*Written by Rob Rimes.

I barely have time to write this essay or whatever you want to officially call it, just as I haven’t had much time to write anything lately. Right now I am trying to finish up a few projects for work while packing and prepping for my long weekend trip to Gainesville. I’m going up there to visit my cousin and his college aged friends – some in school, some not. The booze will be aplenty and the party atmosphere should be monolithic, as that wild college town never fails to disappoint in the realm of pure debauchery and substance-enchanced frenzies. Between the usually free-spirited and good-hearted college kids encompassing downtown and the campus areas to the good ol’ boys on the outskirts of the concentrated action, trouble is something hard for one to avoid when the ante is upped and the whiskey is flowing. The only thing that can stop such fun-filled insanity is one of those damned Sunday nights when you are ill-prepared and find yourself out of alcohol in a county that decides to go dry for twenty-four hours during the Deep South’s weekly church day. Last trip, I found myself and a few of my cousin’s friends driving frantically through the dark North Central Florida wilderness in an effort to cross the county line and find anywhere that might have any sort of alcohol available for purchase. It was also a race against the clock as it was about closing time for most liquor stores in the state. Luckily, the mission was accomplished and we left with some fanciful artistic vanity beers, some PBR and a couple bottles of various 80 proof (or higher) swill.

This is probably what awaits me over the course of the next few days and I do need to get my shit together for the small vacation. However, I couldn’t resist sitting down at my temperamental Apple computer to type up my thoughts on the events of today. Hell, it isn’t even noon yet but the news is full of stories about the Paul Family. It’s a good day to be a Ron and Rand Paul supporter, as things are seemingly looking up in a few different ways.

To start, the Paul Revolution v2.0 is underway! Sure, I am really looking way ahead here but the younger Dr. Paul is doing all the right things and going against the grain so successfully that the media cannot ignore him. He is sticking out like a sore thumb against a backdrop of middle fingers. He isn’t playing the party politics game and isn’t succumbing to the Beltway bullshit while the vast majority of all the other Tea Party darlings have auctioned off their souls. In fact, Rand Paul probably pisses the Tea Party people off as they are really just grassroots establishment stooges at this point in the game. He is the antithesis to their heroes Marco Rubio, Michele Bachmann, Col. Allen West, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and now Mitt Romney. Rand Paul recognizes the tyranny that is running rampant due to the PATRIOT Act and NDAA. He knows that the Department of Homeland Security is an over-inflated branch of the government that assaults our constitutional rights. He doesn’t try to convince himself that he must surrender his principles to fear and embrace the ever-expanding police state. As a senator and a direct victim of the TSA’s special brand of tyranny, he knows all too well how far their big brother fingers reach into the heart of liberty.

Rand Paul has officially made it his mission to end the TSA and to free the heart of liberty from their death grip. Like most Americans, Rand is tired of the harassment and horrible treatment of American citizens at the hands of these tyrannical bottom-feeders. Ultimately, he is sick and tired of the horrendous violations against our constitutional rights. To combat the tyranny, he has come forward with new legislation simply called the ‘END the TSA Bill’. You can actually sign a petition in support of the bill at ChooseLiberty.org.

In a nutshell, this law would forcibly privatize the TSA. What that means is that the government would not be able to put their hands on airport security. By privatizing the TSA, it doesn’t end airport security, it opens up competition from all over to come in and compete for the job. In order for the TSA to survive, it would have to adapt to the will of the people and the business owners (i.e. the airports and airlines) or else it would be swallowed up by a competitor that would. This brings the free market into airport security and therefore allows a company that is willing to find the balance between actually effective security practices and respecting the rights of those who pass through their gates. It is a win/win scenario for the citizens, the airports, the airlines and the company that is able to provide the absolute best service. If this scares you than don’t worry, I’m sure your other war-mongering fear turtle Tea Party darlings will strike it down. Ultimately, that is the real problem here and until we get other men and women in Congress who have the sense of Dr. Paul Sr. and Dr. Paul Jr., championing freedom back into our lives will be futile. However, it’s not all bad as the Paul Family message is growing larger everyday.

The second thing worth mentioning is the fact that even though it is pretty clear that Mitt Romney is going to go head-to-head with Obama in November, Ron Paul is still in this thing – making the GOP side of things very interesting. It is a two-man race between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney as every other candidate in this thing has dropped out to sign book deals and television contracts. The two-man race between Paul and Romney was made official today, as even Fox News couldn’t continue their blackout. Nope, Fox News announced that Ron Paul has officially qualified to be able to be the Republican nominee for president, if they decide to choose him over Romney (they won’t). This pivotal point in the race will take place at the Republican National Convention coming up in a few months in Tampa, FL.

Ron Paul has stayed in through thick and thin and has now met all the requirements for his name to be put up there alongside frontrunner Mitt Romney. I guess his delegate-hunting tactic has worked and paid off. This is great news, not because he has a chance of winning at this point – I firmly believe he doesn’t, but because he will be at the convention – in front of the world and will have the opportunity to spread his message further into the minds of all the Americans preparing for the big race between two big government progressive hyenas laughing at those who believe that there is some sort of difference between the two of them: there isn’t.

