On May 7, 2022, Ms. Sidney Powell (a former DoJ prosecutor) gave a deposition to the “House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol pursuant to House Resolution 503.” Mainstream media has not covered it; it does not suit the official narrative.

And why hasn’t Ms. Powell tried to spread the word? She signed an agreement to be gagged as part of a plea deal (which I think has to do with Jan 6, not sure).

I’ve chosen only a small portion to print here (I downloaded a copy months ago – it’s about 50,000 words).  If you wish to see the rest, you can contact me.

So, is there any conflict of interest by me (Mary Maxwell) in publishing this, given that I am currently a candidate for the January 23 Republican presidential primary in New Hampshire? There is a prejudice on my part to believe Sidney Powell. She totally won me over with her 2014 book “Licensed To Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice.” She is my hero of the 2020 affair.

Editing.

I have not “edited” this thing. The usual sign for elision, three dots, was used by me to indicate that a small portion was deleted, to spare the reader from non-essential chatter: I use “&&&” to imply a substantial omission, but in fact, most of the deposition is not here as you can guess from my presenting only 2.6k out of 50K words. As for the italicized headings, I made them up to lure you in.

[‘Grok] – reformatted to make it easier to read, but no other edits from us.

We want to thank Dr. Mary Maxwell for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
You can review our ‘Op-Ed Guidelines‘ on the FAQ Page.

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE JANUARY 6TH ATTACK ON THE U.S. CAPITOL, … DEPOSITION OF SIDNEY POWELL
Saturday, May 7, 2022, Washington, D.C. [Greatly abridged, otherwise no alteration — MM]

Good morning, Ms. Powell. My name’s ____ I’m senior investigative counsel.
A Good Morning. You’re too young to be senior investigative counsel.
Q I think you’re gonna actually make me blush, ma’am. &&& I believe you were involved at some point in trying to get an executive order signed that would allow for the seizure and inspection of voting machines; is that correct?

Litigation was a means of getting to the truth I had hoped. I mean, that’s the way our court should have functioned.

A We were looking at the possibility, and I drafted the foreign interference findings if I remember correctly or at least had a hand in writing those, to support the use of Executive Order 13848 on cyber security to secure the voting machines hopefully in three to five cities where the voting irregularities were the worst, and then have them imaged by a bipartisan professional group that understood what they were doing. We even suggested the use of it being videoed if I remember correctly so that we could get the evidence of whatever happened and lay all this to rest.

And one of the things I really appreciated about — most of this was discussed on the December 18th, that meeting is one I have more recollection of than any others because it was the most pointed. A. … I didn’t have a broader strategy than getting the information I needed for the litigation other than like I said, my primary goal was to get to the truth. Litigation was a means of getting to the truth I had hoped. I mean, that’s the way our court should have functioned.

It wasn’t going to work for me to do anything with campaign people because they were politicians.

Q but did you have meetings with campaign staff in the time shortly after the election?

A I had one very short meeting with some campaign folks right after the election. That was kind of along in the timeframe where I realized it wasn’t going to work for me to do anything with campaign people because they were politicians.

[I] was gonna follow the truth and the law wherever it led, including on any Republicans.

Q Tell me what you can remember about that meeting that you just eluded to where you realized they were politicians and they weren’t really going to be of assistance to you?

A I don’t remember much about it other than it was very short. And I mean, they didn’t even want to look at me when I walked in the room.

Q Were they — were you able to at least share your perspective and your views on things?

A I don’t recall being able to do that.

Q Had you been invited to that meeting?

A Only by Mr. Giuliani, and he wasn’t much more welcome there than I was. Yeah. I was definitely persona non grata. Q. Do you have any idea what that was based on?

Well, I mean, part of it was I was the only female in the room. And part of it was that they know I wasn’t impressed with them and didn’t bow and scrape to them and was gonna follow the truth and the law wherever it led, including on any Republicans.

Threw the president under the bus…

A No. White House counsel was not there.

Q Was Jared Kushner there? 20 The Witness. Yes. Jared was there. Was Jason Miller there? Do you know that name? He might have been. I don’t know. You mentioned some meetings with Pat Cipollone. Earlier, you said that one of the reasons you felt like you weren’t welcome there was that the people in that meeting knew that you weren’t impressed by them. Why was that? Why weren’t you impressed by them?

A My impression was that they didn’t want to do anything, that they had thrown the President under the bus, that they had told him they were prepared for whatever post-litigation activity was needed, and they hadn’t done squat. And they knew they were gonna lose, and they were moving on to their careers on K Street or whatever big deals they’d made.

They were all looking at their next job, which they probably lined up before the end of the campaign.

MS. MURPHY: Why do you think these people thought they had lost?

A I think they — in retrospect, I think they knew they were gonna lose.

Q They knew they were gonna lose, but you didn’t believe the President was
going to lose; is that correct?

A I don’t think he did lose.

Q So the schism — the difference between you and this group of people is that they believed he was going to lose, but you did not believe that he had lost?

A I would call it more of they were acting in their self interest as opposed to the interest of the country or the voters. It was a very self-interested bunch.

Q They were self interested because they were accepting a loss that you didn’t believe was a real loss, or — can you explain a little bit more why you think they acted in a self-interested way?

I definitely think some Republicans had a role in getting rid of President Trump.

Q And you believe that plan was executed by some of these people who were Republicans as well as who else?

A I don’t know that those people in the room had any part in executing the plan, but I think they had realized that what was going to come down. And I definitely think some Republicans had a role in getting rid of President Trump.

I’ve been on the criminal justice reform kick since I wrote “License to Lie.”

Ms. Murphy. Great. Thank you so much, Ms. Powell, for clarifying that for me, with that I yield back. Ms. Powell, I want to ask about your interactions, if any, with Members of Congress in connection with the — with your election challenge efforts. Can you identify the Members you’ve had interactions with Yes. between November 3rd and January 6th with respect to the election challenge efforts?

A … I guess by way of background, I should tell you that I’ve been to the Hill a number of times. I’ve talked with a lot of them about different things related to Flynn. I’ve talked to them about criminal justice reform. I supported the act — whatever the second step act was or first step act to, you know, promote criminal justice reform. I’ve been on the criminal justice reform kick since I wrote “License to Lie,” and realize that we over criminalize, over incarcerate, and that falls predominantly on the minority communities when we do that, and there’s nothing good about it. …

President of the United States couldn’t get what he wanted in his own house.

Q Understood. I’m focused — or I’m really interested only in your conversations with Members regarding the challenges to the 2020 election.&&& . Was that the December 21st meeting at the White House? A Probably. Q I think we have some emails from you about — well, let me try and put it in some context so maybe it will refresh your recollection. …You were invited to the White House, you went to the White House, and then you were blocked from seeing the President?
A That sounds right. There were a number of times something like that happened.

Q Oh, it happened more than once?

A Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Q How did it — I think we’ve seen in your documents WAVES authorization for the 21st, and maybe communications with White House ushers or someone else, telling you you were cleared. A Yes. I was cleared to come into the White House, and then I was not allowed to go into the meeting with the Congress people.

Who told you you couldn’t join the meeting?

A. …Mark Meadows steered me off in another direction. And did he specifically tell you that you were dis-invited from that meeting? Essentially, yes. I don’t remember the exact words, but it was very clear. Okay. Tell me what you remember about that interaction. …

A One of the things that was very obvious and very upsetting to me as a citizen of the United States of America is that the President of the United States couldn’t get what he wanted in his own house.

I was showing him things he hadn’t seen before, and he was pissed.

Q Were there instances in which the President specifically reached out to you to set something up and then his aides blocked you from — or someone blocked you from actually going forward with the meeting? A Yes, siree.I think there were at least three times when he was expecting me, and I was not allowed to go through….

Q If we scroll down a little bit to the first-in-time email which is dated December 20th at 9:51 p.m. — do you see that? A Yes.

Q So this seems to describe an incident where you came to the White House to provide information to and brief the President and that you were blocked. You said you were, again, blocked from seeing the President. Do you see that? 20th? A Yeah. Yep, yep, yep.

Q Okay. So this wasn’t the first time that happened, it sounds like, December..&&&

Q — an email. And you see Mr. Meadows says: I was not aware that a meeting had been set up with POTUS — A Yeah. That was kind of the point of the meeting, I think.

Q What do you mean? A I mean, the President wanted to talk to me by himself. I don’t think he felt like he needed his hand held by Mark Meadows all the time.

Q Did he tell you that, the President? A No. Q So why do you say that was the point of the meeting, that Mr. Meadows would not know about it?

A Because it was supposed to be just me and the President. … Q And did you share with the President that you didn’t think he was getting your unvarnished or complete information because of people around him? Yes.

Q How did he respond when you said that?

A I don’t remember his specific response other than he was — well, like, for
example, the night of the 18th, I can give you that example because the night of the 18th, I was showing him things he hadn’t seen before, and he was pissed.

[Trump] was extremely frustrated with the lack of, I would call it, law enforcement by any of the government agencies that are supposed to act to protect the rule of law in our Republic.

Q Yeah. And definitely we’re going to talk about the 18th. I’m just wondering if you ever had a private conversation with him in which you shared your frustration that you weren’t able to… A Well, while I can’t remember any specific words, my impression was he was certainly fine with that, he was — he was, you know, comfortable with me and trusted me. That much was very clear. But I don’t remember specific words.

A I don’t remember. Somehow I knew about a meeting with Rudy and the President about the machines and the general issues obviously, but I don’t remember how I came by that.

Q Do you remember what the issue was that was creating the urgency for you to meet with the President face-to-face? A It was whatever the status of the evidence was at that time with respect to the machine fraud and getting access to the machines to — to image them. I mean, time was going by, and I don’t know whether Dominion had already come out with its Trusted Build problem — program by then or not.

So there was evidence at risk of being destroyed, and frankly everywhere there was any evidence at all by any voting machine company.

But, for example, in Georgia, they were already trying to wipe the machines and, quote, get them ready for another election. So there was evidence at risk of being destroyed, and frankly everywhere there was any evidence at all by any voting machine company. …So my concern was that we needed to get lawful access to machines and have a professional, nonpartisan or bipartisan group do them — do the images while they’re being videotaped, so there could be no question about the integrity of the process, and collect the evidence.

Q I note for the record that Mr. Schiff has joined the deposition.

Ms. Powell, the reason I’m curious on this is that you had had a very lengthy meeting with the President face-to-face on the night of the — or well into the night on the 18th, correct?

A Correct…. A Well, I know on Friday he had asked me to be special counsel to address the election issues and to collect evidence, and he was extremely frustrated with the lack of, I would call it, law enforcement by any of the government agencies that are supposed to act to protect the rule of law in our Republic.

I was fricking outraged and appalled that anyone could tell the President of the United States that what he directed was not going to happen…

A. if we were going to access the machines, time was a-wasting, and we needed to get after it.

Q And so, on Monday morning, on the 21st, you said to Mr. Meadows: It’s imperative I be included in the meetings scheduled today with you, Rudy, and with the President, about the machines and any of these issues. &&&

Q When you left the White House on the night of the 18th, do you understand that there was sort of a plan or strategy in place; had the issues that you had come to talk about been resolved? A Yes and no. Q Okay. Why do you say that?

A I was clear on what the President wanted, but — he wanted the same thing I wanted; he wanted the truth. Whether it meant he needed to walk to the helicopter, as he put it, with his head held high and know that he had lost fair and square, or whether he needed to fight for the preservation of the Republic in what I would call a Lincoln-esque fashion. So — but when I left, I knew from what Cipollone and Herschmann, and whoever the third guy from White House Counsel’s office…, had said, I mean, they flat out told the President he could name me anything he wanted to name me and no one was going to pay any attention to it.

Q Okay. And so how did the — so how were things left?

A So it was left that, from my perspective, nothing was really resolved. … I made a call to Mark Meadows the next morning, saying: Hey, I’d like my key and my White House pass. And his response was: Well, that’s just not going to happen. And that was pretty much the end of that conversation.

But I knew at the same time that the President still had his concerns, and as a citizen and an American, I was fricking outraged and appalled that anyone could tell the President of the United States that what he directed was not going to happen, or that he could do that and no one would pay any attention to it.

[M Maxwell’s comment: See?]
P.S. Remember, I too am “gagged” — by Disquis and so cannot reply in the Comments section.

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Shenna Bellows, the Secretary of State for Maine, has been making the circuit of media news shows basking in the adoration of the Liberal talking heads. Bellows has turned her fifteen minutes of fame into a two-week media blitz.

Unfortunately for the Pine State Politician, she is no match for the folks in the national media, and she is getting caught up in her past that she hoped was buried forever. Shenna has practiced the holier-than-though persona that she is playing for the cameras. She is the keeper of the Constitution. The role of protecting Mainers had fallen to her, and she accepted the responsibility with all the zeal of a true American hero. The problem is she is a sham. This action to keep Trump off the Maine ballot is an embarrassment for Maine, shows how divided the state is, and is exposing a past that will now fuel the impeachment efforts by Republicans to remove Bellows from office.

Bellows knew her decision was flawed, so she ended her verbose 34-page conclusion with a one paragraph suspension of her ruling pending court challenges. The Secretary was playing both sides of the fence. She made the move to appease the Left of Maine, and her suspension was her built-in defense when the decision blew up. And it has.

Trump has already challenged the Maine decision in the Maine Supreme Court. The left-leaning court could rule against Trump, but that is highly unlikely. Nearly every Constitutional expert believes any court ruling will be unanimous in shutting down any removal of Trump, including Maine. Time is of the essence, as the primary in Maine is on March 5.

Papers have been filed to begin the impeachment of Sheena Bellows. Bellows has had a short career in Maine politics. She was a state senator for four years before being appointed to the Secretary of State position by the Legislature. The Trump decision is one of the reasons the Right is moving to impeach the Secretary. The other is what Bellows did before her public career.

She was executive director of the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine between 2018 and 2020. She served as the executive director of Maine’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) between 2005 and 2013. But less than a decade ago, she found herself in a far more subdued role: Interim Executive Director for Learning Works, a non-profit founded by socialist activist Ethan Strimling. It was this job that was the focus of complaints against Bellows.

Representative Sobolesky filed an ethics complaint against Bellows and wrote in a letter to the Maine Ethics Commission:
“What occurred appears to be election interference of the highest order. It would seem that Secretary Bellows did not act ethically and instead did what was best for her preferred candidate and the Democratic Party instead of the voters of the state of Maine.”

Trump claims in his challenge of Maine’s ruling that Bellows should have recused herself from the decision process. Trump and Sobolesky are pointing to Bellow’s position in Strimling’s non-profit.

