Supporters take full control of GOP in North Star State.

Presidential candidate Ron Paul swept the board at the Minnesota State convention this past weekend, winning 12 of the 13 delegates to the Republican National Convention and effectively taking complete control of the party in the state.

Congressman Paul would have won all of the open delegate slots, for the fact that the 13th went to former presidential candidate and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, only after a Paul supporter withdrew his name from the ballot.

Earlier in the year, a well organized cadre of Paul supporters won 20 of 24 delegates at district conventions, meaning that in total the Paul campaign has secured 32 of the state’s 40 national delegates.

The achievement once again affirms Paul’s delegate-attainment strategy, and substantially increases the prospect for the Congressman to be able to greatly influence the party platform at the National Convention in Tampa this August.

In addition to the delegate victory for Paul, Minnesota state Rep. Kurt Bills (R), an ardent Paul supporter, soundly defeated the establishment Republican candidate in the race for the Senate.

“This is one of the greatest states that I have witnessed, where I have seen the transition, where the enthusiasm’s there,” Paul said during his speech at the Saturday convention.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety issued a press release today announcing the suspension of a drug recognition program conducted by the Minnesota State Patrol. The program was exposed earlier this month by activists and members of Communities United Against Police Brutality in Minneapolis.

Prior to the press release, Eric Roeske, a State Patrol public information officer, said, “there’s been no evidence or no information that has been presented to us that would substantiate any of the allegations,” City Pages reports today.

“Our investigation points to particular efforts to target and recruit youth,” ostensibly for a program designed to train police in detecting drivers under the influence of drugs, Infowars.comreported on May, 2012.

The Infowars.com article continues:

CONTINUED at Infowars. Videos at link.

Guard members previously hunted insurgents in Iraq.

A photo showing fully armed U.S. National Guard troops patrolling a quiet residential street in Crookston, Minnesota has gone viral, once again underscoring concerns that Americans are being conditioned to accept the gradual imposition of martial law.

Although the photo is undated, Guard troops from the local Crookston Armory routinely take part in off-base exercises which train the local population to accept the sight of armed soldiers patrolling their neighborhoods as normal.

One such exercise in February 2011dubbed “Urban Operations Training” involved military Humvees and 27 armed soldiers conducting a drill around the Bridge Street area of Crookston.

According to “Maggie,” the woman who took the photograph, when she started taking pictures of the troops one of them told her, “Just training Ma’am. Joining up with another patrol at the rally point.”

When Maggie asked why they were training on the streets of a quiet residential area, a younger soldier responded, “To be honest ma’am, I don’t know.”

Members of the same Guard unit shown on the photograph – Minnesota National Guard, Unit 2-136 CAB / B Company – have been deployed to Iraq where their duties would potentially have included rounding up alleged insurgents and taking them to prison camps, a frightening prospect given that the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act allows for American citizens to be similarly kidnapped and detained without trial.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Now three people have won Iowa during this primary season. Last night, Ron Paul’s delegate finagling strategy paid off as he guaranteed himself at least half of the delegates in Iowa and Minnesota.

*Written by Tho Bishop.

Romney’s inevitable nomination is slipping through his well-manicured fingers. While the media has been telling us for months that no one has a shot against Prince Willard’s well funded political machine, it is clear that the voters are less impressed. After defeats in Iowa, South Carolina, Nevada, Missouri (even though Missouri really doesn’t count delegates until later), Minnesota and Colorado, and a victory in Maine that required some Chicago-style shenanigans to edge out Ron Paul, Romney is now fighting off Rick Santorum for the lead in national polls.

This article, however, isn’t about the Santorum surge; nor is it an analysis on why Mitt is having difficulty connecting with Republican voters (the latter being the key factor to the former.) Instead let’s discuss the potential consequences of an intensely contested primary battle ending with Romney falling short of the 1,144 delegate threshold.

Let’s talk about a brokered convention.

Since the last brokered convention was the infamous Democratic Convention of 1968, many Americans may not be familiar with the concept or what could emerge from such an event.

During the first ballot at the Republican convention, the state elected delegates are required to vote for whomever they are pledged (though, as Paul’s campaign understands, caucus delegates enjoy a bit more leeway). After that though? All bets are off.

Now it is possible that Romney, after losing the nomination by a few votes, could simply convert some Gingrich or Santorum pledged delegates and then seal the deal. That, however, depends upon genuine interest in Romney being the nominee. If we can take away anything from his primary difficulties, it is that Romney has done little to excite the Republican base.

What about Santorum or Gingrich? If Gingrich wasn’t so personally disliked, he would potentially lock up the nomination outright. Santorum on the other hand, terrifies many outside of a specific demographic of Republican voters.