This could be Ron Paul’s Reagan moment. Like Ronald Reagan’s speech at the 1964 Republican National Convention, where Barry Goldwater won the nomination, Paul’s speech could unleash a tsunami wave of pro-liberty thinking. Sure, it is too little too late for the elder Dr. Paul, as he is walking away from politics after this election, but his son could be set up to take the reigns from his father and push this message forward with youthful vigor and vigilance for decades to come! One can only hope that generations of Pauls continue to follow the path of Ron and Rand and keep giving us a legacy of liberty that isn’t willing to compromise with the beast to save face and further their careers by sacrificing their principles. This brings me to my next point.

Rand Paul has a serious ball that he can pick up and run with. His father has done a fantastic job of laying the groundwork for the next generation to use to their advantage. Maybe this has been the Paul family agenda all along; who knows? The point is, the foundation has been built and it is pretty fucking strong. Guys like Rand Paul, Justin Amash and Gary Johnson could use this to their advantage and really our advantage as well. I don’t think that this is the year for Gary Johnson but the future could be very bright for him as well as the younger Paul and Congressman Amash. In 2016 or 2020, we could have a real pro-constitutional candidate in the mix who has enough steam and power to bulldoze through the establishment competition. If the momentum of the Paul message continues, the people just may be ready to commit and see this thing through. The numbers could very well be to the advantage of truth and for the first time in a very long time, America could move in the right direction. That is, of course, if the current crop of politicians don’t completely burn DC to the ground.

I know that I have come across as overly pessimistic at times in my writings, especially as of late, but it is hard to not give up hope when the hole you are in is so deep that you can’t even see the surface above you anymore. Maybe everything will crash and burn and at this rate, it is the most likely outcome but even if this does happen, we still need the type of leaders that can get us out of all this. Eventually the damage may be so bad that the only thing we can do is rebuild from the ground up. We will all pay for the crimes committed from those we elected and truthfully, we deserve to pay the price of our own ignorance and blindness. Our complete lack of vigilance and our blind faith in political parties has been our downfall. You can continue to point the finger at Washington DC, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street or whoever else but the truth is, American citizens are the ones who are at fault. The longer we assume that government will take responsibility for our lives and our well-being, the longer we will have to live with our heads in the clouds as shivering weaklings unworthy of walking on the same soil as our Founding Fathers. Until we overcome our own denial we won’t overcome our own self-perpetuating tragedy. The bull is staring coldly into our eyes, right in front of our goddamned faces but we aren’t grabbing the fucking horns! Why?!

This isn’t a dose of pessimism, it’s a dose of realism. With that said, to be real, I feel the need to point out that, in this case, the proverbial “beacon of light that guides freedom-loving people everywhere” could just be Senator Rand Paul. An article I came across on Business Insider’s website this morning talks about Rand’s potential 2016 or 2020 presidential run and how he is already working towards building a solid relationship with many of the key people that can help him reach levels greater than his father. Hell, the Evangelical sect of the voting public is taking to the younger Paul even though historically, they have not been too supportive of his father. Christian TV producer Justin Machacek said it best when comparing Rand to his father:

From my perspective, Rand is certainly more popular. I think he’s from a younger generation and I think he speaks a more modern language. He’s easier to understand, so I think his message is much clearer. Not that it’s a different message from a policy standpoint, but I think his communication style resonates much better.

Things are looking up for the Paul legacy, despite whatever the horrible results of the 2012 election will be, and if the right people are won over before the next election cycle and the message of constitutionalism continues to expand, the future could be bright. Of course, playing devil’s advocate, this is assuming that the Republican Party can actually change or that a third party could actually rise to challenge the two party monopoly. As hopeless as it seems, it’s very much possible if we want it badly enough.

Now grab the fucking horns.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Super Tuesday came and it went and we really aren’t any better off because of it. Going into the big day, the delegate count was as follows: 207 for Romney, 86 for Santorum, 46 for Paul and 39 for Gingrich. After Super Tuesday, the delegate count swelled to 429 for Romney, 169 for Santorum, 118 for Gingrich and a dismal 67 for Ron Paul. Out of the ten states, Romney walked away with six wins, Santorum with three and Gingrich with a win in his home state of Georgia. Ron Paul didn’t win a single state and is the only candidate left in this race that hasn’t gotten a first place victory, at least officially – considering he was screwed out of Maine. At this stage of the race, Dr. Paul is 0 for 23 in winning over states. I don’t think I am being pessimistic or disloyal here when I point out the fact that Paul’s efforts to win this primary have been seemingly all for naught. Then again, his message has reached more people than it ever has before – in that, there is a very solid victory.

