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“Coders are the new rock stars”

I find these kind of startup behind-the-scenes articles fascinating (event though the company is a few years old now). Burt Helm at Inc. Magazine followed the turntable.fm founders (well, founder and chair of the board) around SXSW parties and panels, filling us in on the backstory along the way. They are trying to turn a user base that has essentially flatlined back into eager acolytes.

The money-man Seth Goldstein is a digital talent-broker and investor:

Goldstein’s latest read is simple: Coders are the new rock stars. Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg built sites that attract crowds of millions, but they don’t completely understand how they did it—and neither does the money backing them. It’s not as if they do market research. So venture funds now bet on hackers the way record labels bet on rising pop stars, hoping that someday soon, they will make something wild, new, and insanely lucrative. see more…

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.

The (Not So) “Sound Dollar Act”

In March, Kevin Brady (R-TX) introduced H.R.4180 (Sound Dollar Act) and Mike Lee (R-UT) introduced a companion bill (S.2247 Federal Reserve Modernization Act) in the Senate. These two bills are actually seven pieces of legislation, put into a single bill.

The first part of this bill is the “Single Mandate For Price Stability Act” which states the “Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall… define the term `long-term price stability’… and… establish metrics that the Board and the Committee will use to evaluate whether long-term price stability is being achieved.” When establishing these metrics, the “Board and Committee shall… take into consideration price indices of goods and services.” The Federal Reserve Board will also issue reports to Congress with “a determination of whether the goal of long-term price stability is being met and, if such goal is not being met, an explanation of why the goal is not being met and the steps that the Board and the Federal Open Market Committee will take to ensure that the goal is met in the future.”

The “Financial Stability And Moral Hazard Mitigation Act” specifies that “the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System shall clearly articulate the Board’s lender-of-last-resort policy.” The “Diversifying The Federal Open Market Committee To Reflect A 21st Century Economy Act” changes how members are elected to the Federal Open Market Committee. The act species that “1 representative from each of the Federal Reserve banks… shall be elected by the board of directors of the Federal Reserve bank that they are to represent,” whereas the committee currently has five members, each member representing between 1 and 3 regional banks.

Title 4 of this bill, “Demystification Of Monetary Policy Decisions Act,” states that the monetary policy committee “shall release meeting transcripts to the public not later than the end of the 3-year period following each meeting.” Title 5, “Exchange Rate Responsibility Act” changes the name of the “Exchange Stabilization Fund” to “Special Drawing Rights Fund” and directs the Secretary of the Treasury to “liquidate all property in the Special Drawing Rights Fund… and use all such amounts to reduce the public debt.”

Title 6, the “Credit Allocation Neutrality Act” specifies that the Federal Open Market Committee “may authorize any Federal reserve bank… to buy and sell… bills, notes, revenue bonds, and warrants” that mature within 6 months “in anticipation of the receipt of assured revenues” by any government or government agency.

Title 7 the “Bureau Of Consumer Financial Protection Funding Act” would give Congress limited oversight of Fed spending, if such spending were deemed unrelated to “the safety, soundness, and smooth functioning of the Nation’s banking and payments systems.” Given that other parts of this bill increase the Fed’s powers, I doubt Congress would claim any activity by the Fed to be unrelated to the safety, soundness, or smooth functioning of the banking industry.

There is nothing in this bill that would prevent the Federal Reserve from continuing to inflate the currency. Nothing to prevent future cycles of “boom and bust.” The “Sound Dollar Act” is another misnamed piece of legislation designed to trick the American people into supporting bad legislation. Instead of passing this bill, the Congress should pass the Free Competition in Currency Act which repeals the legal tender law, repeals the government monopoly over the creation of coins for use as currency and prohibits federal and state taxes on precious metal coins and bullion.

After bloody photo surfaces, Zimmerman rakes in $200K

Two pieces of compelling photo evidence emerged recently that will certainly be part of the George Zimmerman legal trial: a recent photo of Trayvon Martin from a twitter account showing him emitting a cold stare at the camera as he flips the bird; and an immediate post-shooting photo taken of Zimmerman’s bloody head, proof that he had indeed been assaulted in the moments leading to the fatal shooting.

The zealous neighborhood patrol also made a significant speech apologizing to the family from a bulletproof vest and chains, firmly placing himself in the role of do-gooder with a conscience that signals the defense’s strategy of making their client an upstanding member of of the community who got in over his head playing superhero. Both Zimmerman and Martin are likely to come away looking like belligerents, with the prosecution’s best evidence being the 911 recording where Zimmerman refuses to stop following the teen after being firmly told not to.

Yet in the wake of all these facts, Zimmerman’s website has received more than $204,000 in online donations. This isn’t sitting well with Judge Kenneth Lester Jr., who ordered the site shuttered in the wake revelations that the public might… *gasp* …be watching, nay participating closely in Zimmerman’s ultimate fate. see more…

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.

