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Jack Hunter (Ron Paul spokesman) calls out “media incompetence”

When I write, I usually start from this basis of incompetence and work with my massive (enthusiasm) I have from there, so I love this guy for telling it like it is from the campaign podium:

A lot of people seemed to like my statement from Monday’s video about media incompetence: That the mainstream media understands how to cover a conventional campaign, a horserace if you will, but does not understand how to cover a movement.
This is painfully true. Seriously, what other campaign that is supposedly “over” according to the MSM, is still fighting to win delegates, state-by-state and will have a massive presence—and voice, and message, and influence—at the national convention? Ron Paul is speaking at Minnesota’s GOP convention Friday. He will be at others. Is Rick Santorum speaking at any upcoming Republican state conventions? Is team Newt Gingrich fighting for delegates in caucus states? Has the Tim Pawlenty Revolution continued to take the nation by storm?
And has Santorum, Gingrich, Pawlenty or any other Republican candidate—including Mitt Romney—inspired their supporters from all over the country to travel thousands of miles to work feverishly in support of similar-minded candidates?
No. Hell no.
The supporters I met yesterday—20, 21 years old maybe? 18-19 perhaps?—were all part of a movement that is just getting started. They realize this too. It’s in their gut. It’s in all our guts. This remains true no matter how stupid or incompetent the MSM might be in understanding it.

The money bomb being referenced in this call for donations is the “Stand For Liberty” Moneybomb which has raised more than a quarter million as of 3:20PM EDT.

If Hunter wants a dose of telling it like it is right back at him, I’ll say the “mainstream media” or MSM isn’t as much incompetent as it is cynical about real change. To the cynical intellectuals in their ivory towers, the end game has always been: if Ron Paul can’t be bought off, he can’t be president.

UPDATE: I’ll add that I’ve read and appreciate their delegate strategy announcement.

1) Having recently WON Maine, we believe we can win several more states.
2) We will win party leadership positions at both the state and national levels.
3) We will continue to grow our already substantial total of delegates.
We will head to Tampa with a solid group of delegates. Several hundred will be bound to Dr. Paul, and several hundred more, although bound to Governor Romney or other candidates, will be Ron Paul supporters.
Unfortunately, barring something very unforeseen, our delegate total will not be strong enough to win the nomination. Governor Romney is now within 200 delegates of securing the party’s nod. However, our delegates can still make a major impact at the National Convention and beyond.

Best case scenario: Ron Paul endorsing Gary Johnson in a rousing speech, then flips the bird at Romney while explaining how his foreign policy ideas would make the stockholders of Fascist American Professionals, LLC proud to continue investing in the military and police state at the expense of tea party loathing taxes and more lost liberty.

UPDATE II: 24 hours later and the tally stands at $626K for the Ron Paul moneybomb/fundraiser. At least we’re getting a glimpse of one of the relatively few candidates who can wind down a campaign with grace, and not mired in debt.

Why Social Media is Better Than the Blogosphere: Gay Marriage, Drug Legalization, and Ron Paul

Courtesy of Jane Q. Social Media I love me the blogosphere. It is a fantastic thing. Blogs gave us the first chance to get out from under the mainstream media. They provide an incredible opportunity to connect with like minded people and get the information that you want. I am committed to the medium and hope to continue to produce in it. They have a downfall as well though. James Lileks has talked about the concept of “non-contiguous information streams”. Blogs, and the increasingly fragmented cable news market, allowed people to get the information they wanted, and ONLY the information they wanted, to the exclusion of all other information. This made it easier for otherwise smart people to maintain some really silly ideas. On the left, it convinced people that the run up to the 2004 election was a really good time for a gay marriage push. On the right, it tragically maintains the idea that we need a bigger defense budget to deal with a bunch of fanatical Islamist peasants in tents than we needed to deal with Hitler or the Soviet Union.

Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook are now dramatically more important than the blogosphere. Pundits who used to maintain well thought out blogs, are devoting more of their time to these other services. It is a bit of a tragedy for those of us who remember the vibrancy of thought and significance that blogs once had. But, crucially, these systems avoid the problem described above. By expressing yourself on Twitter, and especially on Facebook, you are getting out of the echo chamber. see more…

Ron Paul pivots campaign, continues delegate hunt

In a surprise move today, Ron Paul’s presidential campaign has announced they will no longer be spending money campaigning in upcoming primary states, but will remain on the ballot. Instead the campaign is concentrating efforts on adding to their delegate tally and adamantly deny they are suspending anything.

Ron Paul’s campaign remains tight lipped about the strategy shift, only saying that more details would be released in the coming days. Many states have sent majorities for Ron Paul after his supporters showed incredible organizational prowess to show up en masse for local conventions and party meetings.

A current count of delegates from Wikipedia’s 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries page shows Ron Paul with 126 delegates, trailing Mitt Romney’s 788 delegates. A difference of 662.

Prior to the 2012 presidential campaign, Paul and his libertarian strategy people had been working diligently to erect twin organizations Campaign for Liberty and Young Americans for Liberty, which have paid off well as campus campaign rallies have dwarfed even Obama.

It appears that Mitt Romney will ultimately secure the Republican nomination after the confederacy of media dunces successfully conspired against Paul’s message of ending the Federal Reserve and reversing America’s aggressively interventionist foreign policy. Yet as the presidential front comes to a bitter end for Paul’s acolytes, we’re in for a new kind of ride as the campaign has other tricks up its sleeves with an under-documented ability to influence upcoming local and national elections.

Because of his tenacity and obvious support strength, Ron Paul has also undoubtedly earned a speaking spot at the Republican National Convention held in Tampa, Florida at the end of August. Probably some stuff about holding Romney’s feet to the fire as the GOP faithful get a good dose of reality about how little tolerance the people have left for big bad government from either party. But I get ahead of myself.

Ron Paul’s presidential campaign may be doing the lowered expectations dance because Romney has clenched the nomination (somewhat) fair and square — but don’t be surprised if the whole “revolution” thing uses this as an opportunity to shift their focus to more winnable fronts. Now comes the re-trenching in order to grow their organization into a libertarian movement to actually be reckoned with at the presidential representation level… but probably not until 2016.

QUIZ: “Are you a true Ron Paul supporter?”

I love the title of this quiz, because apparently this can be answered by a mere 15 questions (I passed BTW, whew). Mad props to Christian Science Monitor for making me laugh out loud a few times.

At one point I was slightly bewildered by the question of my hypothetical daughter getting married and answered “whatever.” But that falls far from my ability to decipher this Ayn Randian ultra-nihilistic approach to unemotional parenting when they phrased the rest, “just don’t develop any altruistic feelings for your spouse, as doing so will interfere with the imperative to act in accordance with the hierarchy of your values.” Translation: Be sure your future selfish lesbian daughter isn’t marrying a charity case, or something.

Whatever. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Here’s the full list of my 15 answers, for the curious see more…

Tea Party Republicans betrayed liberty to pass ‘net security bill

The much despised CISPA — which has been exposed as a sham cybersecurity bill following on the heels of the failed SOPA/PIPA effort (causing mass confusion) — was finally passed by a Republican majority in the House of Representatives last week. Of note is where 47 of the 66 members of the House Tea Party Caucus voted in favor of the bill. Presumably because it has the word “protection” in the title. Who would be against protecting those cyber tubes? Unamerican marxist taliban zombies from China, that’s who. see more…

Newt Gingrich officially suspends campaign, not citizenship

Newt Gingrich finally caved in and held his long-awaited press conference to announce that he was exiting the race — leaving only Ron Paul and Mitt Romney to slug it out in a fierce delegate fight for the eventual GOP nomination.

In an oddly worded statement, Gingrich said “today, I am suspending the campaign, but suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship.” Like I said, odd.

He has still not openly endorsed Mitt Romney in what has been the slowest dance for a never-going-to-happen shot at vice presidential pick. His campaign manager hinted that it would be forthcoming so it’s probably a matter of teasing. With third wife Callista at his side smiling, Gingrich told reporters the “truly wild ride” was over.

