As current drive time radio host on KYSR in Los Angeles and former MTV VJ Kennedy explains it, early reactions to her political leanings were pretty consistent. “Your name is Kennedy, and you’re a Republican, and you’re on MTV? What?!”

At Reason Weekend 2012, Reason Foundation’s annual donor event, Kennedy sat down with Reason’s Nick Gillespie to discuss her transformation from Dan Quayle fetishist to hardcore libertarian, a Republican tattoo, and her recent fight with HBO’s Bill Maher over atheism.

About 28 minutes. Filmed by Joshua Swain and Anthony Fisher. Edited by Meredith Bragg.

Face it: Google runs your life. The search giant turned web ecosystem owns your email, calendar, and even your voicemails. Your most important data lives on Google’s servers. What you may not realize is that, despite the quality of Google’s products, someone else is doing it better—and placing all your eggs in Google’s basket isn’t necessarily the best thing. Here’s a look at alternative services you can use in place of Google’s webapps.

Photo remixed from originals by Jan Kranendonk (Shutterstock) and Alfonso de Tomas (Shutterstock).

You might want to move away from Google entirely, whether you’re tired of things like the Google Plus-ification of your search results or the fact that Google’s mining ridiculous amounts of data and selling you to advertisers, or maybe you’re just plain tired of Google creating services it doesn’t actually improve over time. You may scoff at the idea of using Bing or other less popular competitors, but they’re quite good—sometimes even better—than Google. We’ve just become too entrenched to notice.

If you want to take a serious look at the alternatives, we did some digging and a lot of experimentation to find the best alternatives to Google’s most popular services (and we alsoasked you guys to share your favorites). Most of these services are still from big companies, like Microsoft or Yahoo!, but we’ve tried to include a few services off the beaten path as well. The fact of the matter is just that the highest quality services around are going to be from the companies with the most resources. Below, we’ve listed the best Google alternatives in each category, as well as a few runners-up we think are worth checking out.

CONTINUED at Lifehacker.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

This last week has been crazy, especially if you are a Ron Paul supporter and believe that he is the greatest choice we have to fill the chair in the Oval Office. Some people claim that he is unelectable, such as the uber-douche billionaire Donald Trump. Others claim that he is crazy. As far as I am concerned, none of these concerns are valid, well unless you consider the Founding Fathers crazy or you think a guy who has been reelected to Congress continually since 1976 (minus a 12 year break) is unelectable. Ron Paul has been bucking the trends of a growing socialist state since the Gerald Ford era! So yeah, let’s sweep the guy under the rug and ignore him; if that doesn’t work we’ll call him names.

The fact of the matter is that Ron Paul scares the everliving shit out of people on the left and on the right. He says things that resonate with people and unfortunately for the two big parties, what resonates with people seemingly isn’t what either party represents at their core, at least anymore. Ron Paul is the antithesis to the modern American political system. He represents a school of thought that contradicts all the bullshit rhetoric and talking points of conservative and liberal pundits. He understands economics, freedom and knows what we have to do, and most importantly sacrifice, to survive and eventually thrive once again. Where all these other conservative candidates on the stage competing to be the one to knock off Barack Obama in 2012 claim to be fiscally responsible constitutional conservatives, Ron Paul truly is the only one that fits that bill. Gary Johnson does too but he hasn’t been invited to the debates lately. Johnson is just another guy that they are trying to ignore and bury. The cold hard reality is that these other candidates are all for the Constitution when it suits their agenda. When it doesn’t they use their platform to justify why they need to violate our constitutional rights. It is a classic example of Orwellian doublespeak and doublethink at its finest. Fuck the establishment cocks.

CONTINUED at Original Post.

*Taken from National Journal.

The Obama administration is in a race against the clock to close by month’s end more than a dozen renewable-energy loan guarantees totaling $9 billion. Of that, just over $3 billion would come from the federal government’s coffers.

It now has to do that amid an escalating political battle over a federally backed solar company spiraling into bankruptcy and facing an FBI probe. President Obama once praised the company, California-based Solyndra, as “the true engine of economic growth.”

At a House hearing Wednesday, there was bipartisan concern about risking more taxpayers’ dollars on renewable energy projects that ultimately fail. While Republicans’ rhetoric was more heated, Democrats agree it is a critical issue.

