Did you donate to Roxi & Jay?

[nayjevin]

Remember this folks:

perception is created by those who speak the loudest -- not necessarily by those who speak the truth.

oh yeah -- and communism doesn't work.

 

[steph3n]

Jay and Roxi,

I met you both for a short time in Manchester at the huge sign wave at the end of December.
Please do not let people get to you, if you feel it is best to pack up and move back to Tulsa now go for it, you can do a lot of good there for Dr Paul as well.

I will not comment much on the whole OLFD organization/communications issue much, but I was stuck in a house for a short time where communications was a one way street, no real communication, one way only. I FULLY understand that is how some people are, it is best to pack up and move on when that time comes. I have only really ever experienced this with one person in my life, the others with OLFD were oddly incredible. I don't mean incredible organizers, communicators etc, just as people. There was a hugely diverse group of people that made the venture northward to aid in the operations, from anarchist to libertarians, republicans and democrats, some people just CAN NOT get along for some reason or another.
Put this behind and move forward in life.

If you need assistance let us know and we will aid.

Laura and Wes, the same message is for you, put it behind and move on.

A lot of learning was done in NH, let us learn from this spat here as well.

 

[mmink15]

I just sent Jay and Roxie money, and I urge people not to request their money back. I witnessed, first-hand, the efforts these two took to forward the Ron Paul campaign. I stayed in the Hampton Beach house and assure you that there was work being done in that house 24 hours a day. A few of the people in that house were videographers so they spent the late-nights uploading and editing. I brought my dog to NH with me and started every morning very early with a walk along the beach as the sun rose, where I got to share Ron Paul info with other early morning dog walkers. By the time I was back for my walk some cars were already loaded and gone, others just waiting on the shower line. (One bathroom, 15 people I think we were all quite efficient). Ron Paul conversation never stopped at this house, which was interesting as the house members ages ranged from 17-mid 30's. Often after the long day of canvassing our house would go out and make snowmen with Ron Paul signs in them, or hang banners on overpasses(safety first always when doing that). A member of Ron Paul Radio, MDH, can vouch for these things-check out his live show on ronpaulradio.com . If I met Laura and Wes I did not realize it, and I certainly wouldn't want to say anything about people I never met, especially Ron Paul supporters. However, I do want to say that I found Jay and Roxi to be Ron Paul supporters of the utmost character and integrity. There were some very "extreme" personalities in that house and they kept order and civility in a house that was crammed full of very independent and strong personalities. I left NH in a rush due to a family emergency and was absolutely shocked when I got in touch with Roxie and heard what was going on. Any mistakes that were made should be chalked up to the learning experience of our grassroots campaign, in this case poor communication. These mistakes should not result in an attack on the character of two very dedicated Ron Paul supporters.

Just my 2 cents

 

[mdh]

Everyone in the house worked their asses off for Ron Paul. Anyone saying otherwise is completely full of crap. All of the money that went into making every single aspect of OLFD happen was money well spent, this I can personally attest to to anyone with any doubts.
If I could help those who fronted a lot of that cash out, I would, but right now I am sacrificing having money for having time to do the things I want to be able to do, for this campaign especially. If anyone else here can, I would urge you to do so. Compared to some other ways one can spend money in this campaign, OLFD and the supporters thereof are a damned good investment.

 

[nayjevin]

We are home safely, thanks to you all. We met so many great people, and will never forget you. Thank you to all who have donated to help us get there and back -- we have $0 and are starting over - but are infinitely more prepared to lead lives in tune with freedom, and are not afraid of the future. the Ron Paul Network is truly a powerful thing.

Love you guys!

 

[nayjevin]

I've posted this elsewhere, I'll post it here as well. It is a response to Thomas_Payne's (aka Wes and Laura Lounsbury) post here:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?p=1000411#post1000411

This post might be confusing for those who do not know that Thomas_Paine is both Wes and Laura Lounsbury, who slandered my girlfriend and I without merit, here (and elsewhere, I understand):

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=88830

Here are the people in question (Wes and Laura are on the left of the picture -- notice Russell on the Right has a Halo, that's because he's cool)

Here is the beginning of my side of the story, here:

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=89651

Roxi has also posted a blog with her version of the events here:

http://tulsatonewhampshire.blogspot.com

This latest post has driven me to complete my argument, and disclose my version of some relevant OLFD NH events.

As to the specifics of the post to which I am replying, I can agree with the sentiment that the canvassing strategy lacked adequate training and logistical execution. However, Thomas_Payne aka Wes and Laura Loonsbury 's post is hypocritical and counter-productive:

our main trouble was getting enough canvassing packets prepared by HQ to keep us going.