Bydlak v. Gary Johnson, et al. case dismissed in federal court

Back in February GOP turn LP presidential candidate Gary Johnson and several top members of his campaign staff were named defendants in a hefty $105K legal suit filed in Alexandria, Virginia Federal Court by Jonathan M. Bydlak, their former fundraiser. On Tuesday April 24th, Judge Liam O’Grady dismissed the case citing a lack of jurisdiction over several of the defendants. In addition, O’Grady noted that no single defendant was being sued in excess of $75,000, the court’s threshold.

Bydlak v. Gary Johnson (4/24/2012) [scribd]

Hammer of Truth obtained the documents from Johnson campaign spokesman Joe Hunter, who puts it bluntly, “It pretty much speaks for itself, so no, we don’t have an additional comment.”

We sought a legal analyst (who did not want to be named in this interview) who was more forthcoming on the implications of the ruling, explaining “it was dismissed on a jurisdictional technicality (lack of jurisdiction over the both the defendant AND the matter).” He looked at Burnham & Gorokhov and concluded, “These guys seem a bit young. They don’t really appear to do civil law much … focusing on criminal and white collar law. Every lawyer has his ‘weak area’”.

“The mistake they made on totaling up the dispute for jurisdictional amount is not the stupidest thing ever done. But every lawyer knows that Federal Court is a different beast than state court and that you really have to get your form as well as your content right. If they’d merely consulted with either a book about civil procedure or a practice guide for Federal Court, the first things everybody knows is to work really hard in preparation so that you don’t get bounced out of court on a technicality.”

“The best hurdle to clear is beating ‘summary judgment’. These guys didn’t even get close to that far before they got dismissed.”

The summary judgement noted in the brief factored in two key areas where jurisdiction came into play: a $75,000 minimum for at least one defendant; OAI, GJ2012 and Gary Johnson (personally) were subject to the court’s jurisdiction, but the other defendants were not.

Our legal expert summed it up, “They sued in Federal Court without, apparently, understanding how that’s supposed to work.”

Bydlak may yet still pursue his legal gambit by resubmitting in the correct venue, as we’re pretty he’ll do if he’s still miffed about that $105K he claims he’s owed.

Request for comments from Bydlak or his legal representatives at Burnham & Gorokhov, PLLC were not returned.

SNL veteran comedian Jon Lovitz unleashes on Obama

Tax season may still be fresh in everyone’s mind, but a January podcast of ABC’s of SNL (free download) caught a lively exchange between Jon Lovitz and Kevin Smith over how hard work is being crapped on and that fifty percent taxes are only for suckers thanks to copious deductions. He also says “fuck you” a lot in the same breath as “Obama” which probably means the Lovitz endorsement isn’t happening anytime soon.

The discussion segues from Lovitz explaining Wayne Gretzsky and professional sports players having an affinity for winning through hard work, with goals and home-runs extraordinarily above their peers. Continuously he pounces on the theme of “working his ass off” to get where they are. Smith ribs him, asking “are you comparing yourself to Gretzsky?”

POLITICAL STANDUP AND DELIVERY
Lovitz then exploded in a completely new tack, shouting “This whole thing with Obama, saying the rich don’t pay their taxes is fucking bullshit. And I voted for the guy; and I’m a democrat! What a fucking asshole!” see more…

Uncle Sam: I like Sex and Candy

For years many people have noticed the hypocrisy of federal drug policy. While the federal government spends roughly $15 billion per year fighting the war on drugs (which is actually a war on the American people), the CIA has profited countless millions of dollars from running cocaine (from Central & South America) and opium (from Afghanistan & Asia).

Now, the government hypocrisy surrounding another victimless crime is coming to light. Fox News reports, “It all started when an argument over payment between a Secret Service agent and a Colombian prostitute spilled into the hallway of the Hotel Caribe, where a contingent of agents and military personnel were staying as part of a security detail in advance of the President’s arrival for last weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia.”

The Guardian reports, “The secret service detail didn’t simply take a stroll to an isolated brothel. There are rows of sex clubs and brothels in the Cartagena prostitution zone, where many women from different countries also walk the streets in search of customers seeking sexual services. The US officials were among the hundreds of US sex tourists who, every year, visit these sex clubs and brothels… the US military code of justice… says, buying women in prostitution anyplace is a crime for US servicemen.” It is not a crime for other federal agents.

Across the United States roughly 100,000 people are arrested per year for offenses related to prostitution. The vast majority of the individuals arrested for prostitution related offenses have harmed no one. Yet when government officials are involved with a prostitute, no one is arrested. In fact, only six of the twelve Secret Service Agents involved in the scandal have been asked to resign.

