In the excellent new video series focusing on Free State Project early movers, Jason Sorens, the founder of the project, explains a bit of the history of the project and what he’s doing now that he moved to New Hampshire two year ago:
The series, which will continue to be released on the FSP YouTube channel, kicked off with a piece on Shire Sharing founder and state representative Amanda Bouldin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHSXZrZu46c
Keene native Jared Goodell again had me on as a guest this week on his morning show in Manchester on WFEA 1370 & 99.9. This time, we discussed the recent lawsuit by the NH ACLU against the City of Manchester regarding their arrests of panhandlers.
I told Jared that the City of Manchester will be losing the suit, as they have across the United States. I don’t like panhandling, but as long as we have the idea of public property, free speech must be respected, and that includes asking for money. However, the solution to panhandling is changing all public property to private property. Here’s the full interview:
For this year’s Technology Panel, Sovryn Tech host Brian Sovryn returned as the only three-year panel host at Keenevention. His dedication to the tech world is unmatched, and thus, he triumphantly returned to the podium backed by a brilliant panel of technical wizards. Panelists included Bitcoiner Stephanie Murphy, Jeremy Kauffman of LBRY, NH2600‘s Steve Zemanek, Rebel Love Show host Robert Mathias, and Oracle programmer Denis Goddard. Here’s the full video:
Big thanks to our 2015 video sponsor – Roberts & Roberts Brokerage – when you’re serious about precious metals – they take bitcoin!
Stay tuned to the Keenevention blog for more videos weekly and other media from the event. You can also follow the new Keenevention Twitter and Keenevention’s facebook page.
For the past four years now I have challenged the local school district here in Keene to reign in their out-of-control spending with no real success. Mind you, this is a huge, $65 million dollar a year welfare machine that many of the residents of Keene have grown completely dependent upon; sadly, a conundrum shared widely throughout the country.
This year I’ve introduced three petitioned warrant articles, or ballot initiatives, that would reduce school spending and one article that would direct the district to opt out of Common Core. In previous years my warrants have always been amended completely ineffective at the first Deliberative session made up primarily of teachers and school admins who oppose any types of cuts. I expect no difference this time around. Convincing people to come out early on a Saturday morning to sit through a long drawn out meeting is much more difficult than collecting their signatures. However, judging by the turnout of disgruntled residents at the first informational meeting this past Tuesday and the fact that The Keene Sentinel chose to include the story on the front page the next day, leads me to believe that more apathetic voters are beginning to wake up. Here is the full Sentinel article:
In late 2015, Free Keene blogger Christopher David was arrested and charged with felony “wiretapping” for recording his interaction with a bar bouncer and Portsmouth cop on the streets. Now, Portsmouth police have dropped the charge down to a misdemeanor, which means Chris now only faces a year in jail instead of several years in prison.
Chris told the Portsmouth Herald, “it’s still ludicrous that recording a conversation on a public sidewalk could land me in jail at all… Under that same logic, thousands if not millions of videos on YouTube represent potential misdemeanors. Why single me out? I think we all know why.”
The reason why is that Chris leads Free UBER, a group of drivers committing ongoing civil disobedience and advocating for transportation freedom.
The wiretapping statutes in New Hampshire are one of the worst parts of the state. NH is one of only a few states where all parties must consent to the recording, which prevents people from being held accountable for their actions. In many other states, people with undercover cameras can record their conversations in businesses or with government. Here, doing that will get you a possible jail sentence.
Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest and for more Christopher David, check out his speech this week to the Portsmouth City council, announcing the forthcoming ride-sharing app, Arcade City:
Christopher David of Free UBER, Courtesy Coin Telegraph
While the ideal “level playing field” is to have zero regulations for transportation across all of NH, we can’t expect these politicians to do that at this point. So, having one set of regulations for the entire state would be better than a patchwork of them across the different towns and cities, which would make compliance for companies like UBER very difficult. If that ends up happening, UBER may just decide jumping through various hoops for each town isn’t worth it, and pull out of NH entirely.
Whether UBER pulls out or not, the bill proposes a fee of $5,000 for any TNC be paid to the “Department of Safety”. This fee will definitely be a barrier to entry for new companies who want to compete with UBER. Not only that, but technology quickly outpaces government, as UBER has show, and Arcade City is going to continue to prove. As I point out in my testimony, the newly announced Arcade City is not going to be a corporate entity, so how is government going to get their precious fee from a computer program?
Of particular note in the video is the apparently dishonest testimony from David Weeks, the owner of Concord’s D&B Taxi. Weeks claims he took multiple experimental UBER rides in Manchester – one allegedly didn’t show up, the next driver couldn’t speak English, and the third driver had a bottle of beer between his legs.
David Weeks, Owner of D&B Taxis, Lies to Committee About UBER
Second, though this alleged UBER driver in question could have been breaking the rules, the UBER training video makes it CLEAR that UBER does not require tipping. Yes, drivers can accept tips, but UBER riders are well-aware that tips are not required with UBER, so it would be stupid for an UBER driver to demand one.
Amusingly, in the beginning of his testimony, Weeks claims he doesn’t have an axe to grind! Anyone paying attention knows at the very least, that’s not the truth.
After Weeks’ testimony, Free UBER‘s Dennis Acton calls Weeks’ claims, “preposterous” and proceeds to discuss the barrier to entry that is the $5,000 fee. He also says the bill contains too much regulation and that riders should decide, not government.
Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest on Free UBER and Arcade City.
According to the https://freestateproject.org/blogs/95-less-1000-signers-go, the Free State Project now has 19,000 signers, and needs only 1,000 to complete it’s task, for a completion rate of 95%. The last 5% has been accrued over the course of only about 15 days, indicating that we may reach our goal before our next Liberty Forum in February of this year.
Thanks to all those who are making it happen!
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