Soboleski filed his complaint on January 1, accusing Secretary Bellows of bias in her decision to bar former President Trump from the 2024 GOP primary ballot in Maine. Strimling, the former mayor of Portland, was the ringleader behind the ballot eligibility challenge filed with the Secretary of State’s office, providing a pretext for Bellows’ ruling.

If Bellows is to continue her role in Augusta, she must beat the Ethics charge and the Impeachment action. With the Maine Legislature predominantly Democrat, she has a better chance of keeping her job than her decision holding up in court. Either way, her career is badly bruised.

The post Bear Pond Conservative Chronicles: Bellows Cannot Hide From Her Past appeared first on Granite Grok.

New Mexico’s Attorney General, Raúl Torrez, has filed a lawsuit. In the suit, “Torrez claims that Meta’s platforms, Facebook and Instagram, are a breeding ground for predators who target children for human trafficking, the distribution of sexual images, grooming, and solicitation.”

 

Teens and preteens can easily register for unrestricted accounts because of a lack of age verification. When they do, Meta directs harmful and inappropriate material at them. It allows unconnected adults to have unfettered access to them, which those adults use for grooming and solicitation. And Meta’s platforms do this even though Meta has the capability of both determining that these users are minors and providing warnings or other protections against material that is not only harmful to minors but poses substantial dangers of solicitation and trafficking. For years, Meta has been on notice from both external and internal sources of the sexual exploitation dangers its platforms present for children but has nonetheless failed to stem the tide of damaging sexual material and sexual propositions delivered to children. In short, Meta has allowed Facebook and Instagram to become a marketplace for predators in search of children upon whom to prey. Meta’s conduct is not only unacceptable; it is unlawful. This action seeks to force Meta to institute protections for children because it refuses to do so voluntarily.

 

We know that META can identify and filter, block, shadowban, and cancel anything it chooses, demonstrating a willingness to flag, segregate, quarantine, and even take down content at will. That is part of what is intriguing about the story. Torrez office and New Mexico (NM) Law enforcement have been investigating this for some time and “has asked a judge to prevent Meta from removing evidence of alleged child sexual exploitation from Facebook and Instagram, which it says is related to legal action it is taking against the company.”

Meta has said it can and will do what they should have done to prevent the need for any investigation in the first place, but the NM AG needs the evidence and wants a judge to tell Meta they’d best not delete or destroy it or make it inaccessible.

 

In the new court papers, Torrez said that one day after his office filed the lawsuit, Meta deactivated the accounts set up and used by investigators.

This was “even though the accounts at issue had operated for months without action by Meta, and even though investigators had previously reported illicit and unlawful content to Meta through its reporting channels”, the document states.

It adds: “Meta’s disabling of these accounts prevents the state from continuing its investigation into Meta’s activities. [The state] no longer had access to data within those accounts.”

 

We can hear the sound of the pants-zipper being pulled back up, but we do not see it happen and are too late to witness any wrongdoing.

At the same time, the story begs other questions. New Mexico is a blue state. The Governor is very liberal. The AG is a Democrat. Without looking, we can suggest that the public schools are all-in on the gender-grooming project that directs (to borrow from the AG’s lawsuit) “harmful and inappropriate material at them, [and] allows unconnected adults to have unfettered access to them, which those adults use for grooming and solicitation.”

Public schools are the preferred choice of pedophiles, given the unfettered access to victims, with significantly more cases of abuse than any other occupation, with the possible exception of anyone in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts or politics.

The legal definition of grooming in the lawsuit applies to the activity in public schools. Those legally defined as children have access to or are allowed to view explicit material, including images (cartoons count), normalizing the exposure and sexualization, complete with the mental health complications that come from exposing those with little or no concept or capability to conceptualize or understand it.

The usual suspects are operating freely in the state, talking about banned books anyone can order on Amazon right now and have delivered in printed form in a day or two or received electronically in seconds. As far as I can tell, the public school grooming culture is alive and well but not of concern to the Attorney General.

To be clear, what the NM AG is dealing with (in many cases) is pictures of naked minors being sexually exploited en masse and without restriction on META’s platforms, and that needs to be stopped, but then so shouldn’t the significant human and child trafficking that current open-borders policy has facilitated.

In other words, we appreciate the interest – and who doesn’t love to see META sued – but some consistency would be nice.

Stop exploiting children, even when it dovetails with your party’s culture war politics.

 

The post New Mexico’s AG Investigates META for Allowing Child Grooming and Trafficking … But Not Its Public Schools? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Long ago, an unknown Chinese philosopher’s words described the biblical root of liberty that we call Americanism: “The well-being of a people is like a tree, agriculture is its roots, manufacturing, and commerce are its branches and its life; if the roots are injured, the leaves fall, and the branches break away, and the tree dies.”

This “tree” that produces ordered liberty is the fruit of biblical wisdom. Josiah Holland’s words draw a picture of liberty in the process: “God gives every bird its food, but he doesn’t throw it in the nest.” Godly wisdom summed up in a word: self-reliance. Self-reliance weaves fibers of strength into the backbone of our American Republic. In recent decades, there has been a tearing down of this virtue by a nefarious cabal to disrupt the civilized order.

The injured root of agriculture was first attacked in 1933 with the Soviet-inspired Agriculture Adjustment Act (read Dan P. Van Gorder’s book, Ill Fares The Land). It featured attacks on the self-reliance of our farmers that have now grown into the Department of Agriculture. American manufacturing and Commerce have suffered decades of socialistic bureaucratic laws hindering production and transportation. The poison of bureaucratic law deserves the title of the fourth branch of government, for these executive branch agencies are the source of thousands of laws while Congress, the lawmaking branch, looks the other way.

We want to thank Russ Payne for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Steve@GraniteGrok.com.
You can review our ‘Op-Ed Guidelines‘ on the FAQ Page.

America’s tree is rooted in Judao/Christian ethics of the Ten Commandments and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Enduring strength that has withstood two hundred years of war against God and the Constitution. Miraculously, America still retains the sovereign power for our leaders to rule our own destiny. Will you be the water that allows the roots to go deeper by doing your part? Will you engage our representatives and demand enforcement of our laws, which pass on to posterity? Or will you be part of the silent majority that has gradually enabled progressive forces? Silence enables the recreation of our nation upon the satanic roots of humanism that are now killing the leaves and branches of liberty!

Silent majorities in state and federal congressional seats of power will not be shaken from silence by the silent majorities of constituents. In the long run, silent mobs are more dangerous to the life of liberty than the violent mob. Edmund Burke’s words challenge silence: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Courage begets courage. Truth needs friends in Washington, D.C., and your state capital. The constituents must speak, and the representatives will follow.

 

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Concord has a new City Councilor named Ali Sekou. Congrats to him. He is also the president of the IQRA Islamic Society of Greater Concord. His Mosque sits on a piece of property adjacent to the First Congregational Church at 177 N. Main St, in whose lot (some) his Mosque attendees are alleged to have parked.

The church has been closed and unused for a while – I’m not clear how long, but parking is always an issue if you’ve spent time trying to access anything on Main Street in Concord. Given how little parking is available to anyone regardless of their religious affiliation, that empty lot most certainly looked inviting, and it was close.

There would be no good reason not to use it until the property was purchased by developers looking to add much-needed housing – and there are few in Concord who can’t shut up about the need for MORE HOUSING!

From Patch.com.

 

 Their first proposal included 34 one- and two-bedroom apartments with rents expected to start at $1,400 monthly. The pair purchased the building and related parcels for $625,000 in October 2023 and planned on spending about $5 million renovating the building.

The Coalition purchased the building and connected parcels for $800,000 in December 2020.

 

Ali is a smart guy. The dude speaks four languages, is well-educated, ran for office supporting new housing development, and is suing the city to prevent the 30-unit housing development on the First Congregational Church property next to his Mosque.

The lawsuit lists several injustices, claiming  the zoning board “acted unlawfully and unreasonably when it purported to find that it could reach the merits of the applicant’s second variance application,” “discouraged the public from repeating comments,” and that the development would “significantly alter this and create an intensity of use foreign to this property and area.” There are other concerns, not the least of which should be why a politician who ran for public office to address the housing crunch opposes new housing. It’s got a very NIMBY-like feel to it, with him being the mosque president.

It does get cold in Concord despite all the global warming rhetoric. Rain. Snow. It might be challenging to encourage new people to attend the Mosque, given the distance you might have to walk—all that noisy construction. It adds a disincentive to attend when the destination is inaccessible except by foot on city sidewalks, sometimes covering blocks depending on the hour and the day, but not to the 30 families who would be living next door for short money in the current New Hampshire rental property market.

Downtown. High walkability score. Everything is accessible, especially the Mosque! It’s right next door!

Of course, since the developers purchased the property, any available space for parking at the church has been cordoned off. One Concord resident I spoke with said there’s a no parking sign. I suspect there’s more to the story, and we love anonymous tips and whistleblowers (hint-hint).

I’ve no dog in this fight, not my city, so we wish both sides of this lawsuit the best. But NIMBY or parking, the current climate favors new housing, so good luck stopping that.

 

The post Concord Mosque President Sues to Stop Adjacent Housing Development … Is it NIMBY or Something Else? appeared first on Granite Grok.

Nikki Haley is a warmonger. She wanted, as Governor of South Carolina, to shift more of the tax burden to the working people; i.e. her proposal to cut the state income tax and raise the gas tax. And, among other things, she SUPPORTS AMNESTY. According to Miss Nikki, illegal aliens aren’t really illegal because they are coming to American for the right reasons:

Nikki Haley says it's inappropriate to call the illegal immigrants 'criminals':

"We don't need to be disrespectful. We don't need to talk about them as criminals. They're not, they're families that want a better life." pic.twitter.com/ypMi4H1Oya

— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 4, 2024

This, among other things, is why the GOP Establishment loves Miss Nikki and why she is seen by the Left as the least worst Republican … SHE IS NOT REALLY A REPUBLICAN:

You thought Democrats were going to dump Biden for Gavin Newsom, but they're not. They're backing Nikki Haley instead. pic.twitter.com/KcpNMFdZAm

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) January 3, 2024

 

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On Tuesday, January 9th from 1:00 – 4:00 PM, there will be two gun control bills heard in the New Hampshire Senate Judiciary Committee. There is also a pro-2A bill that will be heard. If you can do it, show up AGAINST these bills.

The gun control crowd is spending a LOT of money this year to push their draconian, out-of-state legislation and will be paying people to be there.

It doesn’t matter that New Hampshire is consistently one of the safest states in the country. It doesn’t matter that New Hampshire has ‘Constitutional Carry.’ What matters to gun controllers is out-of-state legislation that will intentionally harm Granite Staters and infringe upon your fundamental human right to self-defense.

The gun control bills are listed below:

Senate Bill 571 – AN ACT requiring a background check prior to any commercial firearm sale.

This bill has been resurrected from the depths of Hell for at least a decade. And as always, this bill will make it so anyone who provides firearm training, other than those who are already FFL dealers, will NOT be able to provide firearm SAFETY training. Year after year after year, we have explained how this bill harms those who seek gun safety training but year after year after year, gun controllers don’t care. They claim to be all about gun safety but when it boils down to facts and reality, it’s more about control. They care nothing about actual gun safety.

Senate Bill 577 – AN ACT imposing a waiting period between the purchase and delivery of a firearm.

This bill seeks to stop law-abiding Granite Staters, who pass a federal background check, from taking the legally purchased firearm home for 3 days. If you’re a woman with a stalker or abusive partner and don’t have a restraining order, you’re out of luck when it comes to protecting yourself and practicing your fundamental human right to self-defense. NH’s 2A doesn’t mention anything about a waiting period, neither does the Constitution. The only people who want a waiting period are those who seek to enable criminals.

The only good bill to support is below:

Senate Bill 322 – AN ACT relative to licenses to carry.

When ‘Constitutional Carry’ was passed Granite Staters no longer had to ask permission from the government to carry a firearm how they see fit.  Some Chiefs of Police decided not to sign their names on the pistol/revolver licenses (PRL) of those who still sought to get a PRL for reciprocity purposes in other states. This bill will require those who issue PRLs to sign their name to them.

You can email and/or call the committee members below:

First Name	Last Name	Email Address	Phone
Daryl	Abbas	Daryl.Abbas@leg.state.nh.us	(603) 271-4151
Sharon	Carson	Sharon.Carson@leg.state.nh.us	(603) 271-3266
Shannon	Chandley	Shannon.Chandley@leg.state.nh.us	(603) 271-3092
Bill	Gannon	William.Gannon@leg.state.nh.us	(603) 271-3077
Rebecca	Whitley	Becky.Whitley@leg.state.nh.us	(603) 271-3092

 

| Women’s Defense League

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The thought-police wordsmiths over at the United Nations have been busy working on the correct vocabulary when commenting on a wide range of things, including events for which Human beings were ill-prepared.

Remember the Early Obama-era overseas contingency operation and man-caused disaster? The UN has taken the latter to heart.

 

A natural hazard, such as a hurricane, earthquake, or flood, only becomes a disaster when it impacts a community that is not adequately protected, and whose population is vulnerable as a result of poverty, exclusion or socially-disadvantage.

There are also disasters that result from natural hazards, like wildfires or desertification, that have a devastating effect on natural resources, laying waste to ecosystems and wildlife habitats. Some of these originate from man-made hazards, like chemical spills or nuclear leaks. This destruction can have serious effects on the communities that co-exist and rely on these resources, causing economic and cultural losses, and ruining lives and livelihoods.

Still, those aren’t natural disasters.

First, isn’t the use of the word man sexist and bigoted? If you’re thinking the language that should read person-caused .. wait! Person has “son” in it and, as such, is also sexist and bigoted. We can’t call it a human-caused hazard ‘cuz “man.” They/Them?

You see the problem.

Here’s another one.

What about They/Them caused disasters around rare-earth metal mines in Asia and Africa? Countries like China are poisoning the land and water, as well as generations of the indigenous population, to feed the West’s suicidal obsession with solar panels and lithium battery packs, of which there are not enough “natural” resources to make viable for any energy transition except a world with less or no energy.

Surprise! They have words to describe that like ‘Green Energy, ‘Net-Zero,’ Progress, Evolution, but none of them properly describe or portray the environmental destruction created and advocated by the United Nations’ environmental and energy agenda.

The United Nations has led a decades-long policy path that has diverted trillions globally away from people in need for pointless CO2 reduction strategies that have led to China’s massive growth in land, air, and water pollution. Total contamination in response to UN directives and priorities is a Disaster.