This is yet another case of government hypocrisy. However, I believe the political uproar created by this scandal will lead to the creation of more legislation. Instead of passing another law regulating consensual activity between adults, the Congress and every State Legislature should instead remove all prohibitions on the voluntary exchange of money for goods and services.

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.

Julian Heicklen beats rap, jury nullification not “tampering”

In a stunning coup for the Fully Informed Jury Association’s chief pamphleteer Julian Heicklen — the 80-year-old retired chemistry professor who has often stood outside various courthouses holding a “Jury Info” sign and handing out brochures that inform jurors of their rights — had all jury tampering charges dismissed by a federal judge on Thursday.

NYT writes, “the judge, Kimba M. Wood of Federal District Court, wrote that a person violated the jury tampering statute only when he or she knowingly tried to influence a juror’s decision through a written communication ‘made in relation to a specific case pending before that juror.’”

“Judge Wood added that she would not ‘stretch the interpretation’ of the statute to cover speech that was ‘not meant to influence’ a juror’s actions in a specific case.”

“Mr. Heicklen expressed pleasure at the ruling. ‘Not just for me,’ he said. ‘I think it’s a major decision for the country.’”

“He added: ‘This is better than having them throw me in jail.’”

We’ve covered Heicklen’s saga before here at HoT and are happy to report a happy ending to Heicklen’s legal situation. This news is especially uplifting considering he acted as his own lawyer (which is often looked down on by court officers).

There’s no doubt Heicklen and his associates at FIJA will soon be back in front of courthouses, handing out literature on jury rights to anyone walking by. We’re rooting for him to be able to use this exhaustive legal experience of his own to further inform the police and court officers they have no grounds to arrest him the next time they want to get snooty about his activities.

Update: Kirsten at FIJA has correctly pointed out to us that Mr. Heicklen is not a formal part of their organization. We asked her to elaborate but have not heard back. We asked, “Is there a statement that you’d like to put out there on the heels of this news that you endorse this or don’t endorse court-side pamphleting behavior like this?”

Well it seems FIJA is indeed receptive to his triumph on their own website. They add a warning for anyone potentially following Heicklen’s lead, “activists should conduct general outreach activity and avoid even the appearance of being associated with a particular case.” Otherwise it is jury tampering.

The Economist Flubs the Best News of the Year…

The Economist This article documents something pretty incredible. In the face of rising food prices and a global economic crisis, poverty is falling. For the first time in history it is falling world-wide, in every region. It’s a beautiful thing.

This is the internet though, and putting fingers to keyboard for a purely positive purpose wouldn’t be appropriate. This article is also a great example of the massive distortion that infects all journalism and advocacy on this topic. Take this quote for example:

If you exclude China, the numbers are less impressive. Of the roughly 1.3 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day in 2008, 1.1 billion of them were outside China. That number barely budged between 1981 and 2008, an outcome that Martin Ravallion, the director of the bank’s Development Research Group, calls “sobering”.

Hmmm. Sobering. Can you think of any other data points that might be relevant in this comparison? Has anything changed between 1981 and 2008? Anything statistically significant?

How about the fact that in those 27 years world population has increased almost 50 percent, from 4.5 billion in 1980 to 6.8 Billion today? see more…

Happy Kushmas (War is Over)

I don’t have much to add about the relevance of the date 4/20 and it being an anniversary of interest to those who intently fight the good fight to end the cannabis war (and the drug war in general). I’ll just chime in by saying yep yep yep and yep.

Now watch the biggest smoke session in the internet’s history. No fucks are being given.

Instead of more silly proselytizing to the converted, here’s the lyrics to John Lennon’s song Happy Christmas (War is Over), and we’ve oh so cleverly changed one word. see more…

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.

Elmo explains economics

Elmo really has a way with words. He recently helped explain economics and did a righteous job. Ben Bernanke better run if the rest of the Sesame Street gang shows up with pitchforks and torches… of love:

In case you haven’t noticed, incomes (not GDP) pay mortgages and support small businesses. Increasing the National Debt by a can you say “parabolic?” 54% in the last 42 months hasn’t budged income per capita in nominal terms. If you adjusted for inflation, you’d find that Americans are actually about 12% poorer today than they were in 2006. We’re not “growing” our way out of this, we’re just going deeper and deeper into hock, courtesy of a government with about as much fiscal discipline as crack-whores with a stolen credit card. Here’s the thing: It’s your credit card, so maybe you should understand how much they’re spending:
Just to be clear, we’re talking about $400 per citizen per month in new charges alone, month after month after month. Here’s what me and Elmo can’t figure out: Why would attempting to break this spiral be labeled Class Warfare?

I couldn’t resist but INTERVIEW ELMO EXCLUSIVELY FOR HAMMER OF TRUTH (MUST CREDIT HAMMER OF TRUTH). He said he hopes Ben Bernanke stays healthy and had this to add on the insult pile:

Watch out Elmo, talk like that will get you to sent off to Gitmo.