This is why it is important to point out that a brokered convention does not limit delegates to choose between those currently seeking the GOP nomination. In 1968, for example, the Democratic nomination went to Hubert Humphrey, the serving VP who did not participate in a single primary.

So who in the broader GOP could benefit?

People are quick to respond with Chris Christie. Consider, however, that the governor not only refused multiple attempts to jump into the primary contest, but has played bulldog for Romney throughout most of the campaign. This will immediately make it difficult to win over Newt backers and, combined with some of his social views, won’t endear him to Santorum delegates.

Mitch Daniels? Another executive who opted against entering the race months ago, Daniels has so far been hesitant to subject his family to the hardships of national political exposure. While people, to say nothing of politicians, always have the ability to change their mind, I think it is unlikely in this Hoosier’s case.

Though I don’t fully understand the bizarre obsession many establishment Republicans have with Jeb Bush, I do think they are right to look south towards Florida. The candidate best situated to emerge from a brokered convention is Senator Marco Rubio.

Though some may bristle at nominating a young, inexperienced senator with a razor thin record of accomplishment, demographic-conscious Republican strategists dream of the GOP electing the first Latino President. He could also be unique in creating an energized, united front amongst the three establishment candidates. Remember that Rubio worked with Newt on his book 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida’s Future, shares Santorum’s Catholic faith and defended Romney during the Florida primary. Rubio would be rewarded for staying out of the endorsement game.

If he harbors any Presidential aspirations, Rubio will never find a better opportunity to act on them. He would be going against an unpopular administration and have the enviable position of being spared the long, exhausting process of primary politics. To those who would question whether Rubio, who showed no interest in running for the nomination before, would suddenly take the nomination, look at the calendar. A traditional primary run would have sacrificed the opportunity to do anything in the Senate and forced Rubio back into the electoral game roughly four months after a difficult and expensive senatorial contest. An August nomination spares him almost two years before diving back into campaigning.

The scenario above is still very unlikely – but unlikely describes the GOP nomination process to date. One thing that can’t be questioned, however, is the appeal Rubio has with a large section of Republicans, both in the establishment and the grassroots. At a time where friction has never been higher between these two classes, I believe Rubio can unite and inspire quite like no other GOP figure can.

That potential should not be overlooked.

*Written by Rob Rimes.

While I was driving back home from the 2012 Libertarian Party of Florida Convention and Presidential Debate in Orlando, the rest of the country (or just those few who care) were watching the results of the Maine caucuses. It was a toss up as to who would win between Ron Paul, who had been campaigning there for weeks, or New England’s favorite Michigan-born son, Mitt Romney. Despite the projected performances, I found myself pretty much scared shitless that Rick Santorum would help display the insanity of many conservative Americans once again and run away with another state. Thank God that his streak of three was ended this past Saturday. Although he finished third, he only walked away with three delegates. Gingrich laughably walked away with nothing, as once again, he fell flat on his face in another state. If Newt hadn’t won South Carolina a few weeks ago, racking up twenty-three of those twenty-five delegates, he’d be out of this race. He’s still in second place however but Santorum is only one delegate behind him after the last four states and Ron Paul is still on everyone’s heels. It’s a very close race for second place but in all honesty, after a few more states, Newt should be in last and on his way out – leaving Paul and Santorum to battle it out in the delegate race to catch up to Romney.

So where does that leave the top half of the field in Maine? Well, the finish was quite controversial actually. The official announcement is that Romney won Maine with less than 200 votes over Ron Paul. The race was incredibly close and in essence was a virtual tie. I mean, when Romney won Iowa and then it was announced that Santorum had in fact won the state, Ol’ Mittens himself called it “a tie”. So with Paul being so close to Romney, I am calling it “a tie”. Unfortunately though, Romney walked away with nine delegates to Paul’s seven. So why is this controversial?

Well, I don’t think that there is a single state so far that hasn’t been suspected of voter fraud. I’m not trying to stir the pot here but the validity of these primary elections has come into question at every stop on the 2012 campaign trail. Oddly, almost every time that eyebrows are raised, Romney seems to be the benefactor. In Iowa, votes were lost or missing and Mitt just edged out Ricky Boy. In the end, the votes magically re-appeared and Santorum got the win. In New Hampshire, zombies were found voting, as many dead people casted votes for Mr. Romney. Mittens won that state. There were claims that the dead voted in South Carolina and in Florida; Romney won the latter. Nevada was also suspected of voter fraud, which got a lot of publicity last week from various news sites. Who won Nevada? Well, it was Romney. Follwoing Nevada was the trifecta win of Rick Santorum in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. I’m of the firm belief that if Santorum won, there has to be foul play involved – I mean, people aren’t THAT crazy, right? Maybe those steering this suspected corruption decided to throw the guy a bone, as it couldn’t really hurt Mitt in the long run and they didn’t want their tinkering to be obvious. Besides, Santorum rising up amongst the ranks, only makes Romney a stronger candidate as Santorum scares the everliving crap out of anyone that isn’t a creepy bastard like the fascist big government Bible thumper himself.