HQ informed me that Wes did not complete the canvassing packets He was given, yet clamored for more and derided individuals employed by the campaign for not having as many as he wanted. I was told that the campaign learned early on that they did not want to give packets to Wes Lounsbury, as they would not be consistently completed or returned to the campaign.

When we did not have enough walk lists we did blanket canvassing

Wes encouraged others to drop official canvassing entirely in favor of this 'blanket canvassing' that he invented out of thin air a few days before the primary. Horrible idea, spawned by his contempt for the campaign's official strategy.

Roxi and I were forced to waste valuable time and energy redirecting focus of volunteers to the official strategy. (Even with the flaws in logistics, if we had all gotten behind it from the start and focused ONLY on that, I believe we would have fared much better. The campaign staffers were entirely consistent in urging us to all focus on GOTV and only GOTV.)

We also did 6-8 coordinated sign waves, which not only generated major media attention (ABC, Union Leader, Guardian Ect, Washington Post, New York Times) but we also distributed 100's of yard signs at these events.

Laura never came to a single sign wave, to my knowledge. Wes came to some of them. At times he would tell someone that they should stand somewhere else, or wave their sign differently.

The idea for giving out the yard signs during sign waves came from Hunter, a person who lived at the hampton house. This is the house that the Lounsbury's are claiming had only 'frat parties' in it.

Most volunteers worked 8-12 hrs a day at least 6 days a week (sometimes longer when you included the commute to Concord or Manchester (at least an hour each way). We also did business canvassing and gave numerous media interviews.

The two times I know of that Laura talked to the media, she told them that OLFD was moving to New Hampshire to VOTE for Ron Paul. A hit piece ensued in 'The Hill' newspaper.

Roxi, my girlfriend, whom Wes and Laura greeted with unfounded slander, came up with a business canvassing project that paralleled the official GOTV effort and had forms made to execute it in an organized fashion in early December. Wes and Laura showed no interest, except to take the forms and never return them to her for processing. The one time I heard of Wes canvassing businesses, he placed signs on private property and the police were called. The campaign called Roxi, whom they knew to be a person who takes care of business, and asked her to speak with Wes about it. He denied that he was there at all.

Not to mention the fact that we distributed almost 13,000 U.S. Constitutions and nearly 14,000 DVDS!.

When the DVD's arrived in the mail, Wes and Laura let them sit at the Hampton house for over 3 weeks - but us drunks at the Hampton house handed many out in the meantime. I would be VERY surprised if they all got handed out in New Hampshire. I suspect there is a box on it's way to Vegas with the Lounsbury's right now.

There was a similar situation with magnetic bumper stickers that they hoarded because they wanted to make sure they got at least $4 apiece for them. The cost to them, if I recall, was just under $1. Wes was unwilling to sell me 100 for $200 (he suggested I make my own), so they sat underneath a chair for weeks. I respected Wes's private property, and he was selfish about it.

Therefore, the campaign suffered.

We had a lot of trouble with the staff following through on commitments, showing up on time and being consistent with a plan.

From what I saw, this would be a good way to describe how the campaign felt about Wes and Laura Lounsbury, except for the part about showing up on time. They were there EARLY to begin fucking up the operation. They showed up to rent a house before OLFD was properly organized, and encouraged anyone to come, whether they had money or not:

(source:http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=30089) Our plan is to rent large houses and fit as many Paul-unteers into each one as possible. Air mattresses, foam mats, whatever it takes. These houses will be placed in different areas of the state as home bases for the volunteers that stay there. We will go out in pairs, 6 days a week, morning til evening, door to door, spreading the freedom message, until Dr. Paul has enough votes to win NH. Some people will only be able to come for a week, some an entire month like our family. Our goal is to get things set up so that volunteers from all over the country can pay their airfare and just show up. They'll have a place to sleep and a designated precinct and partner to go door to door with. (Obviously those capable will be paying their portion of the living expenses, rent, food, etc. We want funds available for those unable to contribute but willing to dedicate their time wholeheartedly.)

However, after people arrived, they were asked by the Lounsbury's to cough up as much as $100 per week in 'rent' for the privelege of staying with them in the house they chose to rent with their own money. Roxi and I were one of the few staying there who were able to do so, but we were pestered to give more, even though we did not have it to give, they knew it, and we had told them that would be the situation when we arrived.