In part of his exit speech, Gingrich laid out his plans for the future — promising yet again he would eventually be getting back around to that lunar colony idea — but apparently not until his grandkids are old enough to rule over them:

“I’m cheerfully going to take back up the issue of space,” he added, referring to his much-mocked proposal to build a lunar colony by the end of his second term — which he explained that his wife repeatedly told him was not his best moment during the campaign. “This is not a trivial area.”
He insisted that while he is “not totally certain” he will get to the moon colony, he believes that his grandchildren Maggie and Robert, on stage with him today, would.

He failed to mention how he plans to fund or build a lunar colony with a looming campaign debt of $4.3 million.

Ron Paul = reddit r/gaming upvotes

A comment thread about a Call of Duty comic immediately derails into political hilarity:

It’s becoming rare to see Obama getting into positive pop culture like this. And Romney? Yawn.

Ron Paul Republicans dot ballots across U.S.

Inspired by Ron Paul, local political activists are getting their hands dirty by running for office themselves. From Business Week:

If forcing his philosophy into the mainstream is the benchmark, Paul can claim victory. Listening to his rivals in the Republican debates demand that the Fed be audited and the Departments of Energy and Education be shuttered, it’s clear that many of Paul’s positions, once considered extreme, are now Republican talking points. Paul’s influence outweighs his low poll rankings and back-of-the-pack primary returns.
“Our time has come,” says Paul, tempering the display of optimism. “It’s still going to be a knock-down, dragged-out fight.”
Paul leaves behind a small army of brawlers itching to take up the battle in his name. This election year, at least 65 of his supporters are campaigning for local, state, or national office in 23 states. They join more than a dozen Paul acolytes who won elections in 2010, including Republican Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, who is seeking a second term — not to mention Paul’s son Rand, who was elected to the Senate as a Republican in Kentucky. see more…

Newt Gingrich’s $4.3m debt signals end of campaign

Newt Gingrich has “suspended” his campaign following a lackluster finish behind frontrunners Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in four out of five of Tuesday’s GOP primaries in Connecticut (3rd), Delaware (2nd), New York (3rd), Pennsylvania (4th), and Rhode Island (3rd).

The recent FEC filing from April 20th shows Newt 2012 is a whopping $4.3 million in debt.

The Huffington Post reports that March was one of the slowest fundraising months for Gingrich, “The debts run up by the campaign in March include payments for ordinary campaign consulting work, massive spending on private jets, expenses at a private security firm, and payments to staffers who had to cover their own travel and lodging expenses.”

“The campaign’s most absurd unpaid expenses were more than $1 million to the private jet company Moby Dick Airways, nearly $450,000 to a security firm, and more than $500,000 in travel reimbursements and other payments to individual staffers and consultants.”

Andrew Rosenthal at The New York Times draws comparisons to Greece, “Newt Gingrich is preparing to make the transition from forgotten-but-not-gone to gone-and-hopefully-forgotten by dropping his presidential campaign next week. And he’s doing it in good Reagan-and-Bush-era Republican fashion – carrying on about fiscal responsibility while piling up a nice fat budget deficit.”

“Mr. Gingrich currently has $4.3 million in debt, according to TPM Muckraker – about 20 percent of his Gross Campaign Product, which puts him in Greece territory. He has more debt than any other failed Republican presidential candidate since 1992.”

Observant readers will remember Gingrich was the subject of controversy last year after taking time off the campaign trail to go on a two-week Greek cruise.

Gingrich has stated he will attend more scheduled events, because he’s obviously not ready to just let it go already.

Liberty University students row online over Romney commencement speech selection

The Boston Globe explains why he’s making the symbolism imbued pitch to evangelical Christians, “The speech at Liberty University on May 12 will allow Romney to make both overt and subtle outreach to evangelicals and other social conservatives suspicious of his faith, and who typically did not make him their first choice in the primary.”

“It also is sure to renew focus on his own religious beliefs – he is vying to be the first Mormon elected president – as well as the checkered history of Falwell and Liberty in Republican politics.”

“In 2000, then-GOP candidate John McCain labeled Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, and fellow evangelist Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, as “agents of intolerance” aligned with George W. Bush.”

