2020 is a long way off, but longtime presidential contender Vermin Supreme isn’t resting easy. His attorneys filed a civil suit against the City of Concord, NH and some of its bureaucrats on Friday in the federal district court over Concord’s denial of a permit for a pony protest.
According to the thirteen-page suit, Supreme had requested a permit from the city bureaucrats to protest outside Gibson’s Bookstore where Hillary Clinton will be holding a book signing event on Tuesday, December 5th. Supreme’s plan was to bring ponies to the public property near the bookstore in protest. From the suit:
Part of Mr. Supreme’s long standing campaign platform has centered on socialized distribution of equine companions which some have interpreted as commentary, satire, and political parody about a political system that rewards candidates who promise free benefits without discussing cost or practicality.
A bureaucrat with the Concord Health & Licensing Services Department, Eugene Blake, told Supreme’s agent that there were no general restrictions on having ponies outdoors at that location and that ordinarily he would grant the permit to have ponies at that location. However, Blake admitted the Concord police directed him not to grant a permit for the ponies on that day, and at that location, specifically because no one wanted to interfere with Clinton’s book signing.
While I’m generally opposed to asking permission to exercise one’s rights, Supreme doing so has managed to allow the city gang in Concord to back themselves right into a free speech violation. Whether that was Supreme’s intention or not, now they’ve been sued for violating the free speech provisions of the US Constitution and NH Constitution as well as the right to due process. The suit further alleges that not only was Supreme denied the permit but the bureaucrats did not provide any administrative process for appeal of the decision.
Supreme and his attorneys are requesting damages, attorneys’ fees, an injunction forcing the city to issue the permit, and a trial by jury. Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.
How many spankings in their own courts must the governments of New Hampshire endure before they finally learn their lesson? Three years ago, Weare police settled for over $57,000 to then-Free State Project president Carla Gericke for arresting her for recording them on the side of the road.
Now Manchester police are shelling out $275,000 to Alfredo Valentin who was arrested for recording the police on his smartphone inside his own home during a drug raid. Police were raiding Valentin’s home searching for evidence against another man, Christopher Chapman. Though police already had Chapman in custody from an earlier arrest, they went ahead with a full swat raid against Valentin’s house, including, “firing incendiary devices through the property’s windows, kicking in the doors, and entering the property SWAT-style with semi-automatic weapons—damaging property, terrifying the two women who were still in the house, and creating an unjustifiable risk of accidental death or injury”. This according to the one million dollar lawsuit against Manchester brought by the excellent NH Civil Liberties Union.
Darryl W Perry and Ian Freeman at the 2017 ACLU 1st Amendment Awards Dinner
NHCLU head attorney Gilles Bissonnette worked with attorney Richard Lehmann on the case. In a press release published at IndepthNH.org, the NHCLU’s Bissonnette said, “This settlement recognizes that the right of citizens to observe and record the police is a critical check on the use of power and force by law enforcement…The police need to understand that individuals who are recording their work without interference have a constitutional right to do so, and it is not cause for their arrest.”
Major thanks to the NHCLU for their excellent work holding Manchester police accountable. Too bad its taxpayers who have to foot the bill instead of the terrible, oppressive officers themselves.
For Immediate Release:
Manchester, New Hampshire. Nov. 28, 2017.
New Hampshire is home to many early adopters and users of cryptocurrencies. One recent example is the purchase/sale of a used Lexus automobile for crypto, half Dash and half Bitcoin. Parties used their phones to easily transfer funds within a Jaxx wallet—no bank involved!
Seller Mark Warden, broker of Porcupine Real Estate, works with property buyers and sellers who will transact in Bitcoin. Buyers Matthew and Brittany Ping, of Ledgeview Commercial Partners, run a residential property management firm, manage over 100 units in Southern New Hampshire and their company accepts rental payments in both Bitcoin and Dash. Both parties moved to the Granite State because of Free State Project.
New Hampshire is home to dozens of businesses that accept payment in cryptocurrency. There are multiple BVM (bitcoin vending machines) around the state. There is even a store in Portsmouth that transacts solely in crypto: Free State Bitcoin Shoppe.
Civil Disobedience Thanksgiving at the Un-permitted MALIC Center in Keene, NH
Will Coley, new mover to Keene and imam of the soon-to-open MALIC Center – Keene’s new mosque – recently made headlines over the city’s demand he obey them and ask permission to exercise his right to religion. Here’s the Union Leader story and the NHPR piece about the conflict.