Following the announcement of Romney’s victory, many Paul supporters were upset. Some were heard shouting “Liar!” while others shouted “How many dead voted?!” It was a grim display and Paul supporters had a right to be pissed off based off of the fact that the road to the White House has been littered with what appears to be some very serious attempts and successes at electoral corruption. In fact, it was pointed out that the caucuses in several counties were shut down and not counted. Washington County, a place were Paul was projected to do extremely well, was one of the counties whose votes weren’t counted. Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton suggested that the Romney people were instrumental in the cancellation of certain caucuses. Benton said:

It’s not completely insidious, but they knew we were going to swamp it up there.

According to Politico:

The state GOP said that the caucuses were cancelled due to inclement weather.

Also worth noting is that there are 505 municipalities in Maine and just 420 have caucused thus far. So there are nearly 20 percent who haven’t even voted yet! Yet, Mr. Romney has been declared the winner with less than 200 votes over Paul! The fish in Maine are stinking like something gross and unnatural right now.

After Maine was awarded to Romney, Paul’s campaign manager John Tate sent out an email where he trashed the mainstream media for jumping the gun and announcing Mitt Romney as the winner when only 84 percent of the vote had been counted and there were only 194 votes separating the two men. Tate wrote:

The national political establishment and their pals in the national media will do ‘anything’ to silence our message of liberty. Tonight you saw dueling examples of how much the establishment is scared of Ron Paul and his message of liberty. The truth is, Ron Paul will win the most delegates out of Maine tonight. In fact, he will probably even win the ‘beauty contest’ Straw Poll the media has already called for Mitt Romney – even before all the votes have been tallied. In Washington County – where Ron Paul was incredibly strong – the caucus was delayed until next week just so the votes wouldn’t be reported by the national media today. Of course, their excuse for the delay was ‘snow.’ That’s right. A prediction of 3-4 inches – that turned into nothing more than a dusting – was enough for a local GOP official to postpone the caucuses just so the results wouldn’t be reported tonight. In fact, if you were watching one major network, they cut off their telecast of Ron Paul’s speech right when he began mentioning this fact.

Tate was referring to MSNBC cutting off Dr. Paul in the middle of his post-Maine speech. Tate’s email continued:

This is MAINE we’re talking about. The GIRL SCOUTS had an event today in Washington County that wasn’t cancelled! And just the votes of Washington County would have been enough to put us over the top. This is an outrage. The truth is, there is no length to which the GOP establishment won’t go. There is nothing the mainstream media won’t do.

Take all that for what you will but Mr. Tate makes some solid points. The fact of the matter is that the GOP and the mainstream media are going to continue to use their dirty tricks to push this man out of the race and whether you are a Paul supporter or not, that alone should sicken you. The choice of who to elect should be ours and ours alone. It shouldn’t be dictated to us and a winner certainly shouldn’t be announced under these sketchy circumstances. Yet, somehow, these crooked bastards continue to get away with their shenanigans time and time again! How much longer do we have to wait before the Internet overtakes television and the mainstream media’s establishment propaganda is swallowed up by the truth brought forth from the ever-growing alternative media industry? The time is coming but it will be too late this election. If only we could rely on people to educate themselves and not wholeheartedly sponge-up the misinformation being poured into them daily. If we truly are a nation of sheep, it’s time to steer the herd over the cliff because there is no saving us. However, if we are a nation of free thinkers that can make our own decisions and embrace personal responsibility, we might just have something left to keep fighting for. Either way, this is all coming to a head quite rapidly. It was Bob Dylan who said, “The times they are a changin’.”

Ron Paul’s full uncut speech after Maine announcement:

*Written by Rob Rimes.

Man, the last few days have been horrendous as far as the primaries have gone. Saturday night we got the results of the Nevada caucuses, which had Mitt Romney just barely getting the majority vote at 50.1 percent! Yes, Ol’ Mittens got the majority vote! Gingrich came in second with just 21.1 percent with Ron Paul in a close third at 18.8 percent and Rick Santorum in last with a dismal 10 percent. The thing to look at is that this was a horrible night for Santorum, who one would think would bow out at this point but luckily for himself, he didn’t, as you’ll see why shortly. Paul did well but not well enough even though he was just behind Gingrich. Romney killed it however and really solidified the fact that he is the man to beat in this race.. well as of Saturday anyway.