Former Reagan adviser Doug Wead writes, “They announced in the morning that Governor Romney would be the commencement speaker at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. The school founded, by Jerry Falwell, is touted as the largest Christian University in the world. And in the afternoon they announced that openly gay, Richard Grenell, would be Romney’s new national security and foreign policy spokesman.”

“Students at Liberty were in an uproar. Not over Grenell, but over the University choosing Romney instead of their beloved Ron Paul. The firestorm began on the University’s own website, where the thread hit 700 comments in a couple of hours. The discussion was promptly censored and then shut down proving that the University is not very aptly named. But the discussion moved onto Facebook where it continues to spread.”

Given the school’s doctrinal statement it’s likely those present will receive Mitt’s address courteously and a good many will no doubt exhibit their contempt in a way that remains unpredictable.

A list of “recommendations” on Liberty University’s facebook page continues to see an influx of Ron Paul supporters, former students and current students alike discussing the issue at length.

Republicans turning bearish on Romney

Politico hears the murmers in the Beltway, “under the table, there is pervasive pessimism among Republicans about Romney’s prospects this fall. It’s apparent in rampant discussions about which Republicans will run in 2016 – talk that obviously presupposes a loss in November – and it’s downright glaring in private conversations with GOP officials on Capitol Hill and in consulting shops across Washington.”

“And the skepticism about Romney isn’t just a Beltway phenomenon. Rank-and-file Republican voters are also uncertain he can win, though it’s the chattering class that is most bearish.”

Meanwhile, FiveThirtyEight at the NYT reports on the Romney vs Obama contest angle only. They made a handy graph showing Romney’s favorability numbers stacked up (37% unfavorable over 26% favorable) against other campaigns, with even mid-election losers John Kerry, George Bush, Sr. and Bob Dole top him in favorability during the same January-June polling period.

That spells trouble for Romney, “these early-stage favorability ratings have had a mixed track record as a predictor of election outcomes. The candidate with the better net-favorable rating in the early-going won the election in 1976, 1980, 1984, 1996, and 2008. But Mr. Clinton won the election in 1992, despite making a poor first impression on voters. On the flip side, Michael Dukakis had very promising favorability numbers early in the 1988 cycle, but they deteriorated over the course of the election cycle and he took a clear defeat. (I’m not sure where you’d classify the 2000 election because of the split between the popular vote and the Electoral College, or 2004 since George W. Bush and John Kerry had essentially the same net favorability rating in the early going.)”

As for Ron Paul favorability ratings, Talking Points Memo shows him barely holding his own against Romney in their tracking of national favorability (even tossing out the PPP pollsters).

DISCLAIMER: polls are for entertainment purposes only, here and everywhere else.

Ron Paul vs Mitt Romney campaign snapshots (again)

Mitt Romney today in a closed up drywall factory in Lorain, Ohio. The audience was just seven rows deep and could be about 300 at best:

Ron Paul campaigned yesterday at Cornell University (you might have heard of it) in Ithica, New York and packed 4400 into the basketball stands:

The New York primary is this upcoming Tuesday, so whatever in the world is Romney doing in Ohio avoiding large crowds, I’m sure the Paul campaign can thank him for letting this contest get away from him in rally sizes. From what we’ve heard on the grapevine, there’s more massive events for the Paul campaign coming up.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich is busy taking heat over his Secret Service security detail, which is costing taxpayers a cool $50K per day. Romney also enjoys a security detail while Ron Paul has called it a form of “welfare” which he eschews.

As for his campaign engagements, Gingrich showed up to a NY GOP dinner and all but sealed his fate by (ed- all but) endorsing Romney, yum. He has a rally scheduled tomorrow where he should hope none of his anti-Romney supporters have heard the big news.