The claim that the campaign did not have a consistent strategy is utter bullshit. The campaign's strategy was always consistent -- it was that the strong personalities and independent minds of the grassroots had trouble accepting that the age-old strategy (GOTV) was a good one. Some of us lowered our heads and did it anyway, some of us spouted negativity about it, and some of us chose to decentralize and do something on our own that we were either more passionate about, thought might work better, or better fit our personal strengths. Wes chose to bitch to the campaign about their role in the strategy, and he is still doing so on this thread. I will say that it appears Wes went out every day and canvassed, as he was usually gone before I was awake. I cannot attest to any substantial amount of packets he may have turned in, or the quality of his encounters with people door to door. His performance on the phones, as you will soon see, leads me to believe it may not have been very productive.

As far as where we have hidden the canvassing records, and GOTV records, please go ask the campaign, they received our finished canvassing packets and had data entry people enter the info onto a computer. Surprisingly enough many of the canvassing packets did NOT have a cover sheet to explain what universal symbols to use when filling out the voters feedback, which resulted in a lot of confusion and numerous basically worthless packets The data entry volunteers simply couldn't understand the esoteric symbols of the volunteer's markings on the canvassing packets. The workload added by this confusion could have been easily avoided if there had been the least thought toward organizational logic regarding the canvassing. We did the best we could under the circumstances and made every effort to accurately explain to new volunteers the concept of canvassing and how to record the voters opinion ect.

I can agree with this for the most part. The packets were not constructed in an entirely logical way. I did do data entry, however, and did not find any packet to be worthless. However, I got my hands on some Obama packets that were left at a bar late in the campaign, and the way they assembled theirs were very similar. It seems to me that diagramming/mapping a canvassing project is simply a logistically difficult situation, both in the designing phase and during the canvassing itself.

It appears to me that Wes saw the difficulty in working from the packets provided, threw his hands in the air and said, "well then, fuck the campaign." This attitude was reflected through his consistent contempt for all staffers and his eventual online slander of them. I also saw that other folks who lived in the two Rye houses had more contempt for the official staff than the average OLFD-er, and can only assume it was Wes's influence. The feeling was mutual -- campaign staffers consistently preferred communication through Roxi to either of the Lounsbury's.

As a house captain I did my best to insure that in our 2 Rye houses, every person who came and volunteered through OLFD understood that we were coming together to get Ron Paul elected through 3 main activities: 1.) Target and Blanket Canvassing (explaining how each name on the list was a likely voter, which made this aspect of the campaign of the highest importance.
2.)Phone Banking. Earlier in the campaign they used the list of Likely Republican and Independent voters for volunteers doing cold calls, basically asking them IF they were going to vote and for WHOM. 3.)Sign Waving/Outreach

1. As far as I can tell, Wes invented blanket canvassing out of thin air a few days before the primary. It consisted of going to every door, as opposed to targeting known voters. Roxi spent more time than she should have had to talking people who lived with Wes out of doing it, advising folks to stick with the official strategy.

2. Laura did not phone bank once, to my knowledge. I heard Wes phone bank -- and he in fact made phone banking a priority, even though he was intentionally horrible at it. He sounded more like a robot than the machine recordings from the campaign -- no enthusiasm whatsoever. He sounded like a comedian making fun of people who read from teleprompters. He refused any advice to give more effort to reach the HUMAN on the other end of the telephone.

I felt that the Robocalls really hurt the campaign.

I couldn't agree more, but that's because 'Robocalling' is what I've been calling Wes's phone banking strategy.

The calls should have been performed by a professional call center. The Campaign had plenty of money to farm those calls out to paid HUMANS not the repugnant bots which did more harm than good.

At 23 years old, Wes apparently feels that he can spend the campaign's money better than they can. To his defense, there's alot of that going around. Everyone's an expert. Not everyone decides to spout negativity about people who are trying their best, however.

The campaign had HUNDREDS OF FREE VOLUNTEERS to do the phone banking. They chose to spend the money elsewhere, and I agree with the decision.

I talked to WAY TOO many New Hampshirites who told me straight out, "I will not vote for Ron Paul because of his annoying and excessive robo calls"

I tried to get Wes to confirm this claim with the script that was being used in these calls to upset voters and the caller ID that came up on their phones. We needed to know where these calls were coming from, since he was claiming that some people reported receiving them after midnight. We were afraid there might be a serious error in the campaign's software, or worse, that annoying calls were being made intentionally in Ron Paul's name. But curiously, Wes never verified the existence of these NH'ites that he says were upset with the RoboCalls. He was the only canvasser I could find that claimed that they existed. I tried to get to the bottom of this problem as soon as he reported it, but he did not cooperate with intel about the source of these calls. The campaign did, however, follow up with me by offering the script that was being used and at what times the calls were being made by the official campaign.

