Author Archives: Stephen VanDyke

Snoop Dogg (Calvin Broadus) is clearly a fan of two things: smoking the huffle puff puff pass, and the rap game. Since the last record he dropped in early 2011 is fading into distant memory, it seems he’s picked up a new hobby in the celebrity politics game instead. And who’s hotter to endorse on facebook and twitter this election season for bored celebrities than Ron Paul? (And marijuana, clearly).

Snoop’s message to his 13.9 million facebook fans:

Snoop doesn’t have the full lowdown on Ron Paul in his tongue-in-cheek photoshoppery, who we can confidently say has never recommended smoking weed every day but instead encourages a hands off approach by the federal government. “Why don’t we handle the drugs like we handle alcohol?” Paul asked rhetorically to the GOP audience when the question was posed to him in a late-November CNN debate.

Instead, it’s more likely that the California lovin’ rapper ran into the Ron [Paul] Swanson tumblr page over the weekend where a mashup of quotes from NBC’s Parks and Recreation character Ron Swanson collide with Ron Paul photos, making for hilarious results.

We’ll watch and see if this latest celebrity endorsement translates into a boost in record sales similar to American Idol Kelly Clarkson’s endorsement brouhaha, but we won’t hold our breath (unless it’s to hold in the smoke).

UPDATE: It would seem remiss not to point out that Snoop Dogg is getting even more political about the legalization of marijuana in the wake of his arrest in Sierra Blanca, Texas earlier this month. He has made recent public pleas to Obama, which have apparently gone unheard.

UPDATE II: Congrats to Buzzfeed, who won the traffic deluge from Drudge Report for their awesome reporting which consisted of posting of a facebook screenshot which was actually stolen from reddit (which was actually stolen from facebook, because screenshot). INTERNET, YOU ARE HIGH!

UPDATE III: The ensuing news circus is now Ron Paulizzle Twenty-twizzle ^{special “attribution is fucked” edition}

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…

The relatively recent political party — Boston Tea Party — was founded back in 2006 and has seen steady, if slow, growth as a political player since then.

I caught up with front man Darryl Perry (who writes a column here on a regular basis) for a few questions and here’s how he responded.

1) What is the membership size of the BTP? Is there a growth chart of any kind since its inception?
As of mid-December there were 2,232 members. I have not updated the growth chart recently, however I can tell you that membership growth hasn’t grown as fast in the past 18 months or so.

2) Have you considered forming a caucus or bloc within one of the established political parties?
The original intent was for the BTP to be a caucus within the LP – however the members present at the first meeting decided to form a new party. As far as future plans to form a caucus within any other party, I will say “no comment”.

3) How is the platform different than that of the Libertarian Party? What would you say the fundamental difference is in your party’s coming together in the online era.
The BTP platform is 1 sentence that can never be changed; whereas the LP platform is tweaked or majorly overhauled every two years. The BTP also offers a bottom-up approach to party organization, whereas the LP (and most other parties) prefer a top-down approach.

4) How many candidates will the BTP be fielding in 2012?
That is a good question. Aside from the Presidential ticket at this time only one party member has announced plans to run for office in Florida for a position on the Soil and Water Conservation Board in Hillsborough County, FL.

5) As a political party, what has your role been in challenging the onerous ballot access laws in many states?
I wish the BTP were able to file lawsuits to challenge these laws – however, the bylaws prohibit the National Committee from soliciting donations – which makes spending money on lawsuits difficult. However, the BTP is a member of COFOE, a group which has assisted others in lawsuits against these laws. I’ve personally spoken with half a dozen legislators in NH about easing ballot access, as well as sent letters to countless other legislators in many States.

I also published a book in October of last year which was written to inform people about the various ways in which the two major parties have taken control of the electoral process and ways in which the “playing field” can be leveled so that independent & minor party candidates have the same path to ballot access as the “big boys.”

If you have further questions about this fledgling political party, please leave them in the comments and we’ll try to have Perry answer them. If you’d like more info on the Boston Tea Party happenings, their website — bostontea.us — is simple enough to remember.

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…

This Mitt Romney video mashup shows how undecided he is on his own platform, he’s found lacking principles of any kind and contradicting himself numerous times:

Follow the money trail and you’ll see it flowing from establishment players, to the establishment candidates, which gets funneled back through the establishment media. It’s a slick racket.