Romney not quite winning Tea Party support

The Atlantic has a photo and coverage of a 400-person-small campaign event held in Philadelphia and reveals a stunning lack of actual tea Party support:

And so, on Monday, Romney attempted to thread the needle in Philadelphia. Before an unusually pro-Romney Tea Party group, he gave a speech that was longer on symbolism than persuasion, an attempt to show that the Tea Party is with him without necessarily showing that he is with the Tea Party.
The Independence Hall Tea Party Association, consisting of Tea Party groups from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was the first such group to endorse Romney, it claims. There were no “Don’t Tread on Me” flags or tricorne hats to be seen among the well-dressed, paying crowd at a downtown science museum, and many of the 400 attendees said they identified more as Republican Party activists than Tea Party members. One hesitates to generalize about a diverse grassroots movement, but this didn’t feel like the real Tea Party.
[...]Sam Rohrer, a Tea Party-aligned former Pennsylvania state legislator now running for U.S. Senate, said it wasn’t a representative Tea Party crowd. Most of the grass-roots Tea Party organizations in the state supported Rick Santorum before he suspended his campaign last week, and are now somewhat adrift as they try to assess where to go from here, Rohrer said in an interview.
“Ultimately, they’re not going to pull the lever for Obama, but there’s movement within the movement right now,” he said. “Mitt is going to have to woo them. Getting their vote is one thing; getting their impassioned commitment is another thing, and the impassioned commitment is what it takes to win.”

It’s starting to become something of a running joke with Romney’s crowd sizes as the media morons keep beating the inevitability drum and praying the voters will be blind to the Ron Paul revolution.

Since his campaign is now trying to claim he has some Tea Party groups supporting or endorsing him — the only question to ask is why won’t they come out to these campaign events in full force?

Update: Independence Hall Tea Party PAC — the Tea Party group that will be the first of many of these kinds of announcement — boasts on their website “On 8/28/10, the Independence Hall Tea Party sent 28 buses carrying over 1500 Patriots to Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor Rally. No other group sent more.”

I’m betting barely a fourth of their members bothered to show up to the rally they hosted for Romney, and that’s right in their own town.

Update II: Anonymous “Jack” in the comments said the event was sold out, but… The National Franklin Memorial has a reception capacity of 700… so uh, argument over. Thanks for daring to impugn upon Hammer of Truth’s reputation and failing.

Again, that’s 700 capacity… 400 showed up. Reality is that Ron Paul’s supporters would have easily packed that place and had people overflowing outside regardless of “symbolic” whatsit.

Ron Paul’s delegate sweep in Minnesota, take note

I’m still shaking the cobwebs out of my head after spending the weekend tagging along with Ron Paul supporters assessing Fort Wayne, Indiana’s GOP primary atmosphere this weekend. I got the good news on Colorado’s Paul win in the hotel Friday night, the Minnesota win the day after. Of course, I haven’t been able to properly address it with this, that, and bullshit tax preparation going on at the same time. Selah.

Biggest takeaway: The media’s and Romney’s inevitability game just came to a close in a big way. Thank goodness.

Seth Stern writes the following on Santorum’s supporters (which was the evangelical right all along) are now officially behind Paul… all the way to a brokered convention:

Far be it from me to suggest a conspiracy, but the Old Media continues to treat this like every other election, it’s not. This is different. The economy is still in the crapper, the president who promised to uphold the Constitution and civil liberties has become the most pro-war president of the last century and has authorized the assassination and indefinite detention of American citizens. In the meantime, many people have recognized the odorous emanations indicating something is rotten in D.C. and have begun seeking information in the New Media.
What have they found? Transcripts, interviews, speeches, writings, sound bites and a multitude of user-generated content showing Dr. Paul isn’t just a legitimate threat to Mitt Romney’s nomination, he is a direct threat to the establishment of crony capitalism, indefinite wars, Constitutional rights violations, interventionist foreign policies, etc. A number of very wealthy people who have become even more wealthy by buying the legislators and executives of the last several decades stand to lose a lot of future income with a Paul presidency. see more…

Ron Paul has huge victory in Colorado at state convention

We Ron Paul supporters and delegates at the Colorado State Convention merged with the Santorum supporters and picked up huge delegate support for Ron Paul. We are sending delegates to the National Convention in Tampa. We will have a majority in Colorado who will support Ron Paul over Romney. The Tea Party grassroots rule. This is our greatest victory yet.

We have control of the Republican Party in Colorado and are going to purge the institutional establishment rulers and power brokers from the Party. We now control the Pueblo County Republican Party.

All the work we have done is now paying off.

You do know I am a Ron Paul supporter and actively campaigned and advanced his cause in the caucus and at the Pueblo County Assembly, Congressional District Assembly and the Colorado State Assembly.