Now when it comes down to it, the race is really about delegates and even though Romney walked away with the most at 14, both Gingrich and Paul got a decent number: Newt at 6 and Paul at 5. Ricky Boy only got 3 in this contest. Now while Mitt Romney owned Las Vegas and Reno, Ron Paul had a strong finish in the south central part of the state in the largest county Nye, as well as neighboring Esmeralda County. Gingrich only took Mineral County and Santorum took none.

Now while these results might seem fine and dandy to some, there has been a number of reports pointing to voter fraud in Nevada. As I have mentioned in a previous article, voter fraud was suspected in the Harry Reid-Sharron Angle midterm election for Senate back in 2010, so this almost doesn’t surprise me. It’s funny how in the primaries where Romney has won, or was originally announced the winner, there has been some form of foul play reported. I’m not saying that Romney and his people are up to something, I’m just saying that shit doesn’t add up and homeboy is constantly the benefactor. Realistically, I shouldn’t spend too much time on this, as I need to look into it deeper and don’t want to speculate without all the evidence. Feel free to look into it yourself but I did post a story about it on The Swash a few days ago.

Moving away from the disappointment of Nevada, we come to the next stop on the campaign trail which is actually split between three states: Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. The godawful insane truth about this dark Tuesday night was that Rick Santroum walked away with a victory in all three states! America got rick roll’d and hard! The guy who has been the biggest dork dick in this election who should really have no chance at winning, just gave Mitt Romney a stiff uppercut to his man meat! Mittens, who was sure he had this whole show sewn up, was left with some seriously rotten egg on his face. To top that off, Gingrich wasn’t on the ballot in one state and only got third place and last place in the two other. Man, Newtie Bootie truly suffered on this dark day in American history. One positive however, is that Ron Paul, despite Santourm’s incredible performance, rock and rolled so hard in Minnesota that he blew Romney and Gingrich out of the water.

In Minnesota, Santorum got 45 percent with 6 delegates, Paul got 27 percent with 4 delegates while Romney got 17 percent with 2 delegates and Gingrich got 11 percent and 1 delegate. So even though Santorum did really well and so did Paul, neither still earned enough delegates to really sock it to Mitt, who is still riding high from those 50 delegates he ripped away from Florida last week.

In Colorado, Santorum and Romney were literally neck and neck by the time I fell asleep. Actually, last I remember, Romney was ahead by a point or two. In the end, Santorum got 40 percent with 17 delegates, Romney got 35 percent with 13 delegates, Gingrich got 13 percent with 2 delegates and Ron Paul only walked away with a single delegate after finishing at 12 percent. Colorado, another state where Ron Paul was bringing out the people and generating large crowds, ended up being all for naught for those of us who support the Constitution. I guess the Evangelicals were too numerous to be stopped in the Rocky Mountains. It’s truly exasperating to see Dr. Paul get so much strong support from the people yet somehow it doesn’t translate into votes. I guess there are more people in the boring religious sect, that are hiding in the basements of those megachurches, than we realize.

Missouri is another state that Santorum took by storm. However, winning Missouri is kind of pointless, as there were no delegates to be awarded. Santorum, Romney, Gingrich and Paul all walked away with no delegates, regardless of how the race went. Apparently they are supposed to hand out delegates sometime next month but the state’s whole caucus system is goddamned confusing and these caucuses were really just some sort of over-hyped straw poll. Regardless, Santorum got a disgusting 55 percent, which just makes me hate Missouri. He also won every county, which makes me hate the state even more. If Vincent Price didn’t come from that Jesus freak acid trip of a state, I’d lobby to have it removed from the United States. Romney got 25 percent, Paul got 12 percent and 4 percent went to some mystery candidate that only goes by the name of “Uncommitted”.

I’m really kind of speechless at this point, as I can’t believe anyone would vote for Rick Santorum, the worst choice for president, let alone three whole states worth of people! I guess this goes to show a few things. First, there is no super strong candidate, as the Republican collective isn’t backing just one guy. Romney may have been pulling away with this thing but Ricky Boy just stole his thunder. Secondly, due to the fact that there isn’t a strong candidate, the guy that Americans are choosing is different from region to region. This is a very regional race and despite what part of the country each candidate caters to, it is going to be the candidate that caters to the larger states that walks away with this thing. The final observation, based off of the two previous observations is that we’re completely fucked.

