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…)
You may have heard that I am running for State Rep in Keene this year against Chuck Weed and Delmar Burridge. Chuck Weed is good on ending cannabis prohibition and is also the incumbent – to his credit as well, he will be debating me in the upcoming candidates’ forum on 10/16 at 2pm in the Keene library.
Delmar Burridge, however, is not going to appear at the candidates’ forum. Perhaps because he thinks he has the election in the bag, or maybe because he doesn’t really want voters to hear his sick, twisted views. Allow me to refresh you on what Burridge has to say. I would like to take you back to 2008 when Free Keene blogger and then host of Free Minds TV Toby Iselin had an email exchange with Burridge regarding cannabis decriminalization. After Toby asks Delmar to do the right thing and move the legislation forward, Delmar responds with an insulting screed that actually advocates Toby snitch on his cannabis-using friends, saying,
“You are very passionate in your beliefs and would make a great snitch. It is thrilling to dime on your so called friends.”
-Delmar Burridge to constituent
The rest of his outrageous email to Toby is worth reading. This sociopath ex-law enforcement officer is my competition in the upcoming Keene state house race. If you want to vote for oppression of freedom, Burridge is your man. If you want to vote for liberty, I’m the clear choice, having been endorsed by the NH Liberty Alliance.
After a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Sept 19th, Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson took time to shoot an ad with the NH activists on the steps of the State House in Concord that featured Red and Blue zombies.
In the ad Johnson walks down the stairs and shouts to the zombies. “We’re not mindless zombies in this country! We’re not mindless!” he declares. The ad is now out, please spread it far and wide!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgnyZdClTpM
Yes, I’m in the video, as is Free Concord’s Garret Ean, and many other NH liberty activists. Disappointed by the small number of zombies?… Encourage more liberty activists (or you?) to move to NH, and we’ll have more folks available for quick activism like this. (From concept to production was 1 week with a tiny tiny budget!) Kudos to JJ for his awesome directing and editing, and Bill, Ed, Dale, and Garret for camera work, Tara for makeup effects, and the many folks who showed up to help!
Zombie ads are nothing new in the 2012 political cycle. Former NH gubernatorial candidate Jackie Cilley made national political news during her unsuccessful run at the corner office earlier this year with her “pledge zombie” ad. The ad was good, but she still lost the Democratic nomination which was captured by Maggie Hassan during the recent primary. But the concept was too good for NH activists to go of, because really, the zombies are everywhere.
Kal Penn and John Cho, aka Harold and Kumar’s recent visit to Keene State College has been documented by the school’s publication keene-equinox.com. My “forwarded” question to the campaigning duo, which was the subject of my article on the event, is discussed in the Equinox article. I am quoted as well. Curiously enough, the content of my question is not included. See the article from yesterday at the Equinox’s page:
John Cho and Kal Penn, known the world over as Harold and Kumar, spent yesterday and today touring the state’s colleges on behalf of the Obama reelection campaign. Of the eight stops on the two day tour, Keene was the only location in which the duo appeared together.
Harold and Kumar are an awkward choice for the young face of the Obama campaign. Their characters are a target of forces within the Obama administration which the president has done little to address. Campaigning in 2008, he had said that medicinal cannabis enforcement would be the lowest priority of his law enforcement. Under Obama, the United States has seen an increase in raids of medicinal cannabis clinics as well as increased enforcement against undocumented immigrants. While many expected change, the result was a slightly worse version of the same. (more…)
Today Congressman George Miller (D/CA) and Senator Tom Harkin (D/IA) introduced the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2012 in both the House and the Senate. The bill proposes three $0.85 raises to the minimum wage which is currently $7.25 to be $9.80 by the end of 2014. I find this to be outrageous.
Do these politicians never learn? The minimum wage is a job killer. Every time the minimum wage is raised, more jobs go away, never to be seen again.
“The Employment Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization that studies public policy issues surrounding employment growth, released findings from a study that examined both Miller’s and Harkin’s proposed legislation, that concluded the proposals would eliminate as many as 768,000 jobs for less-skilled and less-experienced employees.”*
“The economic consensus on raising the minimum wage is clear, and these latest proposals are no exception,” Michael Saltsman, research fellow at EPI, said in a press release announcing the study findings. “Instead of reducing poverty rates, a higher minimum wage reduces employment for the least-skilled job seekers.”*
In a voluntary society, companies could produce more jobs while paying employees a “fair” wage based both on the companies needs and the experience of the employee. This would leave room for the companies to hire more employees, plus neither the company nor the employee would have to pay out much of their profit and income in taxes. The employee would benefit by being able to bring home all their pay and companies could hire more people with the increased profit margin.
All the minimum wage laws do is eliminate jobs and decrease profitability for companies, which in turn brings down goods and services provided by the employees and companies and increase the prices of goods and services.