Mathematically, Ron Paul is still technically in this thing but he’d have to string together about two dozen miracles over the next month or so to eclipse Mitt Romney in the delegate department. Hell even that piss midget Rick Santorum is way ahead of Dr. Paul now. Gingrich who fell to fourth place behind Paul last week, is now back up in third and after his Georgia win, is now ahead of Paul pretty significantly. Now the Paul campaign keeps telling us that the delegates that the media is reporting on don’t matter and that it really comes down to the amount of “secured” delegates. While they continue to claim that they are incredibly successful in the secured delegates department, I don’t know if their numbers are skewed or if it’s just a pile of giant bullshit. I don’t want to call out the Paul camp for misleading their supporters but all these mystical revelations and inspiring speeches can’t discount reality and reality is that the Paul campaign is suffering horribly.

I’m not going to sit here and type away telling the Paul camp to walk away. Hell, I want to see this thing through to the end, no matter what the outcome is. However, ignoring the fact that this is certainly not working out in Dr. Paul’s favor really needs to be addressed. It needs to be touched on because the strategy, as good as it is at throwing rallies and raising money, somehow cannot turn that passionate support into votes. Where it really counts, this amazingly run campaign is falling flat. I don’t know if there is a way to turn this thing around. The most logical way of doing so would be to continue to educate the fickle and fair-weather Romneycons, Gingrichers and Santorumites. However, these people seem to greatly outnumber the Paul supporters and their brains are nothing more than a thick pile of coosh suffering from decades of indoctrinated neocon rhetoric from soulless bastards pontificating from boutique soap boxes wrapped in soft Corinthian leather stitched with golden thread paid for by Goldman Sachs campaign contributions.

The truth is, that it is the young generation that is getting Dr. Paul’s message and it will ultimately be up to them to turn things around. The true positive of all this is that the old guard is decaying, albeit slowly. It may take years for them to all keel over and die but their message and their rhetoric doesn’t seem to be penetrating the minds of most of the conservative and libertarian people under the age of thirty. The unrelenting truth however, is that even though this message is spreading like wildfire, by the time that this young generation grows, has children and goes on to educate them and teach them these principles, it might be too late. However, a little anarchy and total collapse may be what’s necessary at this point. Maybe the country needs to fall like Rome so we can wash our hands with it and build up something more solid and sustainable. Maybe that’s what needs to happen for these neocons and progressives to finally accept the fact that they’re sick and that their disease has killed a once great nation. Then again, we all know that they’ll just continue to point the finger, divide the masses and pimp out their consistently disastrous formula that they refuse to see as economically genocidal. We have a choice however, we don’t have to listen to them.

I know, this article really isn’t about Super Tuesday, it is about trying to find a shred of hope and promise after living through another dark day in American history. We have to accept the fact that Ron Paul is not going to win this election and he also isn’t going to return to his seat in Congress. We only have a few months left with this man in office fighting for us. So what’s going to happen when he takes a step back and hands the reigns of liberty over? Will Rand Paul or Justin Amash take them and lead us towards the promised land that those of us that understand the mechanics of this twisted game are trying to find? Or does this movement and this mindset die with this election? I am trying to stay motivated and positive and continue the fight for all that’s right from a journalistic standpoint but it is incredibly hard. I know you all feel my pain and my dissatisfaction but we need to turn these negative emotions into fuel. Yes we are all tired, we are all at our wits end and every time Ol’ Mittens or that bag of dicks Mr. Santorum give us another victory speech we want to smash our television sets with our passionate and loud voices. This is why we can’t give up, this is why we have to push forward through thick and thin, this is why our voices MUST BE LOUDER!

We don’t need to look for someone to lead us. We are the leaders! We are the revolution and the resurgence that this country needs. No, I don’t have all the answers and I can’t tell you what must be done next but if we are vigilant, never let up and march forward, the ideas and the action will come. Mankind is smart enough to fix their own problems and to take responsibility for itself, contrary to governmental rhetoric, as they would rather see us dependent on them – remaining zombified and subservient to no end. That’s all bullshit. We are human beings, which is the greatest force this universe has ever created! We have what it takes to lead ourselves again and to defeat this two-headed mastodon. We’ve done it before and we WILL do it again! There really isn’t any other option, is there? We have to want it, we can’t settle for less, we have to see the evil bastards for what they are and not take their lies and deceit at face value. Where is the rage in America? Where is that pure and refined anger that we used to aim at those who tried to oppress us on every level? When did we become such big pussies, afraid of our own goddamned shadows? We’ve become a nation of obedient toddlers that can’t change their own diapers. The cure to this statist addiction is to quit it. There is no rehab, we must quit cold turkey or there isn’t a chance for us. We have to face the fact that there’s no better time to make this shift than now!

Often times, positivity is created by staring into the face of negativity and committing oneself towards making a change.

So the question I asked was, “Who is going to take the reigns from Dr. Paul?” Well, we are.. ALL of us!