That said, I don't like the idea of machines calling folks, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the ones made were not top notch. One thing to understand is that NH gets inundated with calls from ALL the campaigns, and some folks get shit sick of it. Some people would just say that they are not voting for your candidate because you, and the calls, are still bothering them.

You say regarding the OLFD project, "I do believe it was poorly conceived and poorly executed." I have to say, How in the hell would your know either way? You obviously don't have a clue as to what actually transpired ON THE GROUND in New Hampshire,

I was there, and Slevin is right. It is only constructive criticism. I thought more organizing/planning was necessary throughout the operation, but the one time I invited Wes to sit down and plan/organize he popped a beer and proceeded to derail the effort by shouting about irrelevant issues and getting up and going into another room in the middle of conversations. My feeling was that he was trying to intentionally pester me while I was trying to regain focus.

Thomas_Payne blows up and appeals to emotion here:

you obviously have never spent much time in the Concord HQ office, you obviously should not being making this vicious attack on one of our best accomplishments as an online/offline community. These volunteers were passionate and dedicated men and women from every background and belief system, across America and the WORLD (we had volunteers from Canada, Panama, Spain and yes....Estonia!).

Let's not start sucking each other's dicks just yet. We all know that, by virtue of the fact that we were willing to travel to NH for RP, that we are dedicated and passionate. It has little relevance on the argument he tries to make here. The truth is that we can all learn from what mistakes were made, if we can identify areas of potential improvement without choosing to come out spouting venom. I choose to do so toward the Lounsburys, as they have shown themselves to uniquely deserve it.

Yes we did have some drama and laziness

Drama: The campaign coming to me and asking me to reign in Wes, as the police had contacted them and given his name as the source of the problem of disrespecting private property with signs and flyers on windshields.

Laziness: Volunteers calling from home and saying 'Laura never returned my email -- do you guys still need volunteers?'

you said, "That so many who were a part of it now speak hatefully toward the campaign, and do so on a public board, shows a complete lack of understanding about how to win voters over."

NO.....we speak HONESTLY and PASSIONATELY about very serious problems that threatens the viability of Dr. Paul's candidacy. You haven't even volunteered in New Hampshire and yet you spout out slanders, then claim that OLFD volunteers 'speak hatefully'.

You insinuate that slandering is wrong, and that you haven't spoken hatefully. That's a slap in the face to Roxi and I. Slander and hateful speech is about all that I have seen you do well.

we must not be what Thomas Paine called, "sunshine patriots." His words strike true today as much as they did some 230 years ago when Thomas Paine wrote to the Revolution weary Americans, "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

It seems you have taken this quote to mean that it should be your goal to create more conflict, in an attempt to achieve a more glorious triumph.

Pointing the finger at volunteer groups instead of listening to the people who were actually THERE, is NOT acceptable, I don't care how long you've been in the freedom movement.

He did not point his finger at OLFD, only at you, to suggest that perhaps you should look no further than yourself. I tend to agree. Furthermore, you have pointed your finger at me, Mr. and Mrs. Pain. And I was there. You didn't listen to the people who were there telling you that Meg was responsible for trashing your house, not me. You didn't care about the pictures we have of the condition in which we left the house. You didn't listen to the campaign staff and the police, who urged you to quit putting signs randomly on businesses and windshields. You didn't listen to those who urged you to either change the way you phone banked, or to get off the phones entirely. It is you who should learn to listen, or get out of the way.

Whether you are inept or intentionally trying to derail this movement, does not matter. You are a scourge upon it.

Two other tidbits that show a little bit about the Lounsbury's:

1. The morning of the tea party, Laura called Roxi to inquire as to whether our car would make it out of the driveway, as it had snowed the night before. Roxi told her that we would have no problem, and that we in fact had already gotten the car out of the driveway. We packed up to go, and were pulling out of the driveway when Jim Forsythe showed up. He informed us that Laura had asked him to drive 45 minutes out of his way to pick us up. We ended up riding with Jim to the Tea Party. After the speeches were over, we marched to the harbor and dumped tea (The Lounsbury's were nowhere to be found.) We then went back to the Green Dragon, a bar where we heard the rest of the RP supporters had gone. Wes and Laura were there, and Wes was drinking.