CONTINUED..

*Written by Rob Rimes.

This last week has been crazy, especially if you are a Ron Paul supporter and believe that he is the greatest choice we have to fill the chair in the Oval Office. Some people claim that he is unelectable, such as the uber-douche billionaire Donald Trump. Others claim that he is crazy. As far as I am concerned, none of these concerns are valid, well unless you consider the Founding Fathers crazy or you think a guy who has been reelected to Congress continually since 1976 (minus a 12 year break) is unelectable. Ron Paul has been bucking the trends of a growing socialist state since the Gerald Ford era! So yeah, let’s sweep the guy under the rug and ignore him; if that doesn’t work we’ll call him names.

The fact of the matter is that Ron Paul scares the everliving shit out of people on the left and on the right. He says things that resonate with people and unfortunately for the two big parties, what resonates with people seemingly isn’t what either party represents at their core, at least anymore. Ron Paul is the antithesis to the modern American political system. He represents a school of thought that contradicts all the bullshit rhetoric and talking points of conservative and liberal pundits. He understands economics, freedom and knows what we have to do, and most importantly sacrifice, to survive and eventually thrive once again. Where all these other conservative candidates on the stage competing to be the one to knock off Barack Obama in 2012 claim to be fiscally responsible constitutional conservatives, Ron Paul truly is the only one that fits that bill. Gary Johnson does too but he hasn’t been invited to the debates lately. Johnson is just another guy that they are trying to ignore and bury. The cold hard reality is that these other candidates are all for the Constitution when it suits their agenda. When it doesn’t they use their platform to justify why they need to violate our constitutional rights. It is a classic example of Orwellian doublespeak and doublethink at its finest. Fuck the establishment cocks.

The problem is, that it doesn’t matter how well Ron Paul sizes up against the competition, it is completely and blatantly fucking ignored. Again and again the media has turned a blind eye to the man’s success and triumphs, especially in what has shaped up to become the biggest presidential election of our lifetime. This past week has been full of several incidents where Paul has been treated unfairly by the mainstream media. In fact, it was the people over at Wake Up 1776 that posted a story immediately after the last debate that no other media outlet except my site TheSwash.com and a handful of others touched. Essentially, Ron Paul was treated unjustly by Fox News and this wasn’t the first time.

The incident I am referring to surrounds their online poll which immediately followed the Iowa debate last thursday night. Before going off the air, debate moderator and host Bret Baier told the audience to make sure that they log onto FoxNews.com and vote for who they thought won the third GOP debate of the 2012 presidential election cycle.

Immediately after the debate, we were subjected to a ‘Hannity’ special with interviews with every candidate at the debate, except Ron Paul. In fact, he was barely mentioned on the show, as Sean Hannity and his chief number fixer and propagandist Frank Luntz used the time to pimp out the establishment candidates like Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann and others. About the only time Ron Paul was mentioned was when they talked about Rick Santorum taking it to him and challenging his “crazy” ideas. As hard as it was to stomach, I sat through the shit show just so I could see the FoxNews.com poll results. Oddly, the show went off the air with no mention of the poll.

I went online to find the poll, it wasn’t there. So I then signed on to my Facebook account to bitch about it and I noticed a link from Wake Up 1776. According to their story, there was a poll and Ron Paul was significantly in the lead! However, the poll was pulled down. It’s funny because earlier in that day they had a pre-game poll on their site that was asking who was going to win the debate. Ron Paul had a significant lead in that poll too but there was no mention of it on Fox News leading up to the debate. In essence, Fox News was censoring Ron Paul’s support. They denied the average American the opportunity to let their voice be heard because their agenda is not in line with what the average American wants.

Reposting this story brought The Swash a lot of traffic on Friday and truth be told, it was by far the busiest day in the history of my website. In fact, I had a 250 percent increase over my previous busiest day. People were outraged and looking for answers and I was only one of a few sites that apparently had the balls to pass on the truth. This isn’t an attempt to toot my own horn or promote my site; if anything, it is a smackdown against all these media giants who didn’t pick up on it. Truth is, I am sure they caught wind of it, they just didn’t see the point in reporting the news. Why tell the truth when manufacturing the results you want is better for business?