Regardless of whether he wins the Republican primary, makes an independent run, or bows out of the 2012 presidential race altogether, this aspect of Ron Paul’s future is indisputable: Come January 2013, he will no longer be a member of the House of Representatives.

Last July, the 12-term Republican representative from Texas, deep in his third bid to gain the Oval Office, announced that he was not standing for re-election.

Paul will leave behind a big pair of shoes to fill when it comes to being an indefatigable champion of reducing the size, scope, and spending of the federal government. No politician over the past several decades has been more outspoken and consistent in his views—and votes—for smaller government.

Even a cursory look at the budget plans being hawked by the three other Republican presidential contenders and by Barack Obama shows just how rare Paul’s politics really are.

Who can take Paul’s place in the House of Representatives? The 2010 midterms flooded the lower chamber with 94 new members, many of them supported by Tea Party factions. The ideal candidate to take up Paul’s libertarian message would oppose the government picking market winners and bailing out market losers; militarization at home and abroad; and economic and social engineering of all stripes.

CONTINUED at Reason. Written by Mike Riggs.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Today is a great day for liberty. As I write this it is January 18^th, 2012 and the Internet is ablaze with anger towards SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act). Not only was The Swash down in protest of these dastardly bills but Internet giants Wikipedia and Reddit were down as well. Shit, even Google participated in this blackout with a unique graphic on their page that lead to information about these two horrible laws and what you can do to fight them.

I was more than ecstatic today when I signed into my Facebook account and was overwhelmed by all the people who blacked out their own photos and had status updates and links protesting SOPA and PIPA plastered all over the home page. The impact of this protest is literally reaching further than any other online protest I’ve ever witnessed or been a part of. In fact, in just a few short hours, the tide has turned and the pimps pushing this law are now starting to run like the two-faced pandering bastards they are. I guess when you shine a little light the cockroaches scatter.

One of my favorite punching bags, Marco Rubio – the Republican senator form my home state of Florida, was a co-sponsor on one of these evil bills but he has now come out against it. This is because Rubio is a dickbag, a panderer and a wolf in Tea Party clothing. This “noble” act doesn’t excuse the fact that he co-sponsored PIPA and was also a champion for the insanely tyrannical NDAA bill, which just passed recently. Don’t get excited and let Rubio fool you, when this dies down, he’ll help reintroduce the bill with a few modifications and continue on his fascist path.

Conservative darling Paul Ryan just wrote this status update on his Facebook:

The Internet is one of the most magnificent expressions of freedom and free enterprise in history. It should stay that way. While H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act, attempts to address a legitimate problem, I believe it creates the precedent and possibility for undue regulation, censorship and legal abuse. I do not support H.R. 3261 in its current form and will oppose the legislation should it come before the full House.

While that sounds all fine and dandy, Mr. Ryan doesn’t fully oppose the idea of the bill and chances are, if it was tweaked and the opposition towards it died down, he may just very well vote for it.

Senators Jim DeMint, Robert Menendez and others have come out against this tyranny. Another co-sponsor, Arizona congressman Ben Quayle has withdrawn his support. Freedom fighter and libertarian leaning Michigan congressman Justin Amash continues to speak out against this, as does Kentucky senator Rand Paul and his father, Texas congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul.

The opposition to these bills has grown so quickly in the last several hours that six Republican senators wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The letter states:

We have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights.

For those of you who have been in the dark, I’ll break down what these bills are. In a nutshell, what they are supposed to do is to protect copyrighted material and eliminate piracy. What they actually do is a different story.

Basically, these bills give the entertainment industry the power to censor the Internet and breed a whole new type of crony capitalism while forcing us into a digital police state. You see, private corporations want to be able to choose what can and cannot be censored on the Internet. These corporations are trying to protect their property, which is understandable, and since the Internet is a bastion for downloading music and movies, they want to be able to tighten their grip and control how the whole system works. Considering that many of the sources for this copyrighted material exists outside of United States jurisdiction, these laws are being put in place to give the government and their corporate buddies an easier way at stopping copyright infringement. Again, that is understandable but the methods about doing this are just awful.

The first thing that this does is it gives the power to United States based ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to have special access at blocking infringing domain names. This also gives companies the power to sue websites, bloggers or whoever until they remove links or information directing Internet users to anything that they deem as infringed upon property.

Secondly, the government and their corporate pals would also be given the power to cut off funds to any websites that they believe are infringing on copyrights. Essentially, they can forcibly cancel infringing websites accounts with financial services and advertisers.

Now even though this all may seem somewhat proactive, one has to look at what actually constitutes copyright infringement. The description that they provide is so broad that if you technically upload a video to YouTube and there happens to be a piece of a song playing in the background, even if it’s just on the radio while you’re talking to the camera unaware of it, you have just infringed on copyrighted material and could face some serious penalties. This is just a small example but think of all the things you come across on the Internet on a daily basis that could technically be considered as copyright infringement. Violations are pretty much fucking everywhere! Hell, the whole Internet is a violation!