Obama campaign logo in a beer

Spotted at the Washington Examiner:

Eric Reif, Senior Advertising Manager at Obama for America reposted the photo to his tumblr blog and wrote, “Witnessed this happen. It was magical.”

Beer consumed in massive quantities does make people stupistitious, which is ultimately great branding for Obama/Biden because he’s going to need lots of drunk and stupid people voting against their neighbor’s and own recreational drug interests a second time. The message is loud and clear: Keep drinking, democrats.

I’ll remind the Obama staffers that perhaps if their boss didn’t so rudely discriminate against a cousin of the Hop then their jobs would be so much easier when not posting silly beer photos.

Kim Kardashian to run for mayor of Glendale, CA in 2017

holla if you hear the famewhore seeking out publicity Reality show twit Kim Kardashian said on a recent bonus clip of Khloe & Lamar that she wants to run for mayor of Glendale, California. Keep in mind that this is someone whose claim to fame is a sex tape with Ray J.

Kim said, “I decided. I’m gonna run for the mayor of Glendale, but it’s gonna be in like five years. So mark your calendars for 2017!”

She also added that she would have to establish residency first in the city and that her pal Noelle Keshishian is taking the reigns on her future campaign. She added, “You have to have full residency in Glendale…so I have to buy a house there. Noelle and I are looking into all the requirements. It’s Armenian town.”

Do we really need to have a politician who’s been in a sex tape? Since we don’t really know her politics or what she stands for, we can’t comment on her future mayoral bid. We’re pretty sure that she has enough money to buy the office if she so chooses.

Our sister site earsucker, says that her ex-husband Kris Humphries thinks it’s all a ploy for publicity. He’s probably not that far off.

UPDATE: NBC Los Angeles douses the speculation with cold water by explaining Glendale’s appointed mayor system, “On a technical note: in the city of Glendate all of the city council members take turns filling the mayoral seat, so technically you can’t run for mayor, you run for city council.” Yet the real power lies in the job of city manager, an appointed bureaucrat who has the real power and would run things in what we presume as a SimCity style overseer.

Regardless, it’s not the mayor of Glendale who has the power, so NBC generously offers up a bigger slice of the pie by telling her to run for governor of California. “If you want to get into public service in California, don’t bother yourself with winning office in a city. If you want to be the center of attention, and of the action, aim higher. Run for governor.”

“As Governors Reagan and Schwarzenegger demonstrated, experience in public service isn’t a prerequisite.”

And she hasn’t even given barely any hints of her political affiliation, other than blatant capitalist. Maybe that’s not so bad a characteristic of someone aiming to be the head public servant of of the world’s eighth largest economy.

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.

John Cusack: Civil libertarian upset at “imperial presidency”

The Daily Caller insists on calling actor John Cusack “distinctly left-leaning” in this article, but his own words at least paint a clear picture of his distaste for Obama’s policies:

“I sort of feel like there’s some kind of Rubicon line issues that I hope are addressed that don’t have to do with left and right, and some of those issues that the Obama administration has with due process and with the assassination of American citizens — this speech by Eric Holder, I think, are deeply troubling. I think that’s beyond left and right.”
Cusack said that Obama was just continuing the “excesses of the Bush administration,” which he actively campaigned against during George W. Bush’s presidency.
“But from a civil libertarian point of view, the excesses of the Bush administration — I think [Obama] had a constitutional obligation to correct that, and I don’t think they have, and I think that’s deeply troubling for my nephews and for my future.”
“I don’t think the executive branch — I think that they’ve kind of continued that imperial presidency of the Bush administration with these claims to executive privilege,” Cusack concluded. “I thought that speech about the assassination of American citizens, you know, in the name of [the War on] Terror was, I thought, very, very troubling.”

I assure you that we’ll be waiting a super long time before he endorses anyone in the GOP or LP, but it’s good he at least has his eyes partly open.

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…

Some Americans pay no federal tax; No American should

Every year around this time, millions of Americans fill out a form 1040 – hoping they don’t have to write a check to Uncle Sam.

Millions more know they will be getting a refund (which is normally a return of some portion of their money that was withheld in excess of what the IRS thinks they were owed) while a smaller number will receive a “refund” in excess of the amount withheld by the IRS. The Tax Policy Center reports that roughly 46% of households filing with the IRS will “pay no income tax.” While this enrages many people who will claim that those who do pay are “supporting” those who don’t, I see things a little differently.

The Americans paying income tax are not “supporting” anyone. The Grace Commission in 1984 issued a report that stated in part, “all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services taxpayers expect from their Government.”

Certainly some of the revenue from the IRS is redistributed to those that receive a more from the IRS than they had forcibly withheld from them, though that could hardly be interpreted as “supporting” the ones that don’t “pay.” 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.

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