Way back in 2008 (not that long, I know), Kid Rock promised us all he wouldn’t be getting political, and even chastised music entertainers who got into endorsing candidates and playing music for free for them at small political rallies.

He said, “I truly believe that people like myself, who are in a position of entertainers in the limelight, should keep their mouth shut on politics. Because at the end of the day, I’m good at writing songs and singing. What I’m not educated in is the field of political science. And so for me to be sharing my views and influencing people of who I think they should be voting for … I think would be very irresponsible on my part.”

He went on to say, “I think celebrity endorsements hurt politicians. As soon as somebody comes out for a politician, especially in Hollywood, when they all go, ‘I’m voting for this guy!’ I go, ‘That’s not who I’m voting for!’” see more…

In early December of 2011, NBC unveiled a partnership with check-in king foursquare to track the presidential candidates on the 2012 campaign trail. From the looks of it, many hours of design and code were put into this impressive project that promised to show the candidates trekking across America in real time.

The short of it being that if Rick Santorum dropped in on his NASCAR buddies in Daytona, there’d suddenly and magically be a blip marking his appearance. Or suppose Ron Paul spoke to a crowd of 1,700 in Oklahoma City, or Newt Gingrich pointed and grunted at the moon in Cape Canaveral, or Mitt Romney visited a factory in Flint to jokingly threaten to fire everyone — the world would know about such heroic public services thanks to the harnessed power of databases and the internet. see more…

The presidential political season is picking up steam with the next round of GOP elections coming up rather quickly. The fact that anyone can campaign in seventeen separate primaries and caucuses (fifteen if you are an inconsiderate ass who thinks Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands aren’t worth campaigning in, even though they aren’t) is a sheer marvel of the information age and the phenomenon of paid political advertising (and transportation, lest we forget Rand Paul’s TSA travesty).

Here’s the rundown of the next two weeks of primary pollshocks waiting to unfold: see more…

From time to time, here at Hammer of Truth one of us will liveblog a debate or something. This is what it looks like.

On Wednesday February 22nd 2012, four GOP candidates for president got on stage to once again lay into each other in the new public blood sport democratic process of of getting to know our next commander in chief. From left to right on the stage were Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. Most people have been more interested in Whitney Houston’s sudden death over the past week and a half than anything political, so we’ll see if the first post-Whitney GOP debate is a pop or a drop amongst the American rabble.

The complete transcript of the debate can be found here. Ron Paul highlights can be found here. Read on for our official Hammer of Truth verdict on the debate and be sure to leave your thoughts on how the candidates did. see more…

A word to Newt Gingrich on moon colonization: you’re not the grandiose visionary you think you are.

This week, Gingrich generated a lot of news touching on a subject that is actually rather dear to me: colonizing the moon. He lost a ton of points once I learned it was only because he happened to be standing on NASA property when he made the following statement, “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.” What is clearly little more than self-aggrandizing rhetoric is horribly tempered by the fact that he can’t even seem to promise the moon on his first term, because clearly re-election is more important than a moon base in under four years.

On the campaign trail, presidential candidates will often make grandiose statements about space exploration, simply because it’s the one unifying goal all of mankind shares. We know it’s crass and they know it’s crass, but it seems every time the campaign trail passes through Cape Canaveral Florida the issue of space suddenly becomes en vogue. Color us shocked the issue is once again front and center. see more…

I love the new year of the political season because so many great talented patriots use it as a fresh opportunity to weigh in on the pressing issues of the day in their own great ways. My tip of the tricorner hat goes first to The folks over at Songify The News (previously called Auto-Tune The News until the lawyers from Antares intervened and made them change it) for their little diddy poking fun at all the silly candidate hijinx in song form.

Newt Gingrich actually is not a terrible singer, but that’s thanks to some very painstaking and creative editing by the schmoyoho crew.

Ron Paul is curiously silent during the song, which seems like a fitting observation of his relative exclusion at the debates, and the fact that there’s at least a million other channels on YouTube alone trying to pimp Ron Paul in some song or another. The slow clap was a great touch though.