I was an amateur 4 years ago. Not anymore.

HoT ranked #80 libertarian site, with a bullet

That’s according to a new system of code and API pulls from compete.com data, developed by Patrick McEwen of Capital Free Press.

All the smart kids know not to bother worrying about accuracy on compete.com’s stat’s at our level of traffic (pushing 10K a month now, which is magnificent considering the daily post rate is severely diminished from 2006′s explosive peak). But while we fill a stadium’s worth of libertarians and curious onlookers every month, it’s always good to consider the big picture of the libertarian web.

We want to congratulate Lew Rockwell at #1, kicking ass and take names on libertarian’s behalf with all their articulate goodness. Bless them for waving the keyboards at The Fed with admirable consistency. They pull an eye-popping 790K people every month, which is more than the entire population of Austin, Texas and gaining on San Francisco. see more…

Homeland Security Theater goes full Paultard

Bill Forster is a former TSA agent turned libertarian evangelist whose comic strip Homeland Security Theater is one I’ve been subscribed to on RSS for a while (click his sponsors or something, he’s awesome).

Forster made me spew coffee all over my keyboard with this gem:

But his commentary really just hits the nail on the head as far as how failtastic television oligarchy’s political coverage has been so far:

I get a lot of Ron Paul supporters to this site. In fact, I get a lot of Ron Paul supporters on Facebook too. It seems everywhere on the internet I see folks supporting Ron Paul. Then I turn on the TV and it’s all about Romney.
I never used to be very political. To quote one of my heroes Alice Cooper, “I don’t care. When my parents would start talking politics, I would go in my room and put on The Rolling Stones or The Who on as long as I could to avoid politics”. But running this website has put me in touch with a lot of people, from conservatives to liberals, Republicans to Democrats, from the super smart to the super crazy. And I’ve learn one thing from them… the government scares the living hell out of me! So now I am starting to pay attention.

Agreed. I’d actually rather listen to bad techno glitch pop remixes of global tribal throat songs in foreign languages — than hear and see or see more political pandering, posturing and preening by Romney and Obama. And they aren’t our only options, no matter how often a few blathering idiots blather it.

Update: I meant to say I agreed on everything, except the being scared of government part. It’s part of my medical condition.

Photos: Ron Paul draws huge crowds in California

On Tuesday, April 4th at CSU-Chico State, a mighty mob of people showed up to hear and meet Ron Paul. The campaign cheekily lobbed a message at their opponents, “Hey Mitt, Rick and Newt–this is what a revolution looks like” along with this photo.

Indeed, the revolution is still kicking according to reports of a capacity crowd Wednesday, April 5th at another massive rally in Los Angeles where the line to get in was rumored to be a mile long. see more…

South Park promoting Ron Paul?

Word has it the Ron Paul campaign will get a nice sized shot of publicity in the arm from South Park’s long-time libertarian creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone (check out HoT’s almost creepy love for them). Here’s an early sneak peak of Ron Paul in cartoon form that was floating around with the rumor (which looks legit):

We’ve also heard Rick Santorum makes an appearance in the episode called “Faith Hilling“. I’m guessing that has something to do with faith healing as a story told by the troupe of fourth graders, in the most tongue in ~~butthole~~ cheek manner possible. see more…

CNN: “Can 46 rich dudes buy an election?”

The answer of course is a resounding yes:

Critics argue that the eye-popping size of donations from individuals raise important questions about their motivations and the ability of the wealthy to influence candidates and the election.
“American elections are funded by a very narrow range of special interests, and that has the effect of making our democracy look a lot more like a plutocracy,” Ryan said.
The floodgates of unlimited spending were opened by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, which placed individuals and corporations on equal “free speech” footing when it comes to independent campaign spending. see more…

When TSA goons get smart

I have to hand it to the Thieving Security Administration employees, who have been caught stealing everything under the harsh florescent lights of baggage handling, apparently they are branching out, thanks to the new education program where they can earn a… TSA Certificate of Achievement.

I bet their certificate has a familiar cartoon bear in the corner. I would frame that shit next to a picture of James Gandolfini.

