred to the segregated zone – the Pelletiers sat quietly in the main seating section, where no one was seated anywhere nearby.
Within moments of the start of the meeting, the chairman of the school board, Dr. Kimberly Farah, issued a threat to the audience, saying that anyone who in unmasked and not seated in the segregated section will be charged with “criminal trespass”, which is a misdemeanor that could carry up to one year in jail. After issuing the board’s threats, Farah said, “We sincerely hope to avoid taking the above actions during our board meetings, as we believe that such a decision would not serve the district.” Seconds later, board member Sheila Lowes requested the meeting be halted, “until people are complying with what we are stating”. Farah then “asks” that unmasked people move to the segregated area. Fifteen seconds later, she “asks” again, as no one had apparently moved.
Clearly she wasn’t just asking, as nine seconds later, she says to the mask-free people that she is going to order them to leave the premises, and tells the police present that she wants their assistance removing unmasked people as she “considers those to be in criminal trespass”. The two police make a beeline for the Pelletiers, focusing on Nolan. The masked, armed men continue to use terms like “asking” and “guidelines”, though obviously these are not simply kind requests. One officer attempts to get Pelletier to claim he doesn’t want to follow the “guidelines” before turning back to Farah and asking if she wants Pelletier criminally trespassed. She affirms and moments later the officers tell him if he doesn’t leave on his own, he’ll be charged with resisting arrest in addition to criminal trespass. Beating a resisting arrest charge is quite difficult, so Pelletier understandably complied with the threatening gang members.
LPNH Chair Nolan Pelletier Arrested at Timberlane School Board Meeting
Strangely, Pelletier told me the officers later claimed that he was never under arrest despite being handcuffed outside, put into a cruiser, and transported to the police station for booking before being released on “personal recognizance” bail. His arraignment is set for November 29th, 8am at Salem District Court.
Also, none of the other maskless people in the main seating area were charged, including Jessica Pelletier, who was seated right next to Nolan and left sitting there by police when they removed him. Others in the segregated section spoke out, including a man who told the school board they are slimeballs who belong in Massachusetts. He promised they would be publicly shamed and told them that they are disgusting. I hope he is right. People like these scum need to be shamed so much they quit their jobs and move out of New Hampshire. Eventually the government schools need to be ended entirely, but for now the best choice for freedom-loving parents is to get their kids out of the government schools, as soon as possible.
Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on the sociopathic school board and the Pelletier case as it develops.
Dozens of armed thugs were prepared for mass arrests.
A couple of weeks ago, hundreds of freedom-loving activists made headlines when they converged on a meeting of New Hampshire’s governor and the “executive council”. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss accepting $27 million taxpayer dollars from the federal gang to promote COVID vaccinations. Cowardly state employees walked out of the meeting claiming they were in fear for their safety and the lone democrat on the executive council called the activists’ behavior “insurrectionist”. Sununu canceled the meeting and it was rescheduled for this morning.
Again, hundreds of activists gathered this morning at a larger venue, the New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord, for the rescheduled meeting to consider accepting the $27 million bribe. This time, the state gang was prepared for mass arrests with at least 50 state troopers on hand as well as multiple police prisoner transport vans. During today’s meeting, there were indeed several arrests, with activists facing “Disorderly Conduct” charges.
In New Hampshire, the executive council is a check on executive power. There are five councilors and any contracts valued over $10,000 must be approved by the council, which is why the $27 million offer from the federal goons has to get the nod from a majority of the executive council. Despite tyrant-king “governor” Chris Sununu advocating the council accept the COVID bribe money, surprisingly the council voted 4-1 down party lines to REJECT the money!
Sununu issued a whining press release after the meeting, saying, “today’s vote by members of my own party on the Executive Council was a total disservice to the constituents we serve…The vote showed a reckless disregard for the lives we are losing while they turn away the tools our state needs to fight and win this battle against COVID.”
Dozens in the crowd turned their backs on the council during.
Meanwhile, dozens of activists visited the Merrimack County Spiritual Retreat where the nine people arrested were processed and released. I spoke with Absolute Defiance founder Frank “Footloose” Staples about the arrests. He says they were charged with the police favorite catch-all, “Disorderly Conduct” and one caught a “Resisting Arrest” charge. One of the arrested is a 70-year old woman.
When asked about the rumor that he was arrested on a warrant from the PRIOR meeting, Footloose said he isn’t sure as despite the fact that he was arrested, processed, and released from jail, at no point was he issued a “COMPLAINT” with any details regarding his charge. Prior to his arrest and the arrest of another leader, nurse Terese Grinnell, neither were asked to leave or warned in any way.
Footloose also explained that the meeting room had a large plastic curtain dividing it and behind the curtain were dozens of state troopers – presumably waiting to make arrests. So, by dividing up the room into an area for the audience and an area for potential mass arrests, the gang was able to keep a large chunk of activists from entering the building. Very sneaky.
Regardless, the executive councilors got the message from the people and they did the right thing and rejected the federal bribe, an act of nullification – proving again that New Hampshire is a special place where freedom actually has a chance to win.