Besides all that, if there is a will there is a way. These laws won’t stop Internet users from finding music and movies to download illegally. In fact, even if a URL is blocked, an Internet user can still access the site via its IP address. Hell, this might start a revolution in web browsing and millions of digital pirates will be navigating the Net with IPs as opposed to typical URLs.

Another thing to mention is that these laws are incredibly bad for business. Essentially, they will cripple and stifle startups as corporations will have the power to sue any company that they feel isn’t properly protecting their interests. In a classic case of crony capitalism or corporatism, this allows the giants to stay on top, where they can look down and crush any growing company that may become a viable competitor for their business. Basically, these bills will create and perpetuate monopolies. When large corporations have the power to bankrupt new search engines and social networking sites, there really isn’t room for growth or innovation. We might as well just go back to the days of dark dingy uninspiring chat rooms.

The scariest thing that these laws will do is tamper with the Internet as a whole from the backend. By messing around with the Internet’s vast registry of domain names we could very well end up with a World Wide Web that is less stable and less secure. At the end of the day, these laws won’t stop piracy, as they claim and they will just create an environment for a new type of corporatism while leaving the Internet less secure and less reliable than it has ever been.

The Internet has already become a playground for government and corporate meddling. Hell, they already have laws in place to protect copyright infringement yet they want to push the envelope as far as they can. As of right now, the government and corporations already have the power to block any site just off of one infringing link. Social media giants like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube and others are now forced to censor their users because if they don’t, they become liable for the material their users upload and could be forced to shut down. On top of that, an ordinary Internet user could already be sentenced to prison for up to five years just for posting any copyrighted material – this includes someone like Tay Zonday who became an Internet sensation for singing pop song covers.

This situation is incredibly fucked up and it is just one more battle in a long line or tyrannous laws that the government is trying to impose on us. Just add this ingredient to the same bowl of tyranny punch that already consists of the PATRIOT Act, NDAA, indefinite detention, Homeland Security, the TSA, previous Internet censorship, FEMA, etc. The list goes on and on and hopefully people’s distrust in government has grown to the point that all future legislation the tyrants bring forth will be scrutinized and passionately opposed as much as SOPA and PIPA.

In the end, we’ve got to chain these bastards’ feet to the grill and turn up the fire until they do what we say because frankly, that’s their damn job.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

I’m sitting in my room with the Depeche Mode music video anthology in the DVD player blaring through my television speakers. After a week of not drinking, as I’m taking a break after my two week birthday and holiday binge, I find it almost necessary to pour myself a bourbon and light up a cigar in an effort to center my thoughts. But as the music blares and my mind races, I feel the need to just get right into this and just crank it out. Trust me, there are more productive ways I could be spending my Friday night. Last week, I drank eight shots of Kentucky Gentleman on the beach, which were chased with three or four rather large tropical drinks, a few other shots, a couple of beers and half a bottle of Old Crow. My friends and I are pretty sure we saw a UFO over the Gulf of Mexico. Anyway, maybe I can get into all that again once I type up these thoughts. I should probably stop procrastinating through words and get to the point of this piece. So here we go..

There are several reasons why I am not a Republican and can’t really ever see myself as being one. Technically my voter registration card has an “REP” on it but that is only there for about another month. Once the Republican primary for president is over, it is going back to “IND”. You see, I always used to be of the belief that I could be involved with the party and like some of the great organizations within it, such as the Republican Liberty Caucus or RLC, I thought I could somehow work within it to change it and shape it so that it went back to resembling what it once was. I thought that in time and through the hard work of several people, the Republican Party could return to being fiscally responsible and pro-Constitution. Over the last year or so, I have come to the realization that this just isn’t possible.

When the Tea Party came along, everything changed. The rhetoric was different and not just Republicans but people from all different walks of life with varying ideologies banned together because they were tired of the careless spending in Washington and extremely sick of being taxed to death. I never really considered myself a Tea Partier but I did have a lot in common with them and frequented several events. The reasons I attended were to experience the movement and to talk with the people there. Another reason why I went was because the energy was incredible and everyone seemed to truly be in unison. It’s as if people were waking up to a lot of the tyranny and finally banding together to vote the bastards out and put a stop to it all.

Realizing that the Tea Party was pretty much a movement stolen from Ron Paul supporters, who were having their own Tea Parties in 2007, I should have realized what was going to happen. Suddenly, Sarah Palin showed up and the Tea Party people welcomed this big government “mama grizzly” with open arms. Hell, it’s like the Tea Party was a pageant and she was immediately awarded the crown. Then people like Michele Bachmann came along and sunk their talons in. The Tea Party then got in the business of backing candidates because the 2010 midterm elections were on the horizon and guys like Marco Rubio and Allen West seemed like real fiscal conservatives that were going to change things on a real level. This is when I started to see that the Tea Party had been hijacked by the Republican Party and I didn’t like where things were going. Unlike Occupy Wall Street, who successfully kept themselves separate from party politics, the Tea Party was co-opted and turned into the greatest grassroots force the GOP has probably ever had.