Perhaps, instead of insisting we all rethink how we view damage and loss of life from any event, we reimagine a world without the disaster that is the UN, the WHO, the IMF, the WEF, and the World Bank. All of them have done enough damage to the world and its people to have earned a declaration as a global terrorist organization.

 

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Camp Constitution will hold its 15th Annual Family Camp at the Singing Hills Christian Camp https://www.singinghills.net/ Plainfield, NH. from Sunday July 14 to Friday, July 19, 2024

Returning instructors include Pastor David Whitney of the Institute on the Constitution; Professor Willie Soon, world-renowned astrophysicist and climate realist; Catherine White of The Constitution Decoded; Alex Newman, author and host of the Sentinel Report, and Rev. Steve Craft, Camp Constitution’s chaplain.

Please Submit Group communications or Press Releases to steve@granitegrok.com.
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Guest instructors include Tucker Carlson and Julie Wilkinson, who played the abortion nurse in the movie “Unplanned: The Abby Johnson Story.” In addition to the classes, the camp will offer marksmanship courses, martial arts, hiking, basketball, volleyball, wiffleball, optional field trip,s and swimming, chess, gaga, and corn hole tournaments. Campers and staff end the day with an evening campfire.

Camp Constitution’s annual camp is a family camp open to entire families, unaccompanied minors, and adults. The cost for the week which includes lodging, meals and class handouts is $300 for those 13 and over. $200. For campers 12 and under, and three and under with parents are free.  The camp offers an “Early Bird” discount of $50, per person by registering by May 1.   A link to the camp registration:  http://campconstitution.net/camp-registration/

 

Contact: Hal Shurtleff
(857) 498-1309
campconstitution1@gmail.com

 

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Jeremy Kauffman, Founder Of The Decentralized Blockchain-Based Free Speech Platform LBRY

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking since my arrival at Fort Devens to serve my 18 months of government-mandated vacation, and one of my favorite things to remember is that final week of Porcfest, where I spent time with my liberty family a mere two days before starting my prison sentence. I have, of course, been aware of certain issues that developed after that year’s final Porcfest day–notably, after the Soapbox Idol event. After all, I was there as a judge, and I saw it all first-hand, with better-than-front-row seats, and I really only have one question:

Is this how we treat heroes of the liberty movement?

To call Jeremy Kauffman divisive is as much of an understatement as calling me controversial, but on one point there can be no division or dispute. Jeremy built LBRY, a real-life tool that is immune to government censorship as no other platform has ever been, and from that spawned Odysee, a web-based front-end to the protocol that brought much of this unrestricted content to the masses. What Ross Ulbricht did to make drug use safter, Jeremy did to help protect information from overbearing states (and what state isn’t overbearing?). If this was his only contribution to bettering the world for liberty, I would argue that it is more than enough, but he has not been content to merely hand over a widely used censorship-resistant video and file sharing protocol and platform, has he?

Jeremy has further run for office (unsuccessfully, but that’s really of little practical importance), helped others to do the same, promoted the Free State Project, served on FSP, Inc.’s, board, and, most importantly, stood against the SEC and all their might, when Kraken, Binance, and other much more powerful people and companies with significantly more resources and dozens of their own attorneys failed to. I must confess that I’ve never been investigated by the SEC (to my knowledge), but every libertarian worth their weight in Goldbacks knows by now how vicious, vitriolic, and vile the SEC and its chair, Gary Gensler, are. And while I don’t know what it feels like to battle the SEC, I spent nearly 15 months waiting on a promised superseding indictment that would (and did) bring more charges against me, and through that period I repeatedly turned down plea offers. I then spent an additional six months or so awaiting trial (before having my motion to dismiss denied, whereupon a plea deal seemed to me the most sensible route to take), and through all of this there was always an upcoming hearing, a next conference, threats of escalation, promises of destruction (made by the government and its agents), and unrelenting tension. After this was an additional six months awaiting sentencing, and an omnipresent Sword of Damocles whose devastation could not be divined in advance. 

It is impossible to convey what this does to the soul.

I can’t image that his battle with the SEC was any less horrific than my battle with the U.S. attorneys, and especially after the superseding indictment I became so strained that I was never far from a breaking point. I snapped at countless people who did not deserve it, and, while I was always quick to recognize my failing and apologize, one cannot un-snap at people. And let’s be honest–the man Jeremy snapped at during Soapbox Idol absolutely deserved it. I had a number of (admittedly, less harsh than Jeremy’s) responses myself, and was ready to eviscerate the man over his bigoted, anti-trans nonsense, but Jeremy was quicker to the draw. 

Is Jeremy Kaufman an alcoholic? I don’t know, and I don’t care. Many of the people who have alleged this have struggled with their own substance abuse disorders–what was that thing that Christ said about throwing stones? Even if it is true (and, again, I do not know or care), it would mean only that his battle with the SEC–the one that cost him countless dollars, immeasurable years of his life, as well as the company that he’d built over the course of many years–left him a “bitter and angry alcoholic.” Is this really how we treat our heroes? With all the love, compassion, and gratitude of the United States Government for its soldiers? “Thank you for your service, sorry about the PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and loss–lulz, and the substance abuse disorder. Our bad, but get lost. But TYFYS. Now kindly go drink yourself to death quietly somewhere so that you don’t tarnish our brand that’s more interested in restricting nudists who have never bothered anyone than in helping one of our heroes.”

I want to believe that we, as a community and a society, are better than that, but evidence seems to suggest otherwise. how many of our community have written Ian Freeman? How many have written Ross Ulbricht within the last 12 months? I ask because I can count on one hand the number of New Hampshire libertarians who have written me, and I wish I could believe the explanation that I am simply disliked; alas, though, I know in my heart the truth: out of sight, out of mind.. How quickly we forget Jeremy’s numerous and invaluable contributions to the world–and to our own community!

Is a history of service an everlasting excuse to be a jerk? Certainly not. But if we value someone and care about them, when they go astray we should react with kindness and with compassion, not scorn and condemnation. And besides, maybe a jovial “good times were hand by all!” rant competition at a liberty festival, where shrooms can be purchased within sight of the competition, isn’t the best venue to trot out one’s dead son like a macabre marionette, to dance around and shield the speaker from criticism, especially after misgendering him on a stage where it is known that a trans judge is eager to respond. 

But perhaps it’s best that I didn’t get the chance to speak, because in that moment I wouldn’t likely have shown that dude the same love, compassion, and understanding that I’m now asking the liberty community to manifest toward Jeremy Kauff

man. We’re no longer in that moment, though, and have the benefit of nearly six months to reflect on events while letting emotions cool, and I would ask the liberty community to do exactly that: to show love, compassion, and understanding toward someone who fought indescribable battles with the U.S. Government.

With a sick smirk on his face, Chuck Schumer addressed the press today and spilled the Democrat plan for the Border. He mocked the 60 Representatives whom Speaker of the House Mike Johnson led to the Southern Border to get a firsthand account of the situation.

Schumer snickered as he said it was nice to visit the Border, but if they really wanted to make a difference, they would be in D.C. working with Democrats on legislation to solve the border crisis. That statement sounds great and is encouraging until you realize he is not discussing our Border. What Chuck wants to get done is a comprehensive bill to address the Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan Borders and to allocate billions of dollars in aid for Israel and Ukraine. Chuck has no interest in our Southern Border. No wonder he was smirking and snickering. He was looking into the eyes of Americans and lying to them. It was shameful for anyone but deplorable for the Senate Leader.

Karine Jeanne-Pierre rambled today in the White House Briefing that Republicans are solely to blame for the crisis at our Southern Border. If Republicans would pass the Immigration Reform written by Democrats, DHS would have the resources to solve the problem. Again, it sounds good until you dig in and realize what solving the Border means to Democrats.

The solution means lots of money. Not money to build a wall or put troops on the Border to keep people out. No, it means money for an infrastructure that will allow more people to cross the Border and be processed more quickly. It means more judges on the Border to cut down on the 7-year wait to have an asylum claim heard. If Democrats had their way, the judges would approve asylum, grant them citizenship, register them to vote, and have them sign a preselected Democrat mail-in ballot for 2024.

The sleight of hand aside, there is no compromise on the Border situation. Republicans want the Border closed and secure. The Democrats want it open and a fast track to citizenship for illegals. Those two beliefs are on opposite sides of the mountain. Joe Biden can say he needs more money to secure the Border. Lie. KJP blames the Border Crisis on the Republican House because they are blocking all of Biden’s efforts. Nice try…..Lie. Schumer says the Republicans must return to D.C. to negotiate a bill to solve the Crisis. Smokescreen……Lie. Mayorkas keeps saying the Border is secure. Stupidity…….Lie.

The House passed H.R. 2 last year, and Chuck Schumer will not bring it to the floor for debate. Who is obstructing? KJP says the Republicans do not want comprehensive Immigration Reform. KJP, have you read H.R. 2? I didn’t think so.

The Democrats are concerned about the Border, just not ours. They want American dollars to be sent to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan to secure their Borders, but they want our Border open 24/7. The Border is a colossal scam perpetrated by the Democrat Party and the help of the mainstream media to con the American people. It is working, but the walls are crashing in on this play. With 4 million illegals a year, America cannot withstand the assault. Like the Pandemic, the illegal flow has spread to every state, and Americans have had enough. This legacy, along with Bidenomics, will topple Biden and prevent him from a second term.

 

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Concord, NH —In an effort led by American Action Fund and New Hampshire Hazlitt Coalition members Tom Mannion, John Potucek, Matthew Santonastaso, and Michael Granger, the New Hampshire State House of Representatives has passed Defend the Guard legislation on the 2nd day of the 2024 Legislative Session.

“Defend the Guard legislation simply requires an official declaration of war by US Congress for the activation of the New Hampshire National Guard, and thanks to efforts made by many in the NH House, this America First legislation now moves to the New Hampshire State Senate. This is a great first step, but we have more work to do.” -Ted Patterson, VP of the Grassroots Department at American Action Fund, a project of Young Americans for Liberty.

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US Congress has not officially declared war on any nation since World War II, but since then, our nation has continuously been at war. Our servicemen and servicewomen have fought and died in unconstitutional conflicts conducted overseas for decades. Thousands of lives have been lost and trillions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted. Granite Staters and our representatives now have an opportunity to safeguard our valued servicemembers from unconstitutional conflict.

“With all the turmoil happening overseas it’s more important than ever that the citizens contact their State Senators urging them to pass HB 229,” said American Action Fund Northeast Manager, Matt Soss, “The people need to let the entirety of the New Hampshire Senate know that Granite Staters support our troops!”

American Action Fund
Matthew Soss
matthew.soss@americanactionfund.org
(512) 637-5217
americanactionfund.org

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New Hampshire’s licensing cartels are a thing of legend for folks who’ve been around long enough to read about them, but most folks won’t realize it until a lack of a license interferes with their day-to-day. Things have improved, are improving, but the cartels who control occupations are “out there, Jimmy.”

That’s a reference to The Last Boy Scout and satan Claus. The malevolent evil that lurks in the everyday, waiting to pounce. Licensing boards are like that. Cartels. Occupational fiefdoms define who can legally do what sort of work, with rules that don’t always make much sense. Back in 2019, in a post titled, “In NH You Need a License to Shampoo Her Hair but Not to Perform Her Abortion,” I opened with,

 

Governments are stupid. How else do you explain this?  To get licensed as an EMT in the state of New Hampshire, you must complete 150 Hours of ‘Education.’ To be a Hairdresser the requirement is 1500 hours.

 

And closed with,

 

If you want to professionally shampoo a woman’s hair before her abortion (not cut, color, or style, just shampoo), you need a license from the state ($25.00) and roughly 150 hours of training. To perform an abortion in New Hampshire, you need tools and a willing patient.

Something’s not right about that.

 

There have been some changes. Abortionists can shampoo and cut hair and then perform the abortion without a license to do either. In the last session, the legislature passed a law allowing the state to accept licenses from out-of-state—you no longer need to relicense here. But the Cartels are still out there, Jimmy, and they can be vicious.

 

The case erupted when the [North Carolina Board of Examiners for Engineers and Surveyors] discovered [Wayne Nutt] was using his decades of experience as a working engineer to offer opinions about the designs of public works. State officials claimed he could be found guilty of a misdemeanor unless he obtained his own engineer’s license from the state.

“State licensing boards nationwide increasingly act as if they are boards of censors, deciding who may or may not speak about the topics they regulate,” charged IJ attorney Joe Gay. “Today’s ruling is a powerful reminder that in this country, we rely on people to decide who they want to listen to. We don’t rely on government boards to decide who gets to speak.”

 

Wayne had some thoughts about the “municipal plumbing” in an area where several houses were flooded. He used his wealth of knowledge and experience, and some math, to explain what he thought was the problem, and the cartel tried to claim he was “engineering” without a license.

 

The judge’s ruling concluded that the state board was in violation of the First Amendment with the speech restrictions it demanded. …

“At its core, this case concerns the extent to which a law-abiding citizen may use his technical expertise to offer a dissenting perspective against the government,” the judge said. “Stating that dissent required the speaker to use his expertise in several ways. He had to do some math. He had to apply recognized methodologies. He even had to write a report memorializing his work. Some of that work may plausibly be considered conduct. But it ends up providing him the basis to speak his mind.”

 

The unelected Board threatened him and demanded he not “publicly offer opinions about engineering without a license.” Had this gone the other way, we expect it would have been appealed, but free speech is in a precarious position and under attack from many quarters. The uniparty machine may be run by the Dems, but it is a bipartisan beast, as is that thing which stands against it. But the latter does not have a police force or standing army or FBI, CIA, or DHS. We cannot send IRS or EPA officers to eat out their substance.

Speaking your mind has become like checking the “company” in a room before telling a dirty joke where you don’t know what “dirty” even means. The cabal has made everything so toxic people self-censor, many without even realizing it or how that rewires your brain toward silence and compliance.

Our congrats to Mr. Nutt and the Institute for Justice for the win. You’ve done the people of North Carolina a kindness, not that this will stop petty bureaucrats, but at least you’ve got recent precedent you shouldn’t need to defend yourselves.

Next up, was his using math in public racist?

 

Do ‘Grok Commenters Have More Fun? – Join the conversation and find out. You could win free stuff!

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The Boston Globe, Michele Wu (Boston’s mayor), Ibram X Kendi, and others cite racism in the forced resignation of Claudine Gay.  This is a patent lie. Claudine Gay was put in her position by the Harvard Corporation headed by Penny Pritzker, who was an early financial supporter of Obama for his presidential campaign back in 2008.

That campaign was successful in harnessing the attention of 17-25 year olds using social media which became a weapon to use to keep them engaged using certain narratives.  The University of New Hampshire received millions of dollars to help shape those narratives and to make them seem realistic. It was chosen as the location to introduce the “Dear Colleague” letter signed by Russlynn Ali of the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.