It’s been more and more apparent that without solid guiding principles and a real sense of humility, power is attracting the worst kinds of megalomaniacs and sociopaths. Check out this Fox News interview and listen to Romney chuckle at misfortune caused by his own hands when asked if he feels anything about taking the poor family dog that went on a 12-hour road trip — on the roof of the car:

Is America finally having a light-bulb moment? Yup.

An interesting passage from Matt Mullenweg’s Open Web FTW article at Gigaom:

Everyone’s doing app stores now. Chrome has their store, Firefox has their store, and Microsoft is going to launch a store. As distribution mechanisms they’re going to be incredibly powerful, but they’re actually going to end up bringing more power back to the software creators and the developers. Because as they compete with each other, they will all be forced to open up and become better.

The Internet needs a strong, independent platform for those of us who don’t want to be at the mercy of someone else’s domain. I like to think that if we didn’t create WordPress something else that looks a lot like it would exist. I think Open Source is kind of like our Bill of Rights. It’s our Constitution. If we’re not true to that, nothing else matters.

The independent web is growing quite a bit. Although we have these great cloud servers for WordPress, the software that people run and install themselves is still as popular as ever. Our services are bringing more people online, but they’re also bringing more people who want to own their own space on the web–they want to own a house instead of rent an apartment. When we were first starting out, I thought, “Downloading and uploading software, managing databases, no one wants to do that.” But it turns out, a lot of people do.

Or as I like to call it: The second American revolution everyone in the world will want to attend (extra emphasis on the want part, men knowing that “anything is possible” across the globe is an incredibly motivating force in getting amazing things done, consult your history books and skylines).

Consider the comedian who gets on stage and commands a large audience, he is independent of the crowd (who I hope like hell are drunk) telling his hilarious truths and mistruths. Sometimes a joke will land flat and a critic in the audience will heckle. Any comedian worth his salt knows how to shut down that fella’s drunken free speechification on the spot.

Unfortunately, stratification is the obstacle open source advocates often seem to ignore once they grow in power and influence to become a kingmaker themselves. Mullenweg gets it half right here, but we’ll probably see the larger corporate app stores fall victim to more claims of bias and app censorship from the higher ups, and given enough practice they’ll become better at squashing them without too much fanfare or outrage. They’ll also be consolidating power in bolder ways. Open source communities are not magically immune from this creeping order pyramid either.

I enjoyed the part where he acknowledges the obvious motivator of every true elite, “my primary motivator is not money, it’s to make an impact on the world.” Just this world? There’s a whole giant universe out there to make an impact on.

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.

Hammer of Truth friends over at Free Keene, New Hampshire are doing awesome work making the statist scum Santorum’s ground campaign a parade of singing mockery. In this short clip, Rick Santorum can be seen smiling as he walks into the simple question of “The public wants to know, have you ever Googled yourself?” His smile quickly fades as he briskly walks the fuck away. Clearly the answer is yes.

We’re not sure what to expect next — as this is surely only the beginning of a more intense campaign of mockery and derision of the political status quo by libertarian activists in the free state — but we’re definitely laughing our asses off.

You can download the sheet music yourself for when the political sellout whores come to your town!

Christmas music all the way through July? Don’t bet against it.

UPDATE: Originally forgot to link to Rick Santorum’s website. That’s been fixed now, twice as good ;)

I highly recommend adding the blog to your reader.

Found over at r/trees, where 166,576 Ents practice not giving a fuck about the government every damn day and are loving the shit out of it.

The Ron Paul campaign can happily add another hashtag to the category of Elite Entertainer Endorsements this week as the lead guitarman for Aerosmith took to his twitter account to announce to his sixty-eight thousand followers that the septuagenarian congressman is his personal fave.

In the rapid-fire series of posts fraught with spelling and formatting errors, ‘AdmiralPerry’ quickly laid out his thoughts writing, “All the kids I talk to are into Ron Paul . They like his voting record. He’s not a smiling grinning talking head spewing party BS. Obama hasn’t done anything close to what he promised he’d do.didn’t get my vote and I got lotta grief. Well,my votes for Ron Paul.”

He continued, “Media is trying to crush Paul. It’s so transparent. They will smear himevery chance.beware! Get your news from lot of different sources. Not saying who to vote for. Just have open mind and figure a sm handful of people own very large perportion of tv ,Internet, papers.”

While I wholeheartedly appreciate Perry’s endorsement and accurate assessment of the media situation, he really should turn on the spellchecker feature on his computer/device. It’s a little embarrassing that the same guy rocking a guitar has fat fingers when using a keyboard.