Going into the 2010 midterm elections, it wasn’t a big surprise that the Republicans were going to win a shitload of elections and take the House of Representatives back. They did, people cheered, everything felt kind of good at the moment and those of us who are conservative or libertarian had a lot of hope for what was seemingly on the horizon. Believe me though, I was ready and willing to put every one of those Tea party candidates on blast if they faltered. As time passed and most of these candidates didn’t live up to the hype and the promises they made, I wrote about it.

I went after Marco Rubio, Allen West and others and in doing so, it really started to sink in that all the Tea Party really was was a vehicle to get Republicans back in power. As I looked around at those in the fight beside me, I noticed that none of them were paying attention anymore. The passion was dead. Sure, there were still a few solid groups thriving and meeting monthly, if not weekly, but overall participation in the Tea Party and other pro-Constitution groups after the 2010 midterm elections dropped off significantly. I understand that there were no elections in 2011 but the mission was far from accomplished. In fact, it had really just begun.

The truth is, once they got their guys in, they stopped caring. When most of these Tea Party candidates went to Washington and either did nothing or went in the wrong direction, the Tea Party wasn’t there to check their asses. Marco Rubio turned into a big piece of shit, all of which I discussed in Tea Flavored Kool-Aid, Part II: The Fall of Marco Rubio and most of the other big names immediately started supporting very bad legislation. The only two Tea Party people that have kept their promise and continue to operate on a policy that encompasses fiscal responsibility and the Constitution is Senator Rand Paul and Congressman Justin Amash. Hell, look at how many of these Tea Party darlings just voted for the insanely tyrannical NDAA law!

We should all be pissed off because the Tea Party was a force that was going to change things, especially the Republican Party. However, it only served the purpose of changing the rhetoric of the party to appease those who were dissatisfied with its direction. In the end, the rhetoric may have changed but overall the action remains the same. I guess a lot of these Tea Partiers were full of hot air and just wanted to bitch. Maybe it was all a ruse and the real objective was to be hijacked by the GOP and to get their boys back in office. Either way, it is incredibly disheartening to those of us who truly believe in the message and who strive, every-fucking-day, to make sure that Liberty’s torch will still be burning for future generations.

Getting passed all the midterm bullshit, let’s look at right now. Let’s look at the 2012 Republican primaries and see how far this resurgence in real conservatism has gotten us. Apart from Ron Paul, a true constitutional conservative, the frontrunners are Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich! These guys are huge big government guys that are the furthest thing away from Tea Party candidates that one can get without labeling them liberals. Wait, many people do label them liberals and truth be told, these neo-conservative RINOs are really just progressives of the right. So how the hell did this happen?

How is Ron Paul, the guy that inspired the real Tea Party back in 2007, not blowing these statist shitcocks out of the fucking water in this race? How is this even a competition? I guess all the passed around literature and pro-constitution rhetoric of 2010 is just being completely ignored now. I guess the Republican Party has recovered from their 2008 John McCain hangover and just like any alcoholic, is back at the bar ready to drown in the same goddamned devil rum that got them hooked to their trickster demons in the first fucking place. It’s a pretty pathetic display but it just goes to show us all what is truly at the core of the Republican Party.

I’ve met too many young people in my travels that feel exactly the same way that I do. I, like several of them, have been involved with the Libertarian Party. As much as that party is a pretty close match to my political ideology, I am just so burnt out on political parties. Maybe it is because third parties never get a fair shake, as we are all forced to participate in this two party system where both parties aren’t that far apart anymore. Both are big government bullies that have monopolized the political landscape and do whatever it is they can to maintain their power and the illusion that we actually have a choice between the two of them. Trust me, it’s hard as fuck to stay motivated when you’re up against this giant rabid two-headed sasquatch creature.

I wish I had some real answers on how to combat this but I don’t and that’s the toughest part. How can we continued to battle it out with the old guard? How can we continued to stay motivated against a cheating leviathan that holds all the cards and picks who gets dealt what? I think the closest thing to an answer that I can give is that we just have to keep fighting, we have to stay aware and be vigilant and truly understand the system and what is going on around us. We have to call the mainstream media and the lying bastards in office out on their bullshit. Fuck, more of us need to write! Not to sound like a fucking commie zombie but through each other we can find Liberty’s torch still burning. The system and the political process have failed. All the warnings from history have been ignored and we are more or less stuck in this overly complicated mess. It’s time to move forward regardless of the barriers and to never stop, take a step back or move to the side. I think one thing we can do is to really know these candidates, not just through their words, but through their records and their history. We need to know who we are voting for and we then need to hold them accountable. We can’t win if we take our fucking eyes off of the ball once our guy gets in office.

However, considering that so many people who I thought were of the same mind and spirit as myself have now fallen off, maybe I’m just wasting my time writing this. Maybe my words will fall on deaf souls and we’re all fucked. Truth is, it’s not just up to me to make a difference and even if this inspires someone else to get fired up that probably still isn’t enough. I don’t want to sound pessimistic but there is a lot of work ahead and a handful of people can’t do it themselves.