Emails obtained by KC Johnson show very clearly that Russlynn Ali’s goal was to “change America forever” and to get rid of due process – a civil right.  Those emails discuss Notre Dame, Stanford, and Yale Universities – all private campuses. Russlynn Ali left DoE OCR in 2012 to work with Laurene Powell Jobs at XQ Institute which touts “DEI” and “Reimagining Education.”

Administrations were convinced they had to hire Title IX coordinators who’d been accredited by Brett Sokolow’s ATIXA, which he registered on April 1, 2011 – just days before the April 4 launch.  The University of New Hampshire Prevention Innovation Research Center became a strategic partner with the White House, targeting private campuses for its purpose—St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire, in particular. The NHCADSV was involved as its partner, and so were Congresswoman Ann Kuster and Senator Jeanne Shaheen. They could raise millions under federal grants if they promoted this narrative, which, in turn, they could use to help the 2016 elections.

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The White House hired interns from Harvard, Tufts, the University of Maryland, and elsewhere for “Civic Engagement.” These worked with narratives, social media, and # engagement, getting awards for social entrepreneurship.  The White House worked with Political PR companies as well. (SKDK, Precision Strategies, Blue Crab Strategies, and Hill Impact in particular).  This was always about recruiting young people on campus for political agendas to get federal money from the Government and to extort private educational institutions.

First, it was the Campus Survivor Movement with a full recruitment scheme going on with SurvJustice, It’s On Us, End Rape on Campus, Know Your IX, PAVE, and NHCADSV.  Then BLM, MeToo, and Times Up were added. And lastly, DEI.  Not one of these holds up to scrutiny. Behind every single one is a profiteering racket. They are businesses that figured out that they could get grants, hire PR, hire ambassadors, train recruits, and use them to increase their businesses and grow them further, all without paying any taxes because they were “non-profits.”

To add fuel to the fire, they worked with journalists and turned them into influencers for the AP, the Boston Globe, the NYT, the Washington Post, New England Newspapers, and Conde Nast publications that would reach the demographic they wanted: the 17-25-year-olds and their parents. They used political donors to fund propaganda documentaries and then gave themselves awards and rewards for their work. They partnered the recruited ambassadors for the cause du jour with major retailers: Target, L’Oreal, Uber, etc.

Who paid for all of this? The public. The taxpayers paid for the federal grants which went to campuses with “non-profit” enterprises. The families coughing up tuition fees that have escalated to accommodate hoards of badly trained, inexperienced administrators. The political donors whose money would find its way into political PR funds being used for the propaganda.

Who benefitted? Not the public. Not the students. It has been, from inception, a money-making extortion racket designed to rob the public purse and private schools, their donors, and their educators.

DEI is a business. It’s a WEF business, in fact – that means it’s a business that benefits the “stakeholders” of large corporations and large law firms.  Don’t take it from me. Take it from the WEF site itself.

The Campus Survivor Movement was a business as well. It was also a WEF-tied business – Klaus Schwab’s daughter, Nicole Schwab, started the Gender Equality Project in 2009. She was a Harvard alum. Female students were useful for this cause.

The “rape” narrative would get them engaged. UN Women was fully behind it, out to get the “Harry Potter” generation. They hired SKDK and Emma Watson for the job. #HeForShe was launched in 2014.

So was BLM. SKDK launched the #OscarsSoWhite campaign in 2016.

They were ready to bounce off the success of #ItsOnUs in 2014, which was used for “The Hunting Ground” propaganda documentary, a 2016 Academy Award winner with Lady Gaga singing the theme song on the stage. This was all backed by the White House.

The newspapers and magazines that have promoted this nonsense are mostly if not all, partners of the WEF as well.

So was FTX — exposed to be a complete sham and tied to MIT and Stanford Law School via Sam Bankman-Fried — an MIT graduate — and his parents, Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman. They were all star-struck with celebrities and fancied a life in offshore Bahamas using other people’s money, which could be funneled into election campaigns via straw donors. Michael Kives of the Obamas’ agency, CAA, and a close friend of the Clintons, was there to facilitate. His wife described his wedding in Palm Springs as a “Michael Kives production” — branding, product placement tie-ins to celebrities and politicians were the name of the game. His wife, Lydia, had attended Stanford Law and spent her summers interning for Obama’s WH legal counsel.

Next time you see someone like Gloria Allred, Sam Bankman-Fried, or Elizabeth Theranos promoted on the front of Forbes or Time Magazine, give some thought to the PR companies behind that promotion and who they are working for.

Penny Pritzker was the Commerce Secretary under Obama. She went to Qatar in 2014. Qatar is a large donor to Harvard. Qatar hired winners of the Pritzker Prize to design museums.

Claudine Gay joined the board of trustees for Phillips Exeter Academy in 2017.  She graduated from the prep school in 1988 and went to Princeton before going on to Stanford and then Harvard.

How did she get into Princeton if her work included so much plagiarism? Kendra Stearns O’Donnell was the principal of Phillips Exeter Academy in 1988 when Claudine Gay graduated.  Ironically, she, too, was a graduate of Princeton.

After Gay graduated, Kendra Stearns O’Donnell received significant attention (rightly or wrongly) for her handling of a sex scandal involving a teacher and child pornography. 

“Exeter officials tried to quell the scandal at the 990-student school, where tuition is $17,050 and dozens of graduates each year go on to Harvard and Yale. Principal Kendra Stearns O’Donnell fired Bateman, ordered him out of his apartment and sent a letter about the case to 25,000 faculty, students, parents and alumni. Stephanie Casale, assistant director of communications, defended firing Bateman before his October trial: “The question … was not whether he was guilty or innocent. It was: could he continue to be an appropriate role model.”

History repeats itself at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Governor Maggie Hassan (now Senator) is married to Tom Hassan, who was principal of Phillips Exeter Academy when it covered up sexual abuse – keeping two sets of records.  There was a media blackout as Hassan was running her campaign to become Senator in 2016.  Only last year did a math teacher get prosecuted.  He was found guilty of sexual abuse during the final years of Tom Hassan’s tenure.

Tom Hassan is also a graduate of Harvard (and Brown). His pay increased after he allowed a teacher to “retire” in 2012. The teacher, Rich Schubert, admitted to sexual abuse of a student and went to work on Maggie’s Senatorial campaign.

There’s always a quid pro quo.  And there’s always a secret club with these “elite” schools.

Boston Globe, NYT, and co appear none too happy that the “elite” club where Democrats can go to raise money for political campaigns from wealthy donors has been exposed as the empire with no clothes.

 

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It happens to most of us from time to time, at least to me, but when it’s someone like the just resigned Professor of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, or Nikki Haley, running for the nomination for President of the US, we should expect better.

In these cases, it happens to be on closely related subjects, the Hamas/Israel war.

Ms.Gay went to testify before Congress on the issue of antisemitism in American universities and totally outed herself as an anti-Semite. She tried to excuse accepting radicalized liberal students’ support for Hamas and naming Israel the aggressor and the terrorists as “free speech”? Standing behind Hamas, who are Terrorists and initiated the conflict with an unprovoked, unjustified, murderous attack on Israeli civilian men, women, children, and babies, can not be justified by any human with the least concept of human rights. But there she was right before our American Congress, spouting her pander to the terrorists as if it would buy her any slack if they invaded Harvard.

Given all that has unfolded, I question why any University would allow Muslim organizations to exist on compasses where they work to radicalize our students and create ever more anti-Semites.

Now then, Nikki, and here again, trying to sound like the tolerant humanitarian suggests we accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza here in America. Has she no understanding of what Islam is, what its objectives for not only Israel is but also for America? In case anyone has any questions, it is the total destruction of both nations, the eradication of all Jews worldwide, and a Muslim totalitarian-dominated America. These refugees from Gaza are the people who elected Hamas to govern them with the promise to destroy Israel and kill the Jews; these “refugees” have no love for America, would have no sense of gratitude to us if we took them in, and would surely work against us just as they do against the Jews.

How could not Haley, who was our US Ambassador to the UN, not know this? Has her desperate drive for the nomination come at the cost of risking the millions and millions of lives it would cost if Islamic power archives its goals?

Any questions any readers might have can easily be answered by getting a copy of the Koran and reading it. It was written in the Dark Ages by a barbaric culture that was ruled by absolute totalitarian power and has never changed since then. Its basic ideology is misogyny, homophobia, and antisemitism, just for a start.

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Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackerman took to X to share some thoughts, not just about Harvard, anti-semitism, racism, and anti-racism, but a deep-dive analysis of DEI, the appointment of Claudine Gay as President, and inside baseball at Harvard, which he suggests should result in its full board tendering their resignations.

It is a well-written look at Harvard after October 7th and an eye-opening excursion for Ackerman. He shares with us his discovery of how sinister DEI is and offers a great deal of thought, some of which looks like this.

 

An ideology [DEI] that portrays a bicameral world of oppressors and the oppressed based principally on race or sexual identity is a fundamentally racist ideology that will likely lead to more racism rather than less. A system where one obtains advantages by virtue of one’s skin color is a racist system, and one that will generate resentment and anger among the un-advantaged who will direct their anger at the favored groups.

The country has seen burgeoning resentment and anger grow materially over the last few years, and the DEI movement is an important contributor to our growing divisiveness. Resentment is one of the most important drivers of racism. And it is the lack of equity, i.e, fairness, in how DEI operates, that contributes to this resentment.

 

He later announces that (FYI – ODEIB is Harvard’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging).

 

The ODEIB should be shut down, and the staff should be terminated. The ODEIB has already taken down much of the ideology and strategies that were on its website when I and others raised concerns about how the office operates and who it does and does not represent. Taking down portions of the website does not address the fundamentally flawed and racist ideology of this office, and calls into further question the ODEIB’s legitimacy. Why would the ODEIB take down portions of its website when an alum questioned its legitimacy unless the office was doing something fundamentally wrong or indefensible?

 

As an aside, does inclusion not also mean belonging? I’m not a Harvard grad, didn’t graduate college at all, though I wasted some money on it. I don’t suppose being included is as warm and fuzzy as belonging, but Ackerman is correct. That office needs to go away. After the discovery of the UNH Bias-Free Language Guide, the University did something similar. It retooled web pages and made some things disappear, but as I noted then until you cut that budget, close that office, and perp-walk those activists out the door, the poison was still in the well.

And it is still in the well, has seeped into corporate culture, and is tainting culture and the nation. Harvard’s embarrassing few months of anti-semitism are – as Ackerman notes – but a canary in a coal mine. The real issue is DEI and the culture that has allowed it to metastasize. “The techniques that DEI has used to squelch the opposition are found in the Red Scares and McCarthyism of decades.” DEI is oppression in the name of anti-oppression. Racist in the name of anti-racism. A means to creat class division in pursuit of Socialism – whose only goal is Communism.

Ackerman’s remarks amount to several words, far too many to share outside its original tweet, but thanks to embedding, we don’t need to do that. We can share the tweet, and so we have.

There’s a lot there, and I think you’ll find it worth your time and attention. Click ‘show more’ for the rest. If you are not on X, I’ve copied it into a PDF you can view here.

In light of today’s news, I thought I would try to take a step back and provide perspective on what this is really all about.

I first became concerned about @Harvard when 34 Harvard student organizations, early on the morning of October 8th before Israel had taken any military…

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 3, 2024

 

The post “DEI is Racist” appeared first on Granite Grok.

State Reps

The anti-independence loyalists to the US Empire thought it was over when the historic 2022 bill went down in flames in the state house. However, we were just getting started. Thanks to one brave state rep, the secession bill is back!

Rep. Jason Gerhard has filed CACR 20. Like its predecessor, it proposes to put the question of New Hampshire declaring independence on the ballot as a constitutional amendment. However, Gerhard added a trigger event: if the people pass the amendment, peaceful secession won’t happen until the US National Debt reaches $40 Trillion.

The trigger idea is interesting because it should get people thinking, “Where is my line in the sand?” How much federal tyranny do the people of NH need before they have had enough and are ready to do as their forefathers did and break up with their abuser? The founders seceeded from the king over much less than we face from the federal gang today. Today we have endless war, ridiculous taxes and regulations, prisons full of nonviolent people, inflation, and no one in DC is going to make it better. Gerhard’s bill should start a necessary conversation. Do we want to continue to suffer, yoked to the falling empire as it crashes and burns, or should we forge our own path of freedom?

Likely to give us as little time as possible to get the word out, the public hearing has been set for Friday, Jan 12th at 9:30am in rooms 206-208 of the Legislative Office Building at 33 North State st in Concord. If you care about independence, please attend and tell the committee how you feel. If you can’t attend in person, you can sign in favor of the bill – CACR 20 – and leave a comment.

There’s a second bill of interest that will be having its public hearing at 10:15, filed by Rep. Matt Santonastaso, HB1130, which would create a “study committee” to examine all the tough questions about NH Independence.

Please contact your state rep and ask them to support both bills, CACR 20 and HB1130. Remember, with CACR 20 you are asking the reps to simply allow the people to vote on the question. They can be against secession personally, but still vote for CACR 20, which only puts the question on the ballot for the people to decide. It would require 2/3rds to vote in favor to pass, so if they believe secession is unpopular, for what reason could they oppose putting it to a vote?

Hope you can attend the public hearing at 9:30am on 1/12. Please spread the word to all liberty-loving people!

State Reps 

The anti-independence loyalists to the US Empire thought it was over when the historic 2022 bill went down in flames in the state house. However, we were just getting started. Thanks to one brave state rep, the secession bill is back!

Rep. Jason Gerhard has filed CACR 20. Like its predecessor, it proposes to put the question of New Hampshire declaring independence on the ballot as a constitutional amendment. However, Gerhard added a trigger event: if the people pass the amendment, peaceful secession won’t happen until the US National Debt reaches $40 Trillion.

The trigger idea is interesting because it should get people thinking, “Where is my line in the sand?” How much federal tyranny do the people of NH need before they have had enough and are ready to do as their forefathers did and break up with their abuser? The founders seceeded from the king over much less than we face from the federal gang today. Today we have endless war, ridiculous taxes and regulations, prisons full of nonviolent people, inflation, and no one in DC is going to make it better. Gerhard’s bill should start a necessary conversation. Do we want to continue to suffer, yoked to the falling empire as it crashes and burns, or should we forge our own path of freedom?

Likely to give us as little time as possible to get the word out, the public hearing has been set for Friday, Jan 12th at 9:30am in rooms 206-208 of the Legislative Office Building at 33 North State st in Concord. If you care about independence, please attend and tell the committee how you feel. If you can’t attend in person, you can sign in favor of the bill – CACR 20 – and leave a comment.