Will originally made the mistake of trying to ask the city gang’s blessing to install a sign. He should have known that asking for permission to exercise a right never ends well. The answer is almost always no, and fees and hoops galore are demanded by the bureaucrats. Unfortunately, despite telling the city gang that the sign was going up, after consulting with the local Muslims he is serving, they asked him to try to go through the city’s demands for the sign permission slip. So, the sign is not up.
MALIC Center Imam Will Coley Speaks to City Committee About Immigration
However, now that an inch has been given, the city gang is ready to take a mile of obedience, fees, meetings, and paperwork. In a letter addressed to Will by the city’s “Planning Director” Rhett Lamb, Lamb tells Will he’ll need a “change of use” for the building and an “certificate of occupancy” to gather in the structure, neither of which have anything to do with a sign. However, they have everything to do with submitting to a group of strangers who think they have a right to control your life and property.
Will has told me that the local Muslim community may be willing to bend on the sign issue, but not on the right of assembly. No one should ever have to ask permission to exercise their right. A mosque or church is created because we say so, not by asking some officious bureaucrat’s permission. The right to property and to seek happiness is a fundamental right ostensibly protected by the New Hampshire constitution – the very same document the people calling themselves “the City of Keene” supposedly operate underneath. Here’s its Article 2 regarding property: (more…)
Recently I wrote the eulogy for Cop Block, the national police accountability activist news website. Nothing lasts forever, especially in the world of activism, where doing the right thing rarely means one can make a living at it. Burnout is real and has happened to some of the brightest activists to ever hit the Cop Block scene.
Cop Block as a national organization may have died, but it’s not dead here in New Hampshire, where it was incubated – according to founder Pete Eyre – in Keene.
Though regular Cop Blocking patrols are more rare these days and more likely to happen in Keene than anywhere else, large numbers of activists still participate in the ongoing DUI checkpoint countering that happens multiple times a year in Manchester.
Toward the end of this summer, state and local police set up DUI checkpoints in Cheshire county for the first time in five years. Thomas Parisi from The Jail Paper came out with the group to document the checkpoint. It was set up just a few hundred feet from the bridge to Brattleboro, VT so we had multiple Cop Blockers on both points of entry to the checkpoint with multiple reflective signs alerting peaceful motorists to the upcoming harassment. Not surprisingly, state police statistics reported zero DUIs were found during the checkpoint, though they did write a bunch of motor vehicle violation tickets and make a few drug possession arrests. So, all victimless “crimes” – another huge waste of taxpayer dollars.
Luckily, thanks to an NH-based upstart from the Seacoast called Anypay, now merchants can accept DASH at point-of-sale. In fact, here in Keene, New Hampshire, local mom-n-pop retailers Corner News, Hot Hogs BBQ, D’s Cafe, and Route 101 Local Goods all now accept DASH at the register via the Anypay app.
It’s a relief to be able to use cryptocurrency again retail in real life, with fees that are sane. Fees for sending are usually no more than 1-3 cents’ worth of DASH per transaction, and they’re expected to get even lower with DASH’s next upgrade. Compare that with Bitcoin’s recent, insane $10+ median fees recently. Over the last couple of days they’ve dipped, but are still over $6 worth of BTC just to send a transaction. It’s sad – Bitcoin is broken, yet amazingly continues an upward trend in value, just today setting a new record high of over $8,000 USD per BTC.
Right in the midst of the DASH retail explosion happening in both Portsmouth and Keene, Lamassu, the manufacturer of Keene’s first Bitcoin Vending Machine released a long-awaited system update that has expanded their software to allow for multiple cryptocurrencies to be vended. Since DASH is uniquely positioned as “digital cash” and has growing point-of-sale support in the Keene area, it is now the first additional cryptocurrency besides bitcoin to be offered as a vended product in this region. (more…)
Billions in remittances are annually sent from folks in the USSA to their friends and families elsewhere. For decades, firms like Western Union and MoneyGram took a hefty fee for this service. But today, with the emergence of peer-to-peer digital currencies like Dash, money transfers can be done more speedily and with a much lower fee. This latter route can now be pursued by residents of San Antonio, Texas thanks to the existence of a Dash-enabled General Bytes Machine at LOL Liquors.