In related news, Rand Paul was sidelined at a TSA checkpoint yesterday after he refused to be groped. The White House made the amazing blunder of siding with the TSA in what is arguably the flashpoint of the clash between freedom of movement and the security state. I will be mailing him a complimentary copy of the Big Brass Balls TSA card to proudly carry in his wallet for the next encounter:

The Ron Paul campaign has expertly taken this latest personal confrontation with the encroaching police state and started a potentially devastating fundraising drive called “End the TSA.” Paul has promised vehemently to dismantle the TSA and other odious police state agencies at home and abroad along with cutting a trillion dollars in a bold spending reform plan.

The campaign stated, “The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors, and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities. The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe.”

My tip of the tricorner hat to the Paul’s today as well, for fighting the good fight against those agencies and polices that so desperately needs to be reformed and having the long game to back it up this time around.

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that the Paul family will soon announce their hereditary medical condition:

h/T to George Faulk

From time to time, here at Hammer of Truth one of us will liveblog a debate or something. This is what it looks like.

On Thursday January 19th, 2012 four GOP candidates for president got on stage to once again lay into each other in the new public blood sport democratic process of of getting to know our next commander in chief. From left to right on the stage were Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul. Rick Perry recently dropped out and a lot of us are pretty fucking glad.

The order is chronological, dere’s probably mistakes in it. Onward! see more…

Earlier today, some of you probably noticed that Hammer of Truth linked to an article in a links post with an interesting quote from a Mitt Romney campaign event where he allegedly said “I like to fire people.”

The quote is inaccurate, and worse, it seems the article we cited — written by Union Leader’s John DiStaso — has gone 404 from their site. We’re unable to retrieve that article, it has disappeared down the memory hole (we’ll take that as a retraction).

Update: The article referenced has an updated permalink. It’s not clear why that is since the quote is still paraphrased.

As for what Romney actually said, he told reporters, “I like being able to fire people…” but he then continued, “who provide services to me. If someone doesn’t give me the good service I need, I’m going to go get somebody else to provide that service to me.” That’s a lot more than the snippet we had gotten from the downed Union Leader article.

Aside from not actually addressing the growing concern over the monopolistic nature of many of these services (how do you fire the electric company again?), it makes for a great soundbite in TV news clips and is nigh impossible not to agree with.

We’re all adults (mostly) and if you’ve ever managed a business of any size you can appreciate knowing that sometimes a sandbagging employee has to be shit-canned rather than be allowed to fester and infect employee morale. On the flip side, mass layoffs can have a predictably demoralizing effect on those who don’t get cut, making the company worse off. Given the length of his career at Bain Capital, Romney’s no doubt fallen on both sides of this coin many times.

It seems the campaigns are enjoying the attack opportunity afforded by latching onto this latest 2012 presidential brouhaha. As voters go to the polls this evening in frigid New Hampshire, Ron Paul’s National Campaign Chair Jesse Benton took a different tack on the controversy, coming to the defense of Romney and issuing stern words on respecting the truth:

“Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman, and Newt Gingrich are once again proving why they are unfit to be President and why this has become a two man national race between Mitt Romney, the candidate of the status quo, and Ron Paul, the candidate of real change.

“Two important issues that should unite Republicans are a belief in free markets and an understanding that the media often use ‘gotcha’ tactics to discredit us. Rather than run against Governor Romney on the issues of the day Santorum, Huntsman, and Gingrich have chosen to play along with the media elites and exploit a quote taken horribly out of context. They are also using the language of the liberal left to attack private equity and condemn capitalism in a desperate and, frankly, unsavory attempt to tear down another Republican with tactics akin to those of MoveOn.org.

“Santorum, Huntsman, and Gingrich are employing leftist tactics because they can’t run on their questionable records and can’t distinguish themselves from Romney. Like Romney, they all supported bailouts, big spending, deficits, and individual healthcare mandates. And, all three have disqualified themselves from the race for President of the United States, first with their records, then with their inability access major state ballots, and finally with these desperate and deplorable tactics.

“Dr. Paul is committed to running the kind of substantive, issues-based campaign the American people deserve. Our campaign will talk about real issues – real spending cuts, a sound monetary policy, protecting individual liberties, and promoting a pro-American foreign policy. We will win what is now a two-man race on these issues, the issues of grassroots America.”