I’ve previously noted that Obama says that he can assassinate American citizens living on U.S. soil.

This admittedly sounds over-the-top.  But one of the nation’s top constitutional and military law experts – Jonathan Turley – agrees.

Turley:

• Is the second most cited law professor in the country

• Has worked as both the CBS and NBC legal analyst during national controversies

• Ranks 38th in the top 100 most cited ‘public intellectuals’ in a recent study by a well-known judge

• Is one of the top 10 lawyers handling military cases

• Has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues

• Is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues

Turley said yesterday on C-Span (starting at 15:50):

President Obama has just stated a policy that he can have any American citizen killed without any charge, without any review, except his own. If he’s satisfied that you are a terrorist, he says that he can kill you anywhere in the world including in the United States.

Two of his aides just … reaffirmed they believe that American citizens can be killed on the order of the President anywhere including the United States.

You’ve now got a president who says that he can kill you on his own discretion. He can jail you indefinitely on his own discretion

***

I don’t think the the Framers ever anticipated that [the American people would be so apathetic]. They assumed that people would hold their liberties close, and that they wouldn’t relax …

CONTINUED at Washington’s Blog. Video at link.

Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped toGuantánamo Bay.

Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of “a war that appears to have no end”.

The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the “war on terror” to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.

The legislation’s supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. But the law’s critics describe it as a draconian piece of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to include US citizens arrested in their own country.

“It’s something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration,” said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. “It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent.”

There was heated debate in both houses of Congress on the legislation, requiring that suspects with links to Islamist foreign terrorist organisations arrested in the US, who were previously held by the FBI or other civilian law enforcement agencies, now be handed to the military and held indefinitely without trial.

The law applies to anyone “who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaida, the Taliban or associated forces”.

Senator Lindsey Graham said the extraordinary measures were necessary because terrorism suspects were wholly different to regular criminals.

“We’re facing an enemy, not a common criminal organisation, who will do anything and everything possible to destroy our way of life,” he said. “When you join al-Qaida you haven’t joined the mafia, you haven’t joined a gang. You’ve joined people who are bent on our destruction and who are a military threat.”

Other senators supported the new powers on the grounds that al-Qaida was fighting a war inside the US and that its followers should be treated as combatants, not civilians with constitutional protections.

But another conservative senator, Rand Paul, a strong libertarian, has said “detaining citizens without a court trial is not American” and that if the law passes “the terrorists have won”.

“We’re talking about American citizens who can be taken from the United States and sent to a camp at Guantánamo Bay and held indefinitely. It puts every single citizen American at risk,” he said. “Really, what security does this indefinite detention of Americans give us? The first and flawed premise, both here and in the badly named Patriot Act, is that our pre-9/11 police powers were insufficient to stop terrorism. This is simply not borne out by the facts.”

Paul was backed by Senator Dianne Feinstein.

“Congress is essentially authorising the indefinite imprisonment of American citizens, without charge,” she said. “We are not a nation that locks up its citizens without charge.”

Paul said there were already strong laws against support for terrorist groups. He noted that the definition of a terrorism suspect under existing legislation was so broad that millions of Americans could fall within it.

“There are laws on the books now that characterise who might be a terrorist: someone missing fingers on their hands is a suspect according to the department of justice. Someone who has guns, someone who has ammunition that is weatherproofed, someone who has more than seven days of food in their house can be considered a potential terrorist,” Paul said. “If you are suspected because of these activities, do you want the government to have the ability to send you to Guantánamo Bay for indefinite detention?”

Under the legislation suspects can be held without trial “until the end of hostilities”. They will have the right to appear once a year before a committee that will decide if the detention will continue.

The Senate is expected to give final approval to the bill before the end of the week. It will then go to the president, who previously said he would block the legislation not on moral grounds but because it would “cause confusion” in the intelligence community and encroached on his own powers.

But on Wednesday the White House said Obama had lifted the threat of a veto after changes to the law giving the president greater discretion to prevent individuals from being handed to the military.

Critics accused the president of caving in again to pressure from some Republicans on a counter-terrorism issue for fear of being painted in next year’s election campaign as weak and of failing to defend America.

Human Rights Watch said that by signing the bill Obama would go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.

“The paradigm of the war on terror has advanced so far in people’s minds that this has to appear more normal than it actually is,” Malinowski said. “It wasn’t asked for by any of the agencies on the frontlines in the fight against terrorism in the United States. It breaks with over 200 years of tradition in America against using the military in domestic affairs.”

In fact, the heads of several security agencies, including the FBI, CIA, the director of national intelligence and the attorney general objected to the legislation. The Pentagon also said it was against the bill.

The FBI director, Robert Mueller, said he feared the law could compromise the bureau’s ability to investigate terrorism because it would be more complicated to win co-operation from suspects held by the military.