I will say this, the race has been so topsy turvy it’s insane and it provides for some real entertainment. This is like the World Series mixed with a trashy reality show and blended up with a circus sideshow; there is no other way to describe it. However, as much as it entertains, amuses and even gets under one’s skin at times, the results of this shit show are really what is important and at this point, those results are looking pretty damn horrible.

In conjunction with a strong second place finish in the Minnesota caucuses, GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul is now polling in second place nationally, within eight points of front runner Mitt Romney.

Paul tallied a solid 21 percent in the newReuters/Ipsos Poll released this week, beating rival competitors Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, who scored 19 percent and 18 percent respectively.

Romney still leads the pack with 29 percent, however, the poll finds that his popularity declined since early January, while, Paul’s support increased by five percent.

Romney “still hasn’t really convinced all the Republicans across the country that he’s the guy to get behind,” said Ipsos research director Chris Jackson in a statement.

“This poll further illustrates that Ron Paul is emerging as the real conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, and that he can also obtain the needed support from Independents and disenfranchised Democrats to defeat President Obama in November,” said Ron Paul 2012 National Campaign Chairman Jesse Benton.

With most of the votes counted in Minnesota, Rick Santorum won the caucuses with 45% of the vote followed by Paul with 27%, Mitt Romney, 17% and Newt Gingrich, 11%.

The result saw Paul garner 10 points more than Romney and a higher percentage than his previous best of 22.9 percent from New Hampshire’s primary one month ago.

Despite not yet outright winning any of the primaries or caucuses, Paul is picking up a significant amount of delegates, a point he highlighted in his speech last night following the announcement of the Minnesota vote.

“We had a very, very strong second place — and it’s going to continue,” Paul told more than 200 supporters. “We do have to remember: the straw vote is one thing, but then there’s a whole other thing — delegates — and that is where we excel.”

“So when the dust settles, I think there’s a very good chance that we’re going to have the maximum number of delegates coming out of Minnesota.” Paul said, noting that because of the loyalty and savviness of his supporters, he could still end up with more delegates out of Minnesota than Santorum.

In some states, the Congressman has seen his support triple or even quadruple on votes he received during his campaign four years ago. Paul told CNN that he is optimistic that he is going to keep picking up delegates and that the next major battle ground is in Maine, where results are to be announced on Saturday.

——————————————————————

Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.net, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham in England.

Source: Prison Planet.

Former U.S. senator Rick Santorum rejuvenated his presidential hopes on Tuesday with a shocking sweep of the three nominating contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, dealing a blow to wounded front-runner Mitt Romney.

Even though Romney still holds strong advantages in financing and organization, his campaign will now have to refocus to fight back the challenge from the surging conservative Santorum.

Backed by a wealthy “Super PAC” that pays for attack ads against rivals, Romney had excelled in major contests thus far in the race. After big wins in Nevada and Florida in the previous week, he did little campaigning in Minnesota and Missouri and had been expected to win easily in Colorado.

Until Tuesday, Santorum had won only one of the first five Republican contests in the state-by-state battle for the Republican nomination to face President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

But on the first day of multiple nominating contests in the 2012 primary season, Santorum trounced Romney by 30 percentage points in Missouri. That vote was a non-binding primary, but has symbolic value as a measure of support in a big Midwestern state.

In Minnesota’s caucuses, Santorum won with 45 percent of the vote. But in another setback to former Massachusetts governor Romney, U.S. congressman Ron Paul was in second place with 27 percent and Romney was a distant third with 17 percent.

The race was closer in Colorado, but Romney had been expected to win easily. But Santorum won by 5 percentage points over Romney.

With eight contests to date in the Republican race – including the three on Tuesday – Santorum has now won in four states, Romney in three and former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich in one.

CONTINUED at Reuters.

Updated 11:55 a.m. ET

New polls show Rick Santorum poised for a “big day” in today’s GOP presidential contests in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri.

Bragging rights are the only thing at stake in the three states, which won’t award delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa until state conventions or caucuses later this year.

STORY:  Santorum aims for Romney

BLOG:  Gingrich plays down his chances

The surveys by Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling show Santorum possibly headed for a victory tonight in Missouri, where he leads Mitt Romney, 45% to 32%. The former Pennsylvania senator is also leading Romney in Minnesota, 33% to 24%.

Romney’s best showing in the PPP surveys is in Colorado, where he has a 10-point lead over Santorum, 37% to 27%. Newt Gingrich is at 21% in Colorado, followed by Ron Paul at 13%.

“Rick Santorum has the potential to firmly establish himself as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney today,” said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling. “If he can pick up two wins and a second, it will raise significant questions about both Romney’s inevitability and about the purpose for Newt Gingrich’s continued presence in the race.”

CONTINUED at USA Today.