There’s a second bill of interest that will be having its public hearing at 10:15, filed by Rep. Matt Santonastaso, HB1130, which would create a “study committee” to examine all the tough questions about NH Independence.

Please contact your state rep and ask them to support both bills, CACR 20 and HB1130. Remember, with CACR 20 you are asking the reps to simply allow the people to vote on the question. They can be against secession personally, but still vote for CACR 20, which only puts the question on the ballot for the people to decide. It would require 2/3rds to vote in favor to pass, so if they believe secession is unpopular, for what reason could they oppose putting it to a vote?

Hope you can attend the public hearing at 9:30am on 1/12. Please spread the word to all liberty-loving people!

To all those who are sending in memes, thank you!  Keep them coming please, as it helps me gather weaponry to fight the Left.  Please do share this post, and if you share an individual meme, consider mentioning you saw it on the Grok!

TGIF!

Speaking of, from this week, Monday Edition and Wednesday Edition.  Also check out my latest Israel-focused meme & commentary post if this is a subject of interest to you.

 

*** Warning, a few possibly off-color ones, in case tender eyes are about ***

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s something that feels to me, just infernal, about this obsession with bug eating.  Some time ago I saw a video of Salma Hayek eating Mexican crickets.  Apparently that’s not the only creepy-crawly she eats.  And something in that video struck me as just wrong – no, not just the fact that she was eating them.  Call it intuition, but it was the glee she seemed to have in doing so that gave me shivers.  Later, I found out she’s married to the head of Baal, er, Balenciaga – of this infamous fame.  Add in Nicole Kidman’s seeming glee at eating bugs in her own infamous video… plus legions of other notables.

 

 

And through a good friend comes this:

KILL Switch (coldfury.com)

The more electronic they make these things, the less I like them.  Back when I worked in automotive it was all presented as “value add” features for the driver, but now I’m wondering if there was – even then – a more nefarious purpose.

 

 

 

 

 

Remember, overall the flow only goes one way.

 

 

It’s not just the weapons.  It’s the strength and courage and willingness to use them.  Remember…

Steel isn’t strong, boy, flesh is stronger.

And understand… I’m not chomping at the bit for this to happen.

 

 

 

 

You’ll own nothing, and be happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It would be great to have some midwives weigh in on this.  I’ve sent in a request to:

NACPM

 

 

There are no words in my – or I think ANY – vocabulary to adequately capture the rage I feel about this.

 

 

A person I know in Europe verified this… and it got pulled ONLY because social media became aware of it and raised a storm over it.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA – PSA

 

 

Between honeypots (the adult kind) and pedoville traps, just what percentage of our politicians and other notables are compromised?  Especially now with the Epstein lists getting rolled out.  I was astonished at Stephen Hawking, for example… though from the piece where I saw him in a picture there are, discretion used, some things he liked to watch.  But this might explain one reason there’s so much rage at Trump:

 

 

 

 

There’ve been a lot of rumors about how pedo, or just plain kompromat, is used to get leverage on politicians, officials, and business executives.  If Trump truly is clean of this – and it seems to be so – how great their anger at not being able to leverage him.

And there’s a lesson in that for our own behaviors.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m confoozled.  How can any person with three brain cells that talk with each other not look at this and not conclude something very fishy happened?

 

 

We don’t know they’re of “equal” importance but it IS odd.

Now let’s back up a little.  Pasteurization – plus refrigeration – were critical things in terms of being able to provide shelf-stable milk.  I don’t think there was the knowledge base to know just how much more nutritious raw milk is at the time.  But now that we know, it does seem odd that there is a literal war on anyone producing, selling, and buying raw milk even with contracts and signed acknowledgements of risk.  For example:

Police raid farm of former raw milk seller Michael Schmidt who says he is obeying law; among three farms hit by crackdown in 2021 | FarmersForum.com

Amish farmer raided by feds wins court battle against USDA mandates – COSAction (conventionofstates.com)

Again, I acknowledge there do seem to be risks as well as benefits to the stuff.  But if I sign a contract stating that I am aware of risks – enumerated and explicitly named, as they should be – and still want it… what’s the problem?

 

 

 

 

 

Words mean things.  That’s why the Left works so hard to change and/or compromise their meanings.

 

 

 

I started, a long time ago, a book by the “controversial” author of The Bell Curve, entitled:

Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950

I got distracted but should return to it.  Among the myriad other books I want to read.

 

 

The problem is that they believe – TRULY BELIEVE – that they do.

 

 

Follow the money… and how much for the “Big Guy” again?

 

 

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Pick of the Post:

 

 

This is not an appeal for aid to Israel.  This is a wake-up call to the Christians (and others) that think that by giving away The Sudetenland Israel they can buy their own safety.

First Saturday, then Sunday.  That is to say, first the Saturday People, then the Sunday People.  Islam wants the whole world.  Their Koran says so.  They say so.

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/british-mosque-preaching-until-you-are-strong-enough.mp4

 

Palestinians: We will conquer Europe and all infidels (rumble.com)

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/islam-wants-the-west.mp4

 

https://granitegrok.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/The-west-is-next.mp4

 

Have the moral courage to take people who openly say they want to conquer you at their word.

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

Palate Cleansers:

 

—

—

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

And don’t forget… come back Monday for another edition.  Same Meme Time.  Same Meme channel.

Please do consider buying me a coffee.

Buy Me a Coffee

 

>>>>>=====<<<<<

 

The post Friday Meme Overflow-Overflow appeared first on Granite Grok.

I wanted to take the time to respond to the government propaganda department’s continued lies in regard to the Crypto6 case. The Crime3 podcast interviewed former government agents and I wanted to take the time to respond to Jenifer and Chris’s lies and manipulations regarding the case and what unfolded.

You can find the episode here:

My open letter to the scum of the universe:

What these so-called blockchain ‘experts’ leave out whom have a bias and agenda when they’re talking about traceability of cryptos like Bitcoin (due to the public nature of the block chain) is that the “evidence” they produce is not admissible at trial and they’re not experts in the subject matter within the trial context according to the courts. By getting on these podcasts they’re in a sense defrauding the public about their credentials and abilities. The prosecutors are building cases on unscientific and unreliable evidence. The blockchain ‘evidence’ does not meet the standards of scientific scrutiny needed for admission in the courts at the trial level. Let me clarify one other aspect that this is at least for the federal system as was evidenced in the Crypto6 case.

While the governments top ‘expert’ was allowed to testify she was not admitted as an expert in the courtroom, nor was the blockchain evidence she brought forth. Humorously she admitted that even the defense lawyer could re-produce her results using public websites. While it is correct that blockchain tracing can be be utilized at early stages of an investigation to try and figure who did what when and even obtain search warrants that’s a very different thing than utilizing blockchain tracing as evidence at trial. The standards of evidence to obtain a search warrant that might lead to actual evidence are much lower than the standards needed to introduce that evidence at trial. This is why a search is essential to a criminal investigation. The actual evidence is not the evidence that leads one to ‘suspect’ a crime has occurred. That’s merely an investigative tool. It’s like a hunch that something has occurred, but now you need to find actual evidence it occurred.

There are different aspects of the problem. One of them is that while you can easily trace an individual transaction it’s a very different thing and an impossible task to trace thousands of transactions without the help of specialized tools. Those specialized tools can’t be scrutinized by actual experts because of the companies behind those tools are withholding the source code. Therefore the methodology hasn’t withstood the necessary public scrutiny. What happened in the crypto6 case was that people were intimidated into taking plea deals, cases against individuals were dropped, and in the one trial that occurred a story was told based on lies and half-truths of which the evidence itself didn’t support. The jury appeared to have been unable to understand the evidence or its connection to the story being told. This or a combination of this combined with tactical attempts to make the man they were after: Ian Freeman. They tried to make him out to be a anti-government bad guy satanist who prayed on little old ladies. None of this could be farther from the truth. They used politics and a broken or rigged jury system to achieve the results they wanted. The one person in the jury pool for instance who had touched Bitcoin was thrown out as was anyone who might have had an understanding of what was occurring. He was then portrayed as an anti-government violent satanist by way of others. He hasn’t uttered a word of violence, made allegiances with Satan or worshiped Satan, or been any of the things the government has portrayed him as. They took words out of context, implied he knew about things at a time in which he did not, and worse. Being against taxation isn’t a crime, but if you can convince a jury of people pulled from only the most upstanding government worshiping citizens in society everyone is guilty regardless of any actual wrongdoing.

The ‘experts’ which spoke in the Crime3 podcast about the church of the invisible hand left out the primary tenants of I believe all of these churches twisting what they admitted to not even understanding. It’s peace: “It is our mission, inspired by God, Allah, the Universe, and the inner light – to foster peace”. You can lie about it and claim it’s anti-government, but that isn’t really an accurate portrayal of any of these churches here. The very nature of the belief system is one of peace and violence is only ever justified in defense thereof, not one of no government. It’s not a pacifist philosophy, but it’s close to it.

You can connect it to libertarianism, but if you don’t understand what that means in this context you’ll be dearly misinformed. Libertarian philosophy can be summed up as the non-aggression principle. It is the fundamental principle of morality that states that any person is permitted do everything with his property, except aggression. It’s being against the use of violence to achieve social and political objectives where those objectives aren’t defensive in nature to actual violence, theft, and coercion .

For example participants do not believe that there should be no laws. Rather they believe the only laws that should exist are ones that prohibit non-consensual violence. Violence in defense of oneself and others is completely acceptable. That’s not anti-government. No one as far as I’m aware is objecting to the prosecution of violent individuals. They’re objecting to prosecution of individuals for smoking weed, a sacrament of one of the churches in question by the way. The government here uses violence against peaceful people, not violent actors.

They present our community as one that existed as if they get to dictate our existence or that arresting a few people somehow makes it go away. In reality it’s a community of 10s of thousands in size that continues to grow every year. Both in terms of births and in terms of people migrating for peace, love, and liberty. We have significant representation in the statehouse making up as much as ¼ of the house. We even got our first state senator last year. Our churches don’t disappear just because the state or some federal agent doesn’t like us. This is at the heart of it a religious persecution and a battle over beliefs and ideas. Something that state schools give the impression was a tenant at the foundation of the nation, but for which in reality is a hypocritical modern day representation of the United States. The United Sates today is a country that has restricted religious beliefs and religious organization that do not conform or did not exist 50 years ago. Where some religious organizations are protected others are not. We aren’t allowed to setup new non-insurance based solution to health care for instance that other religious groups have had in place for over 50 years. There right to exist is enshrined in law. Ours are not. The difference is they had such organizations already which pre-date the 1950s era socialist dictate that legally changed how health care worked in the United States. We do not have freedom and we don’t have religious freedom outside specific dominant religions.

One of the messages that they keep bringing up is that there were many churches. This is a misleading representation of what was actually going on. The Shire Free Church is a church that was founded in 2010 around peace, love, and liberty. It is an interfaith church that welcomes all peaceful people whether you’re a Muslim, Jew, Catholic, Protestant, a Quaker, or something else entirely. In fact one of the board members is a Quaker. Ian, the primary political target in the Crypto6 case was just one of the people on the board of the Shire Free Church. The Shire Free Church is registered with the state of New Hampshire. Around 2017 the Shire Free Church setup a crypto outreach effort. A DBA was filed with the state to that end. This became one of these “many churches” when in reality that isn’t what a DBA is. A DBA is saying you’re representing yourself under multiple names. It does not mean you are setting up multiple entities. This made a lot of sense as the church was going to focus on spreading peace through cryptocurrency. If you don’t understand the history of money you won’t understand any of this and it can be twisted into some dubious money laundering scheme. This was the angle the government turned to when it became apparent no actual crime occurred. Lawyers were sought and advised the church how to legally sell Bitcoin long before the FBI’s investigation got off the ground.

Cryptocurrency is a non-state currency and has the potential to undermine state violence. The US government switched to a fiat currency to fund war efforts many decades ago. A fiat currency is effectively a currency that isn’t backed by anything. Previously currencies were backed by things like gold. You could go to the state or a non-government bank before that and get your gold out (the thing with real value). The government discontinued the ability of people holding dollars from getting the real money the government held on their behalf out (gold, silver, etc). This then allowed the government to print more dollars than they had gold. In turn the dollars people held become worth less and less each year and enabled and continues to enable the government to drop bombs on women and children overseas.

The churches didn’t help anyone evade income taxes. The IRS’s own website states that churches and their ministers aren’t required to file income taxes unless (unless they’re 5013c churches) except in circumstances where a minister has a side hustle at Mc Donalds more or less. Ian Freeman did not have any such side hustles where he personally brought in money. Any revenue from the sale Bitcoin went back into the coffers of the church. The federal government never showed where the money went in the case outside of the vast majority of it going back into purchasing Bitcoin. If anything their own evidence disproved this was the personal income of Ian Freeman. This all made sense too given the mission of the church was to foster peace and this particular outreach effort was to spread peace through the sale of cryptocurrency. I should point out the sale of cryptocurrency was one small part of the spreading of cryptocurrency. The church also helped businesses get setup with cryptocurrency and taught others how to use cryptocurrency. It was not about “investing” in cryptocurrency even if that is often why people buy it. What the market later turned into was not how crypto was started or why the church or our community support it. We’ve held meetups to teach people about cryptocurrency long before the sale of Bitcoin even. The church has other outreach efforts that also have nothing to do with cryptocurrency including building orphanages in Africa, helping the homeless, and even helping people and families with mental health issues. The church provided below market rate rents to numerous families struggling with addiction over the years as well as others with mental health related issues all long before it sold any cryptocurrency.

I think the framing of the feds saying that because a few people wrote donations on wire transfers to the church that the church was somehow engaging in criminal activity is just preposterous. The first donations to the church long preceded the accusations here too. Just because some people considered the proceeds from their purchases of Bitcoin donations does not make the transaction criminal. Remember the church was founded in 2010 … many years before any vending occurred. The first regular sales of Bitcoin didn’t occur until 2016-2017 which is the same time the FBI started investigating. The proceeds of cryptocurrency transactions can be donations too. If not then why haven’t you gone after eBay or sellers on eBay? eBay and a portion of it’s sellers contribute a portion of the profits from their sales to charities all the time too. It’s anywhere between 10% and 100% if my memory serves me correctly. This is a major fundraising effort. Why is it that just because this involved selling Bitcoin that those proceeds can’t also be donations?

