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…)
The Cheshire County Candidates Forum was held from 2-4pm on October 16, 2012 in the Keene Public Library’s Ruth Huntress Auditorium. Twenty-seven candidates were invited, nine attended. Candidates answered questions from the moderator and the audience. You can watch the forum in 6 parts on YouTube or in the player below.
Mark Warden is a Free State Project participant and NH state rep in Goffstown. He’s a really principled guy who’s not afraid to show up at a Concord 420 at the state house. (He doesn’t smoke cannabis, but supports decriminalization and is willing to show it.) He also regularly attends court in support of liberty activists. Mark is a respected guy in the state house and an excellent realtor.
Now it appears the Democrats at the state level have decided to target Mark for defeat. William Tucker at Blue Hampshire says Warden’s seat is one of two key races they need to win:
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee today named two New Hampshire House races as key battlegrounds in the fight to make substantial gains in state legislatures around the country.
Aaron Gill, who is running to unseat Free Stater incumbent Mark Warden in Hillsborough District 39, was one of ten races selected through a process of grassroots nominations. The race matters, wrote the DLCC, because the outcome could indicate whether the state’s Republican-leaning districts are in play this cycle and if the Free State Project has staying power.
This is a good point, and this election in general will be a good indicator of whether the election of a dozen “free staters” in 2010 was a flash-in-the-pan or not.
Jim the OpenairAtheist is a new mover to Keene from California. Yesterday he randomly encountered Libertarian candidate for US Representative Hardy Macia and recorded this interview:
The Cheshire County Candidates Forum was held from 2-4pm on October 16, 2012 in the Keene Public Library’s Ruth Huntress Auditorium. Twenty-seven candidates were invited, nine attended. Candidates answered questions from the moderator and the audience. A strawpoll was conducted at the end of the forum.
Surprise winners include Libertarians John Babiarz for Governor, Hardy Macia for Congress, Ian Freeman for State Rep. Cheshire 16 and Darryl W. Perry for Register of Deeds.
The initial results incorrectly listed write-in candidates for Executive Council (Richard A. Foote) & State Senate (Eli Rivera) as receiving 4 votes, each actually received 1 write-in vote.
Watch the forum in 6 parts on YouTube or in the player below.
Interested voters turned out today to the 2012 Candidates Forum at the Keene public library this afternoon. Several candidates for local and state offices turned out including Chuck Weed, Tim Robertson, Anna Tilton, Darryl Perry, Keith Carlsen and more. Hopefully these candidate forums will continue in future years, as this is the only one that I’m aware of happening.
As expected, Delmar Burridge, the opponent of Chuck Weed and I, did not attend. Presumably because he doesn’t want to debate his indefensible, inhumane positions.