Fair warning: this C-SPAN interview clocks in at just under three hours, so you’ll probably need to unADD yourself from distracting technology to pay attention that long. Go ahead and click the title so the autorefresh doesn’t mess with ya, close all your stupid email and facebook and twitter apps, take this red pill and (not) kool-aid, and enjoy the trip down the rabbit hole into the real world.

Just four short months ago, congresswoman Michele Bachmann was riding high on national attention after her campaign managed to squeak out a narrow victory against Ron Paul in the Ames Straw Poll this past August, but political campaigns have a way of imploding around an unelectable candidate the closer the primaries draw near. Now it seems Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign may have finally run out of gas after a major defection (or firing, depending who you ask) of not only top political aide Kent Sorenson, but Wes Enos as well.

Let’s just say there’s a lot of bad blood right now from people who realize her game is nearly over.

Bachmann’s troubles now seem to be rapidly mounting as the Iowa caucuses draw near. Fresh reports of financial and staffing trouble have been leaking at telling rate, with the AP reporting that there are calls from GOP insiders for her to abandon the race entirely:

Two top Iowa advisers left the campaign on successive days this week, with her state chairman, Kent Sorenson, quitting and then going so far as to endorse Paul within hours of campaigning with her. A day later, Wes Enos said he was leaving his job as Bachmann’s political director.

Furious, Bachmann spent much of Thursday accusing Sorenson of switching allegiances for money. He denied it. But the candidate found herself in a daylong spat rather than hammering home her closing message to voters.

To some, it was another sign of a campaign in free-fall.

“If you can’t get your campaign on one page, it’s really hard to think you’re going to get a country on one page. The timing is horrible,” said veteran Iowa Republican strategist David Roederer, who is unaffiliated in this year’s race but held top Iowa posts in John McCain’s 2008 campaign and George W. Bush’s 2000 bid.

It didn’t help that the departures came on top of calls by some Iowa pastors that either she or Santorum leave the race so evangelical voters can consolidate their support and block a victory by Romney or Paul. She quickly rejected the plea.

I am more than pleased to see her stay in the race a few more days if it means further fracturing of the ignoramus evangelical vote. But after she places fifth or so in Iowa next Tuesday you can bet she’s going to be quickly packing up the corn dogs and other Iowa fair foods and heading back to Minnesota to ruminate over why even her own staff can’t trust her to be president.

UPDATE: I honestly have to add that I love this crazy bitch, she has entertained me to no end (though sometimes in the scary way, because people seem to take her seriously, not to mention the whole Dominionism thing). She’s now quoting some New Testament scripture about flipping tables like Jesus during interviews… how awesome is that?

It’s great for America that Bachmann and her most ardent followers seem to have no clue about the internet whatsoever.

GoDaddy has a major SOPA/PIPA problem. Or rather, GoDaddy wants to now say they had a major SOPA/PIPA problem for less than forty-eight hours after the sucking sound of furious customers threatening a boycott on reddit then took over the internetz in what was the fastest brushfire of economic libertarian backlash the world may yet have witnessed.

Competitors lapped it up, luring domain holders away with promo codes with clever names such as SOPASUCKS and NODADDY.

The war on GoDaddy by competing registrars is now afoot. Domain registrations aren’t the hardest product offering to pull off, and with the internet comes the fierce competition of a free marketplace where #2 is trying to outsell as best they know how. Many domain holders are no doubt exploring their full set of options to keep doing their line of business regardless of SOPA/PIPA provisions. If push came to shove over US manhandling of domains, eventually the .com TLD could end up largely abandoned by independent web producers seeking better terms.

GoDaddy has now not so quickly, yet overwhelmingly reversed course on their support of the bill (which began much earlier this year), with public relations representatives now clearly in damage control mode on their support forums. Hoping their grand daddy of blunders will soon be over, the company stated “we have listened to our customers.” Word has it they still have not recanted support of PIPA, so the boycott is officially still on until they do.

GoDaddy, Inc. was last valued at $2.25 billion in July of 2011 and is still head by firebrand Bob Parsons, who is apparently in hiding from the internet shitstorm.

I am thrilled to be able to bring you news that the Democrats and Republicans are both trying oh so hard to explain closed door meetings with lobbyists in which insider tips on stocks are being bandied about. Now, you may not know, but lawmakers are actually allowed by their own written laws to actively trade in these stocks, while at the same time holding public policy power over the market’s head. It’s really a great racket.