Oddly enough, Ron Paul himself entered the fray telling an ABC reporter, “I think they’re unfairly attacking him on that issue because he never really literally said that,” Paul said. “They’ve taken him way out of context. … He wants to fire companies.” Except in this case Paul needs to go back and check the recording, because Romney really did say he likes to “fire people.” This is the same Mitt Romney who also said “corporations are people”, so the words could be interchangeable to him.

At this point, it’s extremely likely that undecided voters are growing weary at the torrents of negative press a few words out of context can generate. It’s unfortunate that many in the media (even on the internet) have a bad habit of doing hit and runs when it comes to the truth, rarely apologizing for factual error in the race to some mythical infallible future.

If information truly is a commodity, “caveat emptor” still makes the most fitting consumer warning label.

UPDATE: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have stuck their fingers in the political winds and smartly joined Ron Paul in calling off their attacks, for now. And speaking of Bain-related attacks, I’m extremely curious how the Gingrich camp’s King of Bain videos have been going over with their select audiences. There’s really not much helpful to judge it by yet except a short trailer.

Best quote in the trailer is after some random old lady tells it like it is, her friend just casually replies, “You goan’ be on a hit list, you know that.” LOL, what the fuck, GingrichWhateverPAC?

UPDATE II: I should probably divulge that used to work at Bain & Company in Los Angeles for a short stint in 1997-98 as a mail room clerk way down the ladder in administrative services. I honestly don’t remember if I ever met Mitt in person (I probably didn’t, Bain Capital is a supposedly different arm than the consulting branch), but I remember racking up ridiculous amounts of overtime grinding out powerpoint stuff for these guys in these odd client cram sessions. I enjoyed being a busy bee in their extremely fancy pants offices and the company retreats to Palm Springs and Coronado were booze-filled frat parties. You wouldn’t believe the office supply budget this powerful consulting company had — for the prima donnas who had to have different pens than everyone else — it was adorable.

Overall, I enjoyed learning about business and economics at scale through my immersion with them, not to mention the many beers I clinked back with them as a minor. I am certainly not ungrateful of the experience.

There was a lively exchange between Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich at the ABC/Yahoo! debates in New Hampshire. The sparks flew over Gingrich’s failure to serve in the military, yet later becoming a very vocal war hawk as a statesman. Paul originally called Gingrich out as a “chickenhawk,” and it seems the label is going to stick this time as the former House Speaker’s numerous skeletons again come to the light of day.

Gingrich used the old marriage and education deferment strategy to avoid the draft board, even going so far as shacking up with his old High School Geometry teacher at nineteen and popping out their first child in 1963.

His first practice at love — something he’s won/failed at oh so many times — is tainted by a shockingly bizarre relationship even by today’s standards, youthful desperation to “escape the totalitarian regime of his stepfather’s home” and yet another of America’s military conflicts that threatened to take his chubby ass to the front lines of the bloody empire. These teenaged glimpses are the most telling images of Newt’s inner character struggles.

Gingrich has been truthful in the past about his unease with the decision to fold diapers rather than lug a machine gun through Vietnam jungles, saying “Given everything I believe in, a large part of me thinks I should have gone over.” Or, he could just admit he’s grown up to be an over-compensating, loudmouth bully with nothing to back it up except other people’s children.

During the debate however, the moderators sought to find out if Paul was capable of taking on the ‘Grich in person. The end result was a one-two body blow, the first truth hit administered by Paul who contrasted himself with the former speaker, saying “When I was drafted, I was married and had two kids — and I went.”

And then funnily enough, Gingrich unwittingly administered a second brutal blow to himself while the audience was applauding, offering up, “I wasn’t eligible for the draft. I wasn’t eligible for the draft.” Wuss.

Wikipedia defines chickenhawk as “a political epithet used in the United States to criticize a politician, bureaucrat, or commentator who strongly supports a war or other military action, yet who actively avoided military service when of age.” Gingrich has often saber-rattled at the Middle East on the campaign trail, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood as “a mortal enemy of our civilization.” In May, he fear-mongered to an audience that “if they can kill us, they will.”