“The possibility looms that we will lose opportunities to obtain co-operation from the persons in the past that we’ve been fairly successful in gaining,” he told Congress.

Civil liberties groups say the FBI and federal courts have dealt with more than 400 alleged terrorism cases, including the successful prosecutions of Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber”, Umar Farouk, the “underwear bomber”, and Faisal Shahzad, the “Times Square bomber”.

Elements of the law are so legally confusing, as well as being constitutionally questionable, that any detentions are almost certain to be challenged all the way to the supreme court.

Malinowski said “vague language” was deliberately included in the bill in order to get it passed. “The very lack of clarity is itself a problem. If people are confused about what it means, if people disagree about what it means, that in and of itself makes it bad law,” he said.

Source: The Guardian.

Yes, the Indefinite Detention Bill DOES Apply to American Citizens

Even at this 11th hour – when all of our liberties and freedom are about to go down the drain – many people still don’t understand that the indefinite detention bill passed by Congress allows indefinite detention of Americans on American soil.

The bill is confusing. As Wired noted on December 1st:

It’s confusing, because two different sections of the bill seem to contradict each other, but in the judgment of the University of Texas’ Robert Chesney — a nonpartisan authority on military detention — “U.S. citizens are included in the grant of detention authority.”

A retired admiral, Judge Advocate General and Dean Emeritus of the University of New Hampshire School of Law also says that it applies to American citizens on American soil.

The ACLU notes:

Don’t be confused by anyone claiming that the indefinite detention legislation does not apply to American citizens. It does. There is an exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032 of the bill), but no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial (section 1031 of the bill). So, the result is that, under the bill, the military has the power to indefinitely imprison American citizens, but it does not have to use its power unless ordered to do so.

But you don’t have to believe us. Instead, read what one of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Lindsey Graham said about it on the Senate floor: “1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

Another sponsor of the bill – Senator Levin – has also repeatedly said that the bill applies to American citizens on American soil, citing the Supreme Court case of Hamdi which ruled that American citizens can be treated as enemy combatants:

“The Supreme Court has recently ruled there is no bar to the United States holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant,” said Levin. “This is the Supreme Court speaking.“

Levin again stressed recently that the bill applies to American citizens, and said that it was president Obama who requested that it do so:

*(Levin video has since been deleted)

Under questioning from Rand Paul, another co-sponsor – John McCain – said that Americans suspected of terrorism could not only be indefinitely detained, but could be sent to Guantanamo:

U.S. Congressman Justin Amash states in a letter to Congress:

The Senate’s [bill] does not even distinguish between American citizens and non-citizens, or between persons caught domestically and abroad. The President’s power, in his discretion, to detain persons he determines have supported associated forces applies just as strongly to Americans seized on U.S. soil as it does to foreigners captured on a far away battlefield.

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson – General Colin Powell’s chief of staff – says that the bill is a big step towards tyranny at home.  Congressman Ron Paul says that it will establish martial law in America.

Indeed, Amash accuses lawmakers of attempting to intentionally mislead the American people by writing a bill which appears at first glance to exclude U.S. citizens, when it actually includes us:

Pres. Obama and many Members of Congress believe the President ALREADY has the authority the bill grants him. Legally, of course, he does not. This language was inserted to keep proponents and opponents of the bill appeased, while permitting the President to assert that the improper power he has claimed all along is now in statute.

***

They will say that American citizens are specifically exempted under the following language in Sec. 1032: “The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.” Don’t be fooled. All this says is that the President is not REQUIRED to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge or trial. It still PERMITS him to do so

Source: Washington’s Blog.

Obama Wants to Veto the Indefinite Detention Bill Because It Would Hold the U.S. to the Geneva Convention

I – like everyone else – am horrified by the Senate’s passage of legislation that would allow forindefinite detention of Americans.

And at first, I – like many others – assumed that Obama’s threat to veto the bill might be a good thing. But the truth is much more disturbing.

As former Wall Street Street editor and columnist Paul Craig Roberts correctly notes:

The Obama regime’s objection to military detention is not rooted in concern for the constitutional rights of American citizens. The regime objects to military detention because the implication of military detention is that detainees are prisoners of war. As Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin put it: Should somebody determined “to be a member of an enemy force who has come to this nation or is in this nation to attack us as a member of a foreign enemy, should that person be treated according to the laws of war? The answer is yes.”

Detainees treated according to the laws of war have the protections of the Geneva Conventions. They cannot be tortured. The Obama regime opposes military detention, because detainees would have some rights. These rights would interfere with the regime’s ability to send detainees to CIA torture prisons overseas. [Yes, Obama is still apparently allowing "extraordinary renditions" to torture people abroad.] This is what the Obama regime means when it says that the requirement of military detention denies the regime “flexibility.”

CONTINUED at Washington’s Blog.

Giving the federal government the power to arrest American citizens without charge or due process represents a terrifying new low.