I don’t know if I had anything to do with this or if it was the work of Wake Up 1776 or someone else, but sometime during the next day, the poll magically reappeared on the Fox News website. Granted it was somewhat buried but it was there. At this point, over 12 hours later, Ron Paul still had a significant lead in their poll over everyone else. In fact, Ron Paul was around 48 percent when I looked at it. Keep in mind that there were seven other candidates on that poll! Perusing the Internet, I noticed that he had a significant lead on the Yahoo! poll as well as many others. On Facebook he lead every single poll I came across, except for the one put out by Michele Bachmann’s people.

So later on that day, after a night of drinking and working on another article, I watched the replay of ‘The Five’ on Fox News. They spent nearly the entire show talking about the debate with little to no mention of Ron Paul, even after having their mysteriously disappearing poll exposed. Towards the end of the debate talk, co-host Juan Williams called for the producers to pull up the graphic with the Fox News debate poll results. Oddly, Juan stares at the camera for a second and is told that they don’t have that graphic. Subject changed, poll ignored and they are off talking about something else. Isn’t Fox News the channel that calls themselves “fair and balanced”? Apparently those words have a different meaning at the Fox offices. Apparently they translate to “biased as fuck”.

Watching ‘The Five’ reminded me of an episode of ‘Follow the Money’ I watched on Fox Business after the previous debate months prior. Host Eric Bolling and guest Andrea Tantaros, both co-hosts on ‘The Five’ were spending literally an hour with another panel talking down Ron Paul and his crazy ideas. I specifically remember Tantaros saying that Ron Paul is starting to win people over because he’s not as “crazy” as he was in 2008. Um.. no honey, Dr. Paul is saying the exact same thing he said in 2008. In fact, he is saying the exact same thing he said when he ran for president in 1988. He is the most consistent and unchanging candidate this country has seen in decades. His ideas just seem less “crazy” because of the advent of the Tea Party and the pro-liberty constitutional movement. There are now more people willing to ingest the ideas that Ron Paul has been presenting for years. Ron Paul resonates with people because more and more are waking up and accepting these hard truths. The message is the same and the man isn’t less crazy or even crazy at all. At least Judge Andrew Napolitano’s ‘Freedom Watch’ and John Stossel’s ‘Stossel’ also share and present the same views as Ron Paul. Hopefully they don’t get chin checked by Fox News.

All of this Fox News bullshit reminds me of back in February when they covered the winner of the CPAC straw poll. That winner was Ron Paul for the second year in a row. However, when Fox News’ Bill Hemmer cued up the video of the announcement, there was a game of switcheroo in play. Fox showed us the video from the previous year when Ron Paul was announced and Romney supporters in the crowd booed. This year, when Ron Paul won for the second time, there were cheers and applause. Fox News however “mistakenly” used the wrong footage. Once exposed in the national media, they had to apologize to Ron Paul and then showed the actual footage from the correct CPAC event. I posted a breakdown of this on TheSwash.com here.

Not only did Ron Paul own the competition at CPAC this past year but he also won the straw poll at this year’s Republican Leadership Conference. Fox News did announce him but it was brushed off and treated as just some senseless and meaningless straw poll. Yes, Fox News who bombards us with poll results all goddamned day on every show had to point out how pointless the numbers are when it doesn’t represent their ideal outcome. Cool, well then I’m pointing out that Frank Luntz focus groups are meaningless and pointless too.

So back to this Iowa debate last week, the one thing everyone was waiting for was the results of the Iowa straw poll winner. Well, good thing for Fox News, the winner was their handpicked Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann. However, Ron Paul was in second. He wasn’t just in second however, he was almost the winner. In fact, the straw poll results were so close that if you take the Fox News massive staff out of the mix, as I am sure they voted in this poll over the weekend, Ron Paul may have one. Just kidding, I’m sure Fox News allows their employees to vote however they want. Needless to say, Michele Bachmann won with 4,823 votes against Ron Paul’s 4,671 votes. It was THAT close!

Now Fox News and all the other mainstream media outlets are claiming that Bachmann has “cemented” her top-tier candidate status with no real mention of Paul being right up her ass. I mean, really? Bachmann has cemented her status with 15 months still left before the actual election and with Ron Paul that closely behind? Tim Pawlenty, who was in third, only had 2,293 votes! So then why did Politico just run a story with the headline “Michele Bachman wins Ames straw poll, Tim Pawlenty gets third”? What about 2nd place assfucks? Looks like even the liberal media is trying to ignore Ron Paul. The funny thing is that even with all the props, Tim Pawlenty quit almost immediately after the poll.

