They approached the entrance to the Bernie Sanders speech, and the libertarians were waiting. On Saturday afternoon, before 750 or so liberal voters could hear the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate at a Keene, New Hampshire, rec center, smiling members of“the Shire Society” handed them fliers.
“Something to read while you wait,” chirruped local libertarian activist Derrick J. Freeman, as he grabbed another flier from his stack. “I just think anyone could be interested in the ideas of liberty.”
He was not baiting liberals, or trolling them. He was being serious. Freeman wore a cat T-shirt and chatted about his documentary, Derrick J’s Victimless Crime Spree, with people who did not mind the conversation—and who often agreed. (more…)
Recently, the Concord Monitor agreed to publish yet another liberty-related article. This one was on the subject of marijuana decriminalization. Recently, the Senate decided to “table” a marijuana decriminalization bill that would have helped first time “offenders” avoid getting a criminal record for possessing small amounts of marijuana. The prohibitionists in the senate temporarily killed the bill with typical political chicanery, but the most offensive thing about the whole endeavor was the insinuation this was somehow for the “common people’s” good. That, in spite of very clear signals that the majority of the people in New Hampshire do not want others to go to jail for possessing a plant, people like Senator Sharon Carson would continue to advocate for their imprisonment.
The original piece in the Concord Monitor can be found here, but it lacks the citations that I submitted. You can read it with citations below. (more…)
One man’s trash • Ji is free! • All drink and no food • Turn that fire down • The bellamy salute and some pesky kid who won’t stand for the pledge • Activists head back to school • VT cop gets snickerdoodled • Local sheep segregating by color? • Darryl, Shaunna, Tim, and Rapsher join • Show notes at: BlackSheepRising.org
I’ve never feared for my safety quite like I did yesterday. I have been beaten, kidnapped, and shot at before. I’ve had my gun pointed at a man’s chest when police showed up. I’velive streamed a riot where drunken lunatics flipped cars and screamed “Fuck the press!”. I’ve been involved in some pretty precarious situations, but none were ever quite so frightening as watching 73 year old Bernie Sanders whip hundreds of radical leftists into a frenzy yesterday in Keene, New Hampshire. That might sound a bit hyperbolic, but I’m dead serious. (more…)
Longtime readers of Free Keene may recall the 2012 campaign season where cornered all the candidates we could with ambush interviews including Santorum, Biden, Huntsman, and Romney. Now that Barack Obama isn’t in the running, we’ll have all kinds of slimeball politicians from both political parties coming to town to campaign.
What happened to the cannabis decriminalization bill that overwhelmingly passed the house with more than 80% of NH state reps voting for it? In an embarrassing display of ignorance, watch as multiple NH senators spout off various prohibitionist lies and nonsense in this hearing that came at the end of a 12-hour day for liberty activists at the state house. Despite initially having enough votes to pass the measure, prohibitionist senator Carson moves to strip some more from the already-crippled bill. This ultimately kills it, for political reasons.(Technically it’s “tabled” until 2016.)
The good news is this is the first time the NH senate has ever had a floor discussion on the issue (the house has passed decrim six times in eight years), as ignorant as much of it was, it’s a step in the right direction. The next step is to target the bad senators for either education or elimination in 2016’s election. More detail on what happened below the video, from someone who was with me witnessing the debacle.
HB618 (Marijuana Decrim) is dead until January, at the earliest. Last night, the Senate voted 15-9 to overturn the committee’s recommendation of ITL (inexpedient to legislate/kill this bill) so that Senator Pierce could introduce a compromise amendment. This was encouraging.
At the point the vote was taken, Senator Sharon Carson (R-Londonderry) walked out of the session and began loudly yelling and ranting about how she couldn’t believe this was happening, (more…)