Anyways, TSA employees are finding out that they will have to step up their criminal game if they want to exploit the job, so the new thing is drug smuggling. Here’s a TSA goonette who got caught in uniform in a Trafficking Security Administration drug bust in Newark, New Jersey:

A TSA screener at Newark Airport was recently busted in a major heroin den near her workplace — still wearing her spiffy, government-issued uniform, authorities said.
Samirah Saunders, 22, and two other women were collared in the March 6 raid at 86 Wainwright St. in Newark, just around the corner from an elementary school and a spot where cops found a load of ready-for-street-sale heroin, according to sources and court records.
Two other suspects, Gavin Barker, 23, and Mariyah Sanders, 20, were also arrested.
It wasn’t clear whether Saunders was still on duty or was going to or from work.
She’s accused of helping to distribute the 1,400 packets of heroin, stamped “Green Lantern” and “P Dope” in green ink, confiscated from the apartment, according to court records.
The fact that the pad was near a school resulted in Saunders’ being hit with an additional felony charge of possessing or distributing heroin within 1,000 feet of a school.
In her mug shot, a somber Saunders was still wearing her blue TSA uniform blouse, adorned with black epaulets.
Her lawyer, James Pomaco, insisted that his client went to the apartment just to say hello to the other women.
“She was at the wrong place at the wrong time,’’ he said.

Oh my, they’ve learned how to use lawyers.

Ron Paul won’t accept Secret Service, calls it “welfare”

Ron Paul was on Jay Leno Tuesday night where he explained that while he would gladly accept the nickname “bulldog” as his secret service designation, he does not need the Secret Service providing security on the campaign trail because of the cost, which he estimates at $50K per day per candidate. Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have all accepted the protection, and Barack Obama also enjoys his own contingent of praetorian guards. It’s clear from Paul’s statements he will be making an issue of the raw cost of the security state in as many ways as possible in his quixotic campaign.

Paul also revealed he’s not all that concerned with his last place standing in the GOP delegate race, saying that a brokered convention could swing his way on a second ballot because “the second go-around, they can go with their conscience,” he said, “then, I believe, we’ll get a lot of the votes.” We’ll see.

Ron Paul fans may remember a few months ago when Saturday Night Live was spoofing all the GOP presidential hopefuls, they showed a fake Paul in a parking garage being abducted into a van, but moments later emerging victorious dusting off his hands after gunshots are seen and heard fired.

We’re pretty sure it would look something like that if anyone messed with Paul.

Ron Paul’s spot in Harry “X” Sysack billboard history

CLEVELAND, OH — I follow the local political movement for Ron Paul intensely, so when I saw that our very first billboard for Ron Paul was going up in Cleveland, I was pretty excited. I went out one Wednesday morning in January to take a photo of the sign to simply share around the web (and gloat oh behalf of Cleveland, obviously). When I returned home to examine the pictures though, I did the logical thing when presented with a sign like this and Googled the name Harry X. Sysack.

At first, I was shocked and horrified. What came back from a Flickr result page were some of the most over-the-top political billboard paintings one could imagine. They are lectures to a vehicular audience at the busy intersection of State Road and Pearl Road; offering of “affirmative action pricing” for sign making, Obama being lectured by a spanking, a swastika on a green blackboard while a teacher how Hitler was the first green president. They elicit a shocking response, and that’s clearly their intent.

Digging through my contacts within the ranks of rabble-rousing libertarians, I was able to ascertain the chain of events in the ownership of the sign. A Columbus Ohio PAC had done the payment processing, but a local Ron Paul meetup member had actually suggested the location. I spoke with him and he seemed to not know as much about the company’s history as as provocative placement pimp.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Nancy Sysack for an exclusive interview and get her side of the story on these billboards. Miss Sysack is a small grandmotherly figure in her late 50s, the remaining family owner of Harry X. Sysack. She’s sharp though, and was quick to flip the interview script and start asking me questions. She still hand paints every commercial sign (every other month or so will put up a new political sign). With the help of a small army of local artists she employs, she is still making a successful living of it. She and her brother have been running the family business since her father passed away in the 1980s, but sadly her brother followed just a few years ago.

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