What’s new now seems to be that assorted hedge fund insiders and others pay to access the insider information trough in Washington. With a rigged game, anyone in the know can make trades on either some upcoming deregulation windfall or perhaps early information on a policy mandate on safety helmet densities (for the children, of course), or a smorgasbord of new laws that effect any given industry each year. The incentive to attend these meetings or buy these reports is obvious even for a fool like me.

Here’s how they try to defend it:

Lawmakers defend the meetings. Republicans say they seek the views of hedge fund managers to help shape laws that spur investment.

Democrats say the conversations lead to better public policy because investors tell them about loopholes, inefficiencies or unseen consequences of existing laws.

They completely fail to address the underlying problem: a super-privileged class who can trade on very powerful information before the rest of the market.

The worst part is they’re absolutely telling the truth here… really sarcastically.

UPDATE: I have learned that the FBI is actively pursuing insider trading schemes, in a sting operation called “Perfect Hedge” (what a clever name, seriously). At least we know there will continue to be show trials of corrupt Wall Street banksters to give the impression that something is being done, even though it is rather clear the targets are small potatoes.

Flotsam From Japanese Tsunami Reaches West Coast:

Tons of debris from Japan will likely begin washing ashore in about a year, from California to southern Alaska, they said. Items that wash up may include portions of houses, boats, ships, furniture, portions of cars and just about anything else that floats, he said.

That could include parts of human bodies, Ebbesmeyer said. Athletic shoes act as floats.

[...] “All debris should be treated with a great reverence and respect,” Ebbesmeyer said.

If the debris has any kind of identifiable marking, such as numbers or Japanese writing, it may be traceable, Ebbesmeyer said. Families in Japan are waiting to hear of any items that may have been associated with their loved ones.

Seriously, a little more reverence for the dead than to call them and their belongings “flotsam” is definitely in order — especially from a story telling agency that should know their impact with editors who don’t actually read.

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.

Donald Trump and Newt Gingrich should start a private gentleman’s club — I humbly suggest The Gobble Gobble — where they trade stories about infidelity and difficult divorces over quaffs of very expensive looking brandy.

I could imagine the script one day as historians try to piece it together in some future nostalgia piece Boardwalk Empire style. They are in a private lounge surrounded by other fat cat industrialists chomping on cigars, beaming pride and trading jokes on their exploits, when one bellows out a punchline, “…all on the Tiffany’s account of course.”

They all guffaw loudly as the camera pans down to show them all receiving blowjobs from a ring of imported white slave prostitutes all dressed like Princess Leia in Star Wars (historians will fuck this part up — but it’s more likely The Gobble Gobble will have theme nights).

“Jolly good this economy is for us elite power brokers” Another yells out and they all take a hearty drink.

Drunk and gesticulating wildly, their drinks slosh freely from the glasses onto the gold-adorned decor and gaudily restored Victorian sofas. The camera zooms in to frame a single vein of liquid tearing down a gelatinous, quivering neck, shaking fearfully along it’s perilous journey before it finally seeps into the crisp white collar of a fine linen shirt.

Funnyman Adam Carolla, of Love Line and Man Show fame (and about a bajillion other things) wanted to vent about the problems with a generation of “self-entitled pricks who think the world owe them a living.” It’s a podcast snippet that’s quickly turning into a viral phenomenon.

The root cause, he states is “something that’s come up in this country that didn’t used to exist: which is envy.” Calling such ideas of reward without work “ass douchery,” Carolla rams angry words of disapproval up the tenderly waiting earholes of the latest generation of limp-wristed, green-eyed children who haven’t yet gotten their shit together.

We’ve created a bunch of fucking self-entitled monsters. And this has become the pursuit of my life where people are so far out of it in what they expect and what they think realistic is and what the set of rules that pertains to them versus the other guys- Because that’s what the bottom line is.

“I want my Most Valuable Player trophy.”

“Well, you’re the slowest, fattest guy on the team.”

“Why should he get one and I don’t?”

“Because he busts his ass and he runs a 4.4 40. That’s why he gets one.”

“Well, this is bullshit.”

And then everyone gets involved and everyone gives everyone a participation trophy and then everyone feels good about themselves but it’s not based on anything. You should feel good about yourself because of your accomplishments. Not because someone yelled at you to feel good about yourself and you got a fake fucking piece of plastic that was sprayed gold and had your name on a plaque at the bottom. And, when these people become adults and enter the work place.

