District 8 State Representative Cynthia Chase of Keene has made her position clear on liberty-loving activists moving here, and it’s quite the endorsement of the success of the Free State Project. In a post to Blue Hampshire, she reveals that she believes Free Staters are the biggest threat to the state (something to be proud of) and that she and some others on Central Square during the peace vigil attempted to scare away a visiting couple from moving here. (As an aside, what was Ms. Chase doing at the peace vigil? She must be very confused about what peace is. Hint- it doesn’t include using aggressive force on people via “the state”.)
In the opinion of this Democrat, Free Staters are the single biggest threat the state is facing today. There is, legally, nothing we can do to prevent them from moving here to take over the state, which is their openly stated goal. In this country you can move anywhere you choose and they have that same right. What we can do is to make the environment here so unwelcoming that some will choose not to come, and some may actually leave. One way is to pass measures that will restrict the “freedoms” that they think they will find here. Another is to shine the bright light of publicity on who they are and why they are coming. They can not put their ideology into our statutes unless we elect them in great enough numbers to take over our General Court. We have already seen them try during the last session of the General Court. Our last election was a repudiation of their extremism.
Here in Keene we had a couple show up on Central Square to take part in our weekly Saturday morning peace demonstration. In the course of the conversation they allowed that they were Free Staters considering moving to Keene. The folks on the Square told them in no uncertain terms not to do that because Free Staters are not welcome here. (more…)
The Union Leader’s Sunday News edition published an above-the-fold article on the findings of an independent law enforcement review panel investigating the April 12 no-knock raid in Greenland. The article indicates Attorney General Michael Delany had suspended the Drug Task Force commander James Norris, who happened to be on vacation on the evening of the raid that resulted in three deaths and four wounded police officers.
Keene Cop Block has begun the Victimless Crime Outreach project. Each week, all who were arrested by Keene police will be sent an envelope containing useful information regarding dealing with a victimless crime:
Letter with text reminding the victim of state aggression that they are not alone, didn’t do anything wrong, and that help and options are available.
2012 has been a whirlwind year for me with so many successful projects. I finished Free Keene TV with my 52nd episode in July. I finished Porcfest Chronicles in October with 51 individual videos. I had a lot of fun working with Gary Johnson, John Babiarz and Hardy Macia making the zombie videos for political campaigns. Shire Sharing and the Free State Project round out the year with a few more videos documenting the hard work carried out by liberty activists.
I enjoy producing and publishing videos for the expressed purpose of spreading the ideas of liberty. It is a labor of love. At the same time I have spent hundreds of hours creating this content and it is always nice to get a little cash for the work. Bills, food and all that! So I created a chip-in for anyone that wants to give me a few bucks for my efforts:
This video is perhaps my last for the year. I visit the Maine Liberty Summit with Antigone Darling who gives a speech about liberty and secession. We network with neighboring liberty lovers and talk about the Free State Project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6nGQiilshA
Some of my stats for 2012:
27 Episodes of Free Keene TV
51 Porcfest Chronicles videos
3 Zombie videos for Libertarian Party Candidates
2 Shire Sharing Videos
6 Videos for NH Gubernatorial Candidate John Babiarz
A report this morning by Kat Kanning relays the unfortunate news that Russell Kanning has been arrested on federal warrants on what are likely chalk related charges (or failure to pay fines related to chalking).
Suddenly alone in a truck stop in MO. We had a headlight go out. They found warrants for Waco and NH chalking incidents. Background checks hadn’t found the warrants, so Russell thought they’d been dropped. Too late at night for me to talk to anyone. They say there’s no bond, they’re dragging him off to TX or NH.
Russell has been arrested and ticketed for chalking FREE BRADLEY MANNING on a retaining wall at the federal building in Concord, NH and he was arrested in Waco, TX while chalking in support of Nazry Mustakim, who was facing deportation at the time but has since won his freedom to remain in the US. Kat was the first person videorecorded being arrested on FreeConcordTV in the blog’s debut video Federal War on Chalk Begins.
Santa Claus, also known by his friends as James Peterson, was arrested after spreading holiday cheer and chalk with young people in front of the Texas capitol building on the 21st. An occupy activist who was giving out chalk to children while dressed as Santa was well received in the plaza, but as he left, Texas DPS officers chased him down and handcuffed him. The crowd appears shocked, one woman yelling out in confusion, “You’re arresting Santa Claus?!”
The jolly red man asks numerous times, “Why am I being arrested?” After a minute, they tell him that he was chalking the sidewalk. A few in the crowd having filmed the entire time tell police that everyone was chalking, to which a female officer states, “You’re the only report that we got of chalking.” (more…)
The Ridley Report has recently been publishing continued analysis of the court victory for the independent journalist following his arrest in May of 2011. Three months later, Ridley was acquitted at a bench trial of a misdemeanor charge of trespassing, and a detailed summary of the trial was posted to Free Concord the following day.
A playlist on the Ridley Report youtube channel documents all of his own coverage beginning with the arrest and protests shortly thereafter, and continuing with analyzed video from the trial of key moments. On December 1 of this year, a video published which described a possible continuation of the case into legal land, this time in the form of a civil lawsuit against the Nashua police. Illustrated with claymation produced by another youtube content creator, the video entitled, Nashua police reject demand for groper’s dismissal linked to this information posted to a public forum by Ridley.
As you may recall, Nashua police arrested me while I was trying to film their actions outside a hotel in which Joe Biden was speaking. In the process of searching me, the arresting officer Denis Linehan touched my genitals. After our defeat of trespassing charges in court, my lawyer Stephen Martin has helped me issue a pair of demands. If met, we would drop suit. The initial demand called for monetary damages in the $15,000 range. When the city rejected that we represented that firing Linehan would be enough to prevent the suit. As expected, city attorney Brian Cullen has rejected that offer too. The city has however indicated a willingness to accept some other non-monetary settlement.
Throughout this month, four additional videos of highlights from the criminal trial have been uploaded. You can see even more edited portions of the trial created in 2011 on the playlist. (more…)