In a 42-page decision, the US District Court for New Hampshire has ruled in favor of protestors including Free State Project early mover and attorney Brandon Ross who violated the state’s “ballot selfie” prohibition and were investigated and threatened by the Attorney General’s office. In 2014, Ross had taken a picture of his ballot and posted it to his facebook accompanied by the words “come at me bro”. They did, and now Ross and his co-plaintiffs state representative Leon Rideout, and Andrew Langlois are victorious in their case thanks to the NH ACLU, as the law has been overturned as unconstitutional!
The defendant in the case, representing the state, was secretary of state Bill Gardener who argued that free speech (photos of ballots) should be curtailed because voters will be either induced to sell their votes or subjected to coercion if they are permitted to disclose images of their ballots to others. Judge Paul Barbadoro denied there was any evidence those speculative objections would be the case, and even if there were evidence, that’s not reason enough to restrict free speech.
State Rep Tim Horrigan, Snitch
The case reveals on page 18, that it was Timothy Horrigan, an anti-freedom state rep (rated as a “Constitutional Threat” in 2015 by the NH Liberty Alliance) that both introduced the bill banning ballot selfies AND snitched to the Attorney General’s office about Ross’ facebook post. Ross, in an exclusive interview for Free Keene said Horrigan’s behavior, “shows that lawmakers will absolutely use their laws they’ve just made to try to censor people”.
Ross also said he was surprised the state actually moved against him, saying, “I gave them too much credit, thinking they would never try to enforce that clearly unconstitutional law. Joke’s on me. But, a little healthy defiance can be a good thing now and again too.”
JP from Cop Block and Jessica, a Free State Project early mover were married this afternoon in the most recent activist wedding in the Monadnock region.
Church of the Invisible Hand minister Rich Paul donned his pastoral garb and performed the wedding ceremony in front of many attendees on the porch of the Shire Free Church‘s Monadnock Parish House, the Keene Activist Center.
Here’s video of the ceremony with some pictures at the end:
Every year the Free State Project puts on the Porcupine Freedom Festival (Porcfest) in Lancaster NH at Rogers Campground in the middle of the majestic White Mountains. It is basically the Burning Man for Libertarians, Voluntaryists, and Anarchists. The walkthrough takes place on Saturday June 27th, 2015. The last day of the week long festival. It begins on the far side of the campground, winds through Agora Valley, and ends at the main field for the group photo of all the attendees.
Liberty activist Chris Rietmann has made major news twice this year for first repealing all gun regulations in Alstead, where he serves as selectman. Then a couple of weeks ago, he made further headlines for leading the effort to provide armed guards outside the Keene military recruiting center – a move which was controversial among the liberty community.
Last year, Keene liberty activists manned a bitcoin outreach booth at the Cheshire Fair. In that five days, we installed a grand total of three bitcoin wallets (though we did hand out hundreds of bitcoin flyers). This year, we did it again and installed eighteen wallets, had dozens of great conversations, and shared bitcoin intro flyers with hundreds more fair attendees! Despite a couple of minor issues, the fair outreach booth went swimmingly! A couple of people used the original Keene bitcoin vending machine at the fair, and many others were directed to the BVM at 101 Deals Thrift Store for future purchases.
Fair attendees had plenty of good questions and our professional staff of bitcoin-enthusiasts had answers, including Derrick J Freeman and Chris Cantwell. Thanks to all the folks who helped with the booth and everyone who stopped by. If you want to meet with other area bitcoiners, drop into the Keene Bitcoin Network group on Facebook.
A church pastor, late to the Sunday service, crashes through the door of a Concord bar, and the congregation inside turns to look. A second pastor, Stu Light, stands on the piste with a foam sword in hand. He calls out to the first pastor: “I look forward to killing you.”
At the Church of the Sword, where belief in a god or gods comes secondary to espousing principles of self-sufficiency and arming oneself, the greeting could be considered their version of “peace be with you.” After all, one of the holy texts of the 5-year-old, nontheistic, New Hampshire-born religion is Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
“We believe in an active struggle against those who would deprive us of life and liberty. We believe in studying and applying the martial path in the judicial and legislative arenas, as well as in self-defense,” says a sampling of the church’s statement of beliefs.
So when the town of Westmoreland said last year, and the Cheshire County Superior Court agreed this year, that the Church of the Sword isn’t a real religion – and therefore doesn’t qualify for a religious tax exemption – they took it as an attack on their freedom and struck back. (more…)