Another form of extreme bias that I came across was radio host Mark Levin’s idiotic and anger-laced rant about how “crazy” Ron Paul is. Levin, as always, went on a non-alcoholic drunken rampage without any real explanation as to why he was rubbed the wrong way by Dr. Paul. He just ranted and ranted and ranted like a spoiled brat who didn’t like that his nanny put mayonnaise on his turkey club instead of Miracle Whip. I actually thought of calling in and discussing it with Mr. Levin but as we all know, if he doesn’t like what you have to say he just slams the phone down and insults you for a window of 45 to 90 seconds. Why debate with a guy who is irate and hides behind a switchboard with shaky fingers. Someone needs to give the dude a couple of Xanax and a muffin.

So with mostly everyone in the media working against him, how can Ron Paul persevere and make an impact? Well, he has been doing just fine thus far. The more the media tries to ignore him and the more obstacles they put in front of him, the stronger his support gets. I don’t know if Ron Paul will win the primary but I’m pretty damn sure that he has more of a chance this year than anytime before, despite the mainstream media’s agenda against him.

As voters and American citizens it is up to us to voice our discontent over the unfair treatment of Ron Paul in the media, as well as any other candidate who doesn’t get a fair shake. Ron Paul is my guy but I get equally as mad when other candidates are treated with the same sort of bias, like Gary Johnson. Put the candidates out there, let the people decide and report the fucking truth!

Now I know that this is too much to ask for but this is also why the mainstream media is losing its hold on America. With the Internet and the technology that is available to the world now, ignoring or misrepresenting the truth is quickly backfiring on these archaic media monsters who manufacture dissent and skew reality. Between smartphones, YouTube and alternative media outlets, the truth is instantly and readily available to anyone who wants to siphon through the bullshit and find the truth. Pulling the wool over our eyes isn’t working anymore and all it is going to do is bite you in the fucking ass hard.

*Taken from Infowars. Written by Kurt Nimmo.

Techdirt reports that Senate bill 978 – a bill to amend the criminal penalty provision for criminal infringement of a copyright, and for other purposes – may be used to prosecute people for embedding YouTube videos.

According to Mark Masnick, if a website embeds a YouTube video that is determined to have infringed on copyright and more than 10 people view it on that website, the owner or others associated with the website could face up to five years in prison.

Read Masnick’s article here. He explains how the new law would expand copyright violations from reproducing and distributing to performing – including streaming video over the internet.

As readers of Infowars.com know, many videos are removed from YouTube after copyright owners complain about infringement. This happens with thousands of news clips every year. Most people are familiar with the now common black box replacing a video that says the video has been removed for copyright reasons.

If enacted, this law will go one step further and turn people who embed a copyrighted video into criminals. It will also set the stage to criminalize linking to copyrighted information — like corporate media news sources — and shut down the alternative media.

It will also make people think twice about putting up all kinds of videos, from news reports to clips from documentaries and other educational material.

It does not take a vivid imagination to realize the political implications of this legislation.

Here is the full text of the bill.

*Taken from the Daily Caller.

The House is expected to consider a bill soon that would offer $5 billion in tax credits to the natural gas industry, a proposal that is causing a split among conservative members and groups.

The bill, called the The New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions, or NAT GAS Act, would provide a generous tax credit to transportation companies that buy a vehicle that runs on natural gas. The measure has 180 bipartisan co-sponsors, including many of the chamber’s most conservative Republican members. But some are crying foul over the special treatment that the government would be providing to the natural gas industry, arguing that it is not Washington’s role to “choose winners and losers” by offering tax credits to promote one energy industry over another. The bill’s proponents, however, say promoting natural gas — a plentiful resource in the United States — will help wean the country off foreign oil, provide resources to alternative energy sources and increase the nation’s energy security.

A coalition of nearly two dozen free-market and conservative groups sent a letter to members of Congress in March urging them to avoid new subsidies and tax credits, and they plan to blast anyone — especially Republicans — who do.

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