It’s a great rant against entitlement mentality, from someone who’s earned his due to be heard (entertaining, it’s an actual job). I think it’s a little lop-sided in it’s attempt to be a blanket assessment of Occupy Wall Street (there are plenty of self-entitled jackholes filling boardrooms thanks to simply being born into the good ole boy network).

Still, it serves up the laughs as Carolla manages to eloquently diagnose a cluster of unproductive, cancerous douches on America’s asshole.

see more…

This letter to the editor at the Baltimore Sun is so seething with venom and, well… wrongness, that I have to share:

I can’t help but marvel at the irony of Ron Paul calling foul over getting the short end of the debate stick on CBS (“Republican debate is the media’s latest failure,” Nov. 15).

Dr. Paul is usually more consistent with his arguments. Clearly the free market has determined that his campaign is not worthy of the amount of time the other candidates get.

The Republican line is that he should just work harder. Why should CBS just give him a handout of more exposure? Is he advocating for some kind of affirmative action so that his minority share of the polls earns the same as those in the majority?

Hopefully he can learn to empathize with the majority of Americans who have only been getting “89 seconds of time in a 90 minute debate” for a long time now.

Sydney Nusinov, Rosedale

Well, I’m not entirely sure s/he’s bitter, but I certainly read it with an accent of stupid.

Where would I start to rebut this? Oh yes, the fact that there’s no irony here. None whatsoever.

Hello and Happy Thanksgiving, America!

What am I thankful for? You! I’m thankful for all the internet love and attention that our little corner of the web receives. I’m sure most of you aren’t aware, but our entire network (not just HoT) gets a quarter of a million unique visitors each month and is growing phenomenally. So yeah, I’m thankful to all the posters and commenters, along with our internet neighbors and friends, small and large alike. *sheds tear*

From myself and the rest of Hammer of Truth: gobble gobble!

Pass the cranberries, please.

Brent Budowsky at The Hill wrote today that Ron Paul may win the nomination in both New Hampshire and Iowa with multiple polls showing the Congressman surging in popularity after several other campaigns have imploded around embarrassing candidate gaffes. The article which warmly entices us with the headline of “surging,” “front-runner,” and “powerful” is sadly low on policy details but chock full of candidate name confetti (which boosts search engine traffic, no doubt) and of course political speculation (what we pundits like to do between poll announcements).

Budowsy scolds us at the beginning, to “give Ron Paul the attention he deserves in debates and throughout the political community.” Well get ready for more Ron Paul attention from the media’s political elite, sure, but not respect or much of anything that will resemble competent, investigative journalism. Oddly enough, Budowsky ends his piece with a three paragraph deep prediction — as many have with Ron Paul’s unwritten campaign future — by exploring the fantasy lands of a third party campaign.

At a minimum Ron Paul is now a force to be reckoned with. His support has surged in multiple polls. His fundraising will probably surge even more. He has the potential to be a kingmaker if he is the third Republican left at the convention with no candidate having a majority of delegates.

No doubt about it, a Ron Paul third-party candidacy would now be very formidable.

It may be that before this is done, one of the most important questions in American politics will be whether Paul runs as a third-party candidate, especially if the race is between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. Fasten your seatbelts.

I’ll go ahead and make a prediction. I predict in the coming weeks the media will circle the Ron Paul campaign to poke and prod with more intensive interviews. These interviews will contain veiled insults (or outright, depending on who’s delivering) about Paul’s winnability in a general election. That will then segue into the old issue of running under a third party or independent banner.

If you haven’t gathered, media coverage of political campaigns is psychological warfare at its finest: posing fictional scenarios about a candidate running as a third party, call him a “GOP outsider,” or “eccentric;” and soon enough the average news consumer will come to associate this man (incidentally running under the banner of restoring the republic to constitutional limitation) as some fringe element of political discourse. It’s also a brazen lie in the face of a reality where these ideas have always been mainstream.

I’m reminded of Dave Chappelle’s warning during an Inside the Actor’s Studio interview, “The worst thing to call somebody is ‘crazy’. It’s dismissive. ‘I don’t understand this person, so they’re crazy.’ That’s bullshit! People are not crazy. They are strong people… Maybe the environment is a little sick.” I’ll top that by saying that the worst thing is people with thesauruses calling you crazy.

Well, I told you there would be hand-wringing.