If 22 national petitions filed on Whitehouse.gov, and an article today in the Concord Monitor are any indicator, discussion of the concept of secession is spreading rapidly through the minds of many in the United States. The Examiner reports that as of Monday, 22 states have a number of people circulating petitions for recognition of potential independence on the White House’s official petitioning website. While these numbers are currently in the hundreds and low thousands, the recognition of the legitimacy of the concept seems to be reaching a high water mark, and could continue swelling.
Ben Leubsdorf has penned two article’s in today’s Monitor about individuals making major movement with their feet, both into and out of New Hampshire. He reports on the expatriation of Frank Szabo, the controversial candidate for sheriff of Hillsborough County. Szabo announced early in his candidacy for the republican nomination that he had interest in protecting the sovereignty of New Hampshire from unconstitutional federal law enforcement actions. His campaign crashed and burned when he advocated enforcing non-existent laws against abortion seekers and providers. He announced Sunday on his facebook page that he had recently relocated to South America, where he plans to enjoy the remainder of his days. Currently in Chile, he states that he hopes to see extended family and friends in the future, though that may require that they voyage to visit him. He also announced in his facebook post that the IRS has seized $36,000 from him. (more…)
Congratulations to Free State Project participant Tim O’Flaherty for winning his state representative race in Manchester. Tim self-describes as an anarchist and has won as a Democrat in a race against a small government Republican, who happens to be Tim’s roommate, Dan Garthwaite, another early mover for the FSP.
While filming the merry antics of the Vermin Supreme campaign on November fifth, the eve of the election, myself and another videographer witnessed Manchester police remove an attendee from the Romney rally venue. After a lengthy conversation with a few officers outside of my view, we notice the man being dragged to the ground by three before being placed into a prisoner transport van. It’s difficult to make out the exchanges between the parties over the blaring music of the Mitt Romney/Kid Rock performance. Body language indicates that at one point, the officer appeared to try to take the man into custody, but he backs away and is not heartily pursued. The third party candidate tries to deescalate the situation with police by asking if the man is free to go, to which the officer implied that he wanted the man to leave. It’s possible that the arrested individual was not in the right state of mind and very uncomfortable, as it was near freezing temperatures at the time that this footage was shot.
It’s unclear what the man has been charged with, and a call to Manchester’s public information unit told me that no records were accessible until Monday. The only information regarding an arrest that I have found for this date is a blog entry by presidential campaign follower Ray LeMoine posting on TheAwl.com. The author reports: (more…)
Free Concord had the privilege of interviewing presidential candidate Vermin Supreme on the eve of the United States presidential election. Check out what Free Pony Party’s nominee had to say as we dig deep into his dental policy, addressing America’s moral and oral decay.
The night started off with a bang, as my phone buzzed with a text from a friend, with the cryptic “FTW”, which I confirmed quickly to mean he’d been elected as NH State Representative. Not bad for what started as a write-in campaign during the Republican Primary, and grew quickly with his being attacked in the press for being a freestater.
Would Election Eve be full of this sort of awesome news? I hoped so. Would Romney lead a strong Republican coat tail to help the NHGOP retain control of the House and Senate and maybe gain the Governor’s office too? Or would Obama’s organizers sweep in and help the NH Dems into victories, perhaps only some, perhaps by a great deal.
The tide was clear, though, when a sitting Republican Rep lost in a seat I figured was very safe. The bad news of loss after loss of “good” reasonably proliberty Republican Reps was bad enough, but then even not so good R Reps were losing… the “blue tide” was back.
In 2004, a blue tide slowly began crept into NH’s State House, taking over the Governor’s office and enough House Democrats to skew the House to the moderate middle for even control of the leadership. In 2006, the blue tide rose higher, and washed nearly every R who expected a easy win off the map, leaving the Democrats in firm control of both House and Senate with the popular incumbent Governor Lynch on top. 2008 remained much the same, though some pro-liberty Republicans returned, despite national Blue wins with Obama (a good sign that the tide was perhaps receding here). The fiscal woes, taxes and fees, social changes (some for the better, IMHO, like same sex marriage passing) and the many many Nanny State bills passed into law, finally caused the electorate to rethink sending so many Democrats to Concord, the New Hampshire capital, and instead send a huge Red wave of Republicans. Me among them, and thus I spent the last two years in Concord, fighting for freedom.
The 2011-2012 legislature was strongly split in many ways, (more…)
Liberty activists handing out quarter-page fliers advocating for libertarian candidates Ian Freeman and Darryl Perry were targeted in a sneaky manner by election officials. When voters would enter the building the poll workers would tell them it was illegal for them to have the flyer and then snatch it from them and throw it away. Hearing this from an exiting voter, I investigated and found the claim to be true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AntJZRA8Jhk
Despite the “Department of Justice” sending an agent down to ostensibly correct the Ward 4 staff, the behavior continued later, as we also documented. The clueless ward moderator claimed she was too busy to properly educate her volunteer “greeters” (enforcers) on the law, which she herself did not know.
As a result, countless voters had their rights oppressed by officious bureaucrats who made the law up on the spot. We documented and called them on it and the behavior continued. Apparently they were pulling out all the stops to prevent the libertarians from getting as many votes as possible.
The DOJ is aware of this situation but don’t expect any actual consequences to come to these government workers. Odds are they’ll be back at it next time, too.
If 22 national petitions filed on Whitehouse.gov, and an article today in the Concord Monitor are any indicator, discussion of the concept of secession is spreading rapidly through the minds of many in the United States. The Examiner reports that as of Monday, 22 states have a number of people circulating petitions for recognition of potential independence on the White House’s official petitioning website. While these numbers are currently in the hundreds and low thousands, the recognition of the legitimacy of the concept seems to be reaching a high water mark, and could continue swelling.