They put forth this idea that the crypto6 are somehow tied to New Hampshire because of the 2008 financial collapse. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. These people are tied to New Hampshire through a set of beliefs and moves to the state as part of the Free State Project migration. The migration is a movement of folks who believe in promoting peace, liberty, and love for one another. It’s all about the non-aggression principle. While there is a connection between Bitcoin and the 2008 financial collapse in that Bitcoin was created in that context (to enable people to escape the government regulated banks of which many failed and whom had malicious intent) it has nothing to do with people moving to the state. It’s merely one avenue that people who have that belief system have to promote peace. This is not about Bitcoin or cryptocurrency. It’s about peace. The same people who promote Bitcoin also promote the goldback and other systems of barter for the same reasons. It’s not about individuals profiting here even if it can be said that people outside libertarian circles have mostly gotten into cryptocurrency out of an interest in profiting from the swings. The reasons these people got into crypto differ from the schmucks promoting it for personal profit, scheming, or otherwise benefiting from it (not unlike they use the dollar too might I add) with ill intent. While the media would have us all believe Bitcoin is only used for laundering money and illicit drugs it actually only makes up a tiny percentage. Likely less than that of which is funneled through fiat or US dollars as a percentage and the entirely banking system as a whole for that matter.

They continue to disparage Ian’s name through lies. Ian believes these people despite the lies have every right to tell them. Ian wouldn’t do the same in return, that is lie about what the government is doing or them. He doesn’t have to either. Lets take the the claim that Ian is constantly advocating for sex with children. This is just absurd and propaganda the government probably created. In two decades of producing Free Talk Live you’d think they’d be able to come up with some audio or video of Ian actually saying this. No one has. At best they’ve twisted advocating freedom into some bizarre child-adult sex claim that is false. Then they backed it up through false affidavits and a raid in 2016. This was likely an attempt to take Ian and at least Free Talk Live out through disparagement of his name. The FBI raided Ian’s house in 2016 with the claim that child pornography would be found. No child porn was ever found, no arrests were ever made, and the FBI was sued for the return of what they stole. The vast majority of which has been returned. Why do they feel a need to twist a message advocating peace and freedom into one that is disgusting and more representative of their despicable behavior than Ians?

Ian Freeman didn’t create the Church Of The Invisible Hand. Rich Paul (aka Mr Nobody) has been talking about it and preaching his beliefs surrounding it for a decade whether or not I or anyone else agrees with his beliefs or the Church Of The Invisible Hand. The Church Of The Invisible Hand has a mailing list and members whether or not you like it or not. The ideas behind it existed long before Mr Nobody’s involvement with crypto sales too. These sales involving Nobody and Ian and the Shire Free Church only occurred in the last year of the FBI’s investigation. It’s not even clear how or where or if the Church Of The Invisible Hand is ‘connected’ to it all. They’ve literally just taken things people have said out of context and turned it into “all these churches”. I’m surprised they didn’t bring up Gun Church. Gun Church is not connected to crypto sales and is not even a church to the best of my knowledge. Though they do accept cryptocurrency donations. It’s an entity maybe, but not a religious one. It would be more akin to the Church Of Emacs probably. Which is a way of taking sides in a debate over which text editor is better in the Unix (operating systems) / Linux world. If you twist reality enough and the meaning enough than maybe… there were all these “churches” and because these people also had a connection to crypto well… we can ignore reality and somehow say these churches were all fronts to some fraudulent end.

Free Talk Live is an outreach effort of the Shire Free Church and has been around for decades. It’s where peaceful people come together and preach about peace and communicating our ideas to the world. It’s not some “New Hampshire” thing. It’s airing on ~200 some odd radio stations around the United States. It’s akin to any other TV ministry of which I’m sure just about everyone has heard of. They may take different forms, but the gist of it is someone gets on TV and preaches about their religious viewpoints. Free Talk Live continues to air on radio stations across the United States in spite of the FBI’s attempt to take Ian out. In spite of the FBI’s arrest of Aria, Nobody, and a few others. The FBI has repeatedly failed to take out Ian and the Shire Free Church. Free Talk Live lives on. You can listen to it online at https://www.freetalklive.com/

Aria DiMezzo did form the Reformed Satanic Church, did some outreach to raise money for kids with cancer, and was around only a very short while. The FBI made arrests shortly after it was formed and so it’s hard to judge something that barely existed. It barely had time to do anything or build a membership or preach anything. However Aria DiMezzo did do some of that none-the-less via her work with the Shire Free Church. The crypto-sales however were not tied to one another. I believe the connection as was explained at Ian Freeman’s trial was that Ian had referred customers to Aria on a few occasions where the Shire Free Church was overly burdened by it’s success in its own outreach efforts.

Renee and Andrew Spinella were threatened by the government and intimidated into taking plea deals. Andrew Spinella had little to no knowledge of anything as was evidenced in court and agreed to by basically everyone including judge, prosecutor, etc. There was a connection due to some bank account where his name was on the account. He had nothing to do with selling Bitcoin. It was probably in connection to Renee that the FBI arrested him. Renee was aware of the governments displeasure with the churches Bitcoin sales and basically haphazardly tripped into what was effectively a situation she wasn’t comfortable being in. She clearly didn’t get it and probably should not have gotten into any of it in the first place. Out of an abundance of caution she quit long before the FBI raided over crypto-sales. If anyone was guilty of anything it was probably Renee humorously, but mostly being unwitting to the morals, laws, legal advice, understanding, reasons, and so forth of it all. Her view on it was not representative of our communities and she did not seem to fully understand what she was doing. She did not move to New Hampshire as a libertarian for the Free State Project. She may have come along, been a significant other in years leading up to the FBI’s 2nd raid, but may not have understood what the rest of us were preaching. She did not know about or understand the legal advice, but she did understand the threat of the feds and appeared to not believe what she was doing herself even if it was completely legal.

No one changed their identities. People did change their names over a period of a decade or longer. It wasn’t to “escape justice” as is being presented by this warped government propaganda. Rich Paul changed his name to Nobody for political reasons. He wanted to give the people of New Hampshire the opportunity to vote Nobody for mayor and later governor. I do not know the reasons Ian changed his name from Ian Benard to Ian Freeman, but it was a very long time ago. It was not a secret. It was a well known fact anyone could do a search of the internet and discover. The last person who also changed their name (?) and this is a little unclear as to when… but was Aria. Aria as we’ve always known her escaped persecution in southern Mississippi for being trans only to end up in the northern state of New Hampshire to face it from the federal government. I don’t know if this name change was a legal name change. I believe she is currently caged under her legal name issued at birth which was a male name. For someone walking around in dresses is it really unreasonable that they’re going by a more feminine sounding name? None of these name changes or aliases were secret or to hide their real identity. In fact certain people still go by their former name. Now an alias to their legal name.

The government agent speaking in this Crime3 podcast is under the belief that the church promoted Bitcoin in order to have people to sell Bitcoin to. This just doesn’t match with reality or the unfolding of events. The Shire Free Church was promoting Bitcoin long before the churches first vending machine or crypto sale. The church didn’t promote the spending or usage of Bitcoin to give people a need for Bitcoin as was stated. This is an absurd given the time frames involved and what started happening when. The church was promoting Bitcoin many years before it started selling Bitcoin and the church had no need to sell Bitcoin from a financial standpoint. The church had received significant donations at its founding including a 100 BTC bar. That’s 4.3 million dollars at today’s prices not including the value derived from its uniqueness (very few remain that have not been redeemed pushing the price of this item up beyond the 100 BTC of Bitcoin the bar contains). Ian had no need for money and long ago took a vow of poverty. He does not drive a fancy car, own a fancy home, or waste money on frivolous things either. When the church did start selling Bitcoin there were far more people demanding it than the church could ever hope to supply short of turning it into an actual business. There were plenty of places to get Bitcoin in 2016. Spreading it and I’d argue particularly locally however was still valuable act from a spiritual sort of standpoint and one from a philosophical fight stand point. No one was under the guise that the government would not start a fight even if it was completely legal. There are people that Ian and our community have interacted with over the years who did get into selling Bitcoin for profit and financially benefiting from it. That was not what happened here. One person we knew had 80 vending machines for instance many years before the FBI raided. Another person we knew had at least 20-30 if my recollection is correct. The Shire Free Church started with a single vending machine early on and added about one vending machine a year. When it raided there were 4. Ian started referring people to Aria explicitly because there were too many people wanting to purchase Bitcoin from the Shire Free Church. The church couldn’t reasonably keep up with the demand. This idea that the church had to promote its usage to sell Bitcoin is ridicules as by the time the sales started Bitcoin had already exploded. The church didn’t need to sell Bitcoin. It was already well established and financially sound.

They claim that setting up a Bitcoin vending machine is legal, but only so long as you follow the rules that have been setup by government. The problem here is that the church sought legal advice and even got the laws in New Hampshire changed to ensure it was operating well within the law. To now claim that the church wasn’t operating within the rules despite the hoop jumping it did and we as a whole did is absurd. The government at no point came to the church and said “hey- we think you’re not operating legally”. At best they sent a letter to what appeared to be thousands of vending machine operators with a name that was NOT Ian, not the Shire Free Church, and of which didn’t say you are, but only you may be operating outside the bounds of the law. The lawyers however dissagreed.

If you look at other cases the government has gone after people in you’ll notice some interesting things. For instance the federal government says you have to register with the state government, but some states don’t have any registration requirement. They don’t care. It’s literally impossible to register. You can register with the federal system and when people did that the federal government didn’t care. They claimed these people were still breaking the law. How can you require someone to register with a state that doesn’t have registration in the first place? This isn’t an issue of “just follow the rules”. The government is fabricating criminals as they don’t like certain groups of people and this is a means of going after us. The Crypto6 case is explicitly a case of the government targeting activists for political and religious reasons and Bitcoin is almost barely noticeable. It’s just their means of targeting and had it not existed there would be no change here. The government would still be persecuting Ian Freeman for some other factious crime he didn’t actually violate. It’s not even the government as a whole who is after Ian here, but in this case one specific agent it would appear named Phil Christiana. Phil has been involved in 3 separate targeted “investigations” regarding one individual Ian Freeman, and one entity: The Shire Free Church and Free Talk Live. Though he’s “investigated” many other free staters.

The feds tried to get Rich Paul to entrap Ian in 2012, tried to disparage his name by making a false affidavit and raiding over non-existent child porn in 2016. When that failed in March of 2016 they immediately started an investigation into the Bitcoin vending. Then in March of 2021 the FBI raided a 2nd time with multiple tank-like vehicles that were former actual military vehicles used in war zones. They brought in about ~56 FBI agents and something closer to 100 law enforcement agents. This over the mere selling of Bitcoin? You’d have to be a fool to believe this was just a matter of the church failing to file paperwork. This was a politically motivated attack on libertarians and our beliefs in New Hampshire. Phil Christiana was targeting Free State Project movers before Ian Freeman ever arrived in New Hampshire. Ian just became Phil Christiana’s #1 target.

There were policies in place to protect their customer’s privacy just like any bank or company has. To suggest this somehow implicates the church in illegal activity is again absurd. The church was NOT required to register with FinCEN and the church maintains that position. The case is still being fought through the courts and no final decision exists to even contradict this. The state has no regulations on people or entities selling Bitcoin and so long as you are not doing it for profit the federal regulations don’t require you to register either. There are a number of different reasons the church was not required to register as a money transmitter, but this would be one of them. Remember that long before the FBI and dozens of other 3 letter agencies raided in 2021 the church had received advice on how to operate and did operate legally. Even if the church did have to register and didn’t we’re talking about a paperwork violation here. The church had procedures in place to hinder scammers. The church did more to stop people from becoming victims of scammers than any of the banks did in this case. Every one of the “victims” that got up on the stand stated clearly that Ian called them to verify that they understood what they were purchasing. None of the banks made any attempt to stop individual transactions and one of the governments own experts from a credit union stated that they didn’t have to stop individual transactions merely because they were suspicious anyway. This was the reason that she didn’t close the Shire Free Church’s account at that very credit union. She even stated in a letter replying to Ian that the churches operations may be completely legal. Ian had written to her stating that the churches lawyers disagreed with the banks stance and asked for reconsideration. There were no complaints regarding the account or victims and many transactions had occurred. Despite her gut feelings there was nothing she could point to evidencing a problem. It was merely suspicious activity and not criminal activity that resulted in the account being closed. The government is effectively protecting banks while saying everyone else needs to stop individual transactions based on gut feelings they don’t even have.

The government is claiming the church didn’t want to know about romance scams and yet Ian testified to the fact he asked customers if they were being put up to purchasing crypto by a lover. He even went so far as to ask people if they’d ever met their significant others. The problem here is that these scammers convince their “lovers” to lie so none of this really matters as far as stopping scams. It’s just a fools errand to think these regulations or this position has some positive impact on hampering scammers. Remember that the banks didn’t ask any of these “victims” any questions. They took zero steps to stop the individual transactions. There was one person who testified that the bank told him he was laundering money and he continued to do it. Unlike that situation the man KNEW he was laundering money for a scammer. Ian nor the church ever knew about any scams or laundering that occurred. The laundering was being done by third parties, not the church, not Ian, not the banks. To whatever degree this occurred it was not a result of any person in this case except for the one man who knew he was laundering money for scammers because a bank agent told him so when they closed his account. This transaction was not related to the purchasing of Bitcoin from the church and many if not all of these victims were purchasing Bitcoin from other parties. It’s unclear how many as often these people testimony was in error or clearly incorrect. One women read a letter stating she bought her crypto from a Florida vending machine yet the Shire Free Church had no vending machines in Florida. This letter differed from what she had previously testified to.

Lets talk willful blindness for a moment since the government is claiming the church was being willfully blind. The church wasn’t required to know what people were using their crypto for because it wasn’t required unless you had to register as a money transmitter in the first place. The registration is what made that relevant. However even when that is required it isn’t what you think. This is just what the government agents want you to believe. Despite that the church was not required to ask for ID it DID where it was relevant and important. This meant every “victim” that the government brought forth was called and questioned on the phone. These people knew they were buying Bitcoin. These “victims” were asked whether or not they were purchasing Bitcoin for a boyfriend / girlfriend / partner that they did not know in person. This list of questions was more thorough than any bank doing KYC or any KYC that might have been required. These people lied. They lied because the scammers told them to. Some people should not control or retain control of their savings because they’re unable to make rational decisions. Banks aren’t required to ask what you are spending your dollars on every time you make a withdrawal or conduct a transaction.

