As we reported here at Free Keene last year, nine peaceful activists were ticketed for violating the unconstitutional ordinance against “picketing” outside the NH governor’s house in Newfields, New Hampshire. All but one of the nine have fought the bullshit charge.
Last month, the first “not guilty” verdict came in the case of Frank “Footloose” Staples. Now, five more of the “Newfields Nine” have also been found not guilty. Libertarian attorney Seth Hipple filed a motion to dismiss where he argued the Newfields picketing ordinance is unconstitutional, but the robed woman ignored those arguments when finding the defendants not guilty, which means the illegal ordinance remains in place.
Here are the videos from the trials of five of the Newfields Nine, both trial dates combined into one video:
Activist Frank “Footloose” Staples, the founder of Absolute Defiance, has been persecuted by the state gang for his peaceful actions near NH “governor” Chris Sununu’s house at 71 Hemlock Ct in Newfields roughly a year ago. Footloose led a series of protests in the park across the street from the Sununu home over unconstitutional executive orders like the statewide mask mandate and other restrictions on business.
Whenever the state gang can identify the leader of a protest, they are inevitably targeted for attack and now Footloose has been arrested and ticketed multiple times. First, he was ticketed for attempting to hold a peaceful candlelight vigil near Sununu’s house, along with eight other people, aka “The Newfields Nine”. The police called this a violation of the town’s “picketing” ordinance, which was written specifically to protect Sununu from that dreaded free speech.
Just over a month later, he was arrested for “disorderly conduct” at a Shire Choir caroling event near Sununu’s house. All he was doing in the incident was speaking. According to police, he spoke too loudly.
In November, he was put on trial for the “picketing” and “disorderly” charges. I was there to record the full trials. The robed woman in Brentwood district court took the cases “under advisement” and ruled nearly two months later. She found Footloose not guilty of “picketing”, but conveniently didn’t rule on the constitutionality of the ordinance. She found him guilty of “disorderly conduct”, a Class B misdemeanor. He plans to appeal, but the next step is sentencing on April 7th at 9am. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
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.
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.
In a strong unintended endorsement, the New Hampshire democrats had yet another online meeting tonight to expose the Free State Project‘s migrants for infiltrating the republican party, winning dozens of state house seats, and our various other tremendous successes.
Despite claiming our numbers are small, the entire video conference – put on by former state reps, at least one of whom migrated to NH – was all about how well-organized our decentralized freedom migration has been. The statists are extremely concerned about the Free State Project, as evidenced by the fact that they have held multiple such meetings like this over the last several years. They used to be held in person but now they are too frightened of catching a cold to meet in real life, and it’s easier to keep the liberty activists out of the discussion this way.
The former state reps giving the presentation believe that there’s some secret big libertarian money funding activists to move here, which is totally false. Otherwise, they have clearly done a LOT of homework to learn as much as they can about this movement, because it is working. We are a peaceful threat to the status quo and they hate that liberty is rising in New Hampshire.
Thankfully, YouTuber and NH resident Dr. Karlyn Borysenko live streamed the event on her channel for hundreds of live viewers, so you can watch the democrats’ whole presentation. It’s basically a 90-minute promo piece for the Free State Project.
Nowhere else in the other 49 states are the people in power actually worried about libertarian activists. The reason they aren’t concerned, is because libertarians are completely ineffective. The reason we’re so ineffective elsewhere is because there are so few of us, spread across the entire country. That’s the reason the Free State Project was formed. It was a good idea and two decades later it’s a proven success. The statists are very, very scared.