It’s obvious to even the casual observer that Gingrich’s foreign policy would be a continuation of American militarism around the globe. It’s even more obvious that the one calling for it is indeed a chickenhawk. We’re waiting patiently for the Paul campaign to level the same criticisms at Romney, another notorious draft dodger.

Update: Leave it to CNN’s cynically named Truth Squad to expose themselves as nothing more than a Pack of Liars omitting the real story and shilling for…. who gives a damn what reason, stop shilling!

Update II: Screencapped, because I know how these CNN jackasses would like to try and control their epic failure in ethical journalism.

Update III: Newt “I wasn’t eligible for the draft” Gingrich is a member of a cute club called the “war wimps” for good reason. Funny thing about a guy not eligible needing so many draft deferments. Cool lie, bro.

Update IV: We’re waiting for a correction from CNN, just don’t hold your breath for a speedy one. It’s sad to see any information company behave as though their customers are stupid and should be kept that way as long as possible.

Update V: Justin Raimondo eviscerates, then deep fries the chickenhawks in his article at Lew Rockwell. I’m glad at the very least the Internet is allowing our fighting men and women to see which politicians are upstanding and which ones have big yellow stripes running down their backs.

The Atlantic has an article up claiming that Ron paul isn’t loved by Tea Partiers. The basis for this story is a recent loss of a call-in tele-conference poll to every other candidates except Utah Governor John Huntsman. The candidates got to speak their piece, and then the listeners voted.

The article goes on at some length about what this means about how Paul’s views are too out there for security conscious tea party voters. You can quibble with a lot about this article. Who are the Tea party Patriots? Who gets on their lists for these tele-conferences? The writer asserts that the poll was scientific, mentioning a sample size of 23,000 but mentions nothing about how those people were selected. It could easily have been some kind of poll specifically geared towards making Paul look bad. You can argue that, but you’d be easily dismissed as a kook or a crank.

The article was posted at 1:18 PM ET. Just in time for lunch hour for most of the country. The article got most of it’s 11,447 views as of this writing. Tea party folks who read it thought again about what they saw at the debates. “The rest of the tea partiers are worried about Iran, maybe I should be too.” Some Paul supporters read it and may have gotten a little discouraged. Some Republican donors brushed off what little enthusiasm they had gotten for Paul’s straight talking. All in all a little depressing.

And all completely manufactured.

Sometime between the all important lunch hour and 6:46 PM ET a small clarification was entered:

“Clarification: Ron Paul, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman weren’t on the conference call.”

see more…

In an incisive analysis of flip-floppers, Jonathan Chait over at New York Magazine delivers a colorful picture of two presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich (Ron Paul did not make the cut, presumably because it’s difficult to pin a flip-flop donkey tail on him):

The robotic consistency of Romney’s newfound conservatism does contrast sharply with Gingrich, who lurches between hysterical right-wing paranoia and bouts of bipartisanship. And yet the erratic character of Gingrich’s swings suggests that they’re unplanned, and thus that they spring from actual conviction, albeit momentary convictions. Gingrich actually believes what he is advocating at the moment he is advocating it. Nobody can plausibly say the same of Romney.

Romney is the handsome swindler who plots to win your mother’s heart and make off with her fortune. Gingrich is like the husband who periodically gets drunk and runs off to spend a week with a stripper in a low-rent motel but always comes home in the end. Which one would you rather see your mother marry?

Gosh, tough choice. Neither.

The analogy is hardly helpful, since we are not in the habit of letting children elect their fathers in this country. Nor does the office of president come with the privilege of having sex with everyone’s mother. Yet somehow I am now going to have the joy of contemplating one of these men feeding a tube steak to the woman who used to pick up my toys every time I ponder the country’s political future.

Even with Herman Cain out of the race somehow we as a media culture are still proud to deliver unnecessary marital awareness in the midst of serious issues of war, bankruptcy and rampant corruption. Thanks Jonathan Chait, you slightly creepy fuck.

For the record, here are the women who are actually married to these candidates. I’ll bite my tongue for once and simply introduce them alphabetically: Callista Gingrich, Carol Paul, and Ann Romney.

Oh who the hell am I kidding? I can’t help myself.