Imagine that for a moment. Have you ever went to a fiat (cash) ATM machine to withdraw money and been asked what or who you were going to spend it with/on? I’ve NEVER had a bank ATM ask me where I was going to spend my fiat currency. This ‘not asking’ standard is clearly not willful blindness. One only thing about it for a moment to realize that. There was a sign on the vending machines that listed rules including that the wallet you were sending the crypto to was your own. This should if people obeyed it ensure that no third party scammer could get ones crypto. AKA this is KYC as KYC isn’t a specific list of things banks or money transmitters must do, but rather a bank /  money transmitter must have a KYC policy with things in it to try and thwart various criminal activity. The one rule that may have stated don’t tell us what you are doing with the crypto (this may not be accurate description of the rule as I’m taking it from what the government agent said in the podcast rather than checking it was accurate myself) was explicitly because that would complicate things for non-employees (staff here aren’t actual staff of the church, but employees of other businesses where the vending machine is setup). There were no employees of the church at these vending machines. To whom would the sign refer if not people who might be confused as employees of the church? Ian is the person who took care of technical support, not anyone else. A cashier at a bar/restaurant in which the vending machine happened to be placed would in theory all of a sudden have to know the law and then presumably do something if someone said they were planning to buy drugs with the Bitcoin [?in theory?]. These weren’t actual employees or staff of the church here. So what you might be able to imply is willful blindness here isn’t within context of the churches vending machines and other actions and operations as it pertained to selling Bitcoin and by comparison to what every bank cash ATM machines does. To take this and accept it as true would mean that every bank was committing willful blindness by not asking you where or what you were planning to spend your ATM cash withdrawals on. It’s also a silly question in that how many of us even know where we are going to spend that cash or what on? I don’t know where or what I’m going to spend it on when I withdraw it. I bet you don’t either most of the time. The same thing applies to Bitcoin purchases.

Ian went out of his way to comply with the law. Yes- he knew how others were targeted for prosecution and where they fell afoul of the law, but didn’t his refusal to make those mistakes prove he was making every effort to comply EVEN if he didn’t agree? The law doesn’t dictate what people believe. The law dictates what they must do and Ian did what he had to do, but nothing says he had to agree that drugs are bad to sell Bitcoin. He may have had to act under some set of circumstances (like if he had to register as a money transmitter) had he encountered a customer purchasing Bitcoin and then stating he was selling drugs. The reality is Ian refused to sell Bitcoin to an undercover officer claiming to be a drug dealer once he was made aware of this falsehood. He may have known this was an undercover officer by the mere fact this was a standard operating procedure used by malicious officers to prosecute innocent Bitcoin sellers, but none of that or if anything it just goes to prove he’s innocent. It doesn’t prove he’s trying to cater to criminals or that he’s being willfully blind. It proves the opposite. That he was COMPLYING with the law. They’re literally crucifying Ian for following the law while claiming he didn’t want to follow the law (even though they have no proof to that end) and therefore he’s a bad man and he should be locked up for the rest of his life.

It’s not even clear that he could have knowingly operated a money transmission business as the laws at the time did NOT include Bitcoin or cryptocurrency. The government is just intentionally blind here due to their bias. It’s not clear cut that he was operating a money transmitting business as the government apologist in the podcast is claiming. The law was changed in 2021 AFTER the FBI arrested Ian and the Crypto6 to include virtual currency. For him to knowingly done so it would have had to been clear that the Bitcoin was in fact money as defined by the law or some instrument thereof AND he was transmitting it. This is a question that remains open for debate and the lawyers disagree on which is evidenced by the very fact that different lawyers are arguing it in the courtroom. It was not transmitted like a money transmitter transmits money either. The law says to another place or person. The church sold Bitcoin to users and did NOT move money from one physical location to another or from one person to another.

Every person who bought Bitcoin online was required to provide a ID. The church had a picture of an ID for every “victim”. To suggest that they weren’t following a set of KYC procedures is a flat out lie. It may not have been what the government agents wanted, but the law does not dictate the specific of the KYC procedures. When you go to a store and purchase a gift card do they ask for your ID? I can tell you they don’t. They may have a warning about scams posted and it might be some states do require ID, but it’s not a federal mandate required by KYC. This isn’t ‘facilitating’ scammers as they want to portray it. Not even a fraction of 1% of purchasers were victims of scammers according to the governments own statistics in this case. The victims also bought Bitcoin in this case from other sellers. It was not a case where “if only the church hadn’t sold them bitcoin, or if only the church had done KYC” that these people wouldn’t have lost money. Every one of them bought Bitcoin from other sellers and a heck of a lot more Bitcoin in fact in at least some instances. Some as was previously stated were actually actively and knowingly laundering money for scammers and these same people the government is claiming are “victims” of the church. It’s absurd to claim an actual money laundering individual is a victim of a church when the church knew NOTHING about it at the time it occurred and actively tried to stop scammers/money laundering through more stringent measures than any other bank or money transmitter.

Romance scams are real, but they’re not the fault of the banks. They’re not the fault of Bitcoin sellers. They’re not the fault of Ian, the Crypto6, or the Shire Free Church. The fees were also far less than the government claimed. The government claimed 10-21% and in reality all the victims paid 10%. The church actually charged as little as 5% and all of this is well within what the market rate was for the given method. The vending machines were as low as 8%. In person it was at times as low as 5%. Online it was at least as low as 10%. The 20-21% would probably have been for new customers and via payment methods that had more risk associated with them. Vending machines in Boston are in the 20% range for comparison. The government tried to claim anything over 1-2% was insane profits when it didn’t take into account that vending Bitcoin through a vending machine has different costs associated with it than selling Bitcoin wholesale via a major online exchange. The rates in practice were below the market rates and it’s only through manipulation of the facts and of folks who do not know what the range is for fees that you can make it out as if this was some sort of “scheming” or catering toward scammers that the government would have you believe. The reason that there were actually very few victims of scams purchasing through the church is that the church had a very strict KYC policy and was relative to the methods used. In other words the policies for the vending machines were less than that of online sales. One business owner testified he was unaware of even a single minor incident until years later and another business owners testified that they were unaware of anyone becoming a victim. This includes a business owner who regularly helped people with Bitcoin, but he said that it was only once that he ever needed to ask someone to leave.

While people DID purchase Bitcoin online via sending cash on a rare occasion, and most was done via wire transfers and cash deposits every person was required to write that they understood they were purchasing Bitcoin from the church. A photo of a drivers license was required and a picture of the bank receipt with very particular wording on it. This ensured that people for the most part didn’t unknowingly purchase Bitcoin and become victims of scammers. Scams take many forms and you can’t stop all scams, but no one who purchased Bitcoin from the church was unaware of what they were doing. No “victim” thought they were purchasing a car while wiring money to the church. Bitcoin was only ever released upon the confirmation that the buyer understood that they were buying Bitcoin from the church. All of this was presented at the trial.

Notice how the agents can’t tell you how many people were impacted even though the state did reveal this statistic. They can’t tell you because they’re manipulating you. They are lying. They just say “many people”. The reality is a few people did lose a lot, but it was not as a result of the church or failures of the church to do KYC. These people lost much of their money via purchasing Bitcoin from various sellers. There were hundreds if not thousands of people selling Bitcoin. They had 7-8 victims testify, but not all of these victims were actually victims in the end. The restitution hearing is occurring on January 8th, but even before this date determines how many victims there are a number of them have been dropped. That is they’re NO LONGER victims. You would think they’d have to prove that these people were actually victims BEFORE the trial started. That is sadly not how the real world works though. In the real world you get convicted based on lies told by prosecutors, “victims”, and others with a financial interest in the case. Then who is and isn’t an actual “victim” gets figured out after the trial is over. If you throw enough “victims” up to testify it sounds like someone was harmed, but it doesn’t make it true, and certainly even if these are genuine victims it’s not the case that the church partook. In fact the judge ruled Ian did NOT have knowledge of the crime and one of the charges were thrown out as a result. Other charges should have been thrown out as well, but apparently thinking about money laundering is illegal, but knowledge is a requirement of actual money laundering. So they can convict you of conspiracy to launder money without any actual money laundering ever having occurred. And in reality without ever having thought of money laundering given that the church took many steps to thwart would-be money launders.

They claim we used the word “victimless financial crimes”, but to the extent this has some truth there are victimless financial crimes. This case is evidence of that. Whose the victim of this crime? There is a victim of a third party who actually duped someone maybe, but there is no victim of the crime here committed by the accused. Ian isn’t being accused of targeting elderly people or targeting scammers. At various point the prosecution admitted that much even if they did say it at other points. The government and the judge agreed in two separate hearings involving Renee and Mr Nobody that no one ever lost a dime. There was zero restitution owed by anyone else because there were no losses yet somehow this has now changed. Now there are victims who Ian owes money to even though there were not victims of the crimes. There were victims of third parties of which Ian didn’t know or have anything to do with… but no direct victims (and this assumes what we are being told is correct since no evidence was presented to prove these folks were victims of third parties beyond some testimony of the victims of which couldn’t even clearly remember or identify who or where they bought Bitcoin from).

The protections for consumers are a farce. The government wants you to believe these were all elderly folks yet many of the so-called victims were younger than the judge, prosecutor, and defense lawyer in the case. They also use an interesting choice of words. They facilitated money laundering, but didn’t know of the money laundering. The banks in that regard all facilitated money laundering too, but didn’t know of the money laundering occurring. Somehow one little piece of paper somehow immunizes the banks and despite the church doing more than the banks to stop scams they want to hold the sellers of Bitcoin to a higher standard. Or at least Ian. Remember, this isn’t about Bitcoin. It’s about one agent having a grudge against free staters and libertarians. How many different “crimes” does an agent have to investigate over close to two decades before he finally gets his “man”? Apparently two arrests and a disparagement of a mans reputation I suppose is the answer to this one.

Rather than make work for yourself government agents… if you really care about these “victims” maybe you should focus on actually getting laws passed to help stop vulnerable folks from being so easily victimized. The banks didn’t stop these people from wiring “large” sums of money to parties they didn’t know. It wasn’t little old vending machines in Keene New Hampshire that were the problem. It was that there was and is zero measures in place for “vulnerable” people to wire away life savings. A seller of Bitcoin can’t know if the buyer has billions of dollars and a $25,000 purchase is nothing to sneeze at. A bank on the other hand would or at least might know.

Of course if we actually solved this problem through real measures law enforcement would be out of a job, so of course they don’t want to actually solve this problem. The solution boils down to simple mathematical algorithms. You don’t need to regulate money transmission at all outside of traditional banking institutions. All you need to do is require a two-step confirmation process on the wiring of funds over a certain threshold over a particular period of time for a particular demographic. This can be based on how much is in an account, how much is normally sent out, and age. Someone whose 20 might have zero checks. Someone whose 55 might have an algorithm that stops wire transactions that are 1.5x their normal monthly expenditure / withdrawal. This shouldn’t stop them from conducting the wire, but if a 2nd person now needs to sign off on it is required it makes the amount of hoop jumping a scammer does significantly higher. Or they may need to stop in at the bank to do the wire and the bank employee maybe has to accept a certain amount of risk. That is if they wire $100,000 and it turns out to be a scam they’re on the hook for a weeks wages. Of course none of this should stop someone from spending their own money and risking everything … including sending it away to a scammer… but … it would make it more difficult for someone to be scammed and be able to excuse it away as “someone should have stopped me”. If you are really that incapable of managing your own money maybe it’s time to hand that responsibility off to someone else and stop blaming innocent intermediaries that are just doing what you asked. The rest of society should not be burdened because there are dumb or vulnerable people in the world.

The bank accounts didn’t get shut down because the rules weren’t being followed as the government is now claiming. The bank accounts got shut down mostly as a result of attempts by scammers to get elderly folks to wire funds that were then later realized to be scams. When the victim went in and told the bank the bank would pull the money back. If the money is pulled back the receiving bank has to deal with it. The seller has to deal with it. Everyone has to deal with it. The receiving bank now starts asking questions. It turns out that every receiving bank agreed with the church in regard to the KYC policy and thus the church never lost any money except for in one incident where Ian realized he made a mistake. In that instance he refunded the customer or otherwise didn’t fight it. In all the other instances he won and the receiving bank agreed with the church. Accounts may have been shut down, but it wasn’t because of a lack of KYC or criminality of some kind. The banks didn’t outright say the reason they shut down accounts typically, but it always occurred when customers pulled back money whether it was someone trying to scam the church directly (aka a scammer sent money from his own bank, then claimed he was scammed when he wasn’t) or indirectly via third party victims. The point is there was not ever a situation where “receiving bank detects scam” or lack of KYC compliance and shuts account down. The only possible time that might have occurred was with a credit union. The humorous thing is the credit union expert testified that they were allowed to permit the transactions to occur for a long while and despite suspicions no issues ever occurred. They later killed the account without money getting pulled back. That account was I believe not used to sell Bitcoin humorously. There were a dozen or so accounts, but this was over a period of 5 years. It’s not what the government is making it out to be. The church took steps to minimize the likelihood of scams because it was in everyone’s interest to stop scamming.

The government says these accounts were shut down due to suspicious activity yet that just isn’t the case. At best they can claim that may have occurred with a single credit union account that was not used to sell Bitcoin. None of the banks were brought in to testify to this “suspicious activity” claim or reason as to why an account closure occurred. None of these banks would ever say why they shut down an account either when asked by the church. There is no substance behind these agents claims that the accounts were being shut down due to suspicious activity. The agents say this and that, but the truth is somewhere else. What exactly was suspicious exactly too? Why was it that accounts were only closed after sending banks pulled money back? If an account has been used for 6 months to a year and a half with the same type of activity and no closure why did it take so long? It’s not suspicious activity that resulted in account closures. It was sending banks pulling money back that resulted in their closures. This doesn’t mean these people would have lose their money either. The sender would have had to sign a receipt saying that they understood they were buying Bitcoin from the church. This may have actually resulted in accounts getting shut down as those would-be victims may have realized that they were being scammed and gone to their bank to try and undo the transaction. In some respect that is the point of all this, but receiving banks aren’t going to like that. Undoubtedly this was more of a “we’ll take your money until it’s no longer in our interest to do so” situation. The banks never lost any money according to the government, but they did profit off all the fees they charged.

The church donation point they keep harping on was more of a handful of senders writing it as the reason they were sending the money. I have no idea if these were outright donations or the people just considered the proceeds donations or what the story was. There were all sorts of reasons people would put down as to why they were sending out a wire. Often they’d write investment or something else entirely.

The government wants you to believe that because a dozen accounts existed that can be tied to crypto by different people that it somehow is evidence of bank fraud. This just isn’t the case. They took accounts opened by different people for different entities and different reasons and put them all together and said look here all these accounts is evidence of crime! They connected the accounts through malicious descriptions. For example Ian referred customers at one point or another to Aria and even if there was no profit in it they’re now claiming it’s “one thing” or one business. Now because it’s one business those different accounts being opened is somehow bank fraud.

The series of events was more along the lines of Ian having an account in his own name, selling Bitcoin for the church, then using an account specifically for the Shire Free Church to sell Bitcoin. Then at some point it made sense to open an account specifically for selling Bitcoin and keep the Bitcoin sales separate from the other Shire Free Church account(s) (which by the way is actually what you’re suppose to do). So a DBA was registered with the state to that end and an account opened. Effectively it’s a logical succession of account creation over a 5+ year period. Over a few year period some accounts were closed, but not because of suspicious activity. It was because of scammers victims going to their bank and saying they were scammed. The sending banks would claw the money back. This would start a tug of war. Ian would have to prove that the sender knew what they were buying and the church won every case. The account would remain shut down, but not because of suspicious activity or non-compliance with KYC or anything of that nature. No bank employee ever testified to that and they would always refuse to say why an account was closed. However with enough accounts closed it becomes obvious. You need to try and minimize receiving monies that are derived from fraud before it hits your account rather than after. After the fact you can send money back maybe, but you can’t stop someone from trying to wrongly ‘claw it back’. Even when you win the account will remain closed.

Suspicious activity isn’t a crime either. It’s effectively occurs through routine activity like making deposits. If you go to the bank every day and your business brings in $7,000-$8,000 in cash because it’s a cash business that might get picked up as “suspicious activity”. It’s not illegal, but it falls within certain amounts that the bank has to report it even though its entirely routine for you and the reason you are doing it is because the bank is suppose to keep your money safe right? What would the alternative be? Keeping the money In a safe and then doing a weekly deposit? Well, a $50,000 deposit is also suspicious because of the amount of cash you are now depositing all at once. No matter how you do it the government thinks that is suspicious. Did you just buy a house and just made $150k wire and have never done that before? Well, you’re now suspicious too. There are millions of these suspicious activity reports that get filed. If you haven’t had one or another report filed on you I’d be shocked.

There was no evidence presented to suggest that large amounts of cash was dealt with outside of the vending machines. The banks don’t like dealing with cash. This would likely have been problematic. Cash by mail occurred, but was not common. The cash was mostly from vending machines.

There was no evidence of ANY profit being made. They showed the fees were charged, but the money went back into crypto mostly and it all went into the Shire Free Church.

The government didn’t prove its case. The preponderance of evidence is in theory how it works, but the government didn’t even have a blockchain expert to connect any of it together. What they did was make claims, but didn’t back those claims by any evidence. The court ruled in Ian’s favor here in at least one aspect and that was the FBI’s lead expert was NOT an expert. This humorously from a judge who thinks the blockchain is a person. Yea- he stated that in open court. The jury convicted, but the judge also later ruled the jury ruled in error as there wasn’t evidence to prove the knowledge component for at least one of the charges. That charge was thrown out. The defense will argue in future appeals all the charges should have been thrown out.

The co-spend analysis and tools didn’t withstand scientific scrutiny remember. What the government did was put a non-blockchain non-expert on the stand and we’re now suppose to believe that despite that she is NOT an expert what she said was accurate and true. At no point did they even explain blockchain or Bitcoin. They dumb’d it down to a point where they were merely making accusation without any evidence to back it up. You hit send, money appears there. Meanwhile money hasn’t been defined, sending hasn’t been defined. What does sending mean? Nothing moved from one location to another or from one person to another (as a money transmitter would be doing). You might think you understand these words and in some context you probably do. But if you don’t understand how Bitcoin works you wouldn’t understand that “sending” isn’t the same thing nor is it sending it on another behalf. The bank sent money on their customers behalf to the church. They acted as an intermediary. The church didn’t act as an intermediary to move money. The church sold it’s own Bitcoin to it’s customer. It would more akin to a US bank selling you Euros, but where Euros weren’t defined as money because Euros are new and somehow different from other currencies too. Virtual currencies were added to the money transmission law, but not until 2021. This is after the fact and if such a law existed it would be known as an ‘ex post facto law’. That’s not legal in the United States. A law must exist at the time you violated it. They can’t pass a law years later and say you broke this law that didn’t exist at the time you committed a a given act.

They’re not telling the trust again about everyone taking a plea deal (minus Ian Freeman anyway). The government dropped the charges against Colleen Fordham. She never took a plea deal and was one of the most respectable individuals in that she refused to take a plea deal. Mr Nobody was bullied into taking a plea default. His circumstances were such that he’d likely have seen a more serious outcome as a result of prior activism. Mr Nobody stood up to the FBI in 2012 refusing to wear a wire into the Keene activist center. They were after Ian Freeman. For his refusal the FBI had the state arrest him over the illegal sale of marijuana. He took that to trial and lost. He spent a year in a cage already defending Ian Freeman. While it is probably the case he should have continued to fight it Mr Nobody already had spent six months locked up over this for at best a seriously minor role in it all. Colleen Fordham didn’t even have a cryptocurrency wallet at the time and hadn’t for a number of years. They arrested her likely in an effort to get at Ian. The same is likely the case for Renee and Andrew Spenella. Andrew wasn’t even aware of what was going on. His name just happened to be on one of the bank accounts. Renee was more involved, but had not been involved for a while. She had long ago moved on. The FBI actually attempted to intimidate Renee into testifying on behalf of the FBI and this occurred 8 months or so prior to the FBI raiding. This and another incident more than tipped off the Crypto6 and community that a raid was coming. However there is a bit of thought by some that if the FBI was going to do something they probably would have done it already. However between that and the undercover FBI agent it was pretty clear that the 6AM raid was real when it finally arrived. I will admit at first I thought the FBI was elsewhere that morning… and well, they were sort of, but I didn’t immediately think Bitcoin and simultaneous coordinated raid on a half dozen of my closest friends. That took 30 seconds and about the amount of time it took me to get my car out of the driveway. I headed straight to the main location they’d be targeting: The Free Talk Live studio. I will also mention Aria did hold out on taking a plea deal and likely only got time as a result of that delay. Ultimately it’s hard to stand up to a government with unlimited resources, 100s of agents, and millions of dollars spent in an effort to entrap you in a crime you didn’t actually commit.

Despite the governments attempt to force people to testify against Ian in the Crypto6 case including otherwise would-be co-defendant it was mostly to little benefit of the government. Nothing was revealed that wasn’t already well known. What Ian did wasn’t a crime. Chris Reetman (Colleene’s husband) testified at trial for instance that he believed Ian wasn’t required to register with FinCEN even though had he gotten another crypto vending venture off the ground he would have registered. The reason for this is because of how the vending machines would have been operated. The church only ever sold its own Bitcoin. Chris on the other hand would be connecting his vending machines to an exchange and in that context he would be acting as an intermediary rather than an individual or entity just selling its own Bitcoin.

They were forced into pleading guilty under the full threat and significant violence of the government. No one genuinely admitted to anything. You forced words out of his mouth at the threat of violence.

What they also fail to state in telling us about the restitution / sentence and how Ian will pay the victims more rather than the government is that Ian requested that the penalty be minimized so as to maximize the amounts going to the victims of third party scammers should that be ordered. It was not the government requesting this. Ian would rather people who harmed him (the “victims” who testified) get more money than for the state to get anything. Why? At lest these “victims” aren’t likely to go and utilize that money to commit violence again others. The government on the other hand absolutely will utilize that money to harm other peaceful people. This is the difference between Ian and the government. The government claims to care about you whereas Ian actually cares about you.

Again they change what they claim the fees charged were. At one point during the trial it was 10-20% that they were claiming. Now it’s 5-15% in this podcast. Someone clearly read my prior posts at Free Keene. The only reporting of a 5% fee was from me. Almost no one else was aware of this number as it was an in-person number at a particular point in time many years ago and the church rarely sold to people in person. Keep in mind this was not always 5% so you may have paid 10% in later years as the costs of operating the vending machines and selling Bitcoin went up. At all points these fees were well within or even below market rates. At the time the 5% in-person rate was charged the vending machines were around 8%. Closer to Boston the non-church FinCEN registered vending machines were charging around 20%. This blows the idea that people are paying this “high fee” out of the water. KYC FinCEN registered and compliant sellers were charging substantially more than the church and the online exchanges were probably in the 1-2% range. 5% once you account for the additional labor involved and other costs isn’t so out there.

The agents in the podcast also speak of bank fees that are in the few percent range and act as if this is evidencing that it makes no sense to buy crypto at this rate. The implication is only criminals would buy and spend Bitcoin at this rate. This argument falls flat on its face once you consider that a business purchasing goods with a credit card that pays 3-5% in bank fees (credit card fees) for the goods and then turns around and sells those goods to you and also pays with a credit card just resulted in the banks netitng 6-10%. In other words the price has to jump on those goods by 10%, not the “few percent” the government is claiming. It costs a lot more to use banks than crypto. With Bitcoin or probably better compared these days to Bitcoin Cash you’d not pay anywhere near this even if you pay 10% to acquire it. The problem here is the receiver doesn’t pay 3-5% to receive your crypto once those dollars are crypto (that would be the company you end up spending that crypto you bought). This enables many merchants to discount the price of the goods for those who pay with crypto. My business offers free shipping as an example. Others offer discounts as high as 10%. It’s only through ignorance and a lack of understanding of the banking system that you can make this argument against crypto or fees sound rational. However as was pointed out some people use crypto not to save money- that is only a side effect. No. Some of us use crypto out of principle. We want to spread peace and one way to do that is by undermining the ability of government to skim value off the inflating of the dollar or other government fiat currencies (aka Euros, British Pound, etc). This is why Bitcoin is popular in libertarian circules and got adopted in libertarian circles prior to the speculators figuring out they could make a dime off it. Many today do utilize it as an investment vehicle, but that has NEVER been the reason I use crypto.

They talk about seizing 3 million in cash and cryptocurrency. The humorous part of this is that about ~$4 million of that which was seized (at today’s exchange rate anyway) was money donated to the church in 2016. It was NOT fees charged from selling Bitcoin. I’m sure the evidence to this end will be forthcoming at some point, but I also am sure plenty of people in libertarian circles are already well aware of this and witnessed that donation first hand. Maybe there is even video of this somewhere. I have not looked, but it’s also the most likely scenario given acquiring such item years after the bars were discontinued would have been costly. Given Ian and the church were around at that time regardless of what you believe about Ian it’s the most likely route into the church’s hand.

There isn’t a question about where the money went. One of the governments agents testified to the fact that most of it went right back into purchasing Bitcoin for the churches coffers. So the church didn’t get to keep $10 million dollars. At best if the church received $10 million and the average fee was 10% then it would appear the church netted $1 million. That isn’t really the case though as the church had to pay to acquire the Bitcoin and it had to pay landlords to rent the space the vending machines existed in. The church had to hire contractors to fill vending machines. The church had to do technical support for people not super familiar with Bitcoin (another reason someone would buy Bitcoin from the church likely rather than go through complicated KYC procedures, though the churches online sales were just as if not more complicated despite the lies the agents are telling). Now where did the rest of the money go? Isn’t it obvious? And shouldn’t you know that already? The Shire Free Church funded the construction of orphanages in Africa, helped the homeless in Keene, turned a church building into a Mosque for another persecuted minority, and contributed to many different worthwhile projects. You just refuse to acknowledge the good work of the church and its participants. As we’ve stated all along government employees are the real scum of the universe. They’re the ones stealing and using violence and coercion to get their way. They call it taxation and justify it through laws. These laws have real victims resulting in people losing their homes and businesses. It’s immoral, but the real scammers in this case are those falsely claiming to be going after “fraud” and humorously maybe sort of scammers. The governments own “victims” who testified in the crypto6 case all stated the FBI was NOT interested in going after the scammers. They only ever wanted Ian Freeman the “victims” claimed. It was only after calling the government out that they brought in a fed to claim something was “happening” in regard to going after the actual scammers in this case. That is NONE of the crypto6. Where are those scammers now Mr FBI??? I thought you were going to do something about the actual scammers? That’s right. Just another lie from your federal government.

There was a clear use. You just ignored it. We’ve been reporting on where that money went this entire time. We talked about it on Free Talk Live. We wrote about it at FreeKeene.com. To claim it wasn’t advertised is absurd. Aria posted about it online at least in relation to the Reformed Satanic Church. Completely separate from the Shire Free Church mind you, but Ian wrote about the Shire Free Church and we talked about it on Free Talk Live all the time. There was no paperwork filed (the church was registered with the state sadly just so you a-holes couldn’t claim it was fake) with the government, but that doesn’t mean it got spent on sex, drugs, and fancy cars. If it had the FBI would know about it because the government SURVEILLED the churches studio, infiltrated via agents, and followed us around for the last 7+ years. They mapped out Ian’s network not unlike that of the Mafia. It was disgusting considering that all Ian ever wanted was more freedom and peace in the world.

There is nothing wrong with cash and there is nothing wrong with Bitcoin (well, as it existed years ago). The two are more alike than dissimilar. Retaining the freedom of cash is NOT immoral. Your lies won’t succeed in undermining our freedom or our movement.

I ask one last question! What financial benefit did ANY of us get from this so-called scheme you claim. Last I checked there is zero evidence of ANYONE benefiting. Not at least by the size of the claimed scheme. If the one-bedroom Ian shares with his wife or ex-girlfriend counts then OK! But that’s an absurd claim and the IRS said that was 100% OK. It did not constitute taxable income for which Ian would have had to file a return, but even that is a bit much as the churches wealth was not from selling Bitcoin. It pre-dated it. But seriously- you’re not suggesting the government spent millions of dollars over 5 years to get Ian for the sake of the one-room, food, the clothes on his back, and the gas in the churches vehicle are you? That would be the most absurd waste of stolen (taxes) money ever.

No one facilitated scammers. No one! The Shire Free Church implemented a STRONGER KYC policy than any of the banks that wired money to the church. This is where said policies were warranted and no evidence exists to suggest that had a piece of paper been filed with this or that agency that the world would somehow magically be a safer place no matter how much you may want that to be true.

As to how to look at Ian and the Crypto6? I will hold Ian up as a hero, I will hold up Mr Nobody as a hero. Ian is a potential martyr particularly depending on how things continue to unfold on appeal, and certainly everyone is a victim of big corrupt government and the thieves calling themselves employees of the federal government. I will also give my respects to all the others connected to this case who suffered at the hands of government with one exception. A lying thieving fake collaborator of government: Melanie Neighbors. The Crypto6 stood relatively strong against the beatings of government and there is nothing more I could possibly ask of anyone moving to the free state. These people took the statement of intent to it’s maximum interpretation and for that I respect them greatly:

“exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property.”