Laura informed us that she had told Jim Forsythe to go ahead and go home, and that we were to get a ride from someone else entirely -- someone we had never met before, and never saw again.

Luckily Jim had not yet left, as we had personal items in his car, but Laura volunteered Roxi to walk the half mile through the snow to get the stuff out of the car before Jim left, as Laura wanted to avoid the trouble of Jim trying to find us in downtown Boston.

2. Early on, when we first arrived, Wes was describing to me how he felt about New Hampshire voters. Direct quote from Wes: "No, seriously! These people are like Cattle! You have to steer them into your camp!"

As far as I'm concerned, case closed. On to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[dukker]

ok I'm just going to put this here because I feel I cannot withhold the truth any longer. It's just not in my nature. I was at the house for a night because we were stuck out for a night without a ride back to our place. I was sleeping on the couch and at about 3am I was awoken by something touching my leg, sort of stroking the skin really softly between my thigh (I was wearing boxers). I though it was a big or something and tried to brush it off but my had connected with a person's arm. It was dark and my eyes hadn't adjusted so I didn't know who it was except I could hear this person's breathing and smell alcohol and cigarettes. I turned on a lamp near the couch and it was Jay feeling me up.

I asked him what the hell he was doing and he was mumbling drunk and telling me to be quiet. I was pretty freaked, not really knowing what to do. Jay turned the lamp off and I heard him unzip his pants and suddenly his cock was in my mouth. I didn't feel it immediately, because it was pretty small, probably only about 3 inches or so hard, i thought it might have been his finger or something. I pushed him away and left to walk home by myself, and washed out my mouth. The last I saw of Jay was through the window crying becaue I turned him down. I guess it was the alcohol.

Jay, if you remember what you did to me, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. But I'm not gay. I would have gone along with it except your cock was just too disgusting, and you're a grotesque person.

Had to get it out. React.

 

[nayjevin]

hey, you get a big enough crowd, and you're bound to have at least one guy make an advance at you

 

[Roxi]

ok I'm just going to put this here because I feel I cannot withhold the truth any longer. It's just not in my nature. I was at the house for a night because we were stuck out for a night without a ride back to our place. I was sleeping on the couch and at about 3am I was awoken by something touching my leg, sort of stroking the skin really softly between my thigh (I was wearing boxers). I though it was a big or something and tried to brush it off but my had connected with a person's arm. It was dark and my eyes hadn't adjusted so I didn't know who it was except I could hear this person's breathing and smell alcohol and cigarettes. I turned on a lamp near the couch and it was Jay feeling me up.

I asked him what the hell he was doing and he was mumbling drunk and telling me to be quiet. I was pretty freaked, not really knowing what to do. Jay turned the lamp off and I heard him unzip his pants and suddenly his cock was in my mouth. I didn't feel it immediately, because it was pretty small, probably only about 3 inches or so hard, i thought it might have been his finger or something. I pushed him away and left to walk home by myself, and washed out my mouth. The last I saw of Jay was through the window crying becaue I turned him down. I guess it was the alcohol.

Jay, if you remember what you did to me, I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. But I'm not gay. I would have gone along with it except your cock was just too disgusting, and you're a grotesque person.

Had to get it out. React.

LMAO i can only assume this is tim because he was hilarious, if you are not tim then someone else is hilarious beyond my imagination.... as jay's girlfriend i can assure you he isn't gay..... not that theres anything wrong with that

 

[tbrambo]

I worked personally with Roxi and Jay in NH! Let me say that the post which Laura and Wes Laundsbury spoke about not housing them and not giving them any money is disgraceful.

Laura and Wes lowered the class of the Ron Paul campaign by doing this. This was a trashy display of emotional recklessness!

The idea that someone would try and "con" people out of money by going up to Operation Live Free or Die is laughable! If you had been there you would know that ANY money given to support this endeavor was COMPLETELY and IMMEDIATELY sucked up. Everyone BROKE themselves doing this. If someone was going to con anybody this would probably be the worst way to do it!

The volunteers in OLFD spent hours doing back breaking work. More than most of you reading this have probably done for Ron Paul. Roxi and Jay were two of the people who did more than anyone else. It was LAURA LAUNDSBURY who was sitting on her butt all day!

SHAME ON YOU! for casting judgment on people from the testimony of a woman like Laura. CHECK YOUR FACTS!

I was there! I saw all of this with my own eyes! Jay and Roxi did EVERYTHING they could and more than most of you could ever do for the Ron Paul campaign!

